The fake town was actually working. Not very well, yes, but at least all other cities were working much better, now that there were no manifestations going around. Not every follower of the religions migrated, though. Some because they didn’t make it in, as there was a limit by that time, while others didn’t want to leave their homes behind.

The mix between religions didn’t work very well, but he wasn’t going to build a city for every religion, that would be counterproductive. He could just give them their own city back. He still wanted the foolish followers out of his cities, so he started a campaign showing off the great features that it had. Multiple temples, parks, free housing and other things that would definitely attract people there. Most of them didn’t read the over-fifty-page terms of going there, in which the government didn’t get any responsibilities and anything that happened inside the city was the own person’s responsibility.

But the reality was different. In the beginning those constructions were indeed there, but with the flow of people, the parks had quickly been turned into housing for different people and a market for these buildings had been created. The houses started being divided into multiple homes and the religions that had resurged inside were craving for power, so they tried to get them first.

There were multiple religions inside Petrió’s territory, but only four different temples inside the town he had built. In order to get more religious fools to leave his city he needed the leaders of the religions to convince them to go to the city as well, even though it wasn’t a great place.

But for them to be willing to do that he had to put an incentive and it was that the religion with the most followers inside the town would get the largest temple. Then its followers would be halved, and the number of followers would be compared again. The one with the most followers got the second largest one. And so on until the four temples were given to the religions. This survey was done every two months and the competition was fierce. Not only did they try to get more followers to migrate into the city, but they also tried to convince other people, that followed other beliefs, to join their own.

These rankings changed almost every time, though the first and second place were always the same, yet at times switched places. His plan was working and the cities he had conquered were more peaceful. With it, he created research institutes, schools, museums and other knowledge-related institutions inside the temples that were now emptied.

For two years he didn’t attack anyone, though there were attempts to get some of his cities from him. He managed to defend about half of the incoming attacks, but what mattered more to him was that his cities were being freed of religion. Eight of the cities were completely freed of it, in fact, and even though the population had slightly fallen, with the help of some government programs people were having more kids.

But they still needed to grow, so he wasn’t going to go all out yet. Some of his cards were still hidden from others and even though he was going through a small period of peace, it wasn’t so for everyone. In fact, three different gods had completely lost their hold within this world and were banished to go back into their original realm.

It was only the ones that weren’t part of the three major alliances, being gulped down by them, mostly by the large three, but they were getting busier and busier fighting the other two alliances, while they still had some troops left that could go and hunt for these other cities that wouldn’t have too much support. So long they sent a strong enough force, they could take almost any city of an unallied god.

Now Petrió wanted to expand again, though he knew that it would be harder now that most of his technologies had been showcased, replicated and improved upon, while at the same time defenses against them had been created.

So, he started a more common campaign, with two armies wandering around the world and conquering cities, while the other three fifths of his army stayed within his country to defend it against any invaders, which there were, because they expected him to be weakened. This was true and they might’ve won with their armies if it wasn’t for some magical defensive technologies that had been created.

At the same time, he knew that if his campaign lasted too long, people would probably find a hole within his defenses or they’d be tired down from the constant enemy attacks, increasing the chances of losing. Losing one or two cities wasn’t too bad for Petrió, but what one loss created within his army was worse, as it was demoralizing. His attacking armies couldn’t be far from their families for too long, as they’d long for them and could start manifesting these feelings to Petrió, perhaps leading to a coup in power.

Yes, Petrió was part of the army this time, because he felt that it was necessary for him to participate in this process where so many lost their lives. The campaign went very smoothly on his side, but soon enough a stray soldier came bearing bad news. The other half of the army had met a god in their conquest and even though it wasn’t as strong as they’d expected, it had a hidden card that had somehow defeated over a fourth of the present army.

Hundreds disappeared within seconds, causing the rest of the army to panic and some to lose their lives within the commotion. The remaining soldiers escaped in a hurry, and it took a few days to regroup, which was when this soldiers were sent to his location. The soldiers were still psychologically weak due to their recent experiences, so they wouldn’t be able to fight right away.

Petrió was the only one with a weapon that could hopefully deal enough damage to kill a god’s descent at once, but it could only be shot once every twelve hours, because it had to be carefully loaded so that it didn’t shoot by accident, and it was working at its full potential.

It shot a single bullet at supersonic speed, maintaining such a state for over a few hundred meters, therefore so long the enemy that it was pointed at was participating on the battle, its death was almost guaranteed, because pointing the weapon took practice.

But that wasn’t the reason as to why he didn’t share the weapon with the other army, the reasoning he followed was that he could only trust himself and there could be spies not only within the other army, but also within his cities where he would need to give the weapon to someone else. He got his weapon in an underground lab where the investigations were protected, because the people inside were passionate for their work, which was another way of saying that they couldn’t leave once they’d entered, except a select few decided by Petrió and his close associates.

He decided that he had to defeat this deity before it turned to be too strong for them to handle, while he was also curious about how it looked and how its power worked. His army didn’t know what the soldier had told him, only how terrified he looked once he came into their camp, so when Petrió informed them about a change of plans, they didn’t know how to feel.

When they got to the city that they’d failed to conquer, Petrió observed that they’d at least done some hefty damage to the structure of the town, because even though repairs were being made, the situation didn’t look to good for the defending citizens. When they saw the incoming army, they got nervous and quickly called what remained of their army and their god as well.

But he hadn’t had enough time to be ready to use his all-out attack, so he had to bluff his way to victory, which sadly didn’t work out because Petrió wanted to get this city not only because it was in an important location, one of the few that connected the cities on the two sides of the mountain range, but also because the morale of his troops would improve once they defeated such a threat.

And because Petrió didn’t know that his enemy was unable to unleash his strongest attack, he decided to immediately use his own secret weapon, hopefully before the deity realized. And it worked, in the blink of an eye, the chest of the god had been perforated and he was falling off the platform he was standing on.

In the next few seconds, the men surrounding the corpse they’d managed to catch didn’t know what to do, while Petrió’s army cheered and roared and started entering into the weakened city. The conquest was easy, and they found out that the soldiers that had disappeared in the last battle hadn’t actually died but had been teleported into an underground room where they were left to die… and they weren’t the only ones that had suffered such a fate, given the skeletons that were laying around.