The last two days were centered on non-stop conflict. Even if one of us wasn’t fighting at the moment, some of us always were and the group which was having a break was attacked in order to keep the relative parity amongst everyone.

The second to last day didn’t start with a surprise attack, we had all learned from that first day in the crater and wouldn’t invoke the ire of the rest. Our battle did start before the sun rose, but anyone with ears could have heard the movement outside so long they were somewhat paying attention to their surroundings.

And it was part of my army moving steadily to the center of the crater, on an attack where I expected to “lose” some people as the previous god had lost, but I wouldn’t actually lose them. Instead, I had installed in their armor a tool that’d shock them unconscious once they had received enough damage and due to it having rained overnight, thanks to a spell one of my underlings created, they’d sink on the mud, unmoving and hopefully the followers of the war god would assume they were dead. Otherwise, I also had left a few people behind to use the tunnel effectively. Either way I wanted to make it seem like I couldn’t fight any longer either and it’d remain a battle amongst the last two gods with considerable forces.

My plan worked… partially and I was able to rescue some of my men from the multiple underground tunnels that had branched out from the original single-line tunnel. Yet some of my men still died, mostly because they were attacked with a deadly force, but some had perished with healable wounds, but we didn’t get them back in time.

The few troops retreated and at least our act had been completely sold to the forces of the war god who laughed at us. They also unknowingly lowered their guard against us, just enough so that we could grab a few things of our camp underground without any of them realizing. And even if they did, they probably thought what we could even do with so little troops remaining, wondering why we even bothered to hide our equipment.

The others didn’t react too strongly to our attack so we couldn’t know whether we had tricked them they had seen through us or they used the same strategy, in the case of the ones that had supposedly lost their troops against the war god’s followers.

Every few minutes a small explosive was sent towards the center of the crater, and we were worried of it exposing our tunnel, so we filled the place directly underneath the crater with dirt and would take it out again once we decided it was time for our final move. The ones defending the center responded throwing a barrage of arrows towards the remaining “large” army which were the ones sending the explosives.

Then, instead of a usual explosion, a smoke bomb was sent that covered the whole camp in smoke and all of us outside could see how a group of twenty or so people rushed into the camp and entered the smoke. We couldn’t see what happened, but after a while, when the smoke had started to dissipate, eight people were leaving the place to the same camp they had come from.

We were moving our weapons underground and placing them in positions we expected would be useful. We didn’t take too many damaging weapons, most were going to be used to weaken our enemies with area spells that would be shot upwards, while we prepared our ascent at the last moment in order to snag the victory by surprise.

But our plan fell short against nature. Well, a mixture of nature and our own short-sightedness. The spell that had turned the ground onto mud had made our tunnels weaker and once the two armies finally collided above us, they thought they fell onto a pit trap, but they had actually fallen onto our tunnels.

Luckily, the tunnels weren’t visible, but it’d cause our appearance to be less surprising and they might even be prepared for an underground invasion or something else coming from the ground. It didn’t mean that we would change our strategy, just that we would have a harder battle.

We were underground for hours until we knew that there was little time left of the competition, so we emerged in a rush just to be in the middle of the battle. Literally, once we came out of the ground a few swords and spells immediately got directed at us, most people not realizing that we were new enemies, just that we weren’t their allies, but soon enough, as more and more of us came out of the hole, our forces were observed, and our enemies reorganized.

During the little time above ground I focused my attention on the sun and there were at least two more hours of battle remaining. We were in the middle of the camp of the war god, and he was actively fighting against the god of strategy who could fight surprisingly well.

These last few hours were bloody, and the majority of the few remaining people ended up dead. In fact, after the night under thirty people remained alive. The true ruler was never clear until the war god managed to defeat the god of strategy and killed him. The sun was setting and as such the competition was ending. Perhaps if I managed to keep the middle for a while longer, he’d die due to our promise done just a week ago.

But the sun set, and he was still alive. In fact, when I looked up, as he was preparing to defeat me, I observed that above him the god of illusions was still alive. When I was aghast, with my mouth open, but not looking at him, the war god also looked above him, and he comprehended my surprise. The competition had ended yet three of us still remained. It seemed like we didn’t correctly define “controlling” and as a consequence three of us had remained alive.

My mood immediately worsened and even though I preferred staying alive for a while longer than getting defeated by the war god. He saw a chance given to him by the god of illusions, it seemed that he preferred there to be three powerhouses rather than two, he probably wasn’t so sure if he had the strength to overcome the god of war.

Frantically escaping I made my way to an item which was connected to my main city and was used to communicate, but I started tinkering around with it, hiding within the holes, trying to make myself teleport towards said city. The battle above had ended, as I was hearing the angry roars of the war god, screaming about being tricked. It seemed like he was fighting a fake, so now he was going to look for me.

All of my soldiers were dead, so it was just me and this object all that could help me fight against the incoming threat. Luckily, I managed to escape using some parts of the communicator, but also other metals lying around and my own mana. Unluckily, I popped up in the middle of the meeting room, completely dirty, smelly and with most of my clothes torn.

I was helped with my situation while I was questioned about what happened. They all had somewhat worried expressions on their faces, but it wasn’t as bad as I imagined they’d react. I was expecting this to be the last battle of the decades-long conflict, but they knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

After I had given them a full report, I needed some time for myself. I felt like nothing would break this endless suffering, I could do nothing. If I didn’t even have power over my subjects, how could I finish this conundrum?

I was really seeing no way out for the world. It was lost. I was lost. Anything and everything I did had no effect on the overall situation. I might as well not be here to see it; I was suffering by seeing the world suffer. Wasn’t it in my nature to stop my suffering? And if I couldn’t manage to do it in a harder, but better way, I might just need to go for the easy route…

But at the same time, I thought to myself that perhaps I hadn’t tried hard enough, that I could indeed make a change in the situation if I just acted the right way. Or I just couldn’t, and it was life telling me again and again that it was a stupid endeavor. But I had still managed to create a country that opposed the gods, how could I just give up?

My inner conflict just didn’t end and while I was doing an introspection, the conflict outside hadn’t gotten any weaker, in fact, now that two contenders had disappeared, the fight for their territory was harsher than the previous battles. Because if any of the other two remaining gods managed to control over half of the cities, they’d have all of their powers at their disposition, albeit not at full strength.