Zalga was, understandably, quite livid. For all her grandstanding, for all the worship that so many heaped upon her, for all the power she claimed her satellite state had at its disposal, she had been forced to rely on the aid of those children. While she could have certainly traded lives for a victory, the cost would have been too great.

She was not happy about the various artillery pieces placed around that dumb little land-walker town, nor was she happy about the magic defenses that kept her kind from using the waters nearby to their full capacity. If she did have to siege the city, it would have been a battle fought entirely on the land, and she was neither cruel enough to force her people to endure such an indignity nor was she cruel enough to throw so many into a battle that would likely have resulted in such relatively high casualties.

She had hoped that the ‘air force’ that Darksol was working on would have been commanded by others, but that homewrecker’s children were the ones who took control and leveled the obstacle in her kind’s path. Yes, they were the children of her most dear Kain, but Zalga certainly did not consider Alexis to be worthy of him in the slightest. In Zalga’s eyes, Alexis was an overgrown leech with the arrogance and hubris to match, which made her utterly undeserving of being Kain’s wife. Then again, Alexis considered Zalga to be an oversized octopus with oversized ambitions, so the feeling was mutual.

Either way, the path leading to the Shadow Sea (Mortis’ version of the Black Sea) was open, and Zalga decided to cut loose a little bit and left her palace beneath the waves so that she could… enjoy herself a little more. The odds of there being a foe great enough for her to need her full power (or even 1% of it) were astronomically low, and Zalga was not worried about such things.

Perhaps, if she were more gifted in foresight, she would have been. Ironically, in her desire to personally find entertainment while aiding the war effort, Zalga would come to the startling realization that she had no god damn idea where the Sultanate ended and another, more… beastly nation began. While this encounter would not spark a new war, it would certainly lay the groundwork for one in the future.

…

A large, ornate ‘box’ was carried on wooden beams by a group of strongmen. Inside, beyond the silk, gold, platinum, and precious gemstones reclined a vulpine woman. Her sclera was blacker than pitch, her irises shone like gold mixed with amber, and the hair on her head, ears, and nine tails glistened even under the shade as though they were made of strands of the finest silvery metals. This was the woman who, essentially, had the Oriant Co-Prosperity Sphere by the balls. The current Emperor was growing too old and weak, having reigned for more than three and a half centuries and counting. His son, while young and decently powerful, was immature and easily manipulated, and that was what she, Da Ji, was good at.

She took a long drag from the long, thin pipe she held daintily in two of her fingers, allowing the smoke from her smoldering narcotics to flow effortlessly out of her mouth and worm its way around the noses of the men whose life purpose was to keep her above the mud and muck. She snickered as one of them tried desperately to stifle a sneeze, only to fail and be removed from his duties in a permanent and lethal fashion. He was replaced immediately, and the palanquin had not slowed down a single bit during the whole thing. The drugs in her pipe did not affect her in the slightest, but they did not exist for that purpose anyways. It and the pipe were just more tools to exert her influence over those around her, and she reveled in the knowledge that she was above the touch of such things.

Why, you ask, was she, the infamous and illustrious Da Ji, visiting some misbegotten backwater in the depths of the frontier? Well, it had come to her attention that a few of her agents were getting too big for their britches. They had been tasked with raising and turning the New Sultan of the middle of nowhere Podunk backwater they were stationed at into a usable pawn, and they had succeeded admirably. However, if rumors were to be believed, they no longer served her agenda, and now sought to make their own power and influence a goal superior (in their lesser eyes) to her own!

They had even gone so far as to change religions! While they had been given four generations of time to complete their tasks, this whole ‘going native’ thing was disgusting and put her in a bad light. She would not risk this slight being found out and would ascertain the situation herself and, if needed, crush the impudent brats under her feet until they either submitted to her as their ancestors had or they died screaming in agony.

Before crossing the border, Da Ji directed her slaves and servants to stop at a decently sized port town that was situated along the Shadow Sea. It would take a decent bit of time to crawl along the edge of the Shadow Sea and enter Sultanate lands from above, but that was an acceptable situation due to her overwhelming disdain for the overabundance of deserts, badlands, and sand that made up much of the land that still belonged to the Sultanate and trailed off to the east towards the border of Oriant.

As the nervous Beastmen did everything in their power to assuage the ever-fickle mood of the nine-tailed manipulator, Da Ji’s ears perked up as the winds changed and the tides shifted. She had figured that this whole outing would be a waste of her time, but with what she could feel was coming on its way she figured that she may very well have a chance to stretch her limbs for the first time in untold ages. Besides, fighting off an incursion from freaky fish people would certainly make her look good in the eyes of others back home. Even if this little village had to be destroyed in the process, it would be more than enough for her image if she were to return having not only crushed the water-bound mongrels that were on their way but also having asserted control of her former pawns’ descendants.

Not that anyone had to know about the latter, but it would certainly make her feel better.