By the time the forces of Darksol finally arrived at the capital city of what once was one the largest nations in the world (and technically still was, but not to nearly the degree it had been), Arcail IV had reasserted his control over the peoples there. As it turns out, having the very God that overly zealous idiots worship fuse itself with your body tends to make said idiots much more compliant and willing to atone for whatever sins that you judge them guilty of. Those who formerly decried him as the enemy of all were now the ones being judged for all that they had done, and in the eyes of their own deity, no less!

Oh, how the tables do turn, no?

At first, when the fuck-all massive army of undead appeared on the horizon, people began to panic. Arcail IV, now known as Arcail the Ascended, however, assuaged their fears. His newfound power and perception of existence made him more than able to swing his newfound and very overpowered yet also very situation charisma around like nobody’s business, and the fact that he had struck a bargain with the Abominable King himself to help him retake control of what had little of the Sultanate survived was to his people as water off a duck’s back. Yeah, having God-tier Situational Charisma can be a very good thing, or a very bad one if the user either plays their cards right or doesn’t.

However, Arcail the Ascended could not stay around in the capital for long. He had duties to fulfill, such as making the rest of the fanatics of the New Sultanate see that they were deceived and manipulated, that He, their God, did not want anything like what they were trying to make a reality. It would be a long and possibly pointless process, but it was a task he had to do. The Sultanate was a shadow of its former self, but even the darkest black can be turned into the brightest white if the shading gradient is altered.

Once again, it would take time, and his deal stated that even the current limits of the Sultanate had to be altered. The many areas had to be cut up and given their own kind of pseudo statehood, but as per the wording of the deal, Arcail the Ascended and the Sultanate would still endure. These pseudo-states would still be connected to the New-Old Sultanate, essentially acting as though they were even more independent versions of the states of the Modern Earth United States of America. They would be, for the most part, completely self-governing, but they would be a part of and subject to a greater federal system that itself would be part of and subject to something greater.

This did rub Arcail the Ascended (who we shall henceforth just refer to as ‘Arcail’ because he is the only one of his name I have really ever mentioned and because his is the only one relevant to the story) the wrong way, but his mind quickly realized that this would make things decidedly more manageable. Even before the extremists came to power there were already signs of the nation slowly fracturing along certain lines. By separating the nation into smaller states that all answered to something greater than each one of them individually, the peoples there could assert their own culture and individuality while still having amicable ties to the others around them.

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The more he thought about it, the more Arcail liked it, but rebuilding the nation into this new form would have to wait. He had other things to do right now, of which included making sure that the zealots didn’t start turning into even more of a death cult than they already were. He had people to save, and he was slowly running out of time to do it in.

…

As the situation in Mortis’ version of Turkey, Israel, and the Arab states (not including Egypt and anything in Africa) cooled down, the wars that had started due to Nimroad I’s seizure of power still raged from the banks of the Nyel River to the very farthest coast of Mocorro (I’m not very inventive with naming systems). Although these new nation-states were still fighting for dominance, they were doing so without the interference of Darksol or its satellites due to Alexis ordering a total withdrawal from the area. This, in retrospect, could be seen as a rather poor decision, give the current circumstances, and was about to be an even worse one as two outsiders joined the fray.

From the South of that massive warzone and up through the deserts, savannas and wastelands began to emerge greenery the likes of which no one had seen in their entire lives. With this greenery came the supposed masters of this foliage, the Arcfiran Confederated Tribes. At first, the warmongering states ignored them, but then their people began to die off as fungal and floral infestations began to eat them alive from the inside out and outside in. By the time that the resurrected Sultanate, now called the Arbianan Federal Protectorate, got its shit together and finished the process of uniting once again, the lands that the Tribes now occupied was devoid of any of their natives save for those bound to the will of those who controlled the plants that controlled them like fleshy marionettes.

As if that craziness was not bad enough, the westernmost areas, such as where Morocco, Western Sahara, and a bit of Algeria would be on Modern Earth, were invaded by the Corporate States of America. While the Elves had taken a hold of everything to the east, the Dwarves had arrived and, with their technology and sheer stubbornness and refusal to accept defeat in anything they did, forcibly made the land and its peoples bow down and submit.

…

This all went down in the span of mere months, and all while Darksol’s eyes were somewhere else. Obviously, this all had to have been planned ahead of time, but the distance information and people had to travel, the utter hatred both nations had for each other and the terrible conditions that the invaders had to travel through made the odds of the two bitter enemies cooperating seem almost impossible. Darksol now had another two potential wars on its doorstep, but neither of these two foes seemed the least bit interested in fighting Darksol. Yet.

Instead, there was one… other foe that was going to give the victorious Greater Darksol Empire a colossal pain in the neck, and it was not from the far east. The entity that had not only possessed a former summoned hero but had also sent wave after wave of, in his eyes, disposable pawns to keep the war in Rusk ongoing was about to strike again, and that damn bastard hoped that this time he would see his foe fall before the War of the Worlds even had a chance to truly begin.