Meixiu I

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Meixiu wasn’t a born conqueror. She’d owned a somewhat successful business back in the old world, but that didn’t give her any military experience. Her first ‘conquest’ back when she arrived was a messy, brutal affair born of treachery and anger. Her second one had been meticulously planned down to the last detail, which meant it failed almost immediately. Her third had managed to be somewhat successful, though it was more through internal conflicts in her enemy than her own success. And the final one had been the only battle she could actually call a ‘success.’

But failure was just another chance to learn, and none of her consecutive failures were due to previous mistakes—instead they were because of spicy, new mistakes.

One of those mistakes she’d made early on was not distinguishing her own soldiers from the enemy. When they clashed in a battle the first (and only) time she did that, it became impossible to tell friend from enemy.

Fortunately, she’d managed to figure out a solution to that problem. She had given all of her people a crocodile skin ‘helmet’ that was really more of a headwrap. The greenish headwear made them extremely obvious even when in the heat of battle.

Domenic had obviously realized with the same, as his own people wore bright white Addax furs, which contrasted heavily against their dark skin.

Who would have thought all that fancy pageantry ancient soldiers used actually had a purpose.

But this battle wasn’t like her previous ones. For a start, she was on the defensive. For another…

“Defensive formation!” she shouted at her army. “Spears out, form a wall!”

“Break in half!” Lukman shouted at the same time. “Pincer them from both sides!”

The two turned to stare at each other.

“Don’t listen to him!” she shouted. “I’ve stripped Lukman of his command!”

“Don’t listen to this imposter, soldiers! Follow my orders, to victory!”

This… didn’t exactly help matters.

The soldiers, having gotten contradicting orders by people they’d been trained to instinctively listen to, ended up following whichever one they heard over the other. Some tried to close ranks and form a wall, only to tumble into someone who tried to move forward to attack, who smacked into people just standing around unsure of what to do. Even just a quarter of the army following Lukman’s commands was causing untold chaos at a time they really couldn’t afford it.

A bit more time, and they might have managed to reconfigure themselves. Unfortunately, the opposing army didn’t give them the opportunity to correct their mistakes.

It started with a ranged attack, slingers firing from the back of Domenic’s White-shirts launching projectiles into her own army, causing people to panic and fall apart even more as the flying stones caused injuries. One even managed to hit Meixiu, slamming into her shoulder with a dull ‘THUNK.’

Luckily, the slingers didn’t do that much damage. Slingers were built for more close ranged, one-on-one fighting. The rain of stones from Domenic might have been terrifying, but in reality it could do little more than bruise and scare people.

And scare it did, as her army began to collapse in on itself, contradicting orders combining with an attack that caused any remaining order in her army to fall apart.

Then, finally, the White-shirts hit.

--

Kaiden II

Kaiden winced as he watched the two armies clash.

Their original plan had been to win the army over with words. They’d send in Meixiu to talk them over, to show them she was alive and still in charge. Then from behind the lines they’d have Gamila—who’d disguised herself as an anonymous soldier by covering her face with mud and changing her hairstyle—start prodding the soldiers, whispering to them how Lukman was a madman who was trying to overthrow the Queen. Which, judging by his reaction to Meixiu showing back up, the madman part might have actually been true. After the army flipped to their side, taking out Lukman would have been child’s play.

Unfortunately, they were all distracted by the invading army.

Kaiden and Joseph had stayed back in the city, since it was decided that any outsiders getting involved might have ruined their chances of a peaceful solution, which meant they got a front-row seat to the whole thing.

They’d actually spotted the army before Meixiu did, their position on the walls allowing them to see the soldiers marching on the horizon. Joseph had immediately turned around and started barking orders at his soldiers, gathering his army at the main gate. Luckily the soldiers were already prepared to head out incase things went wrong. Unfortunately, due to the small size of the entrances they couldn’t get out quickly, turning one of their defensive strengths into an offensive hinderance.

Kaiden frowned worriedly, turning back to the battle unfolding in the distance.

Meixiu’s army was a disorganized mess, the only coherent thing about it being that it understood that the White-shirts were the enemy. Compared to that, Domenic’s army was a single unit, pressing into Meixiu’s army with brutal precision.

At this rate, they’d lose in no time.

“I’m going to help!” he shouted to Joseph, jumping down from the ramparts.

“Like hell you are!” the older man shouted back, looking up from where he was coordinating the troops.

“You can’t expect me to just stand here doing nothing!”

“I—look,” he sighed, walking up to Kaiden. “Look, Kaiden, I understand where you’re coming from, I do,” he told him lowly, making sure the others couldn’t hear. “But we can’t all go. Someone needs to stay behind to look after the city. And I have nobody here but you to trust with that.”

A large part of Kaiden wanted to take him up on that offer. To stay far away from the battle, where he couldn’t get hurt or die. To stay here where it was safe.

But that was a coward’s thinking. And he refused to be a coward any longer.

“I. Am. Going.” He ground out, trying his best to look stubbornly determined.

Considering the unimpressed look on Joseph’s face, he doubted it was working.

“I have actual experience in battle,” he continued, ignoring the shiver that went down his spine at the thought of having to fight again. “Have you ever fought before? Have you even left these walls ever since this war started?”

Joseph grimaced at that, making Kaiden hopeful he was actually getting somewhere. “If anything, that means I should fight now,” Joseph countered, narrowing his eyes. “I shouldn’t be letting everyone else do all the fighting for me.”

“No, if anything this is the worst time for you to get involved,” Kaiden countered back, raising his chin defiantly. “This might be the most important battle of the war, and you’ve got the least experience in combat.

Joseph closed his eyes, looking exhausted. “You shouldn’t have to have combat experience in the first place.”

“But I do. And pretending I don’t will only cause more harm than good.”

Joseph let out a quiet sigh, before opening his eyes again. “Fine. Fine! You can go. But you’d better come back alive, you got that?”

Kaiden’s stomach dropped with the acknowledgement that he was actually going to fight. But he put on a brave face and scoffed, “Please! I couldn’t die even if I wanted to!”

“That’s what I’m worried about, kid.”

--

Domenic II

As Domenic joined the fray, he couldn’t help but grin. Surprisingly not with manic joy, or bloodlust, or even cruelty, but relief.

Finally, this damn war would be over!

“So, there you are, traitor!” He shouted as he carved his way toward the other Queen.

“Traitor!?” she asked, looking surprisingly confused. Huh, he remembered her being more composed than that. “What do you mean!? I don’t even know who you are!?”

Wow, that stung a lot more than he’d expected it too.

“Grrrrah! Just die already!” he shouted angrily, stabbing at her.

“Oh, that’s right, you’re that king that’s attacking us. Dante, correct?” she asked, jumping away from his spear. “I should have realized that, what with the skin tone.”

“Enough blabbering!” he growled, not letting up in his attack. “You swore yourself to me! That we would work together to take down this fortress! As an imposing bulwark to destroy anyone in our path! We had a deal, and you betrayed me to side with the enemy!”

“Now who’s blabbering!” she shouted back, taking a stab to the chest with a pained grimace. “And what do you mean ‘we had a deal?’ We never made any sort of deal—I barely met you before I was captured!”

“It was implied!”

“Like hell it was!”

This continued for a while.

Though, as much as Domenic hated to admit it, he wasn’t a warrior. He could learn the steps and fight with all his heart, but he’d only been training for two months, which was nowhere near enough time to reach the levels of people who had trained for years. Luckily, all of the other God-Kings were in the same boat, which meant that while their clash looked like two toddlers drunkenly swinging at each other to any properly trained soldier, it was a surprisingly even fight.

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Though perhaps it wasn’t so surprising, considering neither of them had any intention of defeating the other.

This wasn’t the first time they’d done this song and dance. With different people and in different places, perhaps, but they both understood how dangerous the other was. Alone, one unkillable soldier was dangerous to take down, no matter how skilled they were. Give them an army, and they’d become unstoppable.

This wasn’t a battle for victory, but a stalemate. It was like two queens blocking each other in chess, an acknowledgement by both players to keep the most dangerous piece off the board.

For now.

In the middle of their clash, another man smoothly interrupted their battle, weaving between spears easily. He had no arms and wore only a leather skirt as armor, which made it rather impressive he’d managed to survive this long in the thick of battle.

“Ah, there you are,” he said calmly, smoothly dodging another soldier’s thrust. “You must be Domenic, the other King of these lands. I have a proposition for—GAH!”

The man only had a second to duck before Domenic’s spear hurled over his head.

“Talking’s not a free action, dumbass!” he roared, grabbing another spear off a nearby corpse.

The armless man jumped up, panic in his eyes as Domenic stabbed him again, thrusting towards his legs. That panic grew stronger as Meixiu joined against him.

“Lukman!” she growled lowly. “If we lose this battle, I will spend every last moment on this mortal plane making sure I kill you.”

“Don’t act so high and mighty now!” he shouted frantically, spinning around to kick away Domenic’s spear. “You would have killed me anyway—we were all expendable pawns to you!”

“What kind of moronic attitude is that!? The only people who were expendable were our enemies!”

‘Ah, so they know each other,’ Domenic realized, before frowning, annoyed in hindsight. ‘And they don’t seem to get along well. Hm. Perhaps I should have let him speak before we fought. Ah well, you win some you lose some.’

There were more pressing concerns to be delt with. Like, for example, how an armless, weaponless mortal had managed to survive this battle for as long as he had.

Also…

Why exactly was he helping Meixiu kill her enemy?

With that thought, he spun around, slamming his spear into and through her shoulder.

Meixiu screamed, dropping her spear as her arm spasmed. Domenic then proceeded to knock her to the floor with a shoulder check, holding her down on the ground. Then he turned to the other man, holding out his hand.

“Quickly!” he snapped. “Give me your spear before she gets back up!”

The man stared at him in confusion, but seemingly handed it over on instinct. Hm, someone used to following orders, perhaps?

No matter. Taking the second spear, he shoved it straight through her chest. Once he was sure she was fully pinned to the ground, he stood up, using his foot to hold the rest of her body down.

“Now,” he turned to the armless man, smiling genially. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

The man blinked, before shaking his head. “I am… I am Lukman, a general of this army. I worked as the Queen’s general—”

“Stop,” Domenic stopped him, holding up a hand. “I don’t care. What can you give me, and what do you want?”

“Uh,” Lukman stuttered, before grounding himself. “I can stop this battle, and give you control of the army. All I want is to continue being a leader in your own kingdom.”

“Fuck… you… Lukman…” the woman beneath them hissed, glaring up at them with absolute hatred in her eyes.

Domenic was almost impressed.

“Hm…” he hummed, looking out at the chaos surrounding them. It certainly didn’t look like this man had any control over it—Domenic himself doubted he could do anything about it at this point. This was a battle that was going to be fought to completion, or not at all.

And this man believed he could somehow control Meixiu’s army. Who was he? A lover? An old elder? Perhaps someone she gave military command to? He said he was a general, right? But what did that mean? How many people did he actually lead? One hundred? Or ten? They didn’t exactly have a lot of people to lead right now.

Maybe he should have let him give more context before he shut him up.

Well, no matter. If he was anywhere near as important as he implied himself to be, then he was too important to let live.

“You said your name was Lukman, correct?” he asked with an amicable smile, placing his hand on the other man’s shoulder.

“Yes,” Lukman relaxed a bit, smiling lightly. “Thank you for accepting my offer, you’ll realize in due time that it was—GURK!”

Domenic smiled at him, patting his shoulder once more as he removed his dagger from his chest. Then, just to make sure, he stabbed him again, this time in the throat.

Lukman fell to the ground, choking, before falling silent.

“I’ve never trusted traitors,” he mused, before spinning around and throwing his dagger at Meixiu as she tried to get up, the blade causing her to slip and fall back to the ground. “Now now, I’m not done with you yet.”

Meixiu choked in pain as she slammed back into the ground. Her free hand flew up to grasp the spear, trying to shove it off. “Re… release me!” she grit her teeth, her muscles straining as she tried to push away the spear.

“Come now, why would I do something like that,” he scoffed. Moving a bit closer, he started kicking at her hand, forcing her to let go of the spear. Of course, she just grabbed back onto it right after. He could admire the tenacity, if nothing else.

“You know, we could have been allies,” he told her conversationally. Seeing as he wasn’t getting anywhere with her hand, he moved to stomping her face. He smiled lightly at her screams. “But no~ You had to work with the weak little turtle! Why, if you continue making decisions like that, people might start to think of you as an idiot! You wouldn’t want that to happen, now would you?” he cooed.

A muffled scream was his only answer.

Now, it should be noted that Domenic had at this point started zoning out the surrounding battle. His own people had shoved the enemy back far enough that they were surrounded by his own soldiers, if not behind the army itself, and he had long since stopped paying attention to his surroundings.

That was why he completely missed the single soldier shoving their way through his army, who proceeded to slam into him with an enraged scream.

“The fu—!?” was all he was able to get out before he was knocked to the ground, a dagger shoved into his abdomen.

The soldier on top of him raised their dagger up, gouging his body over and over again. His arms flailed as he let out a scream of rage and pain, any control over himself lost as he tried to knock them off.

Eventually he remembered that he was immortal and couldn’t actually be hurt. So, rather than try to knock the woman off of him, he instead used his superior size to roll the two of them over, placing her beneath him. He grabbed her wrist and began twisting and twisting until it snapped, forcing her to drop the dagger.

Grabbing it himself, he brought it down on the soldier—who he could now see was a woman—with rage-filled strength. His first hit was sloppy and uncoordinated, scraping off of her bicep. His second hit was nowhere near as bad, piercing her chest. His third was deadly accurate, the dagger getting impaled straight through her throat, finishing her off.

Domenic stumbled to his feet, breathing heavily. He glanced over at Meixiu, sighing in relief as he saw she was still curled up on the ground in agony. It was a good thing his pain tolerance was better than hers, otherwise that could have gotten ugly.

Now that that was over, he couldn’t help but chuckle. Damn, he’d lost it a bit there, huh?

Turning back to the Queen, he got ready to set about continuing his work. Unfortunately for him, he wouldn’t get to.

He gasped, looking down at his navel, where blood began to spurt out heavily. He then felt a great weight on his back as he was pushed back into the bloody dirt.

‘What!?’ he thought incredulously. He choked in pain as he felt someone kneel on his new wound, before they began to stab his back again and again in a suspiciously familiar manner.

Domenic barely managed to turn his head to look up behind him. What he saw caused him to double-take in shock.

‘She’s still alive!?’ he thought incredulously. Indeed, the dark-skinned soldier he thought he’d killed was once more pinning him to the ground, stabbing him repeatedly. ‘How the hell did she survive!? Is she immortal too? What are the odds of that!? Why did she even save this woman, it makes no sense!’

‘Okay, think through this logically!’ he hissed to himself, forcing himself to ignore the pain. ‘You got out of this before, just stop panicking! All you need to do is get up!”

He tried to stand up again, only to be kicked in the head so hard he felt something snap. In a daze he glanced up, looking for who had attacked him.

‘Ah,’ he mused dazedly, ‘Meixiu’s gotten back up.’

Indeed, it seems the Queen had recovered from his torture, and was bent on repaying him twofold for it.

With another powerful kick she snapped his neck in the other direction, which would have caused him to let out a gasp of pain if it hadn’t severed his spinal cord.

This… wasn’t good.

Every time he tried to move they were there, beating him and breaking him as he tried to free himself. There was nothing he could do, completely overwhelmed by the two women above him that he—

His thoughts were cut off by cheering. A loud, boisterous cheering that surrounded them from all sides.

Suddenly, the weight of the women above him was gone, allowing him to look up. There he saw the two of them, his own army holding out spears surrounding them, stopping them from moving.

Ah, it looks like they’d won.

Once more Domenic stumbled to his feet, working his jaw as he felt it slowly mend itself. The sensation of rapidly regrowing his teeth was one he’d never get used to.

“It’s about time!” he scowled at the closest soldiers, a woman and a man who’s names escaped him. “Why’d it take you so long! It’s not like these people are that competent!”

The man glanced at him nervously, but the woman just continued staring at the captive immortals, her jaw set in a stubborn scowl.

“Well, whatever,” he grunted, fixing his jaw. God, they’d done a number on him. “I was in the middle of something earlier, wasn’t I? Ah, yes. You’ve lost. Now just sit down and die already, would you!”

Meixiu turned to look at him with a deep scowl, ignoring the spears pointed at her. “I have died many times. But not have I left this world. I refuse. One of us will die today, King Domenic, but it will not be me.”

That… was a very dramatic way of saying ‘No you!’

“…Whatever,” he sighed, to exhausted to come up with a witty one liner. “The rest of you hold them here, we’ll destroy their souls later.”

There was some nervous shuffling from his army, but he ignored it. At least this was all over now—

“My King!” a voice shouted form the other end of the army. “More soldiers! From the fortress!”

—Except he forgot about the people he’d come here to conquer in the first place. Great.

“Domenic!” He could barely hear a voice shouting from the distance. “It's time you pay for your crimes!”

Domenic squinted over the heads of his soldiers, trying to figure out who was talking. “WHAT?”

“Die, tyrant!”

Well, he could understand that at least. Actually, that voice sounded kind of familiar…

Ah, it was the fake-Meixiu. He’d forgotten about that one.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” he gestured to the rest of his army. “Get into position! Once we crush them we’ll finally be done with all this. Well, until the next conquest, of course, but I think a bit of a break is in order.”

“…the next conquest?” a voice asked from his side. He glanced over, seeing the woman who had ignored him earlier.

“Of course,” he rolled his eyes. “Now stop questioning your King, and get into position!”

Many of his soldiers began moving, but many more of them… didn’t.

“And what about their souls,” the woman continued, raising her voice at him. “You said we’d destroy them?”

He gave her an incredulous look, feeling anger at her tone. How dare she act like this to her king!? “Well, how else do you think we’d kill them?”

“You would deny them even the afterlife? You’d destroy them that utterly?”

Domenic rolled his eyes. “How primitive, to believe superstitions like that. Now, go kill them already!”

The woman didn’t move, for the first time turning to face him fully. “No.”

For some reason, the King felt uneasy, like he was teetering on the edge of an abyss, and with one wrong step he would be swallowed whole.

He did not like the feeling, and so he set about getting rid of it.

“You swore your soul to this King!” he shouted at her, grabbing for his spear only to realize he had left it with Meixiu. “Are you turning your back on that pledge!?”

“I swore to serve a King. I see only a demon before me.”

“Fine!” he finally snapped, glaring at her. “If you will not follow me, then I have no use for you! You there,” he pointed to the man next to her. “Execute this woman! She is a traitor to the King!”

The man twitched, but did not move, instead slamming the butt of his spear onto the ground with a dull ‘thunk.’

The feeling grew larger.

“…Alright,” he hissed, his eyes darting between his soldiers, suddenly far more nervous than before. “It seems there are more traitors within our midst then I thought. Fine. Whoever kills these two people will get a promotion!” Nothing. “More food, so much you will never go hungry again!” A little shuffling, but nobody dared move. “A King’s ransom!” he shouted, panic beginning to overtake his voice. “More wealth and riches than anyone could ever ask for!”

Not a soul stepped forth.

He could no longer take it, and exploded frantically, “ENOUGH WITH THIS PLAY AT DEFIANCE! LISTEN TO ME! I AM YOUR KING!”

“There are many Kings in this world,” the woman whispered softly. “In fact, there are two in front of us right now. What makes your word worth more than theirs?”

Then, with a single step she placed herself in front of him.

“I am Bahiti,” she whispered softly. “Remember that name when the gods judge your soul.”

Then she ran him through with her spear.

That in and of itself wouldn’t have killed him. In fact, he felt more anger than pain at the moment.

But then another soldier stepped forward and stabbed him. And then another. And another. Soon they were swarming him, spear after spear driven into his body, his mutinous soldiers screaming and cackling obscenities at him as they ran him through.

And his most loyal soldiers… were distracted by the approaching army, and caught between it and the mutiny, could do nothing but be crushed whole.

Domenic did not die—his soul was still whole, and his body would heal in time. The man named Domenic would live on.

But the King who took the name Domenic? That man was destroyed utterly.

9,946 God-Kings Remaining