Elassa has rarely been a leader. The woman herself says she does not want to lead, I almost respect her for it. I would, but her reasoning is simply one of sloth and apathy rather than a real respect for power. Arcadia’s management reveals Elassa’s weakness, she is lax to the extreme, only taking interests in pet projects or favouring a certain class to raise a generation of prodigies. If Kassandora had never come along, then magicians would still be stuck in that dismal, post-Worldbreaking state of simply being ever-wanderers and universal handymen for hire. Kassandora’s Militarization of Magic did in a few years what centuries of Divine and Mortal plans could not: it made them useful to the state and it reintegrated magicians back into societies.

Magicians on one hand are cursed because their divine representative is someone like Elassa, who is whimsical and emotional and rarely guides them. Yet the world as a whole is blessed that it is languid Elassa that represents them, and not the competence of Kassandora, Arascus, Maisara or Fortia, myself or even Irinika. The mundane populations only got the chance to establish themselves as they are now because Elassa simply is not interested in such things as managing populations.

- Excerpt from “Documenting Divinity”, written by Goddess Allasaria, of Light.

Kassandora looked up at the flames above herself. Standing next to Elassa on solid air, surrounded by the eighty-four sorcerers the Goddess was using as living catalysts to channel her magic. Then further surrounded by layers upon layers of the blue astral glow of mana. That mana shot upwards as it called upon all heaven, and then it spiralled outwards as the day’s bright sky tore open. The pristine night-time descended upon Kassandora and the Jungle around her.

Belts of stars started to cascade down as Elassa’s chanting changed into a slow hum. The sorcerers, under her command through Kassandora, changed their chanting to a hum too. Everyone but Kassandora played that apocalyptic tune in unison. An aurora from above touched the green Jungle as it slithered downwards. And its cyan light shot out like lightning in all direction, the world below it shattered. A star slowly crashed down upon the Jungle’s closed teeth. They burst and shattered under the searing heat. And as the Jungle from below screamed and set alight, another star came down. A third, a fourth.

Kassandora saw the world start to shake as Elassa’s magic split it open. And Kassandora smiled at the marvellous display of raw power. There would be no Jungle left after this. Mountains in the distance, overgrown with vicious flora, started to crumble as a wave of fire swept turned the ocean of green into a lake of grey.

Fire and ash burst upwards, guided around the party in the air by a magical shield set up by Elassa. Kassandora only stood and watched. This was the end of the Reclamation War. This, for once in her life, was a victory total and beyond doubt: Annihilation.

Whilst most historians ascribe the Invasion of Kirinyaa as the end of the Pantheon Peace Era…

The Snake looked around at the crying red Jungle and blinked as it regained control over itself. Over its own body and mind. There was no more creeping whispers, no more crying souls begging for release. No false teachings or fake prophecies to follow. It took a deep breath through its two huge nostrils and smelled the fresh air.

No. The Jungle was not silent. It had merely lost its hold over the Snake’s mind. The Jungle was screaming in disbelieving rage as it simultaneously wept for its own demise. The Snake shook itself away as the trees, glowing crimson, started to vibrate. It perked its head up and stood as tall as a mountain, until its eyes were just below the clouds.

And the Snake saw the horizon.

A wall of burning black ash coming from the centre of the Jungle, where it had incarnated. Something had happened there. Lightning suddenly split the sky, it left a trail of stars as the bright blue of the day suddenly tore and revealed a dark night. Stars and meteors fell from it. The Snake turned and started to slither away as fast as it could. And the Snake stopped.

The body of the mad woman. She had broken the curse the first time. She had helped before. The raised its head, the woman was lying in a red dress on the ground, black hair splayed out over the ground like a crown around her head. Unconscious, but obviously alive. Her fingers were twitching, she wore a terrible smile. Every now and then, she even chuckled and laughed.

What a terrible woman. The Snake looked at that wall of ash. It would incinerate her. It took a deep breath. There was a duty to perform, a job to do and there were many sins to atone for. Guardian of the Jungle once, Guardian of the Jungle forever. To guide and lead and help, no matter whether the Jungle was a place of nourishment and rest, or a crazed wood torn apart by madness and devoured by flame. The Snake slowly curled slowly and carefully curled around the mad woman, and closed its eyes to protect them from the flame. She should not die here.

…I would argue that is wrong...

“Can you imagine it? Ten thousand voices in choir? I was there and…” Fer’s voice lost itself as the Lion started to move. She squeaked and turned to look at it. “Are you awake?” The Lion gently bowed its head and purred. She understood. “Are you?” She made a silly expression and spun a finger close to her head. “Can you still feel it?”

The Lion purred again. It could hear the Jungle, but the monster’s grasp over its mind had shattered. Fer smiled and turned around. “And your friends?” The Vulture had stopped beating its wings into the ground, the crocodile was slowly standing up, blinking and looking around as if stunned. The Lion purred. They too were fine. And Fer smiled and jumped up. “See! I told it’d be fine! Little Kassie is there.” Fer shouted excitedly. “She’s a handful, but if you want something done, you go to Little Kassie.” The Lion smiled at that open display of love as it stood up.

It thought that the little Goddess on its nose would be scared, but she meekly looked around at the Jungle that was aflame with crimson magic. “That’s Anassa, that.” She said. “That’s her sorcery, she’s fighting it from the inside.” The Lion knew, it had heard the fight and the Jungle screaming at the mad woman to stop. And then it had heard the screaming at the people in the air.

And now, as the Lion stood to the towering height of a mountain. It could see further past the horizon before the edge of the world ran away again. But the increase in distance was enough. From the west, from the Jungle’s centre, a wall of ash and a sky dirtied with soot was approaching. As if it was the explosion of a volcano, yet the ash of a volcano should not reach up all the way to the clouds. Lightning flashed along it and fires raised away. Fer saw it too. She jumped from the Lion’s nose and into its mane. “Let’s get out of here Mister Lion.” The Little Goddess of Beasthood could not have been more right.

As the Lion turned, the world started to shake and the ground below screamed with the tearing of stone.

…There was still a chance to salvage Pantheon Peace after the Invasion of Kirinyaa…

Helenna turned and stopped looking at the window. There was no reason to keep looking at Ktulu. It was time to organize a retreat. Arascus had successfully pulled Allasaria further north of the city. That was good, she was rather generous with her beams of light, and more than a few had hit the troops. Ktulu, tentacles wrapped over his shoulders and around his head, as if they tried to make a mane of a crown, took another step. Now that he had stopped shrieking, the monster was starting to move faster.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Damian Sokolowski’s troops had been pushed back to the western edge of the ringed city, and Uriamel was sending even more troops from the oceans. The huge crabs now came in packs of two or three, and the cannons strapped to their backs had been changed to be smaller turrets that could swivel. Smaller, but far more dangerous, the first weapons had simply been overkill. Planes constantly came in to batter from the air, and Sokolowski’s artillery still dropped napalm from a distance, but numbers had shrunk, especially after the initial confrontation with Ktulu. Fer had been correct, the war could be dragged out. As long as they had a rear, they could give up the front and pull Uriamel further onto the land.

Helenna fastened daggers to her belt and fiddled about with a pistol. At the end of the day, she was still a Goddess, and she was still a good-half again size of what a normal human stood at. Her finger simply did not fit. She took a step forwards and she heard the radio turn on. “Code G-1”

Code Global-One. Kassandora had set it up for cases when encryption was not necessary, or when news was so important that it simply had to be transmitted to everyone, regardless of sides. Kassandora had given an example for when to use G-1, which was if the world was to stop turning. The radio repeated again. “Code G-1. I, captain Douglas of Raptor One, am announcing a Code G-1. Under my own responsibility, even though I know I have no command, I advise all commanders currently on the Reclamation War front to order a full retreat. I repeat, my advice, at the highest priority, is to order a full retreat. You will probably die if you stay there.” Helenna blinked. Excuse me? She knew that Kassandora, Anassa, Iniri, Fer and Kavaa had gone to the Jungle, but what was this about?

A few seconds later, the radio spoke again. “Code G-1. This is captain Erik, Raptor Two. I’ll say it in nicer way. If you’re near the Jungle, drop what you’re doing and get the fuck out of there.”

…instead, I would say that the point of no return…

Malam, Goddess of Hatred, smiled and kept on humming to herself as she thought of what to do. Now it was simply a waiting game, so she had gone back to her own room without telling Irinika who she had taught. Irinika would want to come immediately, and then they’d have trouble, and then they’d end up getting nothing out of Kavaa and Iniri. Kavaa and Iniri were still asleep. That was annoying on one hand, but extremely satisfying on the other. If she could do something like this to the Goddess of Health, then it meant the tricks Baalka had taught her and had not gone to waste. Malam smiled, looked at herself in the mirror as she washed her face and pulled the white locks of hair away.

The mirror cracked. Malam looked at it with an unsatisfied face. She wasn’t that ugly, was she? And then Malam felt the shaking. She ran out of her room and looked around at the Dwarven hold. No. The mirror had not been her. The entire place was shaking. Statues were falling over, tiny little dwarves were scurrying about as they tried to avoid getting hit from the ceiling falling down on them, every piece of glass fixed to anything had already shattered under the strain of the world shifting. A bridge here and there was crumbling, leaving on the superstructure of metal, now bending and flexing, in its place.

Malam opened her mouth and tasted the air. It did taste like magic. Like Worldbreaking. But not quite. It was…

Malam blinked in confusion.

How could something be sweeter than Worldbreaking?

…which awoke the whole world as to the fact that Divine politics weren’t a mere triviality…

Premier-General Abakwa of Ausa once again sat in the Igos Crisis Centre. Once again he stared into his coffee. Once again he listened to everyone dashing in a mad panic. Once again he prepared for the worst. If there was one thing to be thankful for though, it wasn’t the Jungle this time. Whatever it was, it seemed to be as bad for the Jungle as it would be for anyone caught in it.

“Building One is fully locked down! Twenty percent above capacity in people, but it will be hold for a month if need be!” Abakwa listened to the reports. Buildings two through eight were the same. Everything was over capacity, but everything was doing rather fine. The first Igos Crisis with Olephia had reminded them that there was a need to smoothen out these operations.

Abakwa stared at the cloud of ash as it started to roll towards the Igos Firewall. The huge barrier that would be set alight twice a day to keep the Jungle from crawling over the city. This was far better than Olephia. Most of the city’s population had been sent to the city’s underground, or into the basements of governmental buildings or their skyscrapers. Igos had been built to withstand the Jungle’s advance. A cloud of ash?

Even if that cloud did reach up from the land all the way to the clouds. Even if that cloud was coming at them at tremendous speeds. Even if that cloud was hot enough to set the woods before alight, Abakwa was not worried this time. After all, there was nothing to worry about. Either they would survive it, or it would incinerate them immediately. Unlike the Jungle’s slow crawl, this was almost a pleasant death. He sipped his coffee and recalled when he had seen Kassandora declare the beginning of the Reclamation War.

If this was not the end of the Reclamation War, he did not know what it was.

…was Elassa’s demonstration of force over Arika.…

“Send an urgent dock order to all our ships.” King Richard VI sat and listened to his ministers as they ran around and gave orders. They were in the War-Room of Allia, for managing the Epan Logistics. With plenty of fancy screens and displays and an army of bureaucrats and servants scurrying at frantic speeds, although today, there were no logistics to manage. It was all hands-on deck with no one knowing what to do. He sat, his wife was holding a broadcast on EIE telling everyone to stay calm and that the crisis would not hit Allia. Richard smiled to himself as leaned further onto his table and listened to the panicked voices: All-hands on deck and yet no one knew what to do. After all, how could you prepare for something like this?

“Submarines are reporting sudden currents in the ocean!”

“Satellite gives us nothing over Arika still, it’s just a cloud of ash!”

“There’s no winds, it’s being pulled down!”

“Initial reports have come back from the universities!”

“And?”

“Even lower levels are more than 600 cubic kilometres!”

“The continent has shifted!”

“What are you talking about?”

“EIE stations in Arika are reporting compasses are facing in the direction! The continent has shifted!”

“Aittyopios station does not report that!”

“GET ALL SHIPS OUT OF ALANKTYDA! AWAY FROM ARIKA AT THE VERY LEAST!” One man suddenly shouted. “Issue a full mayday! Waters are draining!”

“Excuse me?”

“THE WATERS ARE DRAINING!”

“The deep scans from satellites are ready!”

“Pull them up!”

“DOCK THE ENTIRE FLEET NOW!”

“Oh…”

“Rancais is reporting the tide retreating too.”

“The UNN’s tide has reversed as well.”

“Start evacuating the coasts, we may have tidal waves.”

“Look at that!”

“Where?”

“Second monitor!”

Richard looked to the second monitor and felt his breath catch. Arika was about to have a new sea.

…That made the whole world realise they had to choose a side…

Fortia could not peel her eyes away from the screen. She knew that the other side could not, nor could Maisara. The entire Epan War had come to a pause as they watched what was happening over Arika. Some had news, others internet reports. Fortia had the White Pantheon’s satellites streaming video direct to her.

And frankly, she wished she didn’t. Now was an excellent time to attack. She knew that someone like Kassandora would be taking it, but Kassandora may very well be the only soul on Arda who was single-minded enough to ignore something like this. Since Fortia had laid her eyes on it, she could not pull them away.

The black cloud of ash over central Arika was settling. Or rather, it was being forced down. Elassa’s work, it had to be, the woman would clear the sky to make sunny days in the same manner. But as the ash settled, Fortia’s eyes widened even further. She heard the Guardians in her command tent express shock with her: catches of breath and jaws dropping. They were all trained soldiers here, Fortia herself was the Goddess of Peace, she had fought through the Great War. She had thought she’d seen everything the world had to offer.

And now, the world offered an entire new sea in central Arika, quickly filling up as the oceans came to flood… Could it be called a valley? A ravine? Fortia did not even know. The rushed in came to flood the gap in the middle of the continent.

…it is hard to stay neutral when a continent is cracked open.

- Excerpt from “End of Days”, by Goddess Ciria, of Civilization