Queen Diana looked quite thoughtful after all that. “This would be your recommendation, then?” she asked, possibly seeking someone to lay the blame on in case things went wrong.

“Oh, unequivocally. If you were sworn to Leviathan, the Irish Littoral Zone likely would not even exist, for starters. The combination of shore defenses and Whales eating them would likely keep the Aquatics well away from your shores,” I assured her.

The Irish around me perked up instantly at that fact, something I was sure she noticed. It also meant ten thousand Englishmen wouldn’t have died here.

“What is the best scenario if our people agreed to do this?” she asked, correctly realizing that unless the country she led agreed to it, Leviathan would not acknowledge any efforts here.

“Leviathan would lead the Whales through the surrounding seas to enjoy a rare, concentrated feast of Aquatics. The vast majority of the lesser Aquatic Tribes will likely route in terror, or they will be eaten. If the Emperors involved stick around, it’s likely they will be eaten, too!

“Leviathan will probably issue a fiat order that all whaling ships sighted by natives of this island are to be destroyed on sight. I’m sure you know that was demanded in passing of Japan and China after the Whales ate the White-shelled Salamander Horde that was devouring its way across the Pacific islands, and in a remarkable show of prescience, the Americas decided to go along with Leviathan’s pronouncement.”

“We... had heard,” she confirmed, the first real display of the power of the Whales to the world being something that was rather hard to miss. “And... if Emperor Leviathan does not choose to acknowledge us?”

“Then you evacuate. I’d make your plea quickly, as you’re going to need time to get stuff and people out of here, and one Portal isn’t going to be very fast.”

I noted the Irish about me wanted to speak up, but wisely held their questions for now. The simple fact I could pull up a Portal and send something off to a very distant place had already been proven with the Unicorns, and our arrival here. It was far more powerful and efficient than traditional Void Teleporting Platforms, and much less wasteful of precious materials. The Crown naturally had access to such devices, but they were luxuries to use for necessities, not something that could be used to pull out a nation’s population!

“If and when we choose to submit our oath, may we rely on you to serve as an intermediary?” Queen Diana asked carefully.

“I... will agree to do so, Your Majesty.” After all, they couldn’t find or contact Emperor Leviathan regardless. I was basically the only way for them to do so, and I wasn’t going to be cruel about this. “Commander Briggs and Sama can reach me at most any time, so you need only contact Coralost Compound. I would not wait long to do so. And remember, this is a decision made by you, but Emperor Leviathan will not take an Oath your tribe will not obey... so ALL the people of Britain must know of this, and the vast majority agree to it.

“Those who do not agree to it will still be bound by it if Emperor Leviathan accepts it, so if they don’t like it, I would heartily encourage them to leave the island!”

“We will... take this under advisement,” the Shining Queen nodded slowly, and I inclined my head in equal measure. Being able to speak with Emperors and being a Sage myself really did put me up there in the levels of status on this world...

---

The meeting dragged on for another half-hour, with negotiations for the Redshore Marines to start up some fighting here and there for rather large amounts of money. Briggs’ reply to protests about the dollar amount was, “One, it’s a seller’s market. Two, you’ll get your money’s worth, and already have, if you include what we did for the Irish.”

That shut up the Brits, and the meeting concluded soon thereafter.

The Sages promptly rounded on me. “Lady Fae, can you evacuate our people, too?” the Black Raven Sage asked urgently.

“Of course,” I said calmly. “However, you should hopefully be the last peoples to do so. The Aquatics have probably had their fill of fighting the Irish here, and the food you are harvesting is going to be necessary whether you evacuate or not. I think the Commander has another question for the three of you, however.”

The relieved Sages turned to Briggs, who was watching impassively.

“Do you want to take a force over and relieve some of the pressure on the English?” he asked calmly. “They are clearly not expecting you to do so, and you have no normal means of doing so.”

There was a brittle silence in the room. There was a lot of historical bad blood between the Irish and the English, but it was also true that ten thousand English had died fighting the Aquatics. The invaders from the sea were enemies to all Humanity, and their rampages fairly demanded all the retribution that could be unleashed upon them.

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The Irish had never been afraid of fighting...

“We’d leave our people unprotected,” Sage O’Reilly muttered in a voice caught between the need for vengeance and schadenfreude appreciation for what the English were going through.

“There’s not an Aquatic on Ireland right now,” Sama snorted calmly in the face of that. “If they want to reach your people, they’ve many miles to go to do so, giving us plenty of time to get back here with Fae’s aid to meet them.”

“There’s a finman on your mother’s grave, tearing it up to eat the body. There’s another one chasing after your daughter. Do you protect the dead, or save the living?” Briggs rumbled grimly, and watched their faces harden. “Fae won’t be there, but we will. Work with us, and you’re going to be hitting above your weight, and even their Rulers won’t be able to stop us, if there aren’t too many of them.

“We’ve a bloody job to do, and if you’re saving the English doing it, well, it just means you are better people than they expect, and Humanity is indeed helping one another out at this time.”

The Sages and surviving generals looked at one another, the harsh gleam of readiness to fight igniting in all of them. “You can get us back here quickly if the Aquatics come again?” the Dancing Sun Sage asked me quickly, her eyes steady and hard.

“One of you should remain behind regardless, so you can flare a Sage Aura here, there, and everywhere all around the island, as there’s certainly going to be some probes for you to unleash on. But, yes. I can arrive at the side of the Marines within one minute, and have a Portal up within another to transfer any who need to return back here within a minute of that. It is not an issue.”

“You should stay behind.” Sama pointed at the Black Raven Sage, who blinked in surprise. “You’re the stealthiest, the slyest, and you can appreciate what it means to play mind games against them. You can kill them without them having an idea that you are there, and pretend to be here, there, and everywhere. Your compatriots are much more flash and glitter.”

None of them could argue with that. Black Raven’s Elements were Air, Shadow, Water, Poison, and Chaos. The Aquatics he killed often had no idea how they had perished before they were abruptly dead.

“Aye, then, I’ll guard me the shores, while you lot flutter away to have some fun in the damp of England,” he agreed after a moment of thought.

“I’ll put out word for volunteers. I dinnae think there’ll be a shortage,” Fire-Tongued Sage O’Reilly agreed quickly.

“Limit it to the best two thousand,” Briggs rumbled. “We are going to be moving very fast and hitting very hard. The weak will just slow us down.”

The Irish burst into motion, calling out orders and relaying commands to their men. We’d have some revenge-eager soldiers ready to go in no time...

-------

There was a bit of reorganization, as the platoons of Irish mages need a Redshore Marine to relay Briggs’ orders quickly and accurately. The simple fact that Briggs placed more trust in the troopers than what most of their officers were trained to do was something they’d have to get used to doing, but a large number of those mages had already experienced his command and Warlord Aura during the counterattack, and were very eager to follow him to more slaughter.

The Heavens-Up Display maintained by Glenn showing them the tactical situation in real time was also praised by all of them.

I watched them surge toward the siege at Manchester, about to be slammed in the side by most of the surviving Mages, Archmages, and Sages of Ireland, plus the Redshore Marines and the KIA Arch-lads, and had no fears for them. A lot more Aquatics were going to die.

Time for me to get back to a Death Zone and start more reaping to regain some ground...

===========

The Elephant’s Graveyard, Gabon...

I really had given up two weeks of work by flitting off to Ireland to rescue them. Granted, that was two weeks of largely oversight while the Undead Hunters got their reps and reaped their Karma, contributing more with dissuasion and Healing than actual slaughter.

So, I fixed that when I returned to the Death Zone.

The Undead and Shades were packed even tighter than the Aquatics. They had massive waves of Dark Magic on the attack. They were resistant to Elemental Magic, fast, intelligent, powerful, and never had morale problems.

Disruptive and Vivic magic blew through them with impossible speed and savagery, covering the landscape in burning bones and clumps of blackness that were eaten rapidly away. The Death Zone in the Elephant’s Graveyard went from black to white again slowly and surely as we advanced into it, and vivic flames devoured everything they sent at us.

There were a lot of them, but that was fine. The need for Soul Crystals never went away.

They drove the new troops from the Netherworld at us in constant waves, trying to wear us down and push us back, possibly thinking that we’d gone away to rest and recover, and this war of attrition was turning in their favor as long as they could get more souls from Below.

I didn’t truly know how many Netherworlders we’d fed to the Land by now, but it was in the millions with all the weak ones we’d slaughtered. Vivus was pouring into the Land, and the jungle outside the Graveyard was brimming with colossal amounts of vitality.

Not so the Graveyard itself, caught between surges of life and death and basically just enduring it all until it was resolved. The Plants that had lived here were waiting patiently for it all to die down... or fighting alongside us, as they deemed appropriate.

I drove back the undead legions with the Undead Hunters, literally wiping square miles of them away and pushing them back towards the Pyramid whose Doors to the Underworld they were marching out of.

If they came out those Doors, they never made it back through them, as corpses or spirits. They burned en vivus, and they fed the Land. Hulking chained zombies, acid-spitting mummies, Shade swordmasters, toad-like Overseers who could spit out countless zombies and skeletons from their swollen gullets, scythe-armed Reapers, flitting Phantoms or Wraiths of various kinds thinking insubstantiality might save them...

It didn’t matter. We killed them all, much to their disbelief at how good we were at it.