Even though Petrió’s conquest was going fast, it wasn’t quick enough for his plans to work, especially taking into consideration how speedy their opponents had turned out to be. While he, together with his advisors, had managed to get thirty cities over their rule, the war god’s followers were already in the three digits.

And with no cities popping into existence, they would soon have to battle to defend their cities against more, better trained and battle-hardened soldiers with their barely experienced ones, a battle that was lost before the first sword was unsheathed.

So, he had to resort to other methods in order to defeat these opponents, researching into new weapons that no one would now how to use due to their latest design and with them having the first few models, perhaps they could get an advantage over their enemies that way, but they had to create not only something new, but something that was also powerful so that could overturn the tide of war.

In order to attract scientists and inventors to work for him he offered them a stable pay while they created and a higher part of the benefits coming from their inventions. This managed to attract quite a crowd, though not everyone was drawn to this. But one of the inventors that started working with them was someone that was interested in quick magic.

He wanted to create an object or method that everyone, magician or not, could use and instantly do magic. He had a prototype that didn’t work and had shown around to investors in other places, but even though he got some funding, it was cut short before he managed to achieve anything, so with the offer of a constant pay, that wasn’t the best, but was better than starving or not inventing, he took the job.

Petrió was actually very interested with his project, because he had done something similar with the defense of his previous home, but the magic was never easy to use or instantaneous, instead it needed preparation and was fixed into a single spot, but it could be activated remotely. If this man actually managed to build what he promised, it could really change the tide of the war they had yet to have.

But if it was easy to use, then as soon as the enemies came along and found one of their weapons, they would be able to use it and with more cities they’d also have more people to construct more of these things, so Petrió ordered all creations to include a safety mechanism against copying if it was used for war. Anything else would still have the plans divided into multiple sections and they’d be built in different places, all in order to prevent his enemies from getting the technology.

But this wasn’t his idea. Nor was it from one of his advisors, instead he “experienced” it first-hand when one of his spies told him how the information gathering had gotten more difficult and it’d take more time before they learned how to build the special sword sheath for the strongest swords they’d found yet, they managed to cut anything, but that also included anything that they tried to store it into.

After another few months had passed, only large religions remained. A few others had tried copying him and his gang and create a country that followed no religion, but they weren’t strong enough to survive the religions attacking them from multiple places, with even more strength that they had first attacked him, because they didn’t want more of these countries popping up, so they repressed them with everything they had.

Now, the five thousand cities of the continent were ruled by fifty organizations, all but one of them were of them directly related to the gods, while Petrió and his thirty-two cities were fighting against such homogeneity.

Some people within the other cities were also against the forced belief over a specific god, but each time they were repressed faster and worse than the last one. At the same time, all conflict seemed to stop as soon as the fifty-first ruler was vanquished, as if all the gods had told them to stop and prepare for the final battle. But this didn’t stop Petrió from gathering more land, though now, with everyone on the defensive, he had to be completely sure he’d be able to take over a city before he went for it.

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He managed to increase his influence to ruling over forty cities within the year of peace, while also inventing new technologies to prepare for whatever was coming. But he couldn’t have predicted what was happening, not in a million years. His spy network managed to gather that many cities were preparing for the summoning of the gods.

This was bad news, because if the populace learned about it, they’d probably rebel against him, who was the main person against the deities, so an information ban was silently created, together with a travel ban to cities not currently ruled by him. At the same time, all the followers of any god were sent to reformation camps where their minds were controlled – to put it mildly – into stopping said beliefs and instead trusting what the government said or believing that only that which could be proven was true.

Petrió quickly turned more and more wary of everyone, even some of the people which had worked with him for a few years when they mentioned something about a summon, a creation of one of their inventors that was trying to finish. It was supposed to “summon” a large portion of terrain on top of their enemies, but the distance was too small to be useful.

He didn’t quite kill them or take their jobs away, but he was very close to doing it. He didn’t want anyone to know about what he considered to be his largest mistake. But the situation only got worse, his soldiers, exhausted from his large campaign were now on strike, not only not wanting to fight for him until they got a rest, they were prepared to fight for it, as he learned that they attacked one of the food storages in a city, which was then also ransacked by the rest of the population.

Before more damage could be done, he gave them a full month of vacation under the condition that they’d spring right back into action if they were attacked. This meant that their military force had almost completely disappeared, except for the few officials that were high up and the guards that could also fight if needed.

But it wasn’t that important that they stopped serving for a moment, because if his plans of separating his ruled lands from the rest of the world, no one would learn of it before they were back in business. Or at least they had to guess whether his army had really disappeared or if it was a trap, trying to catch someone unsuspecting.

But either through sheer luck or clever, well-hidden spies, not long after the army reached their resting spots, divided through five different cities, the scouts informed him that an army was probably moving into their territory, though it wasn’t clear yet if they were simply reinforcing one of their own cities or actually preparing to attack them. The army wasn’t that large to be threatening to his whole empire, but a few cities could fall if they got reinforcements from other towns.

He couldn’t reach a decision on whether to call the soldiers back or not before worse news came; armies from other religions were also closing in on them. What was causing so many people to suddenly take action between themselves? Had they shared information between themselves? Or perhaps something important to spawn their gods was under his territory? That would be incredibly bad luck, but it could be what was happening.

Yet he couldn’t be further from the truth. The troops coming from the other religions were actually going to reinforce him! He didn’t really know why they would do that when he didn’t only represent a government against their ideology, he was the one who founded it.

Perhaps it was to create a sense of trust that they’d then break, but with more and more armies gathering near his governed area he would gladly accept any support against the ever-increasing enemy army which was now conformed of many religions as well. The situation was quickly getting out of control, especially since the area the armies were residing wasn’t particularly fruitful with the farming, so soon the soldiers of both sides started scavenging for food, but the battle still didn’t start.

But still, even more people came, causing conglomerations and the need for space and food started causing allies to fight between themselves, added with the difference in beliefs and the strength of the individuals present, it was indeed a disaster. Spells, arrows, swords and shields sounded on the valley and the citizens that lived in the city that Petrió had conquered were forced to leave in order to prevent casualties and were taken to another city, hopefully far enough not to get damaged as well.