The chicken falling to my power did indeed elevate many in the army into priesthood. I wasn’t sure what was awe inspiring about my avatars grabbing the massive head and moving it precisely in the form of the worship rune, but failing to get blood out of the beast the first time before the rune dissipated and being forced to do it again, but that increased the priest-count in the army more than defeating the chicken had. It also could have been the lacking suppression, as they were bolstered by being zealots while the chicken was still a proponent.
Once the worship process started, though, thoughts of Trgl’s army were driven from my mind. The chicken’s will-core was massive. It had lived for millennia, growing in experience and wisdom the entire time. Delving into its mind as it growled and winced at the most painful conversion process of any worshipper to date was fascinating. Not only was the monster extremely capable of using intent to communicate, it was the primary method of communication between chickens of every class.
Even back when Katrice had been a small beast destined for spawn cook fires, she had had a rich social life with the other chickens in the coop. A social life devoted to making sure they knew she was the most beautiful and mercilessly attacking any upstart that thought they were special. She had been so vicious that even the cock stepped carefully around her. At least, she thought so. Watching her memories from an outsider’s perspective allowed for many other interpretations of what she considered awe and wide-spread acclaim.
When her spawn village was put to the torch for reasons she didn’t understand, her world was thrown upside down. She actually had to fight for food! Unlike many of her coop-mates, she wasn’t satisfied with being a bottom feeder running between the scorched ruins pecking at carrion. She set out into the world, dozens of cowed underlings following. Or she just so happened to go in the same direction and at the same time as several dozen other hens that all saw her as a cowed follower. Either way, she’d left the village with dozens of kin. She’d watched each of them die, but she had maintained her beauty and class every step of the way.
First with the occasional goblin disposing of whatever of their prey they couldn’t eat, being forced to skulk and hide among the refuse of a goblin “camp” had irked her to no end but she’d managed to survive. Then the hound she’d distracted with another hen before latching onto his tail and biting his ass and balls until he stopped moving. Wool bales had been her most useful discovery for a very long time. Until she could crush goblin tribes beneath her magnificent talons and consume hellhounds with a single bite. A testament to her glorious path into near godhood.
The most important aspect of her life, however, was the reason she was on the outskirts of spawn territory. She’d been defeated by two elements in her life; first to a spawn army and second to a dragon in the north. She’d initially fought the spawn after she hit class four and could eviscerate ogres with ease. She thought herself invincible, and was proven wrong by a detachment of around a hundred spawn soldiers. They hadn’t managed to kill her, though. She’d escaped north, fleeing the sun and the spawn that worshipped it.
Until she reached a place the sun didn’t rule, and realized why it didn’t try. A dragon had effortlessly beaten her back into the south, despite her being class six at the time. I’d given up trying to estimate class based on seeing the effect on the ambient mana in person, let alone from a memory, but to beat her so easily the dragon should have been class eight. Or a more powerful class seven that was built to kill chickens, but I didn’t think that was the case. She clearly wasn’t the first chicken the dragon had beaten, though, based on his preemptive measures that countered her tactics. It was a hard line to draw; between being tactically adept at eviscerating a particular kind of foe and having the circuitry built to counter the circuitry of another creature. He’d been satisfied with the victory and allowed her to flee. That led to her returning south, though she didn’t get so close to the sun as she had before. She’d tried to avoid her third loss by avoiding the spawn, but she’d found it at my hands instead.
The only defeat that she considered a good thing, after I’d given her a pair of will-core circuits and fixed her leaking circuits. It seemed that after class five the violence of the leaking mana reached such an extreme that she’d spent more than half of her life in constant agony as the mana dissolved her flesh and blood as the circuits repaired her just that little bit faster. Class eight was impossible, as she spent too much mana keeping herself from boiling alive to progress her circuits. Finding and crushing goblin tribes had been one of her few pleasures, few things could be so pleasurable as to be a true distraction from the pain.
Her circuitry was gorgeous, though. Chickens leaked far less than goblins, even at lower classes. There were hints of non-circular circuits, as if the origin of her circuitry was perfect but over the vast number of generations between her and that original ancestor it had degraded slightly. Or something was acting on chicken circuitry to force them into circles but not succeeding completely. Whatever the reason for her degrading circuits, they were still better than anything I’d come across so far. The array in her mouth that allowed her to create her fireballs was especially miraculous. The circuits on her back teeth each functioned together to create an effect that rivaled a true circuit when she used the appropriate circuit within her maw. A circuit she knew without ever learning. Technically, she was even more ignorant of circuitry than hounds tended to be. She lacked curiosity in that regard. It was masterful work, and an excellent example for me to learn the value of utilizing multiple circuits to create an array. A far better example than my original body.
I was too absorbed in devouring Katrice’s experience to notice an army approaching. What came with them forced me to pay attention, though. I couldn’t even describe what it was, except a chaotic source of intent that refused to be coherent. With that abomination among their ranks, their pretense of stealth made no sense. Surely that thing couldn’t sneak up on anything with a hundred voices screaming they were coming as a thousand shushed them as loudly as possible and yet more screamed expletives while others bemoaned the pointlessness of existence and more whined about how dark it was while the majority were just resentful that they had to be there at all. The cacophony was deafening, but the effect such an intent-based cacophony would have on my circuitry was something I hadn’t thought possible. My avatars were shimmering as every circuit in their bodies suddenly required active control of the mana and will that constituted them. I didn’t even need to tell Trgl that someone was coming, as the loss of the effects of the avatars tipped her off. Or, it should have.
It actually took effort for me to exert my intent to convey an intelligible thought. Even then, Trgl reacted slowly to my warning about the location of the enemy. As if she had to interpret it. I couldn’t even verify if she heard as I was embroiled in a fight to keep my will in one piece. The cacophony was acting like a will-shredding circuit. Trying to wrestle my will from me. To force me to join the cacophony as just another voice among the storm. Or multiple. Given how chaotic the source was, it was far from impossible that one individual could have supplied multiple voices. Luckily, my will-core wasn’t inside my avatars. I couldn’t imagine the difficulty of keeping all of my worshippers if such a being were to interact with my actual will-core instead of an avatar controlled remotely.
Finally understanding my message, “Spawn!” Trgl bellowed, almost immediately echoed by Mgrt. Her relaxing army was instantly boiling with the need to kill. An urge so potent and so unexpected it raised my suspicion of yet another force acting on my worshippers that I couldn’t see. Even the cowards that wished to flee Katrice reacted with extreme prejudice, instantly ready to slaughter until blood and viscera were indistinguishable or be reduced to pieces incapable of movement before they stopped trying to kill.
They bared their weapons and glared around in confusion as many boulders and waves from Katrice’s attack had yet to be reclaimed, making visibility much worse than they were used to. Trgl roared her challenge and followed my directions toward the spawn force. The army followed with gusto. The only exceptions being the Flappers, who were champing at the bit to go but were held back by their new bodies being unfinished. One that was only finished up to the hips had toppled as he tried to join the battle with half a body and left the circuitry building him, forcing him to start over from the beginning. My constructs were forced to wait out the battle as well, as they were the ones providing materials to reconstruct the Flappers. I also instructed Katrice to play dead. She was still very damaged from my star storm and I had a suspicion that she was the reason the army was there in the first place. They would definitely have a way to deal with her, so even her value in a healthy state would be in question. Regardless, I still wasn’t sure how fast she could move. She may not be able to keep up with Trgl’s headlong charge for the entirety of the ten league distance to the spawn force, wounded as she was.
Perhaps they thought they were actually being stealthy, because Trgl leaping over a boulder into the spawn force surprised them. I could understand thinking the bellows and screams from the army were cheers of victory over defeating a chicken, but surely they couldn’t have succeeded in a stealth operation carrying Cacophony, could they? Another option was that the army lacked a cohesive structure, which I could understand. Or that they lacked the senses to hear roars at ten leagues, but that was very common for class three individuals.
Their initial reaction after surprise communicated something different, though. They organized into blocks that moved in obviously pre-learned patterns. Their thick clothes were even colored in a pattern, depending on how the block moved and which weapons they used. Rank was another thing they communicated via color. Color and design.
Trgl’s massive form was devastating in the spawn army. Every movement she made reduced another spawn to paste. Mgrt at her side was equally vicious, though she was better at magic so she spread destruction further into the army. As the forces met in greater numbers it became clear that the spawn weren’t equal to the least of Trgl’s warriors. They fought like an army that relied on discipline, but the discipline was missing. Every new squad of Trgl’s warriors ripped a block open, and the confusion was obvious. With every rabid human that tore into the throat of a fallen foe ten spawn lost their discipline and started wildly swinging their weapon as panic filled their will.
Everything should be going well, but I wasn’t comfortable. My army was devastating the enemy, exulting in every bit of gore they got to spread on their bodies, but my avatars slipped over the battle with deadly calm. Behind the spawn army was a contingent of fifty spawn that were dressed very differently. They wore nothing resembling armor, their clothes were obviously light and not meant for battle. As well as a gleaming shade of white that would be extremely difficult to maintain. Even more odd, they looked at their army being torn to shreds with disdain and not one bit of fear. Their reaction to my avatars was even more surprising. Not fear, surprise, or dread; they felt rage. Extreme rage. A sort of rage that defied reason. A rage that felt personal. Extremely personal. And so intense it matched the unnatural bloodlust that the cannibals felt at word of a spawn force as their next foe.
The leader among the white-skirted spawn stepped forward with a box. “Monsters! Heathens! Vile creatures of the dark night! Know that you worship false gods! Know that your gods will die beside you! Know that the Sun is the only god! The true god! Only the Sun deserves worship! Realize this and despair at bowing your heads to such pathetic false gods that can only pretend to be powerful when cloaked in darkness!” were the last words I could keep track of as Cacophony became deafening. The Whiteskirt had pulled a radiant bit of material from the box. It was shaped like it was a piece torn from a greater whole. A radiant shard that was the source of Cacophony. Freed from the box, the chaotic intent got even more intense, though I hadn’t thought that possible. It seemed that the radiant shard contained every intent possible, all at the same time. Every feeling. Every thought. All at their maximum intensity. Each source constantly changing to make acclimation impossible.
More than mere interference, the influence on what I could do was becoming more than I could manage. The circuitry in my avatars started collapsing. Out of time, I stopped fighting to keep the air from my avatars. The air touched the glowing bodies and immediately acted with extreme prejudice. My avatars had almost made it to the Whiteskirts when the air reacted, blasting them into the earth with more force than Katrice would have warranted. My avatars hadn’t been built to function as stars, but they served that purpose extremely well. They’d always been extremely hated by the air, but advancing their class had only intensified the effect.
The force they hit the ground with exceeded Katrice at the peak of her jumping. Instead of creating a wave, as I’d thought would happen, the earth shattered. Chunks flew with speed and force I hadn’t thought possible in every direction as fissures opened in the ground around my avatars. Speed and force that moved too fast for the air to effectively halt. Such speed that the chunks avoided the suppression of the air and merely had to lose a tiny portion of their force pushing the air out of their trajectory or carrying it with them in a shield that increased in temperature with every pes of distance they crossed. The chunks that flew more directly upwards came back down with the force of stars while the more horizontal flying pieces pulped every body they came in contact with before flying into the distance to impact the ground with force that pierced Katrice’s flesh. Only two pieces had hit her body, as she was quite far away from this battle, but it was remarkable that merely landing had managed to cause damage to her body. Real damage, too. Damage that would have taken weeks for her to heal from, had I not fixed her circuitry. The larger chunk had even managed to break through one of her ribs.
My avatars walked through the broken earth as the continued assault of the air ripped earth from its cohesion into a black cloud around them. Luckily, I didn’t need to see to find the radiant shard and the desperately wounded Whiteskirt. White no longer, broken and bleeding on the ground. “False god, you say?” One avatar grinned as it knelt next to the Whiteskirt’s head. It grabbed the shard and held it next to the Whiteskirt’s head so it could see. “Let’s see which god is false.” It was odd, moving the lips of my avatar as it spoke. Samantha was indeed a good source of practice. Practice I hadn’t thought I’d need, but the future was ever-changing.
Cacophony was starting to make more sense as it felt my grip around what little body it had. More of the chaotic intent was being consumed by panic. The strength was still unfathomable, but without the impossible chaos it was much easier to resist. It had been a long time since consuming a foreign will was difficult, but the sheer power of this will wasn’t in question. Every bit I could consume was volume I couldn’t get from killing an entire city of cannibals. Better in quantity, sure, but the difference in quality was exponential. This tiny shard of the Sun was more nourishing to me than all the cannibals I’d consumed so far combined.
I watched the Whiteskirt’s face as the radiant shard dimmed bit by bit. The rage and hatred was replaced with terror so strong it seemed to defy reason. Until I realized that he’d held the radiant shard. He was probably connected to the Sun in some way. “Demon God, the Sun will vanquish you! Hide in the Shadowed Wasteland of the north all you wish, but light cannot be defeated! Cannibals and their darker cousins cannot consume the Land of Light! They’ve been trying for millennia and will continue to try for eternity! The Land of Light has only grown as time passed! With every day, the darkness hides less of you! In the eyes of eternity only the Sun will reign!”
“Hide? I may be in the north, but I’m not hiding. Not when such a delicious treat is in the south.” I devoured that last of the light in the radiant shard and the Whiteskirt died at that moment. Had his last words indicated that Cacophony had a dominant will? One that truly ruled from within the madness that was all it could exert through such a tiny shard? Perhaps it was Whiteskirt himself saying all of that and Cacophony was merely watching, if there was a dominant will. One instance was far from enough to understand how a creature such as Cacophony would work.
I had been worried about how long it would take to accrue the necessary will to reach the peak of my abilities, but the Sun had given me everything I could have hoped for. A difficult conquest, no doubt, but one that couldn’t be more worthwhile. I had been preparing for this war even before I knew I was going to fight it. The Cannibal Conclave existed on a ring around the sun, every city almost equidistant from the sun. Hundreds of leagues of difference, but inconsequential when compared to the distance between the cities and the Sun itself.
I’d been sending a quarter of the entirety of my population south with every city I conquered. The Sun would feel the force of a quarter of the entire population of the Cannibal Conclave and a good portion of my own resources that had not ceased to grow at an exponential rate. Every soldier that fell would rise with a body given better circuits than the body that fell. Even as the dead rose to fight again, the brood constructs would never still. Ever more cannibals would be born as the brood constructs grew larger. Every force on its own was unstoppable with infinite potential for growth, but I had far more than a single force. I had tens of thousands of forces headed south. Headed toward the Sun and the most delicious snack I could imagine.
I advanced my will-core circuit to the fourth class as my avatars returned to the air. As my circle of influence grew outward with each force I’d sent north, the pressure on the Sun would only increase. Every new species I encountered taught me more. Every civilization had new magic. Magic they were better at than I was or could be in a short period of time. Every revolution of the Sun was a revolution closer to its fate of being my nourishment.
