The issue with most Divines is that we only look to the past. There is a minor club composed of Arascus and Kassandora who look towards the future, but how many texts on philosophy has Kassandora actually written? Yes, I write this and I am aware of Kassandora’s ‘Philosophy of War’. Why the book is titled that still confuses me to this day since the most it comes in contact with philosophy is in the title. It should be titled ‘Manual to Extermination’ instead. Kassandora herself is aware of this, and that is why there is an entire chapter in her book dedicated to how much her words should be taken as literal instructions and not as intellectual proverb. Arascus is in a similar state. He looks to the future and yet he only uses it to craft systems of rulership. Malam, of Hatred, enjoys philosophy, yet she enjoys it simply to aggravate others. Ask the woman on her own positions and they are nothing revolutionary either. She simply follows her own passions.

That is the separation, is it not? Those of us who do have positive opinions of Divinity only use them in ways to further material goals. There is no Divine equivalent in philosophy to how mortals talk of simply enjoying existence. Those of us who find the answer to that question and are able to find enjoyment in existence stop the eternal pondering and start to live in the material world. Those of us who are unable to escape our thoughts instead bury ourselves deeper.

Another reason why I feel that Divines reject is philosophy is that Divine philosophy, as much as we like to pretend it’s not, is a solved system. The Divines who disagree from a fundamental level will not even bother to engage, for it is not worth their time so thus, the solved system will never be fixed. Frankly, why even bother? Arascus is off building Empires. Kassandora is off evolving warfare. Malam is off ruining societies. And what do the thinkers do?

They sit and think and analyse. In the past, all they have is Maisara’s Foundational Theory. In the future, all the have is Elassa’s Perpetual Decline Theory.

- Excerpt from the autobiography “Roses, Blades & Blood”, written by Goddess Helenna, of Love.

Maisara took another step towards Anarchia. Another wave of ice came over her. Another freezing shower travelled through her mind, down her spine and out of her feet. And again Anarchia recoiled. The Goddess in black skirt and red shirt screamed from ahead. “WHAT ARE YOU!?”

Maisara let the question slide into her, through her and out of her. As quickly as her ears caught the words, her mind processed them and her mind discarded them. Both Arascus and Kassandora had made it clear that the woman worked through emotions. Maisara would not allow herself to even think about the words could mean. She tuned out Anarchia’s questioning. The words became a single long string of syllables and letters that lost all meaning.

The Goddess of Order closed half the distance. Normally in plain, cold and grey silver, now her scaled-skirt and chest-plate were smattered in blood from Anarchia’s heroes. The axe was as clean as on the first day Maisara had summoned it. Time to see what Anarchia was capable of in a fight. This had gone on long enough. If Anarchia wasn’t going to fight, then Maisara would force her to.

Maybe Kassandora and all that great planning of hers wouldn’t be needed in the first place.

Maisara launched forwards, a wave of dirt and mud and grass being kicked up behind her as the woman’s sheer force tore up the landscape. The chills running down her spine dropped. Anarchia dropped her accusatory pointing finger, she put one leg forward, one leg back and turned her torso to the side. One arm came up in a parry and a shadow of red sorcery sprouted from the ground around the Goddess.

Maisara swung her axe around, the blade ready to split Anarchia’s skull open in two. For a moment, all Maisara heard and felt was her own heartbeat and the wind running past her ears. She continued the swing, putting all her force into the blow. Anarchia lifted up one hand, she slid her open palm over the edge of the blade, she pushed it away from her. Her free fist came up, ready to slam into Maisara’s armour. Behind that fist, Anarchia’s red sorcery followed along like a trail of flame.

Maisara immediately gave up on her axe swing. She tightened her core, she used the weight of the weapon as a counterbalance and arc the flat edge of the blade towards Anarchia’s palm. The Goddess of Anarchy slid along the dirt, caught her balance, the axe found resistance it could not push into, it arced around, and Maisara dodged the blow as she was launched a full plane’s length away from Anarchia. Anarchia’s fist continued into the air, the sorcery from it shot upwards and ahead and a beam of crimson energy erupted into the sky from her arm.

What a monster. Arascus had been correct, the woman had the strength of Fer and the sorcery of Anassa. Whereas she obviously wasn’t an expert in using either, the instinctual reactions and the quick movements, the way she had so effortlessly summoned power to amplify her punch and the fact she had managed to throw off an axe throw with just a single parry of the palm was evidence enough that the woman was lacking experience rather than raw capability.

Anarchia turned, her face now calm and ready. The smile had been wiped away, those dark eyes were smouldering cauldrons of rage tinged with respect for an opponent. She lifted her hand up again, pointed at Maisara, and the Goddess of Order felt the chill of Anarchia’s power slide down her back. “What are you?” Anarchia asked again as her stomach obviously spasmed.

Was that an opening? The woman seemed to take recoil from her own power. Was it an opening? Maisara had noticed it before but only now caught the pattern. She had barely managed to evade that attack the first time. But then Anarchia didn’t look too confident in closing the distance herself either. Maisara jumped away, making sure to stay low to the ground, and clicked her earpiece. “How is the situation on the ship?”

“The Lighthouse is approaching. Give us ten minutes.” Kassandora shouted back the reply. “Elassa will be upon you soon!”

Maisara didn’t say anything else. Pestering Kassandora right now would only delay the whole operation. Ten minutes of time needed to be bought, then she would buy ten minutes of time. “Maisara!” Anarchia demanded. “Speak to me!”

What a child. Maisara lunged forwards again, drawing her axe up into the air. She saw the clumsy trap Anarchia had set up. The first exchange had revealed the woman knew what she was doing in hand to hand combat, so the only reason she could be standing without taking any defensive posture was because she was trying to bait Maisara in. That was the sort of mistake only the inexperienced did and experience was not suddenly forgotten mid-way through a fight.

Maisara’s axe slammed into the ground, she used it like a jumping pole to suddenly change her velocity and to dodge to the side. A moment later, a beam of crimson sorcery incinerated the ground where the Goddess of Order had just stood. Maisara held her breath kept up her rotation around Anarchia, making sure to keep her movement erratic yet always closing the gap.

“Is this what it takes Maisara? Are you unable to speak for yourself?” Anarchia shouted again. Maisara didn’t know if she should take pity or not. Although if the question appeared in her mind then that meant it wasn’t worth answering in the first place if Maisara had to consider whether it was important or not. Speaking for herself? There was no reason to speak in a fight. Speaking was done by the winners.

The Goddess of Order lunged and swung her axe again. And again Anarchia blocked it. Her shadow, coated in crimson sorcery, sprung out of the ground and intercepted the blow as if it was a blade parrying another blade. Maisara didn’t bother trying to fight the parry, she let the axe swing out of her hand, closed the gap, and the weapon had already reappeared in her other hand. It came in an upwards swing.

Anarchia dropped to her knees. The Goddess of Anarchy managed to drop more than three quarters of her height in a single movement. Maisara’s axe didn’t even managed to cut a single of the woman’s black hairs. Just as Maisara pulled backwards, Anarchia’s fist slammed into her. Only one thought went through Maisara’s mind: that was Fer’s strength. The only difference was that Fer had claws which would rend through muscle and bone as if they were paper and Anarchia only had a fist.

The Goddess of Order kicked off the woman she was fighting to avoid the follow up blast of sorcery. A sharp pain in her gut meant there was a bone broken. Most likely a rib. Where was Kavaa when you needed her? Maisara grit her teeth and twisted her stomach around in her armour. Her natural regeneration was nothing like Fer’s, but it should be fix the damage in a few moments.

A chill ran down her spine again. And again Maisara shook it off. Anarchia made some horrendous growl as she took a step back, grabbed her own stomach and then picked herself back up. Maisara felt her rib slowly fuse back to the bone. Maybe another Divine would have some great flowery words to describe the sensation of bone touching bone and being pulled past muscle and over organ. Not Maisara though; the feeling was unpleasant. Novel too she supposed, there weren’t many times someone strong enough to break her bones managed to hurt her. “HOW?!” Anarchia screamed again. She was pointing her accusatory finger at Maisara again. And other than the raw confusion in her face, the slightly messed up dark hair and the sweat bursting out over her skin, there was no sign that the woman had even been in a battle. Her red shirt and black skirt were clean and untouched, even her legs were clean of mud, much less blood. “HOW MAISARA! HOW!?”

Maisara thought of making another move onto Anarchia. The bone would take a minute to recover. It wasn’t a major wound but jumping in with it would only lead to more damage. She looked over at the ships in the distance. Four of them were concentrated in a tight group off the shore. When would Kassandora be ready? And Kassandora, ever aware of everything, suddenly messaged Maisara. “If you’re hurt, get her talking. Elassa will be upon you soon.”

To think Maisara was relying on the woman she had once argued for the execution for. How things changed. Maisara stood up and hid the broken rib. “You are strong.” She shouted to Anarchia. If the woman was going to start talking, then let it happen.

“I have Fer’s and Anassa’s strength.” Anarchia shouted back. “Of course I am. How are you immune to me?”

Maisara didn’t know if the woman was being serious or not, so she just answered as honestly as she could. “How am I supposed to know that?”

“I sap emotion Maisara!” Anarchia admitted it so openly that for a moment, Maisara was taken aback. These new breeds of Divines were in fact odd. All the pre-Great War Divines would hide their powers to their graves, no one even knew how hot Alkom could burn or how much voltage Zerus’ lightning pumped out and those weren’t even particularly secretive powers. Was the woman really truthful? Maisara scanned Anarchia again. She didn’t seem to be lying…

Oh.

Stupid then.

“How are you immune to being sapped from?!” This time, the demand was more frantic. Maisara stared at the woman for a moment and realised the issue. She had seen this behaviour many times after all, it wasn’t particularly hard to categorize: A Divine that considered itself always right and omniscient in all things that mattered suddenly found itself against a person who completely fell outside their purview.

Truly, truly sad.

Pitiful.

It’s such a shame that Maisara had never felt such a thing. “I’m the Goddess of Order Anarchia. Do you think I’m such a child I can’t control my emotions?”

“There’s no emotions to control!” Anarchia shouted back. Maisara leaned from one side to the other as she let her regeneration keep on working. Should she argue? She supposed that if she needed to ask herself if argument had to be made, then there was no reason to argue in the first place. She just remained silent. There was no reason to even engage. Besides, it was just wrong. Maisara did have emotions. She was sure she did. Another wave of ice hit her and bounced off immediately. Even faster this time.

“Is that your power?” Maisara asked.

“You felt it?” Anarchia replied with her own question. Well, that was answer enough.

“Should I have not?”

“You’re the first one.” Maisara shifted posture again and made a theatrical display of spinning her axe around. The weapon actually had nothing to do with anything, it was only there to capture Anarchia’s attention as Maisara pressed her own palm into her bloody armour to help her rib get into its proper position.

“Okay.” Maisara said. Was she supposed to be impressed? That this woman she did not respect praised her for being unique? It was an ant praising a peacock for its feathers. Both true and needless to state!

“Okay!?” Anarchia took issue with that… apparently. Maisara questioned what the woman even wanted to say? What? Was the woman actually expecting gratitude from an opponent? Gratitude would come in the form of a mausoleum instead of a ditch. Anarchia had not yet managed to pull her own corpse out of that ditch either.

Maisara suddenly felt the annoying flash of pain in her torso vanish. And she knew her natural regeneration was finished. If this woman was incarnated thousands of years prior, then she would have been a monster. The experience of the Great War would have given her such skill that she could rise even to the power of the ancient tyrants. But unfortunately, Anarchia did not have that experience. She even allowed herself to be strung along on conversation mid-fight.

Maisara cut the conversation off. She lunged forwards. She stepped into shadow. She saw Anarchia’s expression of shock and surprise. And Maisara pulled away from Anarchia once again. She jumped backwards once, then twice and then a third time until there was a solid distance. Enough that closing the gap would give a few seconds of reaction time at the very least.

Both Goddesses turned to see what was causing that huge shadow. Over the horizon, the sun was beginning to push back the night sky. The stars had already retreated and the sky looked as if someone had smeared it with all the colours of flame: purple and blue and red and orange and yellow. And from the horizon, high in the air, above the rising sun, there was a black spot that silhouetted itself against the brightening sky.

It slowly flew higher and higher, looking as if someone had plucked an iceberg out of the ocean and sent it flying through the air. Or maybe as if someone had managed to rip a mountain out of the ground and suspend it in the sky. Oh. Maisara put together what she was looking at. It was exactly that. Enough ground had been ripped from the ground to make a mountain and it was travelling higher and higher until it looked down at the clouds, much less the world underneath them.

The earpiece turned on and Kassandora spoke again. “Elassa has arrived.”