She isn’t dead yet.
I got that out of the way, because I know if I started with anything else you’d just skip down till you got to that part.
We didn’t drive her off. She didn’t overcome me. None of the contingencies we considered have come to pass. She’s done something else, something we never gave serious consideration to.
Nothing.
I was so certain she would strike as we assembled before Olympus, as my Brides passed in review one after another. Nothing. We passed through an assembly of the greatest of my Warlords a few days later, a chance to humble me before all who believed in me, nothing. She does nothing.
At this rate I am starting to believe I may actually end up walking all the way across the goddamn continent. What a kick in the teeth that would be.
The Demon, a woman so venal she once crossed the world in order to slay Barabus for stating publicly that she wasn’t afraid of her, is demonstrating patience. The mind reels.
I remember you mentioning, in passing, that knowledge of mortality is the truth difference between deities like us and the rank and file. They know that they will die. We… know that they will die. And so it comes to pass. I had always counted the Demon on our side of this spectrum.
But maybe it is not so? Maybe when she asks her oracular pet what will happen if she comes against us she cringes away from the answer that she receives? It wouldn’t be the first time someone lauded for their bravery turns coward at the last.
A pleasant fantasy, but not one that I take seriously. Prevailer has fought for decades, heedless of the odds. The Demon has never backed down before. It is inconceivable, utterly bewildering, that she does so now.
We are missing something. Reach out to our contacts in the infidel lands. Reach out to KEM if you have to. Find out why the Demon isn’t answering our challenge.
And if you ever meant one word of your professions of love, do so quickly. The Brides are not enduring the march very well.
I really like this chapter. It validates some of my suspicions:
Zeus never meant to march all the way across Asia. Doing so with an army of child soldiers selected for having cool superpowers (but not necessarily enhanced durability, resistence to hunger or disease) is not the brightest idea ever. And aparently it’s not working that well.
But now we know the reason why he’s doing it. It turns out that Prevailer’s baby is buying the Union (and possibly the world) some time…
Zeus becomes impatient, attacks the Union prematurely, the Fist does something that kills Zeus (a Fist is an excelent weapon against Zeus, because they are not as afraid of his Light-speed kill), Prevailer has the baby, warps into Europe and kills the rest of the Sunset Army.
Or something cooler, like the Fist mind-controling Zeus somehow and use him to kill Prevailer. IDK
Presumably, the speaker here is Zeus. I wonder why he thinks he won’t die? Does some level of Ultra Tough grant eternal youth?
Also, for a few sentences, the title had given me the impression that “she” referred to Isis.
Not speaking to Zeus’s motivations, but a number of Ultra gifts do grant eternal youth.
Like Prevailer’s for example. She creates a new body everytime she teleports, so she never gets old unless she wants it too. Or like any ultra that’s tough enough (whose form won’t change)
But I think that Zeus is referring to mortality in battle. The others die because they are killed. I don’t think the writing implies that Zeus will live forever
I don’t think Zeus is thaaat tough. He probably isn’t as tough as Prevailer. In another chapter he is implied to be afraid of the fact that humans can mass-produce guns. So maybe he is Ultra tough one or something lile that.
Zeus’s fear isn’t literally guns, it is the way people can combine their powers. “One man makes gun, one man fires gun”, generalizes to “One man replicates Dr. Chen’s research, One man improves upon it, One person takes away powers, or becomes a double Ultra, or whatever…”
Basically, that update is trying to say that he is confident vs. any current threat, but wishes to abort the possibility of being surpassed by some future development.
I understood it’s not literally guns – he wouldn’t have come far if he was afraid of guns – I was just saying he is afraid of human ingenuity, which so far has only produced one thing he could be afraid of: the Process. But unlike Prevailer, he seems to be afraid of firther technological advancements.
” the truth difference ”
Truth => true