Tree of Aeons

Chapter 353. Propaganda of the Periphery

In the pits of darkness, across the many worlds, the tale was often similar, even if they came in slightly different hues.

Death. Loss. Hunger. Cold. Loneliness. Despair. 

Meun felt it all the same. He tried to stand and fight, but his body had nothing left to give.

There were a million ways for people to suffer. 

How unfair! How cruel. He had given so much, and yet there was nothing!

Hungry and desperate, even if they'd been on the roads for days and months, the demons did not care.

The mortals that suffered across the peripheral worlds fled where they could, hid where they could not. The Order has seen the fleeing masses so many times that they no longer react to them. 

Meun did not know how to react when he saw giant legs emerge from the skies. 

A titan warped through the gates, A giant fortress with massive legs crushed the demons as it stepped out of the rift. 

Those that ran, ran harder. Fear. They were soaked in it. They had felt fear all their lives that the Order knew that it would take at least a generation or two to undo the effects of such long-term exposure to an unstable life. 

Many of them were not saints. Many were greedy, many were ambitious, many more would sacrifice their friends if it meant saving their own lives. But under the terror of demons, there was nothing for them.

Death was the only thing the demons desired from the living. 

Meun cursed and thought this was the end. 

The fortress cannons began firing, and the army of demons burned. A sight that many would sear into their eyes, the first moments when their crushed hearts allowed itself to believe. Their dried eyes, unable to offer up even tears of joy, because it only seemed like an illusion.

A mistake. Surely just another bunch of demons fighting amongst themselves. 

The peripheral worlds were painted by such scenes many times, as many of them were just as desperate. Even those that were in far better states had territories where all seemed lost. 

The demons burned, and the screeches of destroyed demons were horrific.

But to the survivors, it was music. They sang their names, the heroes of the broken worlds. Angels of fury and power. The giants of light and divine weaponry. They'd come from afar and fought to free them all from the terror of demons.

The war of demons was a tragedy repeated one time too many. 

Then, the furious valkyries arrived, and their fury seemed boundless. They came in fleets, accompanied by titans.

Those looking up from the hideouts and battered forts could not help but think; what could these people be if not angels?

Their name became legend, their feats turned into song. 

Here was the day. The day when the fury of the heavens came for evil. They did not call themselves angels. They called themselves the thorns. The impaling spear that skewered the monstrous.  𝙧₳ꞐȱᛒĘṥ

Meun stood, his legs standing but there was no strength left in him. He held his spear, trying his best to stand. His friends, his fellow warriors all tried to do so.

Then she appeared.

Even the most valiant of defenders felt a weight on their shoulders as the angels’ leader, a woman draped in armor, approached them. 

In their eyes, her divinity was clear. She glowed like the radiant sunbeams through a peaceful forest, an imagery imprinted even in those who had never seen forests. Her eyes did not glow, but they felt themselves scrutinized by divinity.

"Warrior." She spoke, and each of them was transported into that forest. Even though they were just one of many in that moment. It was as if she spoke to each of them individually.

These imaginary sunbeams landed on them, and their hearts trembled. Their knees, if they still had them, were on the ground. They kneeled to her, and even without the words, they knew they had already sworn to follow. 

"It is not over yet. We have more to fight." She said.

Fight what? Fight who? 

It did not matter. 

The Warrior Meun felt her words print itself in what was left of his heart. 

If she told them to fight, they would. The survivors felt her touch as her hand touched their head. 

"Come. You may choose to join us, or you can stay and rest." 

She claimed it was a choice, but to them, it never was. 

If there was a point when a warrior turned into a zealot  - if there was a moment when their life finally turned, this was it. They do not know, but their hearts now believed.

Some of them had learned of the old gods. Once upon a time, some of them might have even prayed to them and hoped for their blessings. In better times, they might have made a journey to a temple or an altar of the old gods to make an offering. 

Some of them did not believe in gods, they had long believed that they lived in godless worlds, and that no one was coming to save them. After all, they'd lived years surviving in a world ravaged by demons, and there was no one coming to save them.

In all their hearts, the lady's words were rampaging hunters of the mind, and now their mind tolerated none of that old nonsense. 

In their hearts and in their minds, in their soon to be constructed towns and future cities, they erected a statue in her honor, for she was the Matron of the Unchosen. 

The fury of the abandoned. 

"Yes." They all answered, and it is as if their hearts were imprinted. 

Meun felt the words echo through his body, his flesh.

His soul hummed to receive it. 

When he was once really young, when the cities and towns he lived in were not yet rubble, he once heard that people knew when they found their lives' goal.

It sounded so ridiculous then.

As if one's purpose was so easily known.

He was wrong. 

[ You have joined the Army of the Unchosen. Special abilities and advantages are now active. ]

A mark appeared on their arms, the mark of admission. The sign of their new life's goal. 

"Come, warrior. Rest can wait." Her voice declared. "Save your people."

***

Their matron was a relentless leader, and they pushed themselves harder than ever. 

Cities that should have fallen lived to see better days. Towns that should have burned found themselves still standing. 

They were gathered from many cities and many towns. Hundreds. Thousands. The numbers did not matter. They knew in their hearts that when their lady commanded, they had to follow. 

"Train." The matron introduced them to one of her peers. 

A creature that seemed more armor than man. He towered over them all, even taller than the matron herself. "You have been chosen to join Lausanne's Army of the Unchosen. My job is to whip you into an army. With what little time we have left."

Blades. Swords. Spears. They were survivors, and they'd used whatever they had to live. To fight. To defeat demons that came for them. In the presence of the armored trainer, they were young children trying to write simple alphabets. 

"Train!" He roared and they followed. 

They trained for two days, patched up, and through a portal, they were sent to another battlefield. 

***

After every battle, their Matron walked the healing tents, many of those nearing their deaths climbed with all their will to get a sight. 

Her peer followed close behind. 

"A pity we couldn't spare more of the Order on these battlefields."

She sighed, and all of them felt the immense sorrow of their Matron in their souls. She claimed one death was still one too many, but not one of them would ever say it was in vain.

Those who could still talk, wanted to tell her this was their choice. None of them regretted putting their lives for her cause.

But in her presence, their words found no voice. Many would live, but enough died after every battle. Their worlds were large, and this was not the only battlefield. The Matron's closest warriors, her 'angels' would lead the other battles.

"Why do we not have enough healers?" They heard their matron ask. 

To Meun and his fellow believers, they would rather bleed and lose their limbs than beg their matron for more. 

"We only have fifty, ten of them are already here. With thousands injured, it is a fact of life."

But the war wasn't over yet.

The healers marked those who were fit to fight, and sent them back out.

***

Fight! 

Their hearts roared, their blood burned. Their hands attacked with all their might. Victory after victory, but it was not enough.

Their matron destroyed the riftgates, her beams of light crushed and purged the foul creature's pathways. 

Their matron's fury came for the demons next, her living spear tore through the lesser demons effortlessly. 

There were some who say, if the matron is so powerful, why did they need to fight?

Fools! They would all answer in unison.

They may not be much, but who else protected the cities and towns while the matron hunted? 

It was they who kept the demons contained, so that the matron and her valkyries could cull the demons with a single strike!

Even if their brothers died by their side, even if they lost their hands, even if all they could do is to form a wall of flesh to stop the demons from taking a single step, when their matron called, they would answer. 

They could not go back to the days when they were alone. They cannot return to days when all they could do was struggle helplessly against the tide. 

Their matron's allies and forces were numerous, but thousands more were needed. They needed thousands to guard every city, every town. They needed thousands more to hunt down every last rift that spread more of their foul ilk into their worlds. 

There were at least hundreds of these rifts on every of their worlds!

After every major battle, they would gather before her, stronger and higher leveled.

They would listen to her. 

It was a briefing. It was a discussion.

But for many of them, it was also a sermon. 

When they all spoke, it was as if they were gathered in that tranquil forest, and she stood on top of a golden platform. Her radiance was absolute, and divine. 

Her voice was the whispers of the world itself, compelling them to do whatever she declared. 

"Once we free this world from the demons, half of the strongest amongst you will join us to fight on the other worlds. There are places that need our reinforcement." Their matron declared plainly.

But Meun and his fellow army men saw and felt her anger, her frustration at how slow things were moving and her desire to serve. They nodded. 

Meun may not be very strong. He was only about level 50s, but it did not matter. He never felt more chosen, more divinely ordained for this task than before. 

The Unchosen Army grew, and their numbers gained with each new city and town freed. Every week or so Meun noticed a hundred, or two hundred fresh warriors joining their ranks. 

***

They all knew their next battle was unique. Special.

Because they felt it. 

The demon king's presence was like a giant pyre of magic. It was unmistakable.

Even though they were a day's march away, and they would be on guard to prevent the lesser creatures from disrupting their matron's fight, the creature seemed to pulse.

They could sense the demon king. They could sense their matron's intense focus and preparation.

"Tomorrow, myself and Ebon will challenge the demon king. It should be a fairly straightforward battle." Their Matron declared in certainty.

To Meun and his fellow Unchosen, it was as if their Queen declared war. 

His fellow unchosen turned religious since they joined this army, and by their own will and efforts, they created a small temple. Some of their Matron's angels were healers and priests, and they worshipped their one true divine god, the Tree.

But for the Unchosen, they were bound by power and faith to their matron. To them, their faith was not to this distant god. To them, their faith was to the furious valkyries. To them, their worship was to the lady with the living spear.

So, in army camps and in towns, it was the statue of the Spear Lady that was always decorated with flowers, surrounded by oil lamps and candles, and little pots of plants. It was the statue of the Spear Lady that the soldiers prayed to for their own safety and protection.

Before every battle, the soldiers would pray to the makeshift statue of the spear lady. 

They prayed for her well being, for her fury to overcome the symbol of darkness, for her power to crush them and chase them back to where they came. 

It was what they believed, and the priests and crafters made little trinkets.

A small woman holding a spear larger than itself. 

An Amulet of their Spear Lady, the Matron of Peace through War. 

It did not matter what others said or even what the Matron herself declared. 

Did it matter that the Matron herself asked for worship of her patron god, Aeon?

Faith was felt in the soul. Faith was carved into the bones, and it also seeped into its marrow. It was entwined deeply in blood, and the soldiers and warriors who witnessed divinity in the flesh, knew who to pray to, even if no words were ever said. 

***

It was a clash of gods, even if their matron's angels claimed they were far from it. 

The matron claimed it was nothing more than a battle with a demon king.

But to the soldiers and her faithful from afar, what else could it be?

When each of their strikes could level mountains and carve canyons from flat land, the specific details of whether they were gods or not seemed pathetically pedantic.

They were gods reshaping the land. The titles were trite.

The ground shook, the later stories would even claim the demons wailed and begged as if they could talk and negotiate. 

They saw the flashes and beams of light that made clouds of shockwaves in the skies above, and tales would turn them into how their spear broke heaven apart and everyone could see the stars without the light. 

They would claim that the radiance of those beams were so bright that the sun seemed to dim in their goddess' presence.

They did not need to see it in person, to feel how the world was twisted into something else by the raw power at display. 

The two gods and the angels were in an intense battle, and those who joined the [Army of the Unchosen] could feel their matron's strikes with their hearts. 

Their souls hummed whenever their matron attacked. 

It lasted for hours. 

Some said it lasted for days. The stories of the later years would warp them in the future into weeks of battle. The tale of how the Spear Goddess slew the source of corruption and banished the demons back to their demonworlds would be retold in many forms to their children and grandchildren.

Some worlds would carve the tale into rocks and stones for eons to see. Some worlds turned them into relics and holy books.

Young children on their bed would ask their fathers and mothers for tales of how the Spear Goddess slew the Demon and brought about Eternal Peace.

Even if there would be many other battles against the demon kings in the years to come, even if peace was an ongoing effort with many more battles, it was the first great battle that entrenched itself into their world's cultural and storytelling tapestry.

A tale commonly retold in many forms, in many of these long forgotten and soon-to-be abandoned worlds.

Many theologically focused historians would claim this was what the story of what the heroes of the old gods should have been. Perhaps, if the heroes were not hamstrung by the limitations of their [class] and the challenges of their characters, some of these heroes could have been the new stars of the world.

Historians and scribes more focused on the story of empires would also say, this was the story of when the old gods began to give way to the new, a turning point in the epoch of faith. The point when the stagnant constellation of stars began to change and accommodate the birth of new mythos, and a new pantheon.