The cowards had withdrawn inside the city walls. Maybe, on some level, they must have known this wasn't going to represent a physical issue for me, merely a moral one. I had plenty of spells and mages of my own to level the walls; hell, we could level the city easily enough once the enemy Soulbound ran out of mana.

But there were over a million people crammed into the densely populated city, perhaps seventy thousand of them legitimate combatants. A sizable proportion of the remaining Beauties had joined forces, after some internecine bloodshed, to settle the pecking order, and they represented a not inconsiderable threat.

I watched from Glimpse as the army formed up for an assault. The city was vaguely hexagonal, and I had stationed one tribe and one legion in six positions around them, reserving the rest of my forces to the west to form the hammer that would shatter the walls and force their way into the city proper.

The legion mages opened the bombardment, blasts of light and fire smashing away at the wall to wear out the defender's resources. After an hour, they stopped throwing up shields or portals to block or redirect the attacks. They didn't have access to mana potions, and mana came back so slowly that it was more valuable than any metal could be in this situation.

Faye held my hand as we walked towards the breach. She was wearing a simple white dress under her furs and sturdy leather boots that crunched as the snow compacted beneath them. Her hair was pulled back on her right side, held in place by Aphrodite's clip. I wore my indestructible tunic and walked barefoot towards the walls. I no longer cared about the cold; the heat from my feet melted the snow, so I was always in contact with the ground.

"I don't see why you couldn't just take out their leaders," Faye muttered as my aura fended off the spells and projectiles that were launched our way. Bright flashes when an invisible blade hit a spell, dull cracks as bolts were destroyed mid-air, showering the snow with splinters and sawdust.

"I blame Aresk," I grumbled. "They've sorted their hierarchy out. If I kill the leadership, which I will soon enough, the next officer in line will just take control. We need to break the defences and deal with the hostages first."

"They're just shit-sitters. Burn the place down."

"You can feel them, with the Source, can't you? Do they feel all that different to the tribes?"

"But they aren't us, and they've chosen to oppose us. I don't care if they love their children; everyone does, so it hardly makes them special."

"They're a danger to this world. You've heard the stories about Mortimer's necromancers that have gone to ground and started their own little empires. We'll have to put them down eventually, and dealing with this lot will save us a lot of hassle in the long run. They did us a favour by grouping up so much."

We came to a stop, a dozen metres from the broken wall. The men along the top were hurling rocks at us that my aura batted aside. I cast Shape Earth and cleared the break, then widened it. The stone flowed to form a perfectly smooth ramp through the walls.

Then the skies darkened, and the ground ahead of me fractured. Red light leaked out from above and below. I shaped the spells, the volcanic vents beneath the walls to either side, which began to glow red at their bases in places as the heat built. The clouds belched fiery death down along the lines of the walls and a few barracks that Glimpse had identified on the other side.

Rock vanished as the explosions deleted it from existence. Men didn't get a chance to scream; they simply vanished into dust and vapour, assuming they were lucky. The ones caught on the edges of the fireballs howled at the terrible flash burns they suffered.

Naromalis Humano Slain x6814

Sixty-eight thousand, one hundred and forty Souls Harvested.

Soulbound Servant slain x153

Three thousand and sixty Souls harvested.

I watched from Glimpse, circling high above as they did what I had hoped they would. Reserves rushed towards where Faye and I stood on the edge of the inferno. The other walls were left almost unmanned, with five in every six soldiers charging towards us. They were hesitant; they knew the danger, and Faye was manipulating their emotions to make the fear they felt even worse, but they still charged. Stupid, brave bastards.

"The civvies?"

"I'm doing it now."

The local people began moving in the opposite direction, towards the eastern gate. They hammered their fists on the wooden gates until some of them found the controls, and slowly the machinery hidden in the walls turned, letting them spill out into the open lands, away from us and the threat their masters represented.

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Glimpse and Wilson both dove on the guards that had remained on station, blasting them with magic to keep them distracted and protect the innocents while the nomads rode out to keep them from bolting into the wilderness and dying from exposure. Satisfied, I turned back to my own problems. Soldiers, and lots of them, with more than a few Beauties mixed in as well.

"I'll wait here while the army moves up," Faye said, giving me a peck on the cheek. The Huskar were already advancing, regimented units moving in lockstep as they strode closer to the walls.

"This won't take long. If they run, and they aren't Soulbound, let them go. Kill all the wizards."

"Yes, love. I remember the briefing. Go on, finish this."

"Taking cities is too easy now. Too much practice," I said ruefully. I turned and walked through the highway I'd sculpted through the devastated walls.

A couple of fireballs wiped out the first units to arrive as they streamed out between the houses to form up. The Beauties at the back shielded themselves, not their men.

Naromalis Humano Slain x413

Four thousand, one hundred and thirty Souls Harvested.

They backed away, terror marring their perfect features, and the wooden beams of the houses began to send out tendrils of green wood, forming a barricade. I walked slowly towards them. I wasn't in a rush.

The impromptu wall of living wood tore apart under my aura's wrath, revealing the four of them and they're reinforcements. A dozen men and women, each equisitily beautiful in their own way, raised a hand and launched their spells at me. I opened a portal beneath my feet and vanished, reappearing in their midst.

I lashed out with my right foot, caving in the ribs of the closest one, as my sword appeared in my hands. I danced through them, too fast, too strong.

Soulbound Servant slain x13

Two hundred and sixty Souls harvested.

Bodies and parts of them lay scattered around. I rubbed my jaw where one of them had landed a hit with a mace that managed to ring my bell. Then I reached out with my divine senses.

The Huskar were almost at the breach, Faye moving to one side to let them march past with a cheery wave. I didn't need to hold the entrance; the Huskar would make short work of anyone coming to try and defend it. I could feel the grim determination to kill flowing off the giants, mixed with discipline and the joy of a dirty job done well.

The Beauties… there… there… there. Dozens of locations in the city. Some were small groups, little clusters of magic users coordinating the mundane troops, but others were more worrisome. Dozens, even hundreds of them, clumped together, too difficult to flush on the first try. Well, too difficult for the army, but I was a godling.

I picked the largest group, appearing in the middle of them as I stepped out of my portal, I unleashed my aura at its maximum potential. Unseen blades sliced and diced everything around me for dozens of metres. Bodies exploded as limbs fell away and chunks were sliced away, blood misting the air.

Then, I moved. My Body stat was ridiculous; most of these people weren't above an A rank, and the only threat they posed was in their numbers. Numbers which were thinned too rapidly for them to react cohesively.

Soulbound Servant slain x189

Three thousand, seven hundred and eighty Souls harvested.

I opened another portal and repeated the process. Knives flickering through the air, blood splashing in the snow or on wooden floors. I moved from Soulbound to Soulbound and exterminated them. They were too much of a threat for me to make the same mistake I had made with Mortimer and Amir's forces. There would be some who hadn't joined this army and had chosen to disappear into the wilderness, who would survive and be a problem for the future.

But here and now, I killed everyone so I wouldn't have to deal with them later.

Tens of thousands of Souls, I left horror everywhere I appeared. Red soaked walls, snow, and trees. I did what it was in my nature to do, and I didn't regret any of it.

Were they all monsters? Probably not, but without their bond, they were free agents, and people with power will tend to abuse it if there aren't checks and balances. The looming threat of their Shikrakyn's displeasure was gone, as was the possibility of growing more powerful.

What they had was all they'd ever get, but compared to mortals, they were the demigods that my fellow exiles had thought they'd become themselves. They could take cities undefended by their peers with no effort, rally armies with their power; they were too dangerous to leave to their own devices.

So I took them off the board, forever. I had to become what I needed to be to preserve this world and survive. As the resolution settled in my mind, I found it got easier. Some of them might have retired to live out their lives as hermits, playing the wise old man or woman who healed the people of the local town or village, but I wasn't willing to take the risk.

I stepped out of a portal next to Faye and took her hand. She looked up at me, a smile on her face, then turned back to the smoke rising above yet another conquered city. We'd done it cleanly this time. A sharp blade and all that shit Tezca rabbited on about whenever I stopped in my domain for more than five minutes.

"I'm going to need to step up the kill teams. We need assassins with magic."

"Yes, you do. There are more of them out there. Some will hide, but most will try and use their power. You are a threat to them, and they know it."

"There's not much they can do to me. It's you and the boy who are at risk."

"Our son is perfectly safe. Haylin and Graben will kill anyone who threatens him."

"Only if they see them coming, love. It's the knife from the shadows that's impossible to defend against."

"Pfft. The only people who get close to him are Mondyn to their bones. They are family."

I considered my own newfound siblings. The gods fought and schemed against each other, and even in the history of the old world, brothers killed brothers, sisters slew sisters. Literacy was a gift but also a burden. Someone who doesn't read lives only one life, but a reader lives a thousand lives and is richer for them. I forget who said it first, but the quote rang true. I knew too many examples of murderous, intrafamilial conspiracies to feel as comfortable about trusting the tribe as my wife.

"I'm not so sure, love. We're done here. It's time to look south to Patricia."

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