War God 5 Chapter 2 (Patreon)

Chapter 2- What’d You Do?

More than one of the girls seemed agitated. Kyle assumed it was because of how he had ignored them. They might play it off, but he doubted even the devoted high priestess, Nyda, liked being ignored. At least no woman he had known liked it. To be fair, he didn’t know any men that liked it either. He took in the site of the city as he descended. There were archers and mages standing all around the top of the wall and in other fortified locations. A part of Kyle wanted to scoff. What had they thought they could do to him, but as true as it might be it wasn’t a good attitude to foster.

“Who wants to tell me why you are all so quiet?”

The girls all looked at each other while Gilthan steadfastly refused to make eye contact with any of them.

“Well, my god, you have to understand, we were worried for you.”

“I wasn’t ignoring you; I needed to float there and take in what was going on inside of me. I was aware you were there. I just had to deal with something first.”

Nyda glanced over at Lash who then responded, “We aren’t trying to question you, but Gilthan described you being injured and then acting strangely. You explained your words to him, although to be fair, you didn’t have to. You are our god and if you want us to call you by an honorific, we will gladly do so.”

“Bah, we’ve had this discussion. I’m not going to apologize because it is something I had to deal with and honestly, you may all have to deal with it too, if my plans go the way, I hope. But, just know that if I talk like that it isn’t me, it is the stress of whatever is happening.”

Raina snorted. Kyle looked at her while Nyda and Lash both moved closer to him and away from the succubus. “You have something to say?”

She snorted again. “I’m not sure if I should. I’m not one of your bonded after all.”

Kyle stopped and pulled at Raina with a burst of Sky essence formed into a gust. Her black wings caught the rush of wind and flipped her through the air into him. He grabbed her and pulled her in. Before she could say another word, Kyle crushed his mouth to hers in a deep, passionate kiss. Only after it went on long enough to become awkward for the others, especially Gilthan, did he stop.

Staring into the deep dark pools which were her eyes, Kyle said, “I already gave you your chance to leave. You are mine now. My woman, my lover, and soon to be my bonded consort. I am going to give you everything you ever hoped for and you won’t have to scheme for any of it.”

For once, the succubus seemed to be breathless, unsure what to say next. After a moment she simply said, “Yes, m’lord.”

Kyle shook his head. “Not you too.”

She shrugged back while Nyda giggled and Lash grinned. “What can I say. They were right. There is something about talking to you like that which makes me wet. You really are a god and if I’m your lover, well then that is just hot.”

Kyle smiled. He had no inclination to fight it. He had a harem of hot women who were each powerhouses in their own right. He was gonna enjoy it. With that thought, he streaked down to the ground. There was a great deal to get done and he needed to figure out the best order.

Saber came up to him. “War god, we have been on high alert since you left. The honor guard informed us that you were going to fight enemies they couldn’t help with. None of the others knew what you meant, but only that you had gone in the same direction as Lord Gilthan.”

“I should have thought about forbidding them from following. It was a close thing with Gilthan, but I will fill you in more about this later. For now, you can stand down. I am almost positive that we won’t be being attacked anytime soon. Tomorrow, I am going to cleanse the rest of the undead army. Any threat we face now is more likely a spy or assassin rather than an outright attack, at least until the void forces decide to make their move.”

“As you will, War God,” Saber said with a fist to his chest.

“Oh, and you can spread the word. Jordan and Himmel are no more. The gods of earth and sky have fallen.”

That pronouncement sent shudders and whispered comments rushing around all the guards. Saber wheeled on the men and yelled, “Stop acting like a bunch of maidens out for their first night on the town and keep your giggling to yourselves. You want the war god thinking you are a gaggle of geese or fighting men?”

Most of the soldiers reined it in, but one man couldn’t seem to and kept freaking out. Saber made a beeline for him, and Kyle chuckled to himself. It felt like just yesterday he had been on the receiving end of barked orders from the retired arena champion.

“What exactly is wrong with you?” Saber demanded, while standing inches from the soldier’s face.

Kyle could tell now that the man was more afraid than anything. “Did he just say that two of the gods are dead? That can’t be.”

“He isn’t just he. He is the war god. You serve him or have you forgotten? And if he says a thing is so, then you can damn well be sure it is.”

Kyle was tempted to stand there and watch what he was certain was going to follow. At a minimum, it would be exercises that had the man wishing his daddy had never smiled at his momma but there was just too much to do. So, Kyle walked into the restored hall. It wasn’t really proper to call it the adventurer’s guild anymore. But then again, the entire world of Verden was undergoing changes. Three of their eight gods were dead, one was reborn from a mortal, and if Kyle had anything to do with it, at least two more of the gods were soon going to soon join their fallen comrades.

A moment after he walked into, he conference room, he heard the girls and Gilthan follow. That wasn’t quite true. First, he felt them. His perceptions continued to expand to the point that it was more about filtering input than actually worrying he would fail to perceive something. One of the voices said, “What exactly was that?”

Even if he didn’t recognize who was speaking the sass in the voice would have told him. Of those in his circle, only Raina would talk to him like that. There was probably a benefit to having her here if for no other reason that to keep him grounded. Of course, it also scandalized Nyda. “Quiet your lying tongue. You don’t address your god like that.”

A short time ago, Kyle would have stepped in immediately to protect Nyda from any retaliation from Raina, but since she had been raised to become a demi-goddess herself, the elven beauty was far more durable. It also helped that Kyle had started to trust the succubus, at least as far as anyone can trust a fiend. She still had some work to do, but so far so good.

As much as a cat fight might have been fun, Kyle was still damaged from his efforts both in the battle and with recreating Gilthan. The cracks in his construct body might not be visible any longer, but he could feel them all the same. There was no way this body would be sufficient to handle the next step forward in power. “Ladies, not now. Raina is right to ask. I’m not so high and mighty that I can’t handle being asked about my thinking. Nyda, I appreciate you always having my back. Don’t think I don’t see it.”

Somehow, he managed to make both women smile, at least until they looked at each other. Their smiles seemed mutually exclusive, but Kyle ignored that. “Ask your questions. Raina you can go first since you had the balls to speak up.”

The succubus was suddenly patting between her legs. “Balls. Nope, no balls.”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “Trust me, I wasn’t talking about your anatomy. It is just an expression from my old world about your moxy.”

She flashed him that seductive smile of hers again and then said, “As long as you appreciate my assets. Although the expression doesn’t seem to make any sense. Balls are sensitive and easily hurt. If you wanted to describe something tough, then you should say I least I had the pussy for it. I mean pussy can take quite a beating and keep ongoing.”

Lash growled, “Are we really going to degrade into innuendo.”

The succubus just grinned at her. “Obviously.”

“Fine, Gilthan, since you are the only one who isn’t arguing, you can ask your questions. I’m pretty sure I know what your first question will be.”

The elven sorcerer sucked in some air. “Thank you for healing me. Thank you for raising me to be a demi-god, but… well, what in all the hellscape did you do to my body?”

Kyle smiled. “I figured. I was reacting on instinct at the moment, as my body was already breaking apart from all the strain. You were severely damaged by Himmel and I needed to fix you. The easiest way was to destroy your body and form a new construct body. Then I bounded your soul with divine splinters of both War and Sky essence.”

“I appreciate that, but what’s with the wings?”

“Like I said, I was acting on instinct. It seemed like it would make it easier for you to fly if you didn’t have to rely upon Sky Essence all the time. And since you already had dragon blood in you, it was easy to add the scales for armor and the claws for weapons. I also made you stronger and more durable, as well as opening and expanding your essence channels. You will be able to cultivate now. You will be safer and more deadly.”

“All good, but what are the girls going to think.”

This time it was Nyda who laughed. Clearly, Raina was rubbing off on her. Well, not literally, at least not yet, but figuratively. “I thought you were proud of your dragon dick.”

Both Lash and Raina burst out into laughter at that. Kyle smiled but did his best to not laugh at his friend’s discomfort. Before it could get out of hand he said, “Relax. This is your natural form now. That means you won’t have to spend any essence or effort to be in this form. That will make you safer, but it will also be easy for you to transform. For very little effort you can return to your former elven form and I think you will also find that if you go all out, your dragon form will be far more impressive than before.”

That seemed to appease Gilthan, who even grinned at some private thought. Kyle decided he really didn’t want to know, but he did add, “If it is still a problem in a few days, then I can destroy you and remake you.”

“Nah, I was just shocked by it. I can see why you did it and you haven’t been anything but a good friend yet.”

Raina said, “It is very common for the gods to reshape demi-gods to suit their purposes. Like what my dad did with me.”

Nyda’s eyebrow arched and apparently that was all the license that Raina needed to expand. “Yeah, daddy dearest reshaped me because he wanted me to be better able to seduce. The funny thing is that he never sent me on missions like that, even after he remade my throat using the idea of snake muscles and how they move so that my throat can contract rhythmically up and down.”

Kyle couldn’t help but shudder as he remembered just how effective her throat was. But Nyda burst out, “Eww, Bedrag did that to you?”

“It isn’t that ‘eww,’ just ask your precious war god how it feels. But no, if you are asking if daddy dearest abused me, no. I did get the sense that he looked at me sorta weird, but even the father of lies didn’t go that far.”

Kyle didn’t want to get off , so he asked, “Who else has questions?”

Lash was the first to speak, “Why did you go to battle without bringing us?”

“I sensed that Gilthan was in trouble and didn’t want to delay, but I also had a feeling that some of the gods were directly involved. We haven’t trained or prepared any of you enough to be in a battle like that. I’m not even sure if we can get you ready for it. Right now, I’m the only one of us who can face another of the gods without it being almost certain death. You see what happened to Gilthan.”

“If we die, that is our purpose. We are here to protect and serve you,” Lash replied with Nyda nodding.

“Be that as it may, it is also my job to protect you. You can’t ask me to put you in harm’s way lightly. I care too much about you as lovers and more, or as friends.” Kyle looked at Gilthan as he said the last part. Then his face grew hard. “But I will if it is required to save this world. Power is not the purpose of power. Yes, those who are strong rule, but we also protect those who can’t protect themselves. The void is coming for all of us and everything that exists. There will no room for half-measures. I can’t promise we will all make it to the other side of this conflict, but if you I do, then I will create a bright future for those of us that survive.”

The mood of the room got somber with that. Eventually, Raina broke the silence, “And are you going to just go around announcing to people that you are killing the other gods?”

“It should encourage our men to know they are on the right side.”

Raina grimaced. “I’m not sure you understand how fragile a mortal world view can be. I know you used to be mortal, but your expanded abilities are probably affecting you. I’ve spent a great deal of time manipulating mortals and one thing is always constant, they react poorly if their view of the world is shattered. The best manipulations always play into their expectations.”

“As much as I hate to agree with Raina, I should point out that the followers of the death god are uniformly having trouble accepting you as the new death god. I can’t imagine what the followers of the other gods are thinking now if not only is their god dead, but they have no new god to follow. Both Jordan and Himmel had much larger followings than Dod did, too.”

“So, your point is that we have to protect their fragile perspective while at the same time also protecting them for annihilation by the void?” Kyle shook his head with obvious chagrin.