Having taken half a minute to get up to speed with the current state of their defense effort, Tilly turned and nodded to Hiro, ready to be swept up to the Peak and the Quest waiting there.  They needed to know what task Origin had set for them. Hopefully, it held the key to their survival, and perhaps even victory.


    That was a lot to hang their hopes on, but they were short on time and options, so it was time to roll the faith dice one more time…


    But, having just run through their strategy with Tilly, Hiro seemed to have caught something.  His rare smile turned downward in a thoughtful frown and he slowly pulled his hand away from Tilly’s shoulder and looked over at Shuji, “Why have the Standing Army Buffs not taken effect?”


    Shuji turned back to the crystal, calling up multiple screens in sudden confusion. “Hmm, you are correct, my Lord. The Crystal acknowledges our commissions but has yet to issue out any of the Buffs we were expecting.”  Pausing in his search, he pulled out another of his seemingly endless birds and whispered to it before sending it off. “ I have reached out to Linus to see if he has any insight in his role as General of the coalition’s forces.”


    Hiro nodded, stepping toward Shuji, “Can you show me the readout of what is registering in the system for our current commissioned officers?”


    “Sending it to you, now.”


    The two began to quickly confer over which forces would receive what bonus, making sure their positioning was optimal for the coming fight, but most of it went over Tilly’s head.  He wasn’t a leader here, he was a trump card.  One that could hopefully get played multiple times…


    Several more impacts struck the mountain, causing strange echoing chimes to vibrate through its smooth arteries.  Tilly had a hard time imagining anything damaging the Peak, but then again, he had only seen the opening thrust of the enemy.  The Corruption’s main force was approaching rapidly but hopefully, the coalition still had minutes before the main body arrived at the first of the Peaks, where Tilly had left them a little gift.


    Taking the small margin that was being offered to him, he began to breathe deeply, centering himself and falling into the pattern that Irchiro had taught him so long ago.  He couldn’t wipe away what was coming with an explosion, there were no brute force options left to them.


    Everything they did from now on would have to be calculated for maximum damage on their enemy''s forces in exchange for minimal use of resources.


    As he settled his mind, his hand strayed to Kindle’s feathers, stroking them as she stirred happily under his ministrations.  He could sense that she was almost fully recovered, the Heat she had absorbed going a long way to getting her back to fighting shape.  She was nowhere near the heat level she had arrived with, but she would still be able to play a role in the coming fight.


    His soul on the other hand was another story…


    He had just pushed his soul to the absolute limit, losing access to almost all of his spiritual abilities. The time he had gained in the chrono reconciliation had done wonders for the damage, and he could feel almost all of the severed connections had healed.  But everything in his core felt tender, its recent restoration standing on the tenuous edge of dissolution.


    Warning, your soul is close to dissolution, guard your will and protect your core, for it cannot take any more pressure or stress until it is fully healed. One day, 11 hours remaining.


    All of this, just to give them a chance to fight in the actual conflict for the plane. The real battle had yet to begin. Sure he had won the opening conflict, but Corruption’s heavy hitters had yet to come into play.


    Oberon had barely been defeated and it had taken Tilly, Erash, and Brokenridge to accomplish the feat. Bezzelbub had been ripped a new one, but Tilly wasn’t foolish enough to think that was the last they would see of the Demonic Prince.  He would show back up before all of this was through, and the next time he came it would be much more subtle.


    The names of the last four Demon Princes whispered through his mind, attempting to shake him from his meditative state.


    Asteroth, Asmodeus, Lilith, and Magog, who had been impossible to miss marching at the rear of the approaching army.  The church had estimated the main force might contain hundreds of beings once seen as Powers on the plane. It was likely that they had been reduced to shadows of themselves by Corruption’s parasites but he doubted the infestations did anything to reduce their destructive capability. It would have offered them a new level of power… at the price of their soul’s longevity and resilience.


    But none of those powers could compare to the remaining Princes. These were creatures whose power had dominated the Multi-Epoch war with the Church long before Corruption’s appearance.


    Asteroth was the premiere Demonic Sorcerer on the plane, bound to many layers of Hell and capable of unleashing incredibly destructive magics. Magog was widely believed to be an unkillable giant, capable of rapidly healing any wound, and was twice the size of many of the largest creatures on the plane. Beelzebub was the least overtly destructive of the Princes, but his unconventional powerset made him extremely difficult to counter, and even harder to kill.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    The Church had entered into major conflicts with each of these three at one point or another… but never all at once, and that wasn’t even counting the final two claiming the demonic thrones.


    Lilith was reported to be a Demonic Enchantress of unsurpassed skill, yet she never appeared in the open. Instead, the Church had struggled to trace the beginnings of many of their worst defeats to her influence. They had no reliable knowledge of her appearance and actual power set. Even thinking of where she might strike set Tilly’s teeth on edge.


    Finally; Asmodeus, the least known of the five remaining Princes. He had ascended his throne sometime in the last Epoch but seemed to have left it empty for the vast majority of that time.  He kept no standing army and this was the first demonic campaign he had chosen to join. No one knew what he was capable of, and the only solid information the Coalition had on him was that he had ascended his throne without contest and had never been challenged for it…


    It was even rumored that only disinterest kept him from ruling all of the Pits.


    Each of the five represented an almost godlike influence on Nephesh, and combined, they led the largest army in the history of the plane...  Cataclysms like this had struck Nephesh in the past, but each time, divine intervention had balanced the scales, minimizing the destruction and maintaining the hierarchy that had ruled this reality since the Second Epoch.


    But something was happening in the Celestial realm… something that the Church had refused to elaborate on, aside from bare hints.  The other Light-aligned religions had faded into hiding and even the darker deities seemed to be under pressure, their influence on the plane waning along with Corruption’s rise.


    Tilly could probably take a hit from any of them at this point and keep fighting and, with his ability to swap stat imbalances, he might be able to hit harder than anything on the plane.  But the “throw and blow” strategy wouldn’t work this time.  Corruption’s army was too large, and more would be arriving any day.  Not to mention that with so many variables on the field, he doubted that following the pattern he had shown the enemy several times now would be nearly as effective as he hoped.


    Tilly’s brooding thoughts were interrupted, along with Shuji and Hiro’s investigation into the missing Buffs by the entrance of another origami bird, speaking with Ichiro’s calm voice.


    “Father, you need to come to the southern section of our defenses.  Something is emerging from the ground near our position.”  He stated in a calm voice, adding nothing further to the report.


    Hiro grimaced, stepping rapidly toward Tilly, “Shuji, we need those Buffs online as soon as possible, requisition anything or anyone, and get it done.” He growled.


    Shuji shot a quick bow in acknowledgment, still sorting through multiple screens. A quick look around showed that Mochizuki had already disappeared. Tilly allowed himself one final meditative exhalation before turning toward Hiro and smiling, “It''s never simple is it?”


    Then he gently set Kindle on the ground, sending her a command to find him when she had fully awoken.  He figured this chamber was probably the closest thing to safety that he could find for her until she was ready to fight again.


    Hiro’s crystalline eyes twinkled, softening the scowl that so often ruled his face, “No, Jonathan Tillman… it is not.” He answered, grabbing Tilly’s shoulder and pulling him through howling winds of space and time.


    Tilly managed not to stumble this time as they landed on the slope of the mountain facing a wall of enchanted glass, growing before his eyes.  The whole thing glowed with imbued magical properties as workers scrambled all over the structure like ants moving at blurred speeds. The smile on Tilly’s face grew as he watched how quickly the intimidating structure was going up in both directions.


    “Unfortunately, that is not what I called you here to see…” Ichiro’s voice stated dryly from behind them.


    Tilly looked over and found Hiro already facing downslope, so he sheepishly pivoted to match the direction of his gaze. Reaching in both directions around the mountainside were ten ranks of Coalition warriors, set and ready to repel the attacks of the vanguard fliers.  The harrying force was continually approaching at a low angle up the mountainside, attempting to avoid the arrows falling in a steady stream from behind the growing defensive structure.


    The sun''s light had almost completely died away as it sunk into the boiling cloud of Corruption’s influence choking the western horizon. However, close-range visibility was maintained by the now significant radiance being emitted from the half-formed magical structure behind them.  Unfortunately, it was not bright enough to see the main forces approach. The thunderous cacophony of their nearness spoke loud enough, interspersed by the occasional bone-rattling impact of Magog’s footsteps.


    The vanguard''s harrying attacks were scattered and half-hearted. After only seconds of observation, Tilly could tell that most of the attackers had already been driven insane by Corruption. Many of the frenzied combatants were put down easily, only for tentacled horrors to burst forth from their corpses. Those were quickly drowned by a tide of dragon glass-tipped arrows, which would then have to be retrieved by a brief sortie from the defensive line.


    All in all the screen protecting the wall''s erection was working well, even if it was costing precious resources to maintain.


    The rest of the vanguard force hovered in thick clouds around the other four peaks, illuminated in brief flashes as they lobbed huge, ritual-fueled magical attacks at the growing wall or the mountain’s Peak.  Each of these attacks was met in the sky by an answering silo from the Coalition’s mage core, resulting in the dilution of the destructive magics, or their redirection to unimportant parts of the mountain.


    Tilly guessed that the main body of the army would soon reach the westernmost of the Council Peaks, the only bright spot left in the smotheringly dark distance.


    Evening had shifted to night with stunning speed, skipping all pretenses of twilight and leaving behind a darkness of profound depth lit only by flashes of destruction.  The air was filled with the enraged screams of their enemy and occasionally cries of the coalition’s wounded.


    It all seemed like they hovered on the brink of chaos, barely clinging to some semblance of control. And this was just the beginning…


    He struggled to take in everything before him, conflict unfolding on a scale far beyond his capability to understand. It was not that he hadn’t been in battles before, but those had all been between one or two Factions, with each of the major players known… this was something else entirely.


    “Do you see it?” Ichiro pointed helpfully, past the fighting immediately ahead of them. Tilly had to squint to see it at first, but once he did, he couldn’t look away. Something large was rising from the unimbued ground just beyond the mountain’s base. A glowing structure rose like a submarine, glowing with an icy energy. It continued to rise until it stood hundreds of feet tall, dominating the area. It looked like a fusion between a mausoleum and a fortress and it was large enough to hold thousands.


    “Is it some kind of surprise attack?”  Tilly asked, trying to keep the hopeless exhaustion from his voice as he settled Kindle on the ground next to him and reached for his weapons.


    “I do not believe so…” Ichiro said, his blank eyes darting over the structure.


    Fifty paces below them, the defenders continued to fight, holding back scattered enemies almost with ease. Now that he was looking, he saw that many of the approaching fliers avoided the new structure completely, and those who didn’t were struck down somehow.


    “It can not be…” Hiro muttered quietly, sharing a look with his son.


    “The Weave is shifting too significantly for me to be sure.  It is all I can do to shut out the noise of such rapid changes in the Fate around us.” Ichiro answered in a hushed tone.


    Then the gates of the fortress swung open, facing directly at their defenses and Identify populated a name for Tilly:


    Hades’ Gate Celestial