Board & Conquest 127: Juggernaut

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Filou had thrice witnessed gods personally taking to the field of battle.

The first was during the First Incursion, where he witnessed Lord Wepwawet duel the Titan Whiro in a cataclysmic clash that nearly tore apart Narc and led to the death of Goreville, Grudu, and many others. 

The second was when his god participated in Lavaland’s godly tournament and held an entire floating island upon his shoulders. 

And today he witnessed a third use of that Miracle, except his patron wasn’t here to protect him this time. 

The air grew foul all of a sudden, the stench of rot and molding flesh filling all of Lune. Filou almost choked on it through his respirator. The noise of millions of flies echoed like a thunderstorm as the enemy Idol finished animating. 

“So good, to taste mortal fear again!” the wicked Beelzebub boasted, his buzzing voice carrying across multiple city blocks. “I can finally purge you all myself!” 

“Open fire!” Sultana Alexandrite shouted to the mages, her hands throwing a magma bomb at the giant fly. Although Lord Wepwawet’s Antimagic Lock Miracle had suppressed their buffing spells and magical items, they could still cast new ones. 

Dozens of spellcasters from Lavaland, Shadazar, and Zoramesh alike focused all their efforts on the Titan like they did with his Idol beforehand, hurling volley after volley of thunderbolts, ice shards, fireballs, and all kinds of magical projectiles known to mortalkind. This barrage would have likely brought any castle to ground.

Their spells bounced off the monster’s exoskeleton like rain droplets hitting a stone wall.  

“Cute,” Beelzebub buzzed with contempt, pointing his skull-topped wand at the buildings and bridges on which the mages had taken position. “Now, witness the storms I once commanded!”

Filou’s heart skipped a beat in his chest. “Disperse!” he shouted to the troops, hoping his voice would reach them in time

The skull atop Beelzebub’s wand opened its mouth and screamed. 

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A whirlwind tore Lune apart. 

Beelzebub’s wand lit up with absurd quantities of mana and unleashed a breath of despair upon the city. A stormy typhoon erupted from its mouth straight at the mages and pulverized everything in its line of fire, toppling spires, collapsing bridges, and shattering blackstone. 

“Oath of Spring!” Wepwawet frantically cast a second before the shockwave could hit his Champions, protecting those he could with barkskin to lessen the impact… but he might as well have poured a bucket of water on a forest fire. 

He felt his Champions’ pain through their connection as Beelzebub’s storm decimated them. 

Filou, Igor, and so many others were thrown backwards, while the likes of Bernie and Alexandrite smashed against stone so hard that their bodies broke into multiple pieces. The storm left a trail of destruction stretching all the way to the crater’s edge and killed thousands upon thousands with ease. 

Wepwawet winced as he sensed his Champions’ deaths reverberate through his Influence. His Oath of Spring had only spared Filou—who had managed to bolt away from the center of the blast—and Igor—who was tough enough to survive almost anything. Every other nearby Champions’ souls returned to him with a frightening flow of notifications. 

Alexandrite, Volcanic Queen, deceased.

Wintresse, Diabolical Witch, deceased. 

Bernadette, Picky Eater, deceased.

He could sense his fellow gods’ dread through their overlapping Influences, for they too had lost Champions in the blast, and not all of them had the Miracles required to raise them from the dead. Not to mention the hundreds of deceased common soldiers. 

Such was the destructive power of a Rank 12 Divine Avatar in action. 

Beelzebub looked at his work with vile glee, his malevolent laughter echoing with power. The buzzing amplified as his flies spread across all of Lune in a flood of vermin, and with it, his wicked power. Wepwawet sensed a dark pressure pressing down on nearly all of his Champions and followers who lacked Ailment immunity, slowly robbing them of their vitality. 

Beelzebub’s Sin of Gluttony inflicted the Famine Ailment on all units! Max HP and physical stats will continuously decrease until death!

Beelzebub’s Bug Crown enthralled all lower-ranked Bug Types!

Wepwawet immediately saw the impact of these abilities through the eyes of his many followers. The lunarians and parasites of Lune immediately redoubled their assault with renewed aggression, Beelzebub’s control robbing them of their sense of self-preservation and leaving only single-minded determination. The only silver lining was that Sun Wukong seemed to have managed to protect Thoon from the effect with some kind of Prophecy and Anansi teleported bug-type Champions like Crafty back to Shadazar to save them from mental domination, so none of their own troops turned against the gods. 

Ganesha was the first to speak up once the shock settled. “This is a disaster!” 

“Wepwawet, summon your avatar!” Hel all but ordered him. “Now!”

“How?!” Wepwawet snapped back. “My Idol is in Verglane, and I can’t exactly teleport it to the moon either!”

It was said the only counter to a Divine Avatar was another, and that option was out of their hands. 

“We need to hold out,” Epona suggested, trying to project confidence to keep the other gods’ spirits high. “He’s bound to run out of mana at some point.”

“No, he only needs to pay the maintenance cost once per day outside of a B&C battle, and he probably has enough reserves to last until the Incursion,” Horus pointed out. It was rare for Wepwawet’s cousin to sound so grim. “Our Champions will have to destroy him.”

True, on paper, Divine Avatars were the equivalent of Rank 12 creatures: monstrously powerful, civilization-razing monstrosities, but still beatable. Sufficient force could destroy the animated Idol and banish Beelzebub from Elphion. 

In theory.

In practice, while they had powerful troops on the field, none of them even came close to being capable of matching a Divine Avatar one-on-one. Numbers and superior tactics could offset the gulf in power, maybe give their Champions a chance to win, but certainly not without immense casualties. 

This would be a tough fight. 

But then the light of hope struck Beelzebub in the form of a laser beam to the back. 

The attack came so suddenly that all gods, the bug Titan included, were struck speechless when a certain oversized brain turned against its master. 

The Overmind glared at its own patron with murderous fury in its only eye. 

“BEELZEBUB!!” The giant brain mentally broadcasted to everyone in the city in the form of a telepathic equivalent of a roar. The entity telekinetically raised entire chunks of bridges and other debris, then flung them at Beelzebub. “TREACHERY!!”

While a shocked Beelzebub raised his arms to protect himself from the projectiles pelting him, Wepwawet saw a change on the battlefield. The automated golems and turrets stopped firing at the invaders, and now turned their entire firepower on Beelzebub. 

“What’s going on?!” Ganesha asked. “Are they turning against each other?!”

“I think the big brain figured out the bug is planning to destroy the city!” Sun Wukong said. “Thoon tells me it might be able to reactivate the Lighthouse relay!”

Ironically enough, the lunarian civilization’s leader wasn’t a Bug-type creature, so Beelzebub’s Bug Crown didn’t affect it. A split in the ranks might just give Wepwawet and his allies the opening they needed. 

“The automated defenses may have turned on our side, but the lunarians are still under Beelzebub’s control, and the Gravitational Engine is still active,” Epona warned.

“Just wait, my Skitter is gonna wreck it soon enough!” Artemis reassured her.

“Wait, the worm is not under Beelzebub’s control?” Anansi asked, dumbfounded. 

“What, of course not!” Artemis protested. “Worms aren’t Bugs, they’re Slimes!”

“What the–” Hel choked. “How can you be a goddess of the hunt and be so bad at biology?!”

“I’m not lying, that’s Skitter’s type!”

“Then we may have a chance!” Wepwawet said as he began to give orders. He had to believe that their Champions would pull through. “Ishtar, Sun Wukong, summon your Molek and Zodiac Protector! The rest of you, keep the lunarians busy until the fleet arrives.” He then turned his attention to his followers. “Filou, Igor, look for survivors and help the wounded! Glatisant, Insupportable, swat that minion-killing, princess-stealing fly!” 

Not waiting for a response, Wepwawet quickly moved on to use his trump card. He had hoped to keep it a surprise for the Fourth Incursion, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

“Maze Shift.”

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Beelzebub had almost forgotten how good it felt to smite mortals where they stood. 

After two whole years bound to a chunk of stone in space and forced to deal with lesser creatures, he finally relished the simple pleasure of putting these uppity slaves back in their place. The might he wielded as the Lord of the Flies paled compared to the divine power he once commanded, but he would lord it over those fools all the same!

Nonetheless, it annoyed him that the rebellious Overmind’s laser beam made him itch. That cursed Wepwawet’s Miracle had negated Beelzebub’s control over the creature, and now it wanted revenge. 

“RETRIBUTION!” the brain broadcasted in its alien language. “EXTERMINATE!”

“Go back into your jar, you feeble mind!” Beelzebub buzzed back with annoyance. He waved his wand and commanded his army of flies to descend upon the rebellious slave. A swarm vast enough to darken the sky immediately attacked the Overmind from all sides and forced it to redirect its telekinetic powers towards shielding itself rather than bothering Beelzebub. 

With the annoyance taken care of, Beelzebub pondered what to do next. A mortal fleet was on its way, but no feeble footsoldier or ship could match a god like him. His slaves could handle the mortals and automated defenses. 

No, Beelzebub’s priority was to preserve the Gravitational Engine and make sure everyone in the city perished with it. The entire lunarian civilization had lost its value with its capital breached and its Overmind out of control. 

They could perish with the rest of them.

And so Beelzebub flew straight towards the Gravitational Engine, his wings whipping up hurricanes in his wake. Two flying lizards moved to intercept him, and to his annoyance the Titan recognized that dimwitted frost dragon whose stupidity had cost him the Battle of Promesse two years ago. The loathing appeared mutual, for the dragon immediately attacked Beelzebub with a stream of ice. 

“I remember you, you thieving wasp-thing!” roared the frost dragon, his breath barely more than a brisk breeze to Beelzebub. “You are the bug who tried to rob my old den!”

“I am afraid to say I have grown hungry,” the yellow one said. “Since you are very low in the food chain—right beneath minions, in fact—I must ask you to make the ultimate sacrifice for the greater go–”

Beelzebub raised his wand at them while she wasted her breath and unleashed a stormy cyclone to blow them out of the sky. The yellow dragon flashed with lightning and managed to fly out of the way, but the frost dragon was caught in the whirlwind and thrown straight through a nearby spire. 

“Why does the food always have to fight back?” the yellow dragon complained as she flew around Beelzebub at immense speeds. She blasted him from behind with a thunderbolt that he had to admit itched a bit. “This is pulchritudinous!”

“You moron, pulchritudinous means beautiful!" Beelzebub replied as he did his best to ignore the small fry and caught up to the giant worm ravaging his Gravitational Engine. His rounded eyes quickly caught sight of the lightning dragon coming at him from the left. 

“A dragon’s word means what they me–”

Predicting her trajectory with his superior vision, Beelzebub struck her with his wand with all of his might. The sound of her broken fangs flying and the impact that followed as she hit the ground was almost as pleasurable as the silence that followed.   

Now bereft of annoyances to swat aside, Beelzebub dug into the ground with one of his four hands, quickly grabbed the tail of that worm ripping its way through his installation, and then began to pull it out. The furious kaiju erupted from the moonsoil, teeth out, and attempted to bite Beelzebub. 

Such a pity that a giant fly still moved quite fast.  

Beelzebub grabbed the worm by the throat—or what could pass for one—with another one of his hands, quickly restraining it. He then began to pull with both hands with the intention of tearing the creature apart from the middle. The worm’s screeches of pain were a delight to the fly lord’s ears, almost as much as the increasing tremors rocking that desolate rock they called a moon.

“I hope this will make your girlfriend cry, wolf-bastard!” Beelzebub boasted to all who would listen. 

A bovine roar answered him. 

Beelzebub barely had time to turn his head as two giant figures emerged from the ruins of trampled lunarian city blocks. The first was that statue of the Monkey King his spies had seen duel the wolf-bastard’s Divine Avatar in Lavaland; the other was a mechanical, colossal bull burning with hellfire. Ishtar’s work, no doubt. 

Neither intimidated Beelzebub, who knew they couldn’t match his Divine Avatar. He promptly threw the worm kaiju away and quickly blasted it with a whirlwind in midair, the impact propelling it into orbit towards the second moon. He then grabbed the charging bull by the horns, the impact sending earth-shattering shockwaves around them. The creature proved strong enough to force Beelzebub back a few feet, but the Lord of Flies quickly pivoted and tossed it at the edge of the crater. 

The Monkey King’s giant statue immediately attempted to exploit the opportunity by striking him with his staff, but Beelzebub’s superior speed allowed him to parry with his wand… for about a second before Sun Wukong followed through with a series of attacks. The Lord of Flies was much faster, but still found himself on the back foot as his foe pushed on with a relentless offense. 

“I knew Wepy was holding back when I fought his Divine Avatar, but know what?” the Monkey King smirked with his stone teeth in between two strikes. “You’re still less of a challenge!”

“You are nothing to m—ah!” Beelzebub screeched in pain and surprise as ice shards struck him in the eye. The attack didn’t inflict any damage, but the brief distraction allowed Sun Wukong’s statue to hit him in the chest with his staff. The blow cracked his chest and inflicted actual damage. 

“Victory for Insupportable!” a certain flying lizard boasted with overbearing pride as he flew back into the fight, bruised but undefeated. 

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten the way you humiliated me in Promesse!” Beelzebub threatened that dimwit frost dragon as he grabbed him by the tail while in midair. “It’s payback time!”

“Wait, wa–” 

Beelzebub began to swing the dragon by the tail like a nunchaku and promptly smashed him into the Monkey King’s stony face. He quickly followed through with a wand swing that his enemy parried at the last moment. Beelzebub’s superior strength briefly forced Sun Wukong back. 

One whirlwind ought to send that vine swinger back to his mountain, Beelzebub thought as he prepared to follow through with a cyclone, only to hear heavy footsteps coming at him from the north. Another giant?

A new, lumbering opponent was moving his way.

Beelzebub had fantasized about Verglane’s destruction in his free time, and he immediately recognized that awful Castle Neigebleue, its white towers of ice, its walls, its stupid gatehouse… 

But he had never seen them arranged like this. 

The castle had taken on a vaguely humanoid shape, with clusters of towers supporting a wall torso, blocky shoulders, and battlement arms. Its head was a keep, its mouth a portcullis, and on its crown crenelations stood a talking chest pointing a wand at Beelzebub. 

“Peasant, you are!” she shouted. “Peasant, you shall stay!”

The sheer absurdity of the situation left Beelzebub bereft of words for a brief instant. “What the…”

That was all Beelzebub managed to say before the living castle punched him in the face with a wall-fist. 

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Next Chapter

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A/N: for people here for both Board & Conquest and Hundred Reigns (and there are many newcomers right now) the next HR chapter should arrive this evening in ten/twelve hours or so. Peace.