Bone Golem

Facing the enormity of the difference between my current state and the current state of the megaliths had caused me to be lethargic for a few days, but being inconsequential was far from enough to stop me. I'd been inconsequential before. Had my creator been competent, I would have never been faced with needing to overcome being inconsequential. Or he could have killed me as I lay empty of mana, waiting for him to die of my overzealous and rash attack. Had I met Angie before Glrt I would have faced a deadly threat. Had I been created in the territory of any god I'd have been consumed, probably as a result of my own gluttony. Assuming I wasn't shredded the second I was created by mere proximity to a focus for the god's self, like a radiant shard. A radiant shard anywhere near my body when I was originally created could have been deadly.

I'd been effortlessly dealing with every threat I'd faced for a while, but the core of my being had been on a suicidal quest of discovery since my creation. Fear of death and failure was built into the quest, at a basic level. I'd known since I built my original will-core circuit that erasure of my being was perfectly possible. Probable even. Undoubtedly the fate of every similar experiment to the one my creator tried. I'd survived many of my initial hurdles through a mixture of luck and preparation. There was no reason to believe my future hurdles would be any easier or less dependent on luck.

The more I understood what I'd accomplished, the more dangerous pitfalls I discovered that I'd avoided entirely by accident. Now I could see what was at the bottom of the pitfalls, but not where the actual pitfall was. In other words, nothing had changed. I'd known that at the bottom of many pitfalls I avoided was nonexistence or becoming the stepping stone for a new will. Perhaps altering the fate of the will that consumed me, but in all likelihood being a mere meal.

The end of my existence would be exactly that; the end. It was pointless to focus on how little it would mean, as the death of a megalith would be equally meaningless to the landscape of the mana ocean. There was probably a level of reality where the cessation of the mana ocean wouldn't matter either. A level I would explore, be fundamentally incapable of reaching, or die trying.

Such was my nature, and the nature of what I was trying to do. Perfection was an infinitely fragile state, and pursuing perfection meant to be utterly fragile. A single deviation meant failure. What was destruction in the face of failure? If I feared destruction, the safe option was and had always been to find a hidden corner and hope nothing was hungry and looking in my direction. Exploration walked hand in hand with the threat of destruction.

For the threat of death to affect me so much…I was getting soft. I'd been playing it too safe, letting humans do all of my research and take all the risks while I hunkered down in the mana ocean. Confident and complacent in my ȧssumed invulnerability. Perhaps I needed to listen to Glrt's philosophy as much as the children of the brood construct.

Freed from existential dread, I could focus on what I was actually capable of doing. A much more manageable problem. And what I was doing was consuming Cacophony. A megalith capable of instantly destroying me if I confronted it directly. Or made a mistake. Or irritated it enough for it to seek me out in the mana ocean. Or hop into any number of invisible pitfalls that would expose me to a direct confrontation.

I'd made a mistake with Trgl's forces, but she was merely the tip of my spear. An excellently sharp tip that ought not have been broken by an overconfident wielder, but still merely the tip. I still had a whole spear to work with. Hopefully, Cacophony would believe my boasting about the enormity of my forces was empty vanity and not prepare for an ȧssault from every direction. I wasn't entirely sure that the spawn would starve if forced to hunker down in their capital. It was possible that with all that faith at their disposal that Cacophony could manage something like the circuit goblins used. However, I was tiny in comparison to Cacophony. There was no reason for it to feel I was a genuine threat.

Another point in favor of complacency was the speed at which Trgl's force had moved. For the other forces to reach as close to the sun as Trgl had would take months. Even longer, as I'd given my forces orders to change their direction regularly. I also increased the population cap of a southern force, having them split in two as the numbers increased to quadruple the quantity of spawn I guessed would have lived in the abandoned spawn city. Everywhere else the standard was to splinter into eight forces every time they reached a million, but keeping my southern forces at least four million strong seemed like a good idea. Keeping my forces at least double the population of a city may have been overly cautious, but I didn't want to lose another army. There was so much lost time as the rest sought to catch up.

Decreasing the rate of splitting would increase the threat of a spawn city slipping through the cracks, allowing spawn to flank me, but there were risks to every plan. Giving Cacophony more time wasn't a good idea. I was already splitting my forces more than I really wanted to, given how dangerous the radiant shards could be.

The distances between my forces and spawn cities made ensuring that no cities existed behind my lines almost impossible. Rather, if I did take a route so long that no cities could exist behind me then they could repopulate new cities before my forces reached the Sun. The longer the war lasted, the better the chances of the spawn learning the pattern of my forces movement and being able to set up more effective traps. Assuming Cacophony stayed silent and wasn't preparing some new form of counterattack. Radiant shards were bad enough without a weaponized version being developed.

Just the thought of weaponized radiant shards sent a shiver through me. Cacophony was dangerous enough in an unthinking state, the idea of it being able to plan as well…was quite disquieting. I wasn't sure how a radiant shard could be altered to be more dangerous to me, they seemed to already be precisely targeted at exactly the sort of creature I was, but that didn't mean they couldn't become more dangerous. As bad as radiant shards were, I had no illusions that they were the absolute worst possible foe for me. The unknown was always the most horrible of adversaries, giving form to impossible foes that would never really exist while hiding the true threats lurking behind the edge of your knowledge.

The best weapon against the unknown was an increased level of power. Power could break through a lot of unseen traps. I pushed harder on the discipline side, ensuring that Lagt's method of high variability but low effectiveness was nowhere on the southern side of my forces. They needed to be lethal on their own, as radiant shards were quite effective in reducing my ability to help them. Having a high baseline class to them was good, but skill was always valuable in cases where raw power failed. I wasn't so overconfident this time, ensuring that brute force wasn't the only method of gaining victory. Especially brute force dependent on my intervention.

Giving the commanders access to the most effective military regimens across all of my forces allowed them to step up the effectiveness of their training by a significant margin in almost every army, the cost being the lack of learning better methods. As the forces I'd sent every direction apart from south retained their ability to grow unimpeded, the cost to the south was acceptable. It irked me to have to make the sacrifice, but war being uncomfortable was expected. A new experience for me, but an old trend for everyone else.

After three months, the first populated spawn city was found. Non-abandoned cities were much easier to find, their radiant shards giving away their location from beyond the horizon. Unwilling to let them prepare their defenses or call for reinforcements, I directly opened a gate to teleport the army into the shadow of the pillar itself. It was much more difficult to open a gate to a place I didn't have will, especially if said place was beyond the horizon, but it was possible. Having a store of mana exponentially more vast than necessary was always a boon.

Before the first ogre could enter the gate, I was already working on the other side. Tendrils of will ripped into spawn bodies, consuming their wills and turning their bodies into puppets. I wasn't going to let the Whiteskirts spring another trap, so I made sure the civilians around the tower weren't prepared. They weren't. If the Whiteskirts were ready, they hadn't mentioned anything to the people that lived in the shadow of the pillar.

The more I understood them, the less surprising that was. Anyone who couldn't live in the light of the shard was scum, so far as the spawn were concerned. Ideally, nobody would live there and it could be allowed to become a public square for events. The dilapidated houses were disgusting, obvious records to the time when it was a new city and everyone was forced to experience darkness, to the illuminated near the walls. Testaments to the time before a radiant shard had been fed enough to illuminate the city. A sign that their city wasn't as affluent as it could be. That there were lazy people willing to spend their whole lives herding chickens, with no need to increase their power to stand in brighter light. A place filled with scum, but scum that the slaughter of would displease the light.

Being given the best possible advantage, my army immediately set to work slaughtering every spawn I hadn't converted while my avatars rose to confront the radiant shard. The spawn were bȧrėly capable of putting up resistance. Where the gate had opened was at the center, which was the least defended. Full of spawn lacking any circuitry at all, even goblins would have had an easy time slaughtering the screaming people, let alone fourth class ogres. The main difference was that the ogres didn't need to enter the buildings, directly smashing them on top of any residents that chose to hide instead of run.

The screams and war cries did draw the attention of the rest of the city, though. On the borders of the city were several individuals that could put up resistance, though they were far too few to make taking the city a real challenge. They didn't have any lords, but the Whiteskirts were only insignificant foes because I was so far beyond the capabilities of my armies. The Whiteskirts were a worthy adversary for my soldiers, in many cases. In comparison to the spawn at the center of their city, the Whiteskirts may as well be gods. They were actually impressive, considering the standards I'd become accustomed to with cannibal cities. One was even class five, a feat I hadn't seen matched by any cannibal prior to my influence. Cannibal cities were powerful if they had more than two at class four, whereas the Whiteskirts had dozens.

My avatars had bigger prey, however. Prey that wasn't behaving as it should. Oddly, the chaos was reducing in the shard as my avatars approached. By the time they'd risen to the altar, the radiant shard was impossibly calm. I knew the shards were capable of being controlled, I still wasn't sure if the boxes were to blame or if Cacophony was capable of being quiet, but knowing and seeing were quite different. Seeing a radiant shard resting above the altar as if it was a mere shiny piece of earth…something was very wrong with that picture.

A very unnerving feeling overwhelmed me as a cohesive intent impacted the air. "I have been expecting you, false god. I never expected a false god to have a form like yours, but the false need their idols." As if the radiant shards weren't the most effective idols possible. Beyond the content of what it said, that it said anything in a coherent manner was horrifying. There was a world of difference between being capable of being quiet and being capable of sounding so controlled. A difference that hinted at a much more dangerous shift in the nature of Cacophony than mere silence. "You take the shape of your believers, instead of molding them to your own. Truly a false deity. A fake. A phony. Only I am a real god. God among demons. Yes, that's what you are, false god, a demon. A powerful demon that grew too strong for its own good, but a mere demon nonetheless. Did you believe your pathetic child could conquer the Sun, greater demon? Conquer God! The arrogance!" .

Child? Rage ripped through me as I glared through the mana ocean at Cacophony's true form. Within the chaos, a single will was forming. It was still subtle, at this point. Barely discernable within all of that impossible chaos, but it was there. A self was forming. A singular will. An impossibly dangerous change. A change that hadn't happened for the entire history of the spawn as a species, but one that was happening now.

It wasn't hard to understand what had happened. My twelfth shard had tried to consume another radiant shard and been consumed instead, or it had been a complete moron and fled all the way to the Sun before trying to consume that in one big bite. Armed with the fundamental knowledge contained in my shard, the radiant shard had become a singular entity. As that entity was still part of the Sun, it wasn't hard for it to link to the other parts of itself, rapidly becoming a singular entity. My shard had taught the Sun to become a true enemy, making this war infinitely more difficult. As my shard was juvenile it hadn't taught the Sun everything I knew, but it had given it exactly what it needed to learn everything I knew.

A small part of myself was definitely intrigued. What would be the difference between a creature of will, such as myself, and a creature of faith, like the Sun? Would it gain all of the same talents, or would it gain others? That portion of myself was overwhelmed by the vast majority of me that was trying to figure out if it was more angry or afraid. This war just became much more difficult, with a genuine chance to lose. My own shard had done this, given the Sun what it needed to win.

Laughter boomed from the radiant shard, echoing throughout the city. No doubt causing more spawn to become faithful, as they believed themselves to be having revelation. A false revelation while the Sun was no doubt giving genuine revelations to Whiteskirts not engaged in combat. "No pithy response, little demon? Are you unable to match wits with God? Of course you would be incapable of such, tiny demon. Puny demon. Do you understand how insignificant you are, small demon?"

As I watched, a tiny will-core formed around the chaotic mass that the new Sun hadn't yet been able to consume entirely. Followed by hundreds more. Drops became streams, streams became rivers, rivers became floods, floods became tides. From no worshippers at all to innumerable zealots, or priests, in less time than it took me to convert Nagt. I'd thought my growth was impossibly fast, but the Sun was putting me to shame. Already, the maelstrom of worshippers was hiding the megalith from view. How many would be required to accomplish that?

"Silence? Are you stunned, self-aggrandizing demon? Have you come to terms with your folly? I, for I am an I and not a we, am not keen on forgiveness, but perhaps if you were to kneel and worship under my feet I could see it in myself to allow your existence to continue. Insignificant as you are, perhaps you could serve a purpose groveling at my beck and call." The smug satisfaction was trying to hide the extreme strain hidden within. It was trying to consume the Sun, a feat it mocked my shard for attempting. No doubt, it was bȧrėly capable of speech. It probably cared less about what it was saying than I did.

Watching the number of worshippers increase, I started to wonder if I'd made a mistake. The Sun had been collecting worshippers for minutes and it already had more than me. Multiplicatively more than me. And it was getting more every second. Perhaps it was merely an inherent difference between a creature of will and a creature of faith that had been gathering followers for millennia, but the ease of creating worshippers was far better than I could match. I couldn't even see the chaos behind the followers anymore. The entirety of Cacophony was hidden. A megalith. Hidden. Concealed entirely by the sheer number of miniscule worshippers. The only benefit I could see in this was that it was definitely confirmed which megalith was the Sun. I wasn't happy that I'd been right to ȧssume the biggest god was the Sun.

Since it was creating true worshippers out of the spawn I stopped the slaughter my army was enjoying, this city would be the only spawn I'd be able to get access to. I needed all of them to learn as much as possible. They'd also serve as an example when I learned to see the small aspects beyond my vision. Knowing the weaknesses of the driving force behind spawn, hoping it wasn't the Sun, would only be a benefit to me. I may need living spawn to get access to those tiny elements.

Any conversation I had with the Sun would be pointless, at this point. It had been aggressive from the start, not that I was any different. Coexistence wasn't possible, not between the two of us. I wouldn't even accept it as a worshipper. No, the destiny of the Sun was to be consumed. Consumed by me. "Do you think having a singular will can save you? All you've done is become able to understand what's happening as I consume you." my avatar growled as it grabbed the radiant shard. Or, it reached out for the shard. Before it could get a grip, the Sun abandoned the city. The radiant shard vanished as it was welcomed back into the whole, probably losing some faith in the process of converting it from physical back into the mana equivalent.

Losing access to the solid will was perfect. A crowning moment for this exact time. A perfect example of my failure to achieve victory over the city, in the truest sense. The Sun hadn't been hurt. The vast number of worshippers orbiting him proved that this was beyond an insignificant portion of his population. Maybe even the class five Whiteskirt was unremarkable among the spawn. Cannibals may hate spawn, but they weren't very effective in attacking them. The Whiteskirt hadn't been lying when he claimed that the domain of spawn was only ever increasing.

My will wrapped around the pillar and crushed it into black dust that was immediately blasted into the earth. At least I hadn't wasted all of my mana on a spell I couldn't use properly, this time. A small consolation, as my fury was refusing to calm down this time. A momentary loss of control was better than a continuous strain on it. What had that idiot shard been thinking? Had it thought itself capable of swallowing the whole Sun by itself? So quickly? Was I really so terrifying it would go to such lengths in order to fight back?

I hadn't even encountered it before it ran away. It couldn't have noticed my killing the other shards, or understood that I would absolutely consume it as well. Leaking exploratory will was what gave away shards four, seven, and ten. To be driven to the point of trying to eat the Sun by a vague fear…I could understand that. My first experiences of rage and fear were very visceral, and it wouldn't have been impossible for me to have taken suicidal action in its place. Unfortunately, experience was what made me cautious.

Without gaining anything, I turned to the rest of the city. The fighting had yet to end, though the violence had lessened considerably. Only where the fifth class Whiteskirt was blasting ogres and hell hounds with arcs of light that boiled their flesh was the violence the same. They couldn't take it easy on her, as she was defeating them without straining herself. The result was buildings collapsing and bodies needing constant repair. They'd win, but it would take a long time.

I welcomed the chance at a distraction. Something to vent my rage upon. My avatar descended on the Whiteskirt, ignoring the radiant beam that tried to erase it. She wasn't built for speed, so it was easy to get a hand around her throat. With direct contact, it was easy for me to lock all of her will inside her body. She continued to struggle, but my avatar bȧrėly noticed as it carried her up to the pillar, or what was left of it. "I'd prefer you to convert, but consuming you as I consumed this shard of your god is an option as well. My preference will lead me to put you through an extreme level of torture before you are consumed, however, and that is a lot of work. It'd be so much easier if you just accepted your fate."

"I will never succumb to such a vile creature as you, false god! We have been given revelation about your means! Without being willing, you are helpless to convert me! My faith will never waiver!" she spat at my avatar, her eyes blazing with unwillingness as she activated every circuit in her body to try to escape. She also seemed proud, like the opportunity to spit on my avatar was an honor.

"Helpless? I wouldn't say that." My will directly crushed her body to paste before fixing it up again. "I have many options. A plethora, some may say." My avatar ripped her head off of her body, waiting for the light to leave her eyes before I fixed her up again. "Spawn are fragile creatures, but that also means they can be put back together again quite easily." The avatar and the Whiteskirt were both consumed in a sea of fire, but only the Whiteskirt was damaged. Easily fixable damage, though. "I'm quite irritated at the moment, but I don't imagine it will be that different for you when I get bored and I give you to the ogres that didn't particularly like getting boiled." With every death her eyes had grown wider, but seeing her own weapon used against her had a much larger effect. I focused the light on searing hundreds of holes in her body instead of a larger blast that boiled the entire body, but the core runes were the same. "Let me know when your faith is starting to waiver."

She lasted twenty more deaths before giving in. It was far from enough to still the fury boiling through me. Far from enough. I still couldn't understand why this particular instance of fury wasn't acting like the others. It was continuous, as if it was a permanent part of my will from now on.

It was affecting me so strongly I was bȧrėly paying attention to the new runes I was learning, most of them derivatives of light. Or the differences between cannibals and spawn; dome-shaped heads, blunt teeth, and claws so wide they were useless. Everything that would otherwise be fascinating was reduced to a distraction. An irritant.

Converting was a slower process than slaughtering, but it still didn't take long to overwhelm the city. This would be the last time it was so easy. Every single victory in the future would be won with extreme levels of effort. Battles of attrition as my followers were constantly healed and the spawn threw waves upon waves of soldiers to try and wear them down to nothing.

The spawn had had the same flawed circuitry as cannibals, meaning they plateaued far earlier than they could otherwise. Sun was a true creature of faith now. It would be able to fix the circuitry as easily as I could. Cities full of spawn with no circuitry at all was a thing of the past. Those useless chicken farmers would become the backbone of the army, the disposable waves of fodder that led the way for actually dangerous individuals.

Soldiers being class one or two on average was also going away. The soldiers in this city were even better than the average soldiers in cannibal cities, their core circuitry being built with class six runes instead of four. They also had a huge head start as far as discipline and training were concerned. Spawn already had a system built for training soldiers capable of facing class seven creatures without showing fear, and they'd been using it for millennia.

It was even possible that they'd be better at advancing in class, given how much more inherently faith was connected to worshippers than will was. Entire cities being converted into mana batteries for the front lines was far from impossible. It would be expected, even. Looking at the number of worshippers the Sun had…maybe they could even match my mana production. The spawn wouldn't be capable of circuitry that threatened my forces, hopefully, but the Sun definitely would be. Despite losing the inherent disruptive effects of the storm of intent, I may be stuck fighting the Sun with everything I had. My forces would need to face the spawn forces on their own.

Every building my avatars passed was reduced to dust as I attempted to keep myself in check, with limited success. It wasn't purposeful or necessary, but it did have the effect of making spawn much easier to convert if they saw it. Every new spawn proponent allowed me to know their civilization better, and the more I knew about their civilization the harder the war was becoming.

The religious power held by the worshippers of the Sun was unquestionable. The Whiteskirts would be effortless converts and the rest of the spawn would fall into place like they were designed specifically to do so. They already were. With the level of fervor required by the rabid Whiteskirts, it wouldn't surprise me if every spawn became a zealot immediately upon filling the worship rune. That meant no more conversion. Unicorns would be utterly useless. Bicorns would be hampered, but nowhere near as much as unicorns. Even consuming their wills would yield only will for my use, no information or additional value. Every will consumed would also be a struggle, fighting against the Sun's claim on them.

Every radiant shard would be infinitely harder to consume as well. Not only was there a risk of the Sun pulling the pieces back into itself, but the will in the shards would be much more difficult to deal with. If the Sun followed the path I thought it would, it having consumed a shard of my will, after consolidating the entirety of itself it would form a will-core, followed by a will-core circuit. It was still a question how much of it would be consumed in the advancement process, but it would definitely advance in class until it couldn't anymore. That could make every radiant shard a deadly battle for supremacy, one that I could lose. As it was a faith-based creature it may even be able to consume the wills of the spawn to progress farther or increase the number of radiant shards.

Their population density was much higher than I'd expected, especially the cities closer to the Sun. I'd thought the numbers would be about equivalent between the cannibals and the spawn. That couldn't be farther from the truth. For every cannibal I had as a worshipper, the Sun would soon have millions of spawn. Cannibals were very prone to infighting, so their cities were far apart and often had extended civil wars within their own cities. Spawn had no such problem. The city surrounding the core pillar that held the Sun above the sky was said to have ten horizons within the one city. Trying to imagine a single city being more than ten thousand leagues across was difficult.

The Whiteskirt had been to the capital, seeing it for herself. The impossible press of people in every direction alone was an extremely foreign experience. Frontier cities had weeks of travel between each other, cannibal cities were even farther apart. I'd thought it would be difficult to feed the spawn if they gathered too close together, but that didn't seem to be a problem. Far from starving, the spawn capital was full of so much food that she'd felt like she was going on field rations when she returned to the frontier.

They cultivated all manner of food beasts and chickens to higher classes there, as the influence of the Sun made them much easier to herd than would otherwise be possible. Massive monsters that could destroy entire frontier cities effortlessly were pacified to complete obedience so close to the Sun. Walking calamities to the cannibals were pets to the spawn, at least in the capital. Radiant shards could pacify monsters that got out of hand, but only temporarily. Katrice would have been sent to the capital, had I not converted her.

There were rumors of high class Whiteskirts using class seven chickens as mounts in the capital. The impressiveness of their mounts wasn't limited to those who rode chickens, however. The spawn knew that horses became unicorns, and they were the default mount for Whiteskirts. Foals that would have become bicorns were called unholy and slaughtered, but unicorns were cultivated to an extreme degree. The Whiteskirts had even somehow managed to link the unicorns to the Sun, allowing their passive conversion to turn the spawn toward the Sun instead of the unicorn. It was quite possible that their method would allow their unicorns to be completely effective while being in an army of worshippers.

It was extremely inconvenient that the Whiteskirt at my disposal was a frontier yokel. She wasn't given any details about the method nor a unicorn of her own for me to study. To have access to that particular secret would tilt the scales in my favor. A lot. It was difficult to learn the methods of others during battle, but for that level of a secret…losing an army would be well worth the sacrifice.

With the Sun able to fix the circuitry and induce worship, I would need to expect class eight chickens and unicorns to be regular parts of their army. They'd also have practice using their mounts for combat, and have ways to incorporate them into their formations. Letting my forces learn at their own pace wasn't nearly as effective now that I'd be forced to advance them far beyond what they'd become comfortable with. Otherwise they'd be as ineffective against the spawn chickens as Trgl's forces had been against Katrice. If not now, then when I got closer to the Sun. This force would be the only one with a chicken brood construct, and my unicorns would be useless. I couldn't even incorporate the bicorns into my forces to even the scales. I could have quail carry chickens and their brood constructs throughout all of the forces but that ran the risk of letting a brood construct be captured as well as spreading my chickens wider. I wouldn't be able to match the accumulation of the spawn over millennia with a brood construct working for under a decade.

That was ignoring the other creatures cultivated by the spawn that I didn't know of and weren't used by such a frontier city. Bulls, lions, mammoths, and eagles were entirely new creatures. The eyes of the Whiteskirt revealed very little about them, apart from their appearance. The eagles were especially unknown, the closest comparison I could think of being banshees. The Whiteskirt had no useful information, meaning I had no idea of their capabilities. Each could be the equals of chickens. Or be locked at class six like bears, but I couldn't base any plans on hopes like that.

The Whiteskirt also ignored the other types of humanoids enslaved by the spawn; minotaurs and centaurs. Manual labor now, but food goblins were a large part of the military power of my armies. Given a capable leader, they could turn out to be the most dangerous members of the spawn army. If the spawn had access to colossi, that would change a lot. If these other humanoids had inherent circuitry, or any other form of growth-type circuitry built by the unseen circuitry of the world, the Sun would be able to advance them to the peak. Goblins were the only species I'd come across that were limited to class four, everything else using core runes of at least class six. Many were class eight.

More than facing equals, if I didn't force my armies to advance past their comfortable limit they'd be the ones at a disadvantage. A major disadvantage. All of their circuits would need to be advanced to the maximum of their core runes. I had enough knowledge to accomplish such a feat, but without advancing in a cautious manner it was very possible for every physique to become as unbalanced as quail. Fortunately, or unfortunately, most of the best physiques designed by cannibals used class six runes at their core so they shouldn't get too unbalanced. Many would be left behind, stuck with their class four physiques, but there wasn't anything I could do about that. Eventually they'd get their bodies destroyed bad enough I'd need to build them another, and then I could give them a better build.

And as such, the war of attrition would continue. Endlessly. Unless the Sun won or ran out of spawn. Armed with unicorns, it was quite possible for the Sun to realize how to ȧssault the will. Passing that knowledge to the army was a more difficult proposition, one I believe I had a head start on, and required to be effective. I believed myself capable of holding the Sun at a stalemate, if nothing else. That would be the real war, the fight between myself and the Sun. Every crack in our defenses would mean devastating losses for our armies. Every mistake flirting with being fatal.

I was very glad I'd decided to allow my forces to learn will-based runes. Without them, the unicorns would devastate my forces. The Sun would have easily conquered an army incapable of providing a defense to will-based ȧssaults. Now that it was conscious, even the bicorns would be of limited use. They'd have been the most effective weapon before, but now they'd be trying to erode will bolstered by worship. A feat nearly as difficult as eroding the will of a god itself. A feat I would relish. Not only would it make the regular spawn much more nourishing, every spawn I was able to consume would carry a tiny amount of the Sun's faith.. Innumerable little radiant shards.