Victoire took the news about as well as Wepwawet expected.

"You left him in the middle of enemy territory?!" She all but choked on her end of the telepathic line. "Are you kidding me?!"

"I swear it's his choice!" Wepwawet replied. "He insisted!"

"Well, you are his god! Just teleport him back here as soon as possible!" Beneath the anger, Victoire's mind breathed concern. "Filou… Filou isn't ready for anything so dangerous, especially without support. Leaving him in Valentine is suicide!"

"I wouldn't have allowed him to risk himself this way if I didn't think he had a chance." Wepwawet regularly checked on Filou and had so far been successful in guiding him away from capture. His presence in the city also had the benefit of causing Epona to waste valuable attention and resources trying to track him down for the time being. "Victoire…"

"He's not ready!" Victoire said, her lungs taking in a deep breath on her side of the telepathic conversation. "Is there no way you can send me to him?"

"Not with the teleporter destroyed." Wepwawet could technically summon Neigebleue Castle and everyone inside it to Filou's location the same way Ishtar used a sacrificial demon to bring her Molek to Lavaland, but the squire would end up crushed underneath the castle; an outcome Wepwawet wasn't fond of. "I understand your concern, Victoire, but besides the fact it was his choice… your squire will have to leave the nest one day if he is to take flight as a knight."

"Being left to infiltrate an enemy nation alone isn't exactly the kind of knighthood trial I had in mind!"

"He won't be alone for long," Wepwawet promised her. "I have a plan to send him reinforcements, but it will take me a few days to set it up. I can have you join them if you wish."

He could feel Victoire opening her mouth on her side of the line and then closing it as she fell deep into thought. She had grown to trust her god in the last few months, and Wepwawet could tell she had more confidence in Filou's potential than the wererabbit himself did. Her concern wasn't unwarranted, but in the end she made the choice to believe in him.

"I need time to process this." Victoire sighed. "Please keep me informed at all times. I… I need to know that Filou is alright. If anything happens… if anything happens, please teleport him back."

"I will. I promise I won't let anything happen to him."

"I know," Victoire replied with some fondness. "We'll… we'll discuss it later. People need us right now."

Wepwawet cut the connection at this point and left Victoire to her duties of looking for wounded survivors across the battlefield. Peridot's troops had inflicted heavy damage on the retreating enemy until Sun Wukong finally reached that side of the battle and drew his line in the sand, then shattered the sword teleporter on his knee. This brought the battle to an end.

As for the result… The expression 'pyrrhic victory' came to mind.

On the plus side, the enemy had utterly failed to take Salamandra and the inability of Epona's coalition to take the capital city represented a major tactical defeat. The element of surprise, the sword teleporter, and Wepwawet's inability to call upon his Divine Avatar were the main reasons why the attack had been so successful in the first place. Wepwawet doubted his classmates would be able to mount another successful assault, especially with Ishtar's army coming to reinforce him. They had also captured a sizable number of prisoners of war, although Insupportable had unfortunately eaten the only Mortis Champion they had entrapped in Neigebleue Castle—and suffered indigestion for his trouble.

Eating rotting old undead bones wasn't good for one's health, even a dragon. Wepwawet should have been above this, but watching Insupportable struggling with the urge to puke put balm on his heart.

Some of the soldiers were well-born members of Valentine's noble and merchant families who would likely pay a great deal in ransom money and favor to see them returned home alive; while Epona would likely care more about her Champions, leaving them at Wepwawet's mercy would likely alienate her civilization's elites. This might open new opportunities to gain allies in Valentine in the future.

Finally, they had managed to seize ten of Valentine's runic cannons. Wepwawet had immediately shipped them back to Verglane for his crafters to study, and he had the gut feeling that this would prove a crucial decision in the future.

However, the situation was far from ideal on every other front. Epona and her allies still retained Altars in Lavaland's southeast from which they could launch raids into his territory. He would never keep the border secured so long as they held those footholds. Moreover, Wepwawet's military had already taken a hit from the Titan Incursion so each loss was irreplaceable. The air force had taken such a beating that it might take months to replenish its lost members, and while the infantry performed better, hundreds of brave fighters had still perished.

In short, while Verglane and Lavaland's forces gave as much as they took, they felt each individual loss much deeper than Valentine and Mortis' relatively unbloodied armies. Princess Treasure was basically spending all her time kissing wounded soldiers to mend their injuries. Being embraced by a mimic terrified most of them, but it beat dying from blood loss or needing amputations.

At this point, Wepwawet had simply lost the ability to project power beyond his borders for the foreseeable future. He had barely enough forces left to garrison his territories and he needed to keep troops in reserve to prepare for any Titan Incursion or lunarian attack. Part of why he had agreed to Filou's proposal was that anything other than irregular or guerilla warfare was out of the question for now.

His loss in manpower made Wepwawet vulnerable, both to enemies and difficult allies. Ishtar would be in an excellent position to extract concessions from him and he would have few troops to spare to assist Artemis against corsair encroachment in her own territory.

All in all, this was a giant mess.

Victoire, Blade of Winter; Filou, Brave Squire; Jasper, Shield of Topaz; Topaz, Fire Princess; and Princess Treasure, Precious Royalty can now Rank-Up!

At least some of his Champions had gained enough experience to Rank-Up. It surprised him that Princess Treasure and Topaz would be among their number, but he guessed the latter must have been close to growing in power after surviving the Titan Incursion and his new mimic recruit's servants had turned the tide today. Healing half the army had probably helped as well.

Filou's presence inside Epona's Influence also provided a unique opportunity for Wepwawet. He retreated to the heavens and attempted to open communication with the deity he was now connected with.

He half-expected Epona to close the door on him and refuse any form of communication after the battle, but she had the sense to show up in their realm of overlapping Influence; though only after checking that no one else was present.

Epona squinted at her fellow god. "You didn't summon Ishtar?"

"You wouldn't have shown up otherwise," Wepwawet replied.

"You are quite bold to contact me through a Champion you dared to send into my very own capital," Epona commented. Although she tried to show a stoic and strong front, Wepwawet didn't need his Providence to detect the distaste in her body language. She knew she had lost, and it didn't please her in the slightest. "Was that your plan from the start? To send him through in the hopes we could establish diplomatic channels?"

"You didn't make it easy," Wepwawet replied. He had learned from his father and Miss Athena that the appearance of control was often more important than its reality. Epona would be more on edge if she thought he didn't fear for his Champion's life and kept cards up his sleeve. "That attack was madness."

"Was it?" Epona scoffed. "I am aware that Ishtar's army is crossing into Lavaland as we speak, as was her plan from the start."

"They crossed to assist me against your forces," Wepwawet countered. "Your friend Pele wanted me to inherit Lavaland specifically so I could keep the peace between you, and you blew that chance away! You brought this on yourself!"

"We both know such forces cannot be assembled on such short notice. Ishtar has been preparing her invasion since she learned of Pele's expulsion, the same way we both began to form military alliances with other deities the moment my friend's expulsion left a void someone would have to fill. Nature abhors a vacuum, and we all knew a conflict of some kind was inevitable."

"Mayhaps, but this matter didn't have to be settled through a completely pointless war," Wepwawet replied. "Even now, it's not too late. Sun Wukong is willing to enforce a ceasefire, but you and your allies still hold two of Lavaland's Altars. Relinquish them, and we can de-escalate this conflict before it spirals out of control."

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Epona considered his proposal, but swiftly rejected it. "I couldn't do that even if I wanted to. The two border Altars were Hel and Watatsumi's price for supporting me in this operation. They will not relinquish them without a fight."

Wepwawet's jaw clenched. As he feared, the southern powers had already formed an alliance. "You wanted to divide eastern Lavaland between the three of you and create a buffer zone between Valentine and the Zoramesh Empire."

She had the grace not to deny it. "If only you had agreed to surrender Salamandra, I would have let you keep the western part of Lavaland. The country would have become a neutral zone between the west and the east. All of us gods would have benefitted from it."

"Everyone except the magmorians," Wepwawet pointed out. Alexandrite and her family would have never accepted that divine powers split her people apart for their own personal gain. "They chose me as their patron, yet you and your allies ignored their wishes. Their lands aren't yours to take."

"Then why were we entrusted with a nation each, if not to divide up the world?" Epona shook her head. "My pantheon was once the patrons of the Gaul people, but when the Romans conquered them then my faith became part of their civilization until it too fell."

"What are you leading to?"

"Mortals are short-sighted and see their borders as immutable territories, when we gods see their nations rise and fall in the blink of an eye. We are gifted with time so that we may divine a better future that which they cannot see."

Wepwawet snorted. "How farsighted of you to start a war between our classmates when we still have the Titans to contend with."

"Ishtar only needed to put her territorial ambitions to rest for this feud to end." Epona locked eyes with Wepwawet. "You know she is manipulating you."

Wepwawet suppressed a groan of annoyance. He had begun to gain a better understanding of Epona over their past few discussions. Unlike Pele, who had considered her mortals disposable and proved willing to send them to die in a pointless war to impress her crush and for money until Peridot taught her humility in an explosive fashion, Epona sounded like she sincerely cared for her followers. Her actions were motivated by a desire to spare her civilization's heartland from conflict.

But she still considered mortals as moving pieces on a game board, destined to be used and sacrificed for what she perceived as the greater good.

In a way, she considered humans like purebred horses. She cared for them, raised and trained them, but wouldn't hesitate to sell off a few for meat and leather if it meant keeping the stable open.

Father would approve of her, Wepwawet thought. Something which somehow shook him to his core. And for a goddess of horses, she's more stubborn than a mule.

"Ishtar wasn't the one to send an army to my doorstep, nor take up chunks of my mortals' homeland." While Wepwawet didn't rule out the possibility that Ishtar plotted to strong-arm him into an alliance with her own empire, the fact remained that she had stuck to just persuasion so far. "Was Melchior the Mage the one who informed you about Ishtar's troop buildup?"

Epona frowned at him. "What difference would it make?"

A big one, Wepwawet thought. A worrying possibility had begun to form in his mind. "Do you know that your Champion Melchior has a lunarian parasite hidden under his hat?"

Either Epona was the best actor Wepwawet had yet to encounter—certainly better than Pele—or she was genuinely taken aback. "What nonsense are you talking about?"

"My wererabbit Champion saw a lunarian parasite's antennae hidden under his hat when he struck him," Wepwawet explained. "Beelzebub used similar creatures to control people in my territory."

"That's ridiculous," Epona replied with a look of utter disbelief. "I would have sensed one of my Champions falling under another god's influence, or detected such a parasite infestation."

"I have questioned Miss Athena through messages and she confirmed that there are Miracles and Champion powers capable of fooling even a god's sight," Wepwawet replied; a piece of information which had immediately put him on his guard. "We know the Titans were able to sneak banned Miracles into our system. Beelzebub might have used one to infiltrate your civilization and used the opportunity to escalate tensions."

"And you're basing all of this on a single Champion's hearsay?" Epona scoffed. "Whoever informed me that Ishtar was gathering troops to march on Valentine matters less than the fact she gathered troops at all."

Wepwawet had no answer to that, but the point remained. "Even so, only the Titans benefit from our divisions. You would be wise to investigate."

"Are you trying to sow distrust between me and my own Champions? If so, then your plan is painfully transparent." Epona crossed her arms and pondered Wepwawet's words for a moment before nodding to herself. "Nonetheless, I will check this information immediately. If you are correct, then… then I will inform you and dispose of this infestation myself."

Oh good, at least she listened sometimes. Epona remained clearly skeptical about Wepwawet's claim, but the fact she didn't blow it off on principle meant they could make progress.

Unfortunately, Epona remained unwilling to budge on other matters. She patently refused to alienate her allies by asking them to relinquish the Altars on Lavaland's southeastern border since they provided a buffer for Valentine, and even had the gall to suggest he let go of them.

"If you want to de-escalate the matter, I would suggest abandoning those areas and preventing Ishtar from marching on them," Epona said. "Watatsumi and Hel only provided token support so far, but they will defend their new acquisitions. You'd be fully pulling them into our conflict."

"I think we already crossed and burnt that bridge when all of you invaded Lavaland together," Wepwawet replied angrily. "Just… just take the loss and leave."

Epona shrugged. "We may stay in contact through diplomatic channels to organize a prisoner exchange in the future, but otherwise I don't think we have anything else to discuss with each other so long as you support Ishtar. You've chosen the wrong side."

"I didn't choose anything! Your actions forced me into this!" Wepwawet snapped back. Why did so few of his classmates have their heads straight on their shoulders?! How entitled could they get?! "As for the wrong side, I'm not the one who was defeated today."

"I only mobilized a fraction of my available forces." Epona straightened up. "Mark my words; you will cross the Valentinian border at your own peril."

She cut the connection afterwards, leaving Wepwawet alone with his crushed hopes of peace within the heavens. A System notification showed up as if to drive home the fact that peace was now beyond his reach.

Hidden Quest: The Ring of Fire, unlocked.

You have been chosen to protect Lavaland by its own people. Reclaim all of its Altars and expel all invaders from the country.

Reward: Animism Miracle.

At least he would gain something out of this pointless fight.

Wepwawet sensed two attempts at connections and welcomed them, causing Ishtar and Sun Wukong to appear. The former only had to take a glance at Wepwawet to guess what happened. "So you tried to convince Pona, and she blew you off? You wasted your time and breath."

"No matter the heaven, gods are always such fools," Sun Wukong commented.

"I just don't understand," Wepwawet complained. "Yes, grades are important back at the Nexus, and having a stronger civilization might provide benefits, but why does nobody want to talk things through? And this comes from a god of war!"

"Because most of you were born gods," Sun Wukong replied with a shrug. "Most of you never had to confront the threat of death or consequences for your actions. It took me a few centuries trapped under a mountain to learn humility myself."

"Only a few centuries?" Ishtar mused.

"See my point, Wepy? She thinks I came off lightly." Sun Wukong gave Wepwawet a strange glance that reminded him of Victoire for some reason. "If you ask me, of all the gods I've fought and encountered across my many journeys, you might be one of the few worthy of his throne."

Wepwawet wasn't sure how to respond to that. Sun Wukong's praise always had a mocking edge to it, yet he sounded halfway sincere. His point echoed Victoire's doubts about her god early in their association, which he guessed made sense considering the Monkey King's origins.

"Thank you," Wepwawet finally replied. "Alas, that doesn't change the fact we're now in a worse position to fight the next Titan Incursion."

"Oh, don't worry about that." Sun Wukong chuckled. "I told you I intended to volunteer for the next Incursion, did I not? I'll handle that one, thank you very much."

Sun Wukong's bravado was welcome, but likely misplaced. Wepwawet might have to intervene in an Incursion if the Titans attacked close to his territory, not to mention that Beelzebub remained afoot.

"In any case, Epona and her allies won't relent," Wepwawet confirmed. "I suppose you wouldn't be open to extending your ceasefire line to Lavaland's border?"

"Nope," Sun Wukong replied while picking his nose. "My ceasefire offer was a one-battle deal, and I have no interest in being dragged down by those muddy waters. I will hold you up to your end of our bargain though." He smashed his fist into his palm. "We'll spar tomorrow morning at dawn, maybe trade a few Miracles, and then I'll be on my way."

Wepwawet expected as much. He took some solace in the fact that he wouldn't have to worry about an attack from Sun Wukong's nation, Kathay, so his western border should be relatively safe for the foreseeable future.

He took the opportunity to share what Filou had reported to him, which took them both by surprise. Unlike Epona, however, both of his fellow deities seemed to at least entertain the possibility.

"It wouldn't surprise me if Epona had been infiltrated," Ishtar commented. "Republics like her civilization aren't built to last. Their vulnerability to foreign and private interests inevitably leads to their collapse."

"The impossible is only what the mind has failed to conceptualize yet," Sun Wukong replied. "Anyway, it wouldn't surprise me if the Titans managed to slip agents into our territories. I myself have a Miracle capable of fooling another god's perception within their Influence."

Ishtar's head perked up with interest. "You do?"

"It wouldn't be much of a surprise if I said more," Sun Wukong teased her back, much to Ishtar's annoyance. "Anyway, I have a few students at home who require my full attention right now. See you tomorrow, Wepy."

The Monkey King vanished without further ado. Wepwawet doubted he was bluffing about his Miracle, which made him all the more paranoid about infiltration.

Verglane needed its own secret service.

"If you ask me, he's just jealous I didn't fall for his bad monkey charm," Ishtar told Wepwawet. "How many losses have you suffered today?"

"Many," Wepwawet confessed before baring his fangs at Ishtar. "But a wolf is never fangless. Remember that."

"Do not worry, a deal's a deal, Sweetpup," Ishtar replied with a smile. "My troops will simply pass through your territory and help you retake your lost Altars. Of course, I expect you to feed them, enhance our logistics and supply chains, and a few other things, but we can discuss that later. We're friends now."

Wepwawet had the feeling that being Ishtar's friend might be worse than being her enemy.

However, if he had made a deal with a devil, he might as well get the best out of it.

"There's something we need to discuss." Wepwawet crossed his arms. "You know how to obtain hidden banned Miracles, am I wrong?"

"What makes you think that?"

"The fact you have collected many powerful Miracles in such a short time without participating in any B&C battles, including two resurrection Miracles." Wepwawet squinted at her. "A lot of things would make sense if you had insider System knowledge."

Ishtar gave him that teasing look that had brought many mortals to their knees, but Wepwawet might as well have been carved from primeval ice. She observed him for a while before reaching a decision.

"Well… I used to be a patron of prostitutes in Ancient Babylon, so I'll be straight and to the point." Ishtar rubbed her fingers together. "How much?"

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