Silva, the god of nature worshipped by most of the people in the Galli kingdom was standing in the halls of his realm looking at a large table. The table represented his territory and that of the surrounding gods and more or less coincided with the mortal kingdoms.
On the table, many plants that formed various shapes had been placed to represent the mortals' movements. A group of light blue colored figures stood on the borders of the Galli kingdom. Silva felt great rage looking at them. How dare those lowly cretins cross the borders and raid his cities!
He had been preparing for many things but all the events that had recently transpired were out of his expectations. First was the disappearance of Eclesias which had forced him to make a move earlier than he had wanted. Then there was that archmage that summoned those fire creatures to force Hadrian into a full retreat. And now the raiders that always plagued Saital kingdom had made his territory their target!
All those unexpected happenings were infuriating to him. He was a god! There should be nothing happening without his knowledge not should his plans be foiled so easily.
"Now, how to deal with those impertinent raiders? Should I just send my oracle? No, first I need to find them."
Silva stepped away from the table and walked in front of a tree that had only two branches, forming a circle filled with leaves. As Silva's hand touched the tree the leaves within the circle began to change color and move to form an image.
This was one of Silva's powers, to see through any plant he wished. The only limitation was that he would have to create a connection from one of his shrines to the designated place he wished to observe.
The scenery flashed by and the image shown by the leaves was everchanging. Soon the raided villages came into view and Silva easily spotted the tracks left by the raiders.
Every bit of trampled grass was a glaring disturbance to him so he quickly advanced. Once he knew where they were he would unleash his divine wrath upon those fools!
He was closing in on them. The tracks were becoming increasingly recent and Silva felt excitement at the prospect of finding his prey. He could already feel his primal blood boiling.
Suddenly, the leaves all turned white, then black before forming the shape of a small chubby woman that was wrapped in thick fur clothing.
"Nix! How dare you interfere with my actions!"
"And why wouldn't I interfere. I may not be able to feed my people or provide them with a warm home but I can most certainly cover their tracks."
"You are weak! You can't stand against me and hope to stand victorious."
Saying this, Silva channeled his divine power through the tree to break Nix's blockade. To his surprise, Nix neither resisted nor tried to hold the blockade. Her figure and the black background faded. Like melting snow, the white color quickly shrunk and too disappeared. As Silva continued it didn't take long for him to run into another, similar blockade.
"Have you changed your mind and returned to challenge me after all? You are a fool!"
"Fight you? There's no need for that. Doing this is more than sufficient to deal with you."
Silva harumphed and once again lashed out with his divine power. Only to be met with another easily melted blockade. When he tried to advance and was blocked again not soon after, he realized what Nix was planning to achieve.
"You are merely stalling for time!"
"Indeed I am."
"Do you honestly believe that your actions will be of any use? You cannot stall me forever!"
"I do not need to stall you forever Silva. You may be stronger than me but the closer we get to the frozen wastes the more of an advantage I will hold."
"Tch. I'll let it go for now but don't think for even a moment that I will forget about this. The kingdom of Glacialis will burn for this!"
"That'll make for some nice heating."
Nix tried to seem nonchalant at Silva's threat but her smile was stiff and her voice trembled ever so slightly. Seeing this, Silva felt a little better. He stepped away from the tree and returned to his table.
Nix's meddling was certainly troublesome but he was planning to destroy the kingdom of Glacialis sooner or later anyway. For now, he contacted his priests through his oracle and told them to strengthen the defenses of their border with the kingdom of Glacialis.
Then he moved his oracle to Hadrian's current position. His attention had been elsewhere so he hadn't seen the fire creatures attack. To judge the danger they posed he would have to read the memories of someone who had been present. Hadrian was trained to be a commander since young so seeing what happened through his eyes would probably give him the best insight.
Hadrian didn't resist his request to access the memories of the battle and Silva quickly looked through them. The further he looked the more concerned he became. This giant made of fire gave out a sense of power equal to his own. Silva was unsure if he could best him in a battle even if he used his trump card.
"This is certainly troubling. We won't be able to continue our assault at this rate. We might even have to retreat."
Silva spoke through his oracle so Hadrian and his advisors could hear his thoughts. He wanted to take over Saital kingdom quite badly but if he had to go up against a being capable of doing great harm to him it wouldn't be worth it.
"Great Silva, I don't think we will necessarily have to retreat. Summoning such a creature must take a large amount of power and can't be done lightly. Since we haven't been attacked further I strongly believe that unless we advance further we won't have to face such an attack again. If we just build our fortifications here and keep king Leonard from taking back this territory we can consider this a success."
"You are right. We'll consider this as an expansion of our territory. Prepare to defend our new borders!