After successfully realising that they had been played for fools, the leaders of the various tribes quickly came to the conclusion that one one way or another, this remarkable illusion they had been subjected to was either the work of the slaughterer or that of one of their ally, they also threw away all of the info they had gathered from the reports made by that illusion, it was highly unlikely that it would have given them any true information after all.
It was rare for the leaders to assemble together and even less common for them to agree on something, whether it was domestic or foreign affair, never had everyone agreed to anything, which was why, despite their fairly potent army and overall wealth, they had never done anything such as war outside of their own borders, inside it was another matter and since everyone ruled over their own parts, the so called army of the United Central Tribes was actually split apart across many regions and didn't even have the same training.
Meaning that bringing them together in the first place would be a hassle.
Despite all of their disagreements, everyone agreed that attacking their religion was absolutely not something they would let go, this religion was pretty much the only thing that linked them all together, were it not for the fact Toutatis was refered to as the god of the tribe, this country might have been a theocracy.
"We don't know how they managed to kill so many trained paladins and priests but it is very likely that they could do it again, so using overwhelming numbers doesn't seem like a solution here and there is a limit to how many people can attack a single or few targets at once anyways" remarked the goat man, not believing that throwing bodies could work.
"They also managed to accomplish their feat in an enclosed space, meaning that they must be very adept to close quarters combat, if they can fight off a large number of trained warriors supported by priests at close range then I think it's safe to assume using ranged options won't work much better, they are either incredibly fast or amazingly resilient, we don't have anything or anyone that can hit much harder or faster than a group of paladin at range, it's barely if we have anything to do ranged attacks anyways" added a woman with lizard-like eyes.
"We could ask for assistance from Heilig maybe? They are lovers of the holy and don't discriminate betweens gods, perhaps they would be willing to send some of their elites, they are far superior to any of our own elites by far, they should at least approach the level of the slaughterer" suggested the man with thin antlers.
"We might as well just tell them that we can't deal with our problems by ourselves, I would keep that as a last resort" spat a large man with two red horns on his forehead.
"Why don't we ask for 'him' to take care of it?" suddenly said the pig man, he didn't say any name but the way he pronounced 'him' was enough for everyone to understand who he was talking about.
"Are you sure about this? He despises us and the way we live" spoke the lizard woman, everyone else seemed to share the same doubts as her.
"He is a holy fanatic isn't he? He says that we don't live the way Toutatis would want us to but I don't think he wouldn't want to step in if someone desecrated one of the churches where our god is worshipped, he wouldn't let such disrespect unpunished" he argumented, everyone seemed to agree with those words but they were still worried about that person.
"How are you going to contact him anyways? He lives far away from everything" spoke the horned man.
To this question, the pig man simply raised his hands up and told them that he had a way to get him here quickly, the others were a bit confused but seeing that he was a serious as serious could get, they decided to wait nearby until then.
They simply received a message a few days later, telling them that they could go back to their occupations for now, that Earthblood was on the hunt.
_________________________
Greed pulled out a golden pocketwatch out of mouth alongside a fistful of dust and looked at it before slowly turning to Wrath.
"I don't know about you but it seems like your spark hasn't found anything to sustain itself with" she said, it had been more than a week since Wrath had hacked some believers of Toutatis to bits, she had been waiting near the site of the bloodbath, expecting the counterattack of UCT, to then kill those and then other and then go kill some more priest when they would realise that it's useless, then send some more due to the public pressuring the leaders into doing something until everything was dead or something else happened.
Right now however, it seemed like they were exercising patience.
"Do not worry Greed, they will inevitably break, they aren't good enough to not succumb" calmy said Wrath, certain that they would fall into the deadly cycle she had prepared for them.
"How are you so sure about that? Maybe they are nothing but cowards who won't take action unless you stab'hem a couple of times, maybe they don't actually regard their religion as important or perhaps they have already moved on, I thought I would never be able to recover from the time someone stole a few of my coins but look at me, I am perfectly well and stable!" argued Greed, flashing her toothless smile as the coins in her sockets flashed.
"I don't agree with that last statement" simply said Wrath as she stood up, someone was approaching and it wasn't a nobody but an enormous lizard man.
"Greed, I don't whether or not you help me to fight this guy, just tell me now whether or not you are gonna do it, I don't want to slash you to pieces by accident, I don't dislike you nearly as much as I dislike everything else" spoke Wrath but Greed only layed back and didn't answer.
"Suit yourself" muttered the sin of wrath as she stepped toward the lizard, unlike the paladins, he wasn't a pushover, he bore a similar conviction to them but the strength backing it up was something else.
The enormous lizard towered over Wrath as he stood at almost three meters tall, he was standing on his hind legs and his body structure indicated that it was how he was meant to walk at all times.
Despite clearly looking the part to be one of the monstruous beastfolk species, he spoke clearly, showing that he wasn't a monster.
"I am Earthblood, the champion of Toutatis! What is your name warrior?" he asked in a clear tone, his voice wasn't perfect but he was completely understandable.
He didn't seem to be particularily angered by the act she had commited, perhaps because there was a slim chance that she wasn't the culprit from his perspective but the fact that he had actually shown up so fast was proof enough for those that knew Earthblood.
At he spoked this words an hint of actual anger on Wrath's face appeared for the first time.
"Champion huh? Champion of Toutatis, I am the champion of the one true god then" she said before unsheated her saber, slashing at terrific speed as Earthblood used the battleaxe in his hands to stop the attack, he was surprised when he felt himself being pushed back for a short moment, he should be much heavier and powerful than her due to their species difference, this meant that she was extremely high level or that she was more than meet the eye.
He pushed her back and shouted a few words before slamming the flat back of his battleaxe onto the ground, shattering it in a wide circle, causing debris to fly everywhere.
"One true god huh? Those are big words for such a small person!" he yelled, right after destroying the ground, he growled as blood came out of his eyes, forming some sort of tribal marking on the sides of his head, his aura soared with power as he swung his axe around causing a miniature storm to forme around him in the form of turbulent winds, pushing away everything that could bet in his path and keeping Wrath at sufficient distance for him to wind up his extremely telegraphed attack.
letting himself be carried by the momentum of his weapon, he unleashed ferocious and unblockable strikes, that caused immense wind movements and destruction with every movement.
Seeing this coming right at her, Wrath seemed unimpressed as he sheated her saber back and pulled out the other blade strapped to her waist, a rapier.
A strange choice to go against Earthblood's unrelenting assault but no one had enough time to entertain this sort of thought as she positioned herself as if she was going to unleash consecutive thrusts with her rapier, bringing the guard close to her chin.
The current of winds created by the enormous lizard seemed to be disrupted ever so slightly, before the champion of Toutatis fell to the ground, each of his organs had been pierced once, except for his brain which had been struck twice, once through each eye, each attack had pierced cleanly through his body and armor, completly ignoring the defense that had been buildt out of the remains of powerful creatures even Earthblood had had trouble piercing the defenses of.
It all happened so fast that Greed didn't even realise he was dead already and even he took a few seconds to come to the conclusion that he dying.
"Next time you introduce yourself, be aware of who you are fighting" advised Wrath before his consciousness disappeared.
She put the still clean rapier back in its sheath and walked back to Greed, sitting back down to wait.