Ready for the show

Zuline stayed with Clyss, she took care of him in his first moments of life. She had to teach him how to fire to blow the Golden City. The Jessadian could not interfere herself but she could do what was needed to protect the population, this was not exactly respecting the rules but not breaking them as well. She was in a grey zone since Zarkhaïm never mentioned her responsibility in the creation of a weapon. The role of Clyss was to help the Jessadians to create portals all around the world to shelter the population in record time, then, it was to send a strong message by his presence alone. 

They were counting on the dissuasion effect. Jäwell was sitting in the council room, his fingers pressed on his temples. He was exhausted by the number of meetings he had to attend after the birth of Clyss. The leaders have been very excited by the presence of a dragon. These creatures of legend were present in the folklore of men but nobody ever saw one in reality. 

During the meeting, an undead alchemist was presenting herbs and mixtures he worked on. Some were to make someone lose his mind, others were to help to heal faster. These things could transform any creature near death into a berserk, able to kill his opponent without pain or fear. The demonic warrior legions even made a song about it, they called it Opium. 

Jäwell had, of course, an interest in a drug that could make him fight more but before he could ask any questions a dwarf stormed into the room. 

"My prince! Come! We succeeded!" the dwarf said with a grin from ear to ear. 

The little man was already outside, not waiting for Jäwell to stand up. The prince followed at a fast pace.

"How is it that you are so little and so rapid?" Jäwell complained.

"This is because I imagine the reward you will give us after I show you what we have done," the dwarf answered with a malicious expression. 

The curiosity of the prince was piqued, and it was once outside that his dead heart started to beat strongly in his chest. In front of him was the most wonderful thing he ever saw in his life. 

The weapon was a two-meter-long tube. A few dwarves were around to manipulate the siege engine. 

"It throws cannonballs as far as the Golden City in the sky," a master engineer claimed with pride. 

Jäwell looked at them and chuckled, "I have an erection!" He claimed, making everyone around disturbed, but then he added more seriously, "How many of them can you make in the short time we have?"

The head engineer rubbed his hands, "if we can exploit the elves like slaves to serve us, we can try to make twenty in a very short time."

Jäwell laughed even louder, they didn't lose their ambition. It was known that elves have been unfair to dwarves in the light worlds, it was somehow expected that they would take their revenge in the Ombrae. 

The prince clapped his hands and nodded, "Granted!" 

In a blink of an eye, the dwarves restarted all their forges, with the active slavery of elves, they made almost double the expected amount for these weapons and fifty times more projectiles to throw at these "birds". 

With the war coming the world has changed radically. The different clans were all involved in their vision, bringing their strengths into the equation. The demoness also took the initiative and surprised Jäwell. She had gathered her more powerful gladiators and trained them to work together. Taking her inspiration from the different sources in the battles' histories, she turned her independent and selfish demons into a legion of gladiators under the orders of their beloved queen. The demonic legion counted thousands of terrifying creatures, more bloodthirsty one after the other. 

During these times, Jessadians were gathering civilians, working on an evacuation plan, creating meeting points, and working to open portals for the population to be transferred safely to the light world. Without interference, Jäwell was not worried anymore about the casualties, the Ombrae would become a heaven for him soon enough. A land where he could fight without caring about the repercussions and without guilt of harming innocents. Jäwell was happy, deeply happy. 

The Capital became much more active, and transactions, businesses, and markets were created. A complete economy was launched. For this, he could thank Lady Fluffy. She organized a lot of things to help the ones who stayed access the best weapons and armor possible. She organized the resources and distributions between the clans to optimize the new unified army.

They were getting ready for the war to come, and everything followed the plan on time, but every leader and Jäwell wondered why the Gods didn't attack them yet. They were worried by the lack of assaults, it was like they were waiting for them to be prepared. Jäwell didn't want to think too much about it, the possibility that the angels would also be preparing for the battle was preoccupying but since they had no spies or any other way to know what was happening up there, he only had to believe in his resources. After all, the battle could still be avoided since the Gods could see the lines of defense Jäwell had organized. It was a possibility that they may cancel their initial plans as their target was not so easy to defeat in the end. 

Jäwell felt a chill run down his spine at the thought that he might never be able to use his new canons. After the last meeting, he joined Zuline in the ballroom. 

She was lying next to Clyss, she was reading him a book peacefully. When he saw them, Jäwell had a warm feeling stirring inside him. He decided at this very precise moment. Seeing them together like mother and son, he remembered the warm memory of his mother teaching Miroïr to read and feeding his mind with thousands of beautiful love stories. He had no heart to break their bond this way. 

"I will not take Clyss into the battle," Jäwell announced. 

Zuline closed the book in her hands and looked at him without even blinking, "What did you just say?"

Jäwell came to join them and sat next to her, "Clyss will not fight. We will go out with him and I think it will be enough for the birdies to not launch an attack on us."

He smiled while placing a kind hand on her cheek and caressing her with his thumb delicately, "Clyss would kill the fun… He is too powerful to fight, I would have nothing to do if he joined."

Zuline was deeply touched by his words. She knew Jäwell would want to use Clyss in a battle and the idea of riding a dragon to shoot at the golden city was very tempting to him, however, he recognized Clyss' innocent heart and he spared him the vision of the massacres that could come with a war. 

Zuline whispered as she took Jäwell's hand in hers, "Thank you."