Recap so far: In a world full of monstergirls and humans polarized by race, unaware of how his underlings were becoming female-only, the old Monster Lord decided to enact a Human Holocaust to counteract the shifting genders, inaccurately placing the global enchantment's blame on humanity. His name lost to living memory and obscured by fel blood spells, he was Maou, who started a global genocide on humanity, thinking if all of humanity perished, the mamono, or "yokai" would have its males restored.
His mindless, short-sighted rage cost him his life when Theophilos, one of the human slaves taken by a vicious clan of dark elves, fought fire with fire and killed him with his own blood magic.
Two decades later Maou, the old Monster Lord, materialized again since Theophilos could not finish the job, fearing death, he stole some of Maou's blood and sadly condemned the world with a resurrected Monster Lord when he drank it.
Raising an army of his old remaining human-hating mamono and channeling gates to other worlds for similar species, Maou was then killed for a second time. This time he was sealed with a forbidden blood ritual that needed ten thousand willing souls to stop his racial rampage. Since Maou is the last and greatest Dai Oni, his spirit's hatred lingered for a final time, this time, a skeletal mockery of his once majestic, terrifying stature. Raising anything that had been dead around him, he races for a final time to consume the whole world to hold on to his crumbling, necrotic body and turn Dunia into a half-dead eternal stasis.
With Theophilos having sacrificed himself, being dead and gone, the third war needs to be fought by monsters and men learning to put down their distrust, through cooperation against an endless tide of the undying coming to consume the world. The dream of a joyful world full of pleasures and easy lives is still far away.
CHAPTER 6:
Two Anubises regarded the half-submerged metallic monstrosity before them. Clad in a mix of traditional Kemet garb and the newly minted, "modern" police clothing, both stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the loincloth clad, or nude women and men working to help the monstergirl navy deploy their newest project.
"What in the name of Osiris' mummified cock is a soob-maryne?"
"Saakali!" Otep frowned at her deputy.
"The ticket to the depths of the ocean to rally the underwater monstergirls and men..." One of the robe-clad engineers passing by, one of Slade's students spoke to both of them, briefly bowing and returning to his diagrams. He quickly disappeared amongst a swarm of similar-looking men in dirty, grease-stained robes arguing about the design and how specific engine parts should work.
The Anubis Otep stood, her paw on her chin as her ears wiggled as the wizened old Slade and her daughter showed her the...thing. The Reiksmarine docks, the only shipyard the anarchic monstergirl empire could scrounge, had been expanded per the temporary alliance between the Human Empire of Lescatie and Mamono Reik. It was temporary since slavery was pretty much alive in the Reik, albeit being phased out except in the Dark Elven Queendom which stubbornly refused to abolish it, instead guaranteeing reforms and well-treatment.
Huge, muscular Red Oni girls swung hammers in tandem with human sailors who worked tirelessly to restore the Reik ships, wooden sail ships, and strange, newfangled iron steamers being built wherever timber and space could be spared. The sailors looked very happy: the entire population of the Reik consisted of sexy monstergirls, docile and servile ex-slave humans whose men were gregarious stallions, females were healthy, well-built shameless naturists, matching the monster females in libido and offering sex to the lusty sailors as simple as offering a cup of water, having been culturally groomed for two centuries and often working nude. It was not unusual to see a human Reik woman behind some crates, squatting or on her knees, head bobbing in quick fellatio to please a helping sailor. Nor was it unusual to hear gasps and moans accompanied by slapping flesh behind crates, a Red Oni beauty hugging a pile of crates and covering her face in shame as one of the visiting sailors thrust inside her in a quickie behind the storage shed, her tigerskin loincloth discarded next to her. Her big, red, muscular ass jiggled as the man kept thrusting faster and faster, attempting to kiss her which she reluctantly obliged, still covering her face from fear of being discovered.
The tireless, lust and ambition-fueled shipbuilding had one singular reason.
In a contingency event where the old Monster Lord, Maou, and his Black Horde won the war on land, the Monstergirl Reik and human survivors would take to the seas to continue survival, and warn other nations who weren't warned, from the New World to the Island Chains of Carib. East of the Lescatian Human Empire called the Gray Steppes between the West and East of the world had become a wasteland due to the Black Legion of Maou pillaging, raping, and killing everything they couldn't convert. Southeastern Ind was in a civil war with Maou cultists and the "Maharaja's Most Illustrious Good Gods". The two other kingdoms of the East, Zhong Guo and Zipangu were isolated. Surrounded by Maou and being attacked daily, the East was unable to accept any help save for sea transports and was under constant siege by corrupt monsters resurrected from the past, undead humans, and mamono forcibly raised to cannibalize the dead.
A black storm had cleaved the Eastern continents in two; Maou Resurrected was now marching west, to destroy the creation of peace Succubus Empress Agrat worked so hard to defend. Already a third of the known Old World had become a lifeless, quiet wasteland where not even fungi grew.
"This thing will take us under the seas?" Otep asked again, scratching her ears like a bored jackal.
It looked like a huge, metallic fish to the monstergirl who never thought of going under the ocean, much less sailing the seas. Her human family was already sent to Kemeti Pyramids using several of her dearest resources in smuggling and short-range teleportation, Otep turned to Saakali for her own opinion, the younger, now-scarred Anubis deputy resting her chin on her paw as well.
"Looks like a whale fucked a boiler train engine and this came ou-OW!"
"LANGUAGE!" Otep smacked Saakali's smaller, jackal-eared head with her paw, scowling. "You are the Handmaiden Race of Ra!" Turning her cute face to Slade with a sigh, she asked with a quizzical tone:
"How does this thing work?"
The old man had plenty to explain. Sighing, Slade lifted his hands and framed the submarine before Otep as if sizing up a picture:
"Now, Lescatie has developed steamers, right? Ships with no sails but ovens and cauldrons powering hot steam like a tea kettle to turn propellers, and circular machinery to move the ship. You girls with me so far?"
Both jackal-eared monstergirls nodded, faces full of questions but not willing to disappoint the old man. "I suppose."
"Now, you can use other things, magic engines, muscle power, et cetera, but there -has- to be a power source around these circular turning paddles. The...Propeller." Extending a wizened old hand to the tail end of the submarine, the old man smiled and kept explaining.
"Now, the ship floats because even metal can displace water if its hull is empty and expansive. But this isn't what counts in a "submarine"." Slade kept talking as he puffed on his pipe. "You need to sink and surface, a ship that can dive like a dolphin and get to the surface, correct?"
"Correct." Saakali agreed.
"So it is a ship that can just float and move regardless of the wind, AND can dive since it's sealed like a barrel with rotating oars! We can get air with pipes that give bad air and sucks fresh air, or just use magic to open a small portal inside the ship to a forest spring, though that will need a good wizard on board."
The Anubis tilted her head, yowling like a puppy and simply giving one modern word of admission in the face of an overly thorough explanation.
