The Real History of Armaaruss
Osiris rules Egypt with justice until his brother Set, incited by a devious deity, murders and dismembers him. Isis gathers the pieces, revives him long enough to conceive a son, and raises that son, Horus, in hiding. Grown to strength, Horus hunts down Set in his hippopotamus form and avenges his father, and the Ptolemaic kings ritually re-enact this victory as the source of their own legitimacy.
Horus resurfaces at Troy as Ares. He fights on the Trojan side through the war sparked by Helen's abduction - wounded by Diomedes, backed by Venus, restrained by Minerva - through Patroclus's death, Achilles' rage, and Hector's fall, until Ulysses' stratagem ends the war and burns the city.
Aeneas escapes burning Troy and leads the survivors to Italy, but Ares has turned against him - furious at what he sees as Aeneas's cowardice in fleeing the fallen city rather than dying with it. Now Mars, he sides with Turnus and the Rutulians against the Trojan newcomers, opposing Aeneas through the war with Turnus. Once Aeneas's line is established, Mars is adopted as Rome's own god of war, and Rome rises under his banner.
Centuries later, Rome besieges Jerusalem. Mars strikes down the same rival power that once stood behind Set - the god of Israel - destroying the Temple in 70 AD. In 135, he renames the land Palestine, permanently overwriting his rival's claim to it.
Rome converts to Christianity and sets Mars aside for Christ, but Mars does not vanish - he persists as the animating spirit of war itself through the centuries that follow, uncelebrated but unbroken, still returning to the site of the Temple to await recognition.
In 2019, Anthony of Boston perceives Mars's influence through the god's position in the sky and begins tracking it against the lunar node. Using this method, he calls down fire and predicts the 2021 Gaza war, the 2023 Gaza war, and the 2025 Israel-Iran war. Mars takes the name Armaaruss and speaks through Anthony directly, delivering revelations: six archetypes of human disposition that are to become the foundation of a new civil law, an offer of peace to the Israelites if they abandon their God and enshrine Armaaruss's image in the holy places, and a final law and prophecy for the new age under his name. Anthony closes the book by publicly reciting six devotions to Armaaruss.