At the very instant the cannon fire thundered to life, Kaierben instead revealed a look of relief, silently watching the Spider Queen Lolth, who showed a flicker of surprise.
After the Saints' Calamity, the gods who had lost the Divine Kingdom—the intermediary link between themselves and their believers—and descended into the mortal world in the bodies of saints had been greatly weakened.
Take the once immensely powerful Goddess of Magic, for instance. Since Anna succeeded to the position, she had still been learning how to wield her Divine Power under the guidance of Elminster, Laeral, and several of her magic sisters. The immature third-generation Goddess of Magic possessed strength in abundance, but in actual combat, she was probably not even a match for a lesser deity.
Or take the already "dead" Dead Three. Leaving aside Milko, the God of the Dead, whom he had poisoned to death with rat poison, even Bane, the God of Strife—who was said to have once possessed Storm's divine statue outside Tantras in Dragon Bay, battled Torm, the God of Loyalty and Courage, and ultimately perished alongside him—had revealed enough of his strength to prove this point. Gods could even be slain by mortals.
Naturally, Kaierben had no intention of comparing the Spider Queen before him, who had lived for tens of thousands of years, to those three pieces of trash. Nor had he hoped that this barrage from the magic-guided cannons could kill her in one stroke.
It was simply that Lolth was still too arrogant. And arrogance often meant underestimating one's enemy.
She had actually dared to come personally to the Prime Material Plane and stand beneath the muzzles of more than three hundred magic-guided cannons.
Then, in the final moment before my life fades away, let me enjoy the sight of you