novelraw Chapter 624 - 623 - Power of the Army
Chapter 624 - 623 - Power of the Army
With cultivators, it was not wrong to say some could be as powerful as an army but that was in the short term. To put it another way, cultivators could sprint their output to the point a whole army could die if nothing could stop them.
However, the world was not a vacuum. Cultivators existing in all walks of life meant simple power was not enough. It was also required to pace the expenditure of Qi. When actually waging war, an army was far more powerful than any single individual subduing an actual nation.
Gravis rejoiced at his Emperor's words and began to send out his forces in earnest across the lower world as Keera reigned in her demons above. They coordinated as the battles changed.
"Divisions 1 to 3, focus on rounding up any Sky Realm forces. Division 4 will secure the main structures of Celestia while Division 5 secures the brainwashed citizens." Lind had left explicit instructions to limit the death toll on the controlled citizens.
"Everyone else coordinate with Lady Keera and enter the tunnel!" The soldiers headed under the commanders as Gravis received messages and continued to relay orders quickly via his jade stone bracelet.
The actual running of a war was not done from the frontlines usually. A final rush perhaps needed the senior most soldier to be there in the heat of the moment to quickly adapt.
In the current instance, there were too many fronts for the supreme commander to be at the front. He had taken over one of the former inns as it allowed horses and supplies to be kept there.
It also accommodated far more space for people to go in and out that way as he operated out of the stables. They had already set up several formation plates to defend it on top of the guards.
"Sir Gravis, the 2nd division has found a massive complex full of puppets in the eastern reaches by the mountains, they request reinforcements." He nodded at the words flowing from one of the jade stones on his temporary desk as he quickly used a few jade slips to confirm before giving orders.
"Division 5 leader Grace, send 6 squads to secure a puppet facility in the eastern reaches…" The flow of battle was ongoing and just as Gravis finished giving orders, an update would come in.
Some would panic at such a chaotic thing, but Gravis had been a soldier all his life and the foundation of the Two Rivers Empire was hardly peaceful. Lind was also not like anyone else he had ever known.
The man was meticulous but always coming up with new ideas! He had tried settling a traditional army structure but Lind tossed it out right away. He instead instituted education programs that found strengths and weaknesses of each citizen.
He then made training and cultivation tactics to help people grow rather efficiently. It was clear he really had run a sect before. He also adapted a lot of ideas from his old sect to the Empire.
Basically, those that rose in the army had to actually prove their abilities. Sheena wanted to guard Lind and she had more than enough power to do so. Even so, she had a firm mind for combat that even Gravis could not compare to.
No one let her near the food and drink allocation though! She believed in celebrating each and every victory with a party!
Still, Gravis appreciated her at the moment as she would keep Lind out of trouble on the floating land masses.
Blood flowed like rivers but compared to what they expected, their army swept through Orwellia Empire like a well oiled machine! With the backbone of its power broken and centralized by illusion and control formations, it left very little resistance.
There were a few things that happened as more facilities were revealed that found living Fiends being experimented on that were quickly locked down heavily. The amount of refinement locations was staggering next to puppet storage.
It made Gravis realize the living army compared to the puppet army was a joke. The few clashes proved how inadequate those soldiers were while the puppets were far more fearsome to face.
Timat had clearly been nearing his attempt to take over the 6 empires. It was perhaps only a few centuries to a thousand years before something would have happened. Such long term planning left his heart cold but he gave strict orders as Lind had commanded in regards to the puppets.
All the controls were wrecked and in less than a day, the lower empire was conquered.
The floating land masses had several isolated and well defended palaces that were taking longer but now more people could be allocated from below once things began to settle.
The once chaotic and bloody streets had become orderly with a few stains the only proof of the change of power. The few still free thinking cultivators were left miserably in custody but stunned at how quick and efficient the Two Rivers Empire was.
Most armies, the ones they were used to, would pillage and claim resources for themselves but instead the warehouses were carefully cataloged and notated with no sign of siphoning them away.
If anything, they were looking for more warehouses to more carefully store some of the more perishable goods, even prisoners were not beaten and enslaved as expected either! They were questioned about their business and origins but that was it!
Even the demons were feeling competitive after seeing how well the Two Rivers operated thus the savagery they dreamed of unleashing was curbed. Gravis smirked as Lind had been right once more.
[Demons are not blood thirsty beings by default. It is more like they want to be superior in whatever form of contest they face. Most of the time that is combat, but I have seen them simply want to have more honor than their foe by words alone as well.]
Gravis had not believed it entirely but reality made it clear his Emperor understood more about demons than any of them.
"I hope he is staying out of trouble." Gravis spoke words aloud that made him grimace. His Emperor was many things, but sedentary was not one of them. The man insisted on being involved!
⬧⬧⬧⬧
Keera looked on as another palace was burned to the ground with screams coming from it. Without the false reality that allowed them to fly, the nobles and few important figures were trapped.
The structures had been built on the assumption one could fly so there were no stairs or even ropes to escape easily from the flames. The once pristine towers cracked and fell causing blooms of flames and dust to fly into the sky.
"Commander, Emperor Frey requests if the Imperial Empress has been found." A human had come running but showed no sign of exhaustion. She sensed he was a peak Sky Realm but the level of Qi coming off him would wipe the floor with the Star Tiers she had met in this war.
"She has, over there." Keera pointed to a miserable but still stunningly beautiful pale woman. Her once lush brunette hair was now limp and soot covered. Her face was free of injury but her arms were clearly bruised heavily.
Her dark eyes were full of tears but there was anger in them too.
"You will all die when my Lord finds you!" Keera sighed as it was not the first time such words had been uttered. Even with Timat's death, none of those under his control woke up.
Emperor Lind had been right that it was not just the Fiend that ensnared the minds of the Orwellia Empire. It was something else. As the current palace finally collapsed, she smiled wider then.
"Yes, yes. Your great Lord would indeed kill us, but I think it is time you know before you leave me." Keera then stood over the pathetic human secured in front of her. The once preening Empress wilted under the terrifying aura of the demoness. "I saw your precious Lord die! A single strike ended his pathetic life!"
Defiance appeared in the dark eyes but it was like something broke. Keera was curious when the screaming began.
It was not the screaming of rage or grief, but the scream of a soul waking from Hell. Keera felt goosebumps flow up her arms as her soul shook from the level of pain in those screams.
The messenger began to bleed from his ears before backing off. The Qi in her body was becoming unstable before one of the demons near her knocked her out forcibly.
"Get her to Emperor Lind, we have the next island to conquer." Despite their size, the nobles had made most of the land masses a kind of natural playground. Commoners could not come up not only because of discrimination but also because there were simply no rooms available.
Aside from the occasional villa, palace, or other limited structure, the vast majority was left wild with a few tame beasts allowed to live there.
It made waging war easier in a sense but the structures were heavily fortified. Once the Two Rivers Empire reinforcements arrived, it was like pouring oil on fire. The once near impossible formation defenses to breach were like paper tigers to them.
She made a note to take lessons more seriously from Emperor Lind Frey in the future. She even considered following him after the current war. They had 4 more empires to conquer but they had to digest the current one before moving on.
Watching how efficient the Two Rivers Empire soldiers were, however, made her think it would not take as long as she thought.
"Armies can be like this, eh?" She was getting ideas and recalled how young the force was she was watching. While demons were more heavily trained in comparison, the Two Rivers Empire really only had 75 years at most to claim, yet their strength was horrifying in its speed and accuracy.
The Orwellia Empire ceased to exist in less than a week. Compared to Dar, that Lind had thought of as a hollow shell by its dependency on heavy slavery, Orwellia Empire had never really existed in the first place.
It had all been a play and once backstage, he simply shattered the sets to reveal it was nothing at all but a dream. There never had been an Orwellia Empire, it was all just a place for a long dead man to pretend he had absolute control of his life when real monsters came and took it all away.
What had been a nightmarish toy had become a living hell for over 3 billion people born from one cultivator's dream of the perfect life with no defiance or flaws like reality had. It all came crashing down long ago and Lind simply tore the veneer away at last for all to see.
All the remained was to destroy the legacy that birthed the Law Binding and forever banish it to the depths of history!