Michael and his group left to join the light army after a few days of the fiasco created by Ashley. Michael had a pretty good guess why Ashley wanted to join the war. He was already planning on a few covert ways to help her.
Kandrif was quite annoyed as he had to give up five guards under his command for Ashley to bring her's. The number of people one could bring with them was limited by the regulations of the army squadron size. After all, if every one of the heirs was to bring their own army, there would be no coordination. Thus, the bulk of the army was made up from the recruits of the light empire's army and only a few retainers were advised. Kandrif had originally wanted to bring 20 personal guards but had decided to give 5 spots to Michael to bring his own people.
Michael did not really have any experts under himself. Thus, he added Ramsus and Omar to his entourage. Currently, after being acquainted for over 10 years, Michael and Ramsus were very close. Omar too was very fond of Michael. Thus, Michael had no one else that he would trust more than these two. Michael also wanted to bring along Demitrus but he later found that the old man would not be joining the war but would be stationed in the newly built Moonflower village. As Michael did not have any more reliable people, he asked his family. Thus, three extremely loyal guards were sent by his father to aid Michael in the upcoming war.
These three were: Adrian, Quillian and Damian. The three were brothers and orphans and had been raised in the Rageberg family. They were guards in the Rageberg castle but their talent was quite good for commoners. Due to getting fairly good amount of resources, they had managed to reach the emperor realm by the age of 30. While they were not more capable than the guards of Kandrif or Ashley, their loyalty could not be doubted. Another important thing was that they were still not past their prime. If they could contribute highly, they would get many precious resources that would make it possible for them to reach saint-realm in the future.
Thus, Michael's entourage could be called the weakest. The five elven guards were all peak-saints and Kandrif himself had five peak-saints around him. The others too were in different stages of saint-realm. Initially, Kandrif was not interested in getting a powerful retinue of guards. But after Ragnar added five powerful guards to the group, how could the beast-emperor back down. Thus, there were 11 peak saint realm experts in the group of 23. This was simply a huge force. There was no way that this group would be held back on the battlefield at all. It was a group capable of sweeping through the entire war.
The group assembled at the outskirts of the army camp before walking into the army.
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Tens of thousands of kilometres away, in the dark empire, another group of people was holding a discussion. The group was made up of many individuals - most of them in the saint realm. There were 6 people sitting around a stone table. The others were all standing around. These were the heirs of various dark races. The vampire prince, the ghoul prince, the shadow prince, the prince and princess of dark elves and the gargoyle prince were sitting around in the seats of importance. All of them were in various stages of emperor realm.
The status of a prince or princess was given to the youngest talents of a race. It should be known that after coming of age, the titles were officially removed. But the normal populace kept on saying the same as long as a new prince or princess was not assigned. Thus, though all these people were middle-aged and had all come of age, they were still referred to as the prince and princess of their race. The same case was with Ashley and Kandrif as well. Michael, on the other hand, was still the official crown prince of humans.
As these people were sitting together, they were making plans for the upcoming war.
> Vampire Prince : We know that all the main targets are gathered at the same place. The king of geniuses, the beast prince and the elven princess are all high reward targets. They will not have a powerful army as the light empire seems to be saving their strength. But even then, they will be having many powerful guards. The reason, I asked you all to join me was to form an alliance. The humans, werebeasts and elves are already in alliance. With their family background, we can expect around 10 fort guardian level fighters in the group. If we do not form our own alliance, running into them would mean death.
>
> Ghoul prince : Even if you say that, we can not focus on only a single squadron. If we kill commanders with great military merit, we will have much more impact than simply fighting against one single squadron. The battlefield is very sparse and the armies will move in extremely complicated patterns. A single squadron can only hit limited number of forts.
>
> Vampire Prince : So you want to leave them free to devastate our forts?
>
> Dark Elf Prince : Even if we leave them be, the most they will manage to do would be taking down a few forts. In return, we can take down many more forts.
>
> Shadow Prince : It is more reasonable to travel separately and surround them. Even if they have powerful guards, if surrounded, there is a good chance for them to die. Even if they get away, their army would be done. It will naturally make them loose all face.
>
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>
> Gargoyle Prince : I have heard that the elven princess is quite the beauty. If anyone manages to capture her, I will buy her from you.
>
> Dark Elf Princess : You will die. Her ancestor is very touchy. If he finds out about what you plan to do, he will skin you alive.
>
> Gargoyle Prince : You think I give a fuck to that old monster. My ancestor will kill him if he dares to come over.
The gargoyles were quite a powerful race. Their bodies were very tough making them capable of fighting those beyond their level. In compensation, their souls were generally weaker. Thus, the leader of gargoyles - the gargoyle king was a well known immortal slayer in the plane.
> Dark Elf Princess : You think that she is more beautiful than me? She may be beautiful but can she match me in the bed?!
>
> Gargoyle Prince (smirking) : That I will know after tasting her.
The others all made weird faces at their conversation. It was another well-known fact that the dark elf princess was in love with the gargoyle prince and that it was a one-sided love. She was feeling jealous of Ashley even though it was yet to be seen how the war turns out.
The Gargoyle prince was quite a womanizing person. He was rumoured to be a harem king and a playboy. How many of his relationships were on the basis of his charm and how many due to abuse of power was not clear.
The vampire prince got frustrated by the response of these people and decided to bring the topic back on track:
> Vampire Prince : You all should think this through. There is a huge concentration of power in that squadron. If left unchecked, there might be variables in the plan.
>
> Shadow Prince : I understand you concern but we have to loose some to win some. We will hit more of their forts. We just need to steer clear off their group. I am leaving now. I have to train my elite assassin unit. Taking down a fort is not easy.
>
> Ghoul Prince (to the vampire prince) : Don't worry! You have a habbit of overthinking things. Just focus on the offense.
>
> Dark Elf Prince : Yes. We will keep our squads separate. There is no point in banding together. We will now take our leave. Let's see who comes on the top in the war.
After that, all the people left after making some more small talk. The war was a heavy affair and the decisions were not made that easily.
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In a corner of the dark empire, there was a group of people standing in the dark. They were talking among themselves:
> P1 : We have received too many missions this time. There are many who are targets as well as employers. Haha! This is indeed a good season for killing.
>
> P2 : We have received a very significant price for many targets. In the importance order - the crown prince of humans - Michael Rageberg is at the top followed by beast prince Kandrif. Then, we have the gargoyle prince and a few others of note. Taking action against the first two should be convinient.
>
> P3 : Hmm. You are right. But, we need to make our move at a well placed timing. That Michael guy is the personal disciple of Karslon and the beast prince is, well, the beast prince. We have to make the move in dark.
>
> P4 : That Michael guy is quite unlucky. His own queen is wanting him dead more than the other races.
>
> P1 : We don't decide on the matters between the client and target. Shadow 2, 3 and 4, go to the battlefield and tail that group. Try not to get noticed and look for the right timing to attack!
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Michael's group joined the army headquarters. They were assigned their squad number and the right to pick two thousand soldiers. Most of these soldiers were in the king-realm with a significant amount in the emperor-realm. As their group was decided, they were given the chance to get acquainted and decide their strategies and the rest.
The command structure in the army was as such:
The overall commander of the army was naturally an immortal-realm expert who was stationed at the headquarters. The headquarters of both the armies were inside their own borders and quite far from the battlefield. In the past several years, the army headquarters had never once fallen. After all, one would need to kill an immortal to take the headquarters down.
The headquarters was also home to many, many soldiers and strategists and logistics experts. It was indeed a huge behemoth and Michael's forest base was hardly comparable. If the base could get such a powerful illusion array, it would be impenetrable even by experts beyond the immortal realm!
Thus, the headquarters took note of the entire war situation on several fronts. It was also responsible for deciding the contributions and rewards of different squads. Then, below the headquarters were the massive units or military bases called as command centres. Each command centre had tens of peak-saints. In usual times, each command centre had a perfect-realm expert at the helm. But, during this war, all the perfect-realm experts had been called back to the HQ.
Each CC was responsible for a huge region of the battlefield. The number of CC across the entire battlefield was 20 - 10 on each side - light and dark. In the several hundred-year wars fought between the empires, never had a CC fallen. There were some times in history when a centre was pushed back and almost controlled, never had it succeeded. After all, the upper limit for the strength was fixed. Each centre had at least 20 peak-saints. This made it impossible for them to fall in any normal circumstances.
Below the CC were the forts. Each fort was helmed by a peak-saint. Forts usually fell in the battle but the fort-guardians were very rarely killed. But it was not uncommon for fort guardians to fall on the battlefield either. Powerful squadrons like Michael's could definitely take down any fort in the entire battlefield. But there were many forts, more than 200 in total. The distance between the forts was huge as well. Thus, a squad - no matter how powerful, was of limited use in the war.
The result of the war was decided by the number of forts under the control of each empire at the end of a two year time period.
Michael and his companions were still stationed at the HQ. At the date of the official beginning of the war, they would leave to conquer.