1 Month Is Enough

The day the Undermudmusk Region was defeated wasn't riddled with excitement and emotion as if the entire world had undergone a Change. Something like that hasn't happened in more than a decade. Thus, other than the Universal Conveyance slowly flooding with this information, as the news of the Far East Region's victory over the Undermudmusk Region gradually spread, the Eyeseeking Region saw the last of their struggles under the Blauw Empire's mighty all-out assaults.

After the First and Second fleets bombarded the enemy ruling organization’s individual territory and were halted by the Generals after a while, their fleets rushed to the Eyeseeking Region’s sea territory, where they joined the Third and Fourth fleets and started aiding the ground forces in the Eyeseeking Region, still away from touching grass near the Small City’s zone. However, a reaction from the soldier units in the ground force in the Undermudmusk Region as their last main defense point was bombarded occurred.

Amidst the bombardment, the Imperial Guards started noticing something different. The Undermudmusk Region’s ruling organization was a Pavilion, not a generational organization. Thus, it shouldn’t have had barely any civilians, and they should’ve evacuated already. However, when the bombardment began, they could hear screams from non-cultivators echo where explosions didn’t even sound nearby.

They were probably hit by rubble or chunks that fell off from other parts of such territory. It also didn’t seem like they were there voluntarily, as they could hear painful, agonized cries from enemy cultivators who were also not yet reached by the navy’s bombardment. The Imperial Guards, noticing this, along Blauw Ishikyy, the royal princess, stressed this concern to their Generals. After all, these would become their people but were being used as a shield because the Empire was known for the importance they placed on non-cultivators. They even let them join the fight and risk their lives in battles!

After a little while, when the enemy’s individual territory seemed about to be crushed into pieces, the Generals prepared their people to rush inside. Thus, they ordered the Admiral to cease the bombardment before the time was met and followed to command their army into the half-destroyed territory. The Imperial Guards didn’t waste a moment and rushed inside, wielding their weapons to deal with the living enemies but focused on searching for survivors.

There were more than a million non-cultivators here, much more than there should have been, even in a large military town on a Regional border and far from any other settlement. They went in, started taking survivors back to safety, and ended any cultivator that wasn’t from their Far East Region, whether they surrendered or not. And the citizens were even more ruthless, finishing any lives, except that of newborns, which the desperate enemy didn’t doubt once to place before their central building. It was a day filled with rage! And it reminded everyone of how vastly different their Blauw Empire had ever been in history… They were reminded what to fight for besides their home! Perhaps… for the world!

Meanwhile, the war in the Eyeseeking Region continued. The Empire’s ground forces led the Far East Region’s armies throughout the land, shrinking the enemy’s territory and gradually surrounding their Small City and ruling organization’s individual territory. This time, the Eyeseeking Region had it more manageable and better planned, as their ruling organization, a House, was set just tens of kilometers from the Small City. It could be seen how they became the current ruling organizations for several generations.

Thus, the Far East Region had to fight both simultaneously, but they also had to make sure there wouldn’t be any forces reinforcing the enemy and that they could go all out to destroy the last bastion in the Eyeseeking Region. After the Undermudmusk Region war ended, a third of the ground forces there were mobilized to the Eyeseeking Region, including the special forces, while the rest stayed to calm things down.

As these things happened, the ground forces sent to the Eyeseeking Region spent 2 days with their newly arriving comrades to surround the enemy’s last bastion near the center of their enemy’s Regional territory. The Blauw Empire started preparing for the following attack, as more than 60,000,000 soldier units were participating on the Empire’s side and nearly half that amount on the enemy side.

However, the enemy had the advantage, with their overlapped defenses with several layers of protective array formations and massive weapons aimed at the outside, ready to blast anything to smithereens. The Eyeseeking Region had been contacted by the Generals sent there when the Undermudmusk was being bathed in blood, and the Eyeseeking Region found a ‘stalemate’ against the Blauw Empire but couldn’t actually harm the latter.

Unfortunately— for them, the Eyeseeking Region refused to acknowledge the Blauw Empire after refusing them for the second time. They believed the Blauw Empire had discovered they were stronger than they looked and gained hope in their hearts. But after the seventh time of not receiving any response from the Eyeseeking Region’s allied organizations, the ground forces resumed mobilizations and started taking the enemy territory from their hands!

Time passed, and news of the Undermudmusk Region arrived. They felt the pressure. They understood they overestimated themselves, sadly. But they couldn’t do anything now… other than consider surrendering to this nefarious enemy. The Eyeseeking Region made some last efforts and sent millions to the nearby Cities taken by the Empire, but were repelled after they were blown to the sky, without even civilians inside them anymore.

With severe casualties of each army returning to the individual territory and their Small City, the Eyeseeking Region lost hope when news of their scouts’ last living seconds gave word that more than 10,000,000 soldier units from the Far East Region crossed borders and were basically joining the ground forces in the Eyeseeking Region to smash them in one last effort. Additionally, from a few reports they received these last 2 days, they guessed the Blauw Empire’s whole navy would focus on them.

With all of this, how could they not surrender? However, when they gave the green light to start communications with the Blauw Empire again, who swiftly responded to open the channel, the Eyeseeking Region didn’t know they only attempted to contact the Far East Region’s forces just hours before the battle commenced. In the end, the Eyeseeking Region’s last effort was answered by the Empire’s silent ambiance from their side after receiving their assigned supervisor’s response, which could be summarized simply.

—No mercy to the conveniently deaf hearts.

Thus, the Eyeseeking Region came to know the Blauw Empire’s attitude, and the Blauw Empire’s ruthlessness came to be shown to the world for the first time as hundreds of rockets flew into the air and dived down at the same time as missiles launched from the Empire’s navy landed on the southern sides of the enemy protective array formations. The air shook terribly, and the land quaked, but the trained soldier units stood their ground up and waited…

When the time finally came, what the world, the Blauw Empire’s forces, and the enemy shielding themselves from the bombardment in desperation to live could see was a blue light of a few hundred people flying from the ground to the sky, arching directly towards the enemy individual territory. They became an energy dragon, starry azure, and pristine. It had whiskers, but they were, in fact… a multi-colored claw and a trident held by the head.

A royal princess led this charge head-on, and some could say it was suicidal. Because it was. However, when her people realized who it was, they felt their skin’s pore opening, numbing, and their skin trembling… with roaring excitement!!

Ishikyy opened the stage with her long energy dragon’s head crashing on the ground, immediately swarming outwards, cutting, drowning, and overwhelming hundreds of enemy cultivators. Meanwhile, as the enemy passively died to the Blue Force’s one of few Elemental Art techniques, their personnel traveled towards every angle and finished off those battle-hardened enemies who would take a little longer to perish.

Stabs, thrusts, swipes, hacks, cleaves, and energy bouts went everywhere in the night after the navy bombarded for morning and the entire afternoon. The sun was setting, but Blauw Ishikyy led her Blue Force directly into the middle of the enemy ranks and started reaping lives like locusts in an open field filled with flora. Little by little, as the electricity was blasted during the bombardment in both the individual territory and the Small City, the obscured scene of Blauw Ishikyy’s Blue Force fighting back to back with each other against the enemy closing in, reflected in everyone’s retinas.

They fought one by one, killing one enemy at a time and getting rid of any threatening situation, but they were expending all their energy and effort doing so. They were already a little weary from the previous all-out battle in the Undermudmusk Region’s Small City, only having rested a little over these 2 days, but enough to battle with their peak performance.

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Gradually, their circle shrunk as they retreated step after step, and their royal princess looked back not even once at her people watching from the outside. She simply kept fighting, destroying any enemy attempt to disrupt their formation or deteriorate their array formations. They were ready, and some Craftspeople were lunging towards them, hoping to weaken them. It was commendable somehow.

However, it did not matter what little praise she held for them, as she brutally crushed, ended, and mauled every enemy’s body till only rags remained from their skin and flat layers of their bones. When she was finally hit by a mighty energy-empowered kick on her sternum and fell under the threat of losing her balance and letting her Blue Force suffer casualties again, she forced her body to remain slightly inclined backwards and took her scales out.

Ishikyy’s tail’s tip traced against the ground, passing between flesh, corpses, and bones and dragging on the blood streaming down the line. But just as she was about impulse her body forwards and rejoin the fight, her scaled ears tingled, and her cutest, brightest azure, aquamarine eyes looked sideways only to see many Imperial Guards and a few citizens rushing forth with their rifles tightly held in their hands… and their faces roaring to kill!

“Raaaaarr!” - “Huaaaaa!” - “Onwards!” - “With the royal princess, come on!!” - “PUSH!” - “Faster!” - “Side by side, SEND THEM TO THE GROUND!!”

… The battle continued, and for the Empire, it was with high morale, an objective to accomplish, and their royal princess to fight beside them, shoulder to shoulder, and in the sky. As for the enemy, they were already low on morale, especially after the news of the Undermudmusk Region’s aboriginals’ defeat couldn’t be contained anymore and spread everywhere. So far, even if they were to lose 99% of their territory, they wanted to wait for the other side to find an opportunity and help each other escape from this undefeatable monster.

However, not only was that notion broken apart. With the Undermudmusk Region’s occupation and its news spreading everywhere before the bombardment even started, news of their leading figures thinking of surrendering also leaked, and the worst to come started happening. However, that was also when the bombardment started, so the enemy’s hearts couldn’t change just now like nothing and could only wait for the next thing to happen.

Now that they were facing the enemy, the rush in their blood as they watched an important person from the enemy deliver herself into their ranks, they were emboldened, and their bodies warmed to the sight of prey. But as they died and were hopeless against just a few hundred, with millions everywhere, surrounding them, they heard the bells of their death’s doors and looked up to see millions more charging towards them, with millions of energy attacks flying to their faces.

That, this… everything… It was the end.

The battle continued, and the Blue Force led for half the entire battle, lasting 8 hours before needing to retreat, with half their numbers gone and a critically injured royal princess brought back while the rest continued rushing forwards and flew, ran, accumulated Neutral Energy, and surrounded the enemy.

The enemy Small City was rapidly occupied, and the enemy retreated as fast as they could towards their individual territory. Thus, the enemy originally fighting there didn’t notice when their backs touched their comrades until they did, and they became aware of the tragedy they were about to become its protagonists. What else was there but to fight? Hence, the enemy fought, fought with lacking hearts, as their leading figures’ heads and limbs were pulled off their bodies by the Empire’s Generals, and as missiles exploded them to bits as the battle came to an end.

When the Blue Force was still leading the war on the Far East Region’s side, they advanced to 80% of the enemy’s individual territory. But when the remaining half of the battle started, the Empire’s navy started targeting particular enemy strong points, especially their leading figures, who outnumbered their Generals. This quickened the pace at the Far East Region’s forces massacred the enemy, as the enemy gained more momentum and felt their hearts beat once, twice, and stronger than before.

Even as the enemy was gaining one last day of life, and their bodies’ potential was being unlocked, they were being killed more and more rapidly until the Far East Region’s forces had to tread carefully, lest they suddenly gain losses like free lunch. And there is no free lunch in the world. The Far East Region’s forces quickly became up to par with the Blauw Empire’s core troops, and the enemy was becoming defeated with none left alive.

While there might be those who fled before disaster could drag them down with their peers and escaped farther inland, it didn’t matter anymore. The Blauw Empire, in the 26th year, 7th month, 1st week, and 2nd of the new Change, defeated 2 Regions and practically annexed them into their plausible role as a generational organization. On this day, nature accepted the outcome of the wars, and the Far East Region suddenly grew with slightly abundant pure energy.

While it couldn’t be felt back in the 2 northern Regions, the people from the Far East Region could feel something within themselves. It came from their hearts, minds, Souls, inner beings, and more… It came from their universal link to the world itself. One that is begotten when one is born. One that follows them wherever they go. They will be able to feel their Kingdom’s death when it happens and become afflicted before it happens. The ignorant might now know about it, but these soldier units from the Far East Region started understanding… something.

And the inhabitants of the Far East Region could feel a change. Not just inland or the Empire’s core, and not only underwater. In their hearts, their Souls, formed or not, and their instincts, they felt softly touched by an invisible force, barely discernible with the shape of a hand, and along a soft call, coming from underneath the soil, floor, or water they were standing on, or flowing with. Their bodies were seemingly pulled down, and even those who recently migrated to the Blackotia Kingdom’s Blauw Empire felt a gentle touch on their sternum… remaining on them and pacifying them.

The sensation was fleeting, and this strangeness was perceived by others, especially the other sea Regions and the western Regions blockading the path to the Far East Region. Only they couldn’t feel it, and they could just wonder but nothing further.

However, one person was totally different from the rest: Heian Ciemnosc. While they felt it and could at least know something was happening due to the Blauw Empire’s actions, he didn’t feel a thing. He wasn’t worried about others because it was well-known that only generational organizations who do their role as intended can receive nature’s approval, and anyone who thinks Mother Nature became spoiled and was adorning anyone with power ended up suffering disasters until they met their end or retreated.

However, he was curious about the Blauw Empire’s nature’s approval, not even brushing past his dark coat. He felt absolutely nothing at all. While he wasn’t part of the Blackotia Kingdom and belonged to the Wrath Nihility Academy, he was a Blauw Empire person, too. More than that, while the Academy’s actions weren’t fully approved by Nature, they were also not refused and were doing fine. It was like a testing period. But who knew how long it would take.

Heian Ciemnosc could tell this much without needing to consult books he had already researched or ask an advanced or peak Second Step cultivator… but he just couldn’t understand why he was feeling nothing instead. Nevertheless, the wars had ended, and the armies he trained, one way or another, achieved a striking victory again as he was lazying, creating his Ornament again.

… After the war against the Eyeseeking Region ended, hours after, a Kingdomwide transmission started, showcasing the Eyeseeking Region’s Head from their previous ruling organization’s House on his knees with his arms hanging from a couple of Imperial Guards’ hands. The images were there, and the message was clear; the Blauw Empire was terrifying…

In the transmission, a person walked into the camera, slightly forwards than the imprisoned Head, and she was none other but the Empire’s Second Admiral. She wore her high-status uniform with pale violet stripes crossing the middle of her shoulders, around her wrists, down the front extremes of her pants, and at the edges of her white coat. Everything else had a bright, spotless white color, except for the black hat and black inner garments.

“... The Blauw Empire received a surprise while we were still fighting our enemy in our own Region. Never had we ever forced another Region to face us or had a conflict with them. Her Majesty the Empress even created a large trading coalition with the many sea Regions in the eastern Blackotia Kingdom. We do not care about the reasons, for the outcome was clear. We, the Blauw Empire, the Far East Region, waited and prepared. Now, you see your response.”

“We would like to remain like this, peaceful, and ally with our fellow neighbors after dragging a foreign Region to these matters into the bowl.” The Second Admiral stopped there, and the camera angle zoomed out to reveal the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Admirals, as well as a dozen Generals. She added while the camera traced backwards, “But we know that is impossible. It just cannot happen. We are too different. While we wanted to live in peace and grow… Others looked at us differently.”

“Now, I announce.” The Second Admiral’s head was lifted, and she blinked. When she finished that blink, her eyes stared straight into the camera and right through the spectators’ Souls. “This is not the end. In a month from now, the Blauw Empire will occupy the Lightglassed Region, conquering the north. And when we are more ready… the rest will fall. Only we can bring the cultivation path and life, according to the promise of no futures but our hearts!!”

“HUUAAAA!” The other Admirals and Generals stomped their left feet and stood up straighter with their right or left wrist against their left chest, formed into a fist, clearly conveying their soldier units’ emotions… as they were not the only ones echoing out in the background.

“HUAAA!” - “HUAAAA!!” - “HUUUAAA!!” - “HUAAAA!!!”

…