Phase 5! All-Out! Enemy Assault!

"We do nothing. Mn, that's right. The garrison units will handle it. We didn't put them in a high place to appear strong. If anything, we'll see if they deserve their place or are just for showing off. But still prepare the 4 Army Groups in the south to return and reinforce our territories after they decimate the forts." Said Heian Ciemnosc. Etherea looked at him and his bold decision and words before bowing her head respectfully. She felt as if their commander changed, but just a little. She could swear she wanted to see this unfold more than ever before!

“Yes, sir! Anything else?” Etherea asked, prepared to relay his orders and initiate this brutal sequence once and for all. Heian Ciemnosc shook his head but then nodded, “After this, bring Vice sect master Floris, Grand Elder Tulla, and Headmaster Denisse to the Small City with their honored followers, whoever and as many they will be.”

“Understood,” Etherea looked at Heian Ciemnosc with a knowing gaze and nodded. Heian Ciemnosc slightly returned the gesture, and she finally walked away with a face expressing her excitement in a yet professional, stern manner.

Heian Ciemnosc walked to Molto and stood just half a step before her. Molto was slightly astounded, but she wasn’t afraid and didn’t dare disrespect him. Heian Ciemnosc looked down at her before finally calmly saying something, “You will serve me and my people well. You’ve already sworn allegiance to me, but there’s something lacking. What is it?”

“...” Molto looked at the man before her. He read her so easily and confronted her about it with no qualms. Would he understand her? Help her more than he already has? She was curious, but also afraid she was just a piece to move in his mind. With a courageous breath, she looked up and moved her delicate jaw, “I want to belong to supreme commander. I alone am not enough to follow you. Maybe to serve you. But to be of use even until the end? I know I am not.”

“You wish for what?” Heian Ciemnosc blinked and looked at her, slowly portraying his words. Molto nervously gulped. Her eyes looked at him as her bright skin seemed tender in this gray day. “I couldn’t discern it before, sir. But now, I feel there’s something within you that can aid me. I’m not speaking lust, sir. Your dual cultivation method is miraculous, but something else attracts my… blood and Soul.”

“Mn,” Heian Ciemnosc hummed. Molto continued after falling to her knees before his shoes and grabbing his pants below his knees, “I wish to dedicate my life to you, live under you, and for your whim and sake. To advance and discover the world as your subject… Please grant me this chance to see and have what I don’t know yet seek.”

“... Molto, from now on, you are my second direct subordinate in my life. Outside any organization or methodical system. You are but mine to dictate, even if I tell you to become mine or find someone, or some, and make a family. If I were to command you to destroy, you leave nothing behind. Understood?” Heian Ciemnosc lowered his stance and grabbed her white hair with his right hand, pulling her chin up.

“Yes, I do… my lord.” Molto looked at Heian Ciemnosc with slight pain, but the pain rapidly became comfort as she could see her white hair turning darker and darker. Something from Heian Ciemnosc’s right hand spread into her being as her hair changed color.

Thud. Molto fell unconscious on the ground. Heian Ciemnosc looked down at her before swinging his left foot up. She was just above it, and he didn’t put force. His arms picked her up as Heian Ciemnosc walked to the others, looking from afar, slightly astounded with this success of events.

“Supreme commander, is there something going on?” Carrying Molto over, covering her body with except her head a layer of darkness, Heian Ciemnosc was asked by Headmaster Denisse, who looked at Molto as if she had betrayed him and would die. However, Heian Ciemnosc smoothly shook his head and blinked, “She’s receiving my goodwill. That’s something you and that fella’s sister should look forward to.”

“Miss Tulla, follow me, and you’ll see a peak you couldn’t have imagined seeing in this Kingdom, serving an organization that serves others.” Heian Ciemnosc had just finished speaking to Denisse, when he turned to the Aqualian Drake Sect’s Grand Elder and proposed. The group of people around him was astounded. Was this a mutiny?

“This… Esteemed black monster, do you wish to take my people away? Although I… don’t mind, we could have a better thought beforehand, right? Haha…” Sect Master Zelion spoke. Heian Ciemnosc looked at him and slightly jumped his eyebrows. This fella seemed to have learned to control himself with time. It might have to be because of the results from his leadership, but it was fine.

“I’m not targeting you, or Headmaster Denisse,” Heian Ciemnosc said, turning towards Denisse at the end of his words. He gazed at the Sect Master again and went on, “Thank you for receiving me, it’s a good gesture. However, I want to take your Grand Elder away. She’s a good seed, and I don’t mind letting you give her to me after I gave all of this to your Sect.”

“Ah? What about me?” Headmaster Denisse interjected, spreading her arms as if to show herself to him. Heian Ciemnosc once again looked at her and said with a calm tone, “Miss Denisse is welcome to join me. You’re a leading figure. The highest position in your organization. What I seek is you, but your organization might also join me. However, I doubt you can bid farewell to your organization’s masters.”

“It is the same for Miss Floris,” Heian Ciemnosc looked at the beautiful blonde a few meters behind the Sect Master’s left. “I happen to lack all sorts of talents and people. However, I am in no hurry. But if you wish to decide, do so before it is the last time we see each other, not after.”

“...” - “...” Denisse fell pensive, also becoming seemingly afflicted. On the other hand, Vice sect master Floris frowned. Her arms were crossed, and she seemed intrigued with one look. Heian Ciemnosc nodded towards them before looking at the Grand Elder, already walking towards him, and gave the Sect Master a glare before looking at Molto’s face.

“I’ll join you, black monster. But I’d like to ask something. It’s a very ordinary doubt in this situation… What made you change your previous approaches?” Grand Elder, or rather, ex-Grand Elder Tulla spoke as she took her medallion out of her Covert Space bags and smoothly threw it towards the Sect Master, floating. She also took her robes off with a pull, revealing ordinary clothing hugging her body and revealing below her knees and forearms.

“...” Heian Ciemnosc looked at Tulla patiently before flatly responding in a calm tone, “You’ll know more in the future. Not so far from today. But you’ll understand once you come back to my home with me.”

“...” Tulla nodded, giving no further explanation as she stood behind Heian Ciemnosc and stared at the group around them. They were most of the Farsighted realm cultivators. However, Tulla couldn’t help but have the sensation that even if every Farsighted realm cultivator from the ruling organizations were present, she’ll still feel safe.

“I’ve given the order to begin phase 5, I’d like to invite you to stay. You’ve made things easier by welcoming me. Once again, I’m grateful,” Heian Ciemnosc said, slightly bowing with Molto unconscious in his arms still.

“Ah, this… Ahem, black monster. I can’t say no to you, but I hope you reconsider. You should be aware of how difficult the situation can be with the highest people…” The Sect Master said, but Heian Ciemnosc ignored him. Heian Ciemnosc simply floated upwards. Just in time, Alejandro and Evans silently flew towards them, heading towards Heian Ciemnosc but gazing at them.

“I recommend you take a good spot and survive. Don’t trouble the others with becoming an obstacle, you’re no military unit in my army. They might have to decide quickly what to do with you if you’re a nuisance,” Heian Ciemnosc offered some words as he looked at the others below him with ultimately cold eyes. Then, he ignored the rest as his dark tail brought a hesitating Tulla with him to Evans’s back.

“... … …” The group below Heian Ciemnosc, his Fauna, and his new subordinate, fell silent and somewhat somber. However, knowing how close they were to a victory they could only dream in the past, they sucked it all up and floated up into the sky. Their movements didn’t go unnoticed…

***

Northwestern territory, at their land section’s southeastern corner. Today, the day Heian Ciemnosc, the special operation’s supreme commander of the military forces, returned, was the Change’s 62nd year, 2nd month, 4th week, and 1st day.

It had been 11 years, 12 months, and 4 weeks since the start of the war. Hundreds of millions of soldier units have fallen one after the other from both sides, independently of the contrast between them. Today, the northern soldier units patrolling the beaches were having their day as simple as always.

Some waved at the familiar warships, others peed, flashed their butts, or just ignored them. However, in the past few months, these warships have been less common, and they bypassed the beaches even less. No warships have sailed for the last 20 hours since yesterday, and it was just the afternoon.

While this brought peace to their minds, it also made them a little worried. What if the enemy tried to launch a full-on offensive on the Northeastern territory? What would they do once they are alone against those war-addicted forsaken cultivators and even citizens? They’d be lost! That’s for sure.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Siiigh, man… I haven’t visited Dally for months… When can my turn end?” Passing by a strange, ordinary building in the middle of nowhere, facing the southeastern trajectory from the Northwestern territory, a patrolling soldier unit asked as he rubbed his belly.

“Bah, don’t you dare tempt us brethren of yours,” another soldier unit responded. He ‘threatened’ the fella who spoke, “Also, don’t you dare forget what they will do to us if we are attacked. It’s do or die, man. Don’t think with your dick. It won’t give you strength when we face them.”

“That’s what we’re always told, but didn’t those southerner fuckers bring many people to their land? I saw some forum images sneakily shared in the medallions, too, you know? Those were millions of civilians. That’s literally like most of their population. Is that what mindless warriors would do? I have never seen or heard anything about those civilians being returned to the north.”

“You want to test it? Test it! We’ll see who survives in the end.” The soldier units bickered as they passed by that building, just a few meters tall and about 10 meters wide. Another soldier unit chipped in, bothered. “Can you both shut up? We’re only 200 million. If we’re attacked, even if it’s just a couple of tens of millions of southerners, they’ll at least match us! They have too much shit, and they’re fearless of losing a limb or suffering grievous wounds. They treat each other unless they’re dead! That’s not something we can compete against.”

“If you want to survive, you gotta flee. If you want to die, you stay and fight. Even participating in a battle will ensure your death is near, and you won’t be able to flee…” The soldier unit said as if he could know the truth of the world. His eyes were vacant as he added, “That’s how it works with those southerners. Choose now, not after they’ve made a move.”

“...” This clearly left their patrolling group silent. But just as they were feeling conflicted, with their heads buzzing, as some who didn’t even think of fleeing, or disdained it, began seeing it as the only way to remain important in this world. Of course, significant in the sense of being alive… they heard an endless bombardment that just started. They were close to the southeastern beach, so they could hear it better, despite the hundreds of thousands of kilometers from here to the oceanic rivers.

… POH… POH… rarara… PUH, PUH, PUH…

“Wait… are those missiles?” One of the soldier units said after crouching and shrinking their stance to a fighting mode. They heard what sounded like countless missiles launched at the same time, with coming and going sounds of bullets being fired, and a constant fire from artillery guns.

“No way…” Another patrolling soldier unit shook his head in denial. They continued to hear the bombardment and barrage of bullets when their emblems suddenly glowed. Then, their medallions heated up. But before the first person in their group could take it out and read its contents…

TI LILILILILILILILILILILILING~~~! TI LILILILILILILILILILILILING~~~!

“!!!” Suddenly, the soldier units heard the building before them echo with a bell rapidly ringing, echoing through the beaches as it reached other similar structures across the oceanic riverbanks in the south and east of this land section.

“No… way!” The same soldier unit from before exclaimed, incredulous. However, hope and despair were crushed and increased respectively as they watched tens of thousands of cultivators flying from below the water’s surface at the end of their beach’s oceanic riverbank, hurrying towards them.

WHOOSH, WHOOSH, WHOOSH… Thousands of figures flew out of the strange building, even breaking it apart as most landed on the ground, but the rest directly flew into the skies and didn’t stop. Then, one of the cultivators who was underneath the patrolling soldier units looked at them and spoke in a commanding tone, “You all. You should go to the rear and prepare the others. Our communications are down. We only had time to ring the alarm for a few seconds before it was neutralized. Nothing is working!”

‘What?! No!!’ The patrolling guards’ mindset crumbled. They wanted to speak to the cultivator, but southerners flew over a hill and stepped on the dry, green grass, dashing towards them before they could open their mouths to utter a sentence.

“WUAAGGH!” - “GUWAAAAAH!” - “Aaaaaahhhh!!” - “Help me, ah, no! Help me!!” - “DAAAMN IT ALL!!” - “Save yourselves, gruaaaaggh! Go away!!”

“!!!” The soldier units stood there like fools, but it couldn’t be helped. They could only watch as the cultivator who spoke to them, with his upper half turned back towards them, changed his eyes, feeling something. Then, just as one of them shouted, his head became a balloon with water and a skull hidden inside. “Watch out!”

PAGSH- splatter~!

“!!” The patrolling soldier units were shell-shocked, but with their surviving instincts activating, they moved backwards and were about to run. But suddenly, they heard abrupt, close-by, ear-stunning machine guns firing countless bullets above their heads.

TA- RARARARARARARARARARARARARRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAA~!

They only needed to twist their necks and look with upturned eyes to see every fleeing cultivator in the sky turn into a bloody smoke and small fingertip-sized pieces of flesh dwindling through the wind. Their bodies let go of their appearance and turned into a tragic, unrecognizable messes.

“Surrender or die!!” - “Hahaha! Hands up and tongues out! Or you’re dead!!” - “KILL! Anyone who moves or even fucking blinks-” - “KILL!!!”

STOMP STOMP STOMP- WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH- PSHIFT- CUUH- PHHSHK- CRREESHHK- CKRSHEERR! Bugsh!!

“...!!” The patrolling soldier units all stopped in motion. They looked around with their trembling eyeballs as they feared to blink by accident. As cultivators, it couldn’t be any easier to not blink for days. Yet, right now, they felt as if they couldn’t endure for 10 seconds.

They watched as everyone they had worked with in the past few months was cut down, up, in slices, beheaded, struck and turned into a screen of gore to paint the grass. Even into small spots of bloody rain and filth smearing across the ground. A few missiles flew and directly bombarded the underground from where the strange building was built. It sent a shockwave that caused a bubble-bursting effect, with the land crumbling several hundred meters in a 2 km radius.

But those noises were muffled and unimportant for the patrolling soldier units and a few others, who remained intelligently immobile in a vulnerable position. All sorts of mangling, cutting, dismembering, and brutality spread around them, covering them in fear and shock.

“You!” A strong-looking leading figure flew from the back, wearing a spotless clean uniform, but the patrolling soldier units couldn’t find something to mock him even though they wanted to. That southerner was respected by everyone as they lowered their heads wherever he passed. He rapidly flew towards the patrolling soldier units and grabbed the wrist of the one who nearly read information from it.

WHOOOSH… The strong-looking leading figure took a device out, mimicking a medallion’s shape and aura from within. He looked at the prisoner whose wrist he grabbed and brought them up to their shoulder level. He said to the northern soldier unit, “Talk to your people. This will help you. Speak. Say anything you’d like to say. Where we are, how we came, and where are we going. It’s okay, it will work for us either way.”

“But I’ll let you live if you behave well. So say this to your people, ‘The enemy is here. We’ve been defeated. We cannot fight. They are… hundreds of millions… and they won’t rest even a second until we are all dead… Surrender… or die’, okay?” The strong-looking southerner said, nodding towards the northerner as he pressed the center of his strange device.

“...” The northerner looked at the man before him for a few seconds, when he heard the static of his medallion’s communication disappear, and a voice sounded from it. His Spirit Sense hesitated before echoing with the words the southerner leading figure told him to convey.

“He’s done it, you rats! So, what are you waiting for? We have a whole territory to conquer!!” - “Hahahaha!!” - “Hua, hua, hua, hua- HUAAAA~!!”

WHOOSH, WHOOSH, WHOOSH, WHOOSH, WHOOSH, WHOOSH~~!

Tens of thousands of southern soldier units flew away, followed by armored vehicles in the air and on the ground, faster than them. The patrolling soldier units looked at this happen as they weren’t killed, true to the southerners’ words.

“...” Everyone had been killed, leaving the southerners with nothing else to do as they rushed towards the villages spread across the Northwestern territory. The 3 forts and sixth towns here… won’t last… they’ll be taken by the enemy, destroyed… What will it be of them? They’re war prisoners, and nobody from the north returned after being sent to the south…

Just as they were thinking of their unknown fate, hundreds of thousands of auxiliary units walked towards them, with more armored vehicles, and a few Cruisers left behind. Even then, the enemy didn’t even remember they could try to flee against these Second and First Step units.

… It was the start of the ending of this war. 3 of the 4 Fleets suddenly paused their bombardment. The forts also ceased firing towards the oceanic rivers to land their rapidly diminishing ammunition on the southern warships’ shields. The enemy was confused but on guard to the south’s sudden halt.

However, just as they were filling their lungs with free air instead of filled with tension and fear of death whenever a machine bullet penetrated their protective array formations and turned at least a row of dozens of them into mists of blood. They heard overlapping noises as a conjoined bombardment was launched.

The forts immediately responded, but as they fired ahead again, their guiding systems told them there was nothing aiming at them… Only one fort detected the typical plethora of signals from incoming projectiles, the easternmost fort.

KAAAAAA- BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM~~!!...

The enemy couldn’t respond even if they were aware. Tens of thousands of missiles flew faster than anything else as they completely obliterated the easternmost fort’s protective array formations barriers and a third of their southern structure as a whole. These were followed by a barrage of bullets and bombardment, rendering the top defenses and arsenal within the enemy fort useless.

Before the enemy finally responded, aiming their arsenal at the soldier units surrounding them at the other forts and the Medium city, the southern soldier units surrounding the easternmost fort flooded into the enemy’s turtle shell. On the other hand, a distinguished explosion with dark lightning strikes, followed by pure energy dissonance, rendered their arsenal useless without harming them.

The machine guns simply wouldn’t move anymore, and their structure became stagnant, as if stuck in time. But those were just denied of their properties for an unknown amount of time. The artillery guns wouldn’t even reload, and they no longer moved unless one picked them up directly. Missiles’ guiding systems no longer worked, leaving them useless unless one wanted to leave it to the enemy via their Spirit Sense. Only for a Farsighted realm cultivator to steal them and throw them back in return.

Besides, their hidden hatches and tunnels were also denied of their properties.

Suddenly, only cultivators became useful… This was unprecedented, although non-critical in most cases… There was only one way to proceed… it was to come out and fight!

But… was it the same for everyone in the world? Or only around the forts and the Medium City? After all, the only enemy remaining in the Northeastern territory were in those defensive points and City… And those are the only locations where those explosions happened.

At the oceanic riverbanks…

Barrels from machine and artillery guns barely moved. They only needed gravity array formations while firing their ammunition to change targets. Thus, they slightly moved. Then, they fired again, just a few shy seconds after the easternmost fort lost all defensive capabilities, with unknown enemy casualties, and every piece of arsenal was rendered useless in the abrupt surge of battlefields.

…

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Let It Rain's note: PHEW. Finally here. My left shoulder hurts, but I've reached this point.