Citizens? Domineering!
The southern territory, the Heraxle Clan's territory, spanned more than ten million kilometers from west to east. A 3* Region was nothing a Region from any other star could compare to. A few 3* Regions are enough to form a Minor Kingdom's diameter. They were this indispensably ginormous. From the south to the north, before the mountain range, less than 3 million kilometers spanned the distance. Unlike any other Kingdom, a border Kingdom's Regions focused on defensive and battle-ready settlements.
While there were villages in a border Kingdom Regions, these were barely discernible. These weren’t practical, and while they weren’t cruelly ignored, they didn’t receive the same importance as any other settlement here. Even the cultivators’ encampments would be visited by merchants and individual traders. But the villagers were left to survive on the edge of never gaining more than what they were given.
On the other hand, the supreme-sized towns here were the only important settlements below a City, and even civilian cities were decrepit albeit having between a few hundred thousand to a million inhabitants, or more. The former was the alternative should the Small Cities not bring one the needs they adamantly required.
Even then, compared to the cities and supreme towns Heian Ciemnosc managed in the Dragoon Ore Kingdom, these were semi-lifeless despite the richness they enjoyed and the peacefulness they reveled in. The arsenal atop those supreme towns’ walls always moved towards the sky, sometimes settling down for a few minutes before aiming up again.
In the southern’s west and east, a tower was erected, the second tallest in the Heraxle Clan’s territory. The tallest and bulkiest was in the center, just slightly over a million kilometers from the mountain range’s passing. This one was surrounded by 4 towers, smaller than those erected in the west and east. They also had 5 Third Step organization’s individual territories. Totalling to 10.
The leading figures of the southern territory were in that central tower, where they could see everything within the southern territory and the mountain sides from this side.
The Crimsonbreaking Faction descended on the southernmost western corner, near the sea. The Turtle Hiding Region had no beaches, only several tens of kilometers tall cliffs leading to the salty water. The 4 encampments the cultivator army captured in a day and stayed for 2 days were facing the sea. But it wasn’t just them who moved and won.
The citizen army directly headed eastwards. They spent a few hours travelling from the landing zone to the town. This was the first time the enemy was truly attacked by the Crimsonbreaking Faction, as 200,000,000 soldier units came in armored vehicles. Yet, the enemy was advised to stay their hand, as those were citizens, not cultivators.
However, the arsenal these citizens had was too much. If the enemy allowed them to get too close and comfortable, they’d definitely receive the bombardment of their lives. Thus, the enemy could only wait until one of the citizen Captains projected his image through a hologram.
It was a short moment that put pressure and newfound stress on the enemy cultivators atop the town walls. After a minute of silence, the Captain finally gave the same words to the town as the cultivator army did to the enemy’s first encampment. The enemy didn’t want to surrender because they were cultivators, and they wouldn’t die exactly because of that. However…
After the enemy responded amidst chuckles and disdain, with some mockery and provocation, the Captain nodded and turned around in the hologram. The moment the hologram dissipated, a shout from the center of the enemy’s 200 million-strong formation outside the town echoed with the call for war.
The armored vehicles responded, directly firing at the town without any prejudice. The enemy cultivators’ eyes had gone cold at that moment. They didn’t bother with such an enemy full of citizens going against them, but there they were, striking first.
Unfortunately for the enemy, as soon as the citizen troops in the town’s west fired, the underground rumbled. Before they knew it, tens of thousands of tanks, helicopters, and artillery mobilized by wheeled vehicles soared from underneath and fired at them from the east.
It was a dark day for all cultivators… but it had only just begun.
As they observed their rear, they watched mere citizens moving across the land on the town’s east as shelling and missiles flew to their protective barrier. The first green layer broke apart as soon as they realized and turned around, followed by the cracking from the second green protective array formation’s barrier.
A few tens of thousands of mighty cultivators between the Mythical realm and the Farsighted realm set out of the town to pulverize the citizen troops. However, Frigates suddenly zoomed in the distance, and before they knew it, strange, bluish bullets sniped their heads off, and machine guns, more artillery, and Fighters bombarded them from above.
The enemy was momentarily devastated as they lost what could be considered their strongest and most experienced batch from facing bandits and pirates in the sea. But then again, it had only just begun. When more and more Fighters started coming, the enemy finally resolved themselves to fight. The town’s civilians were brought underground, where a passage to an area near the bordering cliff south of the town.
On the other hand, the cultivators activated all their arsenal and started organizing to shoot the citizens and resist as much as possible until their ammunition was mostly consumed. By the looks of it, the citizen army either does not care about their supplies or has enough to not waste a second not firing bullets, shells, and launching missiles.
However, the moment the last, 6th defensive barrier layer was taken down was also the moment the citizen small wheeled vehicles rushed back and forth while slightly advancing and retreating constantly while firing their machine guns. Additionally, strange sniping rifles were carried by those citizens, who fired them before becoming sluggish and changing seats with the driver as they took turns to fire them.
As a result, the town welcomed tens of thousands of different machine guns firing all-out towards their unprotected arsenal and walls, breaking everything apart by an initial wave of destruction that lifted smoke and formed a cloud within the town.
However, this didn’t obstruct the citizens’ sight, unfortunately for the enemy. The citizens were merciless in their approach. They had so many machine guns at their disposal that they didn’t let any enemy missiles outside the town’s walls. This left the Frigates above in charge of most of the initial slaughter, as dozens of bluish, laser-electric bullets were fired and took down a Mythical or Central Formation realm enemy each.
When the town only had a few walls half a meter tall, ready to turn into dust with a mere push, the enemy went berserk and extinguished their blood essence before shooting into the east, west, and sky. But the citizens weren’t afraid, not even slightly shaken.
Missiles flew from a few Fighters in the sky, flying between the air above the east and west, who were also responsible for most of the enemy casualties. Their reaction speed and decisiveness was on par with a cultivator at the First Step and at the first realms of the Second Step.
The ensuing battle was bloody for both sides, but it would serve as the stepping stone Heian Ciemnosc wants them to. To hurt their feet in order to grow how he wants them to. They were the Crimsonbreaking Faction, and there are many things to consider for the future. It couldn’t be left to nature’s course.
Fighters rapidly flew, sometimes fleeing with half their wings taken off, broken cabins, and bloody citizens who narrowly escaped instantaneous death. Other Fighters couldn’t survive, but while the citizen Teams escaped its destruction, one of the citizens would stay behind and use their lives and last bits of consciousness to fire at the berserk enemy with their specialized weaponry.
Afterwards, the enemy would either destroy the Fighter, and the citizen who remained behind alike, after dying. With a last, vengeful wish… or not. However, the Fighters saved from imminent destruction as the enemy lost their lives crashed somewhere, leading to the citizen they wanted to rescue breathless. Some didn’t leave the world with a complete corpse… but they still left it while taking a cultivator’s life with their hands!
An hour after the battle started, with a few tens of millions of enemy soldier units’ lives exchanged for less than 100,000 citizens, the town was left with only destroyed buildings and dead Fauna. The establishments with flora and Craftsmaking products were also torn apart by the battle.
The citizens took a few hours to rest. After training for a decade, and sparring with cultivators from a long distance and comparing vehicles and spaceships’ mobilization efficiency without the systems to compare their war instruments’ reaction speed to Third Step cultivators. The citizens were glad it was all over. The battle consumed their mental fortitude a lot, but not enough for them to quit or think about everything being impossible.
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With Heian Ciemnosc orchestrating their training regimen, how could he not ensure the citizens’ Souls would be nourished despite remaining dormant for possibly ever? They were exhausted, and although they experienced this sensation before in their regimen, it wasn’t as ‘heavy’ as it was now. After all, battling and practicing couldn’t compare. Besides, their comrades have fallen…
Nearly all citizens had family in the Space Station, unlike most cultivators in the Faction’s military, who either came from the outside or were taken into the recruitment tests by a few higher-ups and upper echelons. Each of their deaths was significant to their home.
They only realized after marching in the night to the encampment east of the town that they weren’t really that tired. In a way, they also felt they could have another full-on battle like the one they just had. This wasn’t a misconception, but the result from being fed like livestock meant to gain more meat and height.
When night fell on the Turtle Hiding Region, the citizen army smoothly occupied their first encampment. Having learned from before, the Captains divided their forces into 3 lines before proceeding to attack. This way, each Captain increased the safety their citizens would have in case an enemy cultivator broke through their lines.
With this winning streak, the Captains continued their marching towards the east, where more enemy encampments were placed in a semi-lineal path that’d take them a week to traverse without battles. Let alone with 9 encampments and 3 towns in between before their objective.
Thus, the citizens continued marching for several days, taking at least 2 encampments per day, fighting once in the morning or at noon, and another after the sunlight was gone. When the second town they faced was besieged, an organization’s individual territory dispatched 100 million troops to the town’s aid.
Immediately after, the Captains grabbed a handful of elite soldier units and left the command of the army to their direct subordinates. The town fell after 2 hours due to careful procedures and to ensure the citizens’ safety. Unlike cultivators, it was difficult for citizens to be brought to the rear and be treated, as whoever was reached by the enemy instantly died.
On the other hand, the Captains returned alive, but from the few hundreds of thousands of elite soldier units they brought with them, several tens of thousands perished so that the town could be occupied. It was a great loss, but nothing that could stop them.
The enemy was no longer trying to go easy on the citizen army, but they still couldn’t fire the first shots themselves. Even with the Nexus Entente on their side, after the first few days, the citizen army had given enough time to the enemy to respond. But they still left their cultivators in the settlements. Thus, after every battle, the enemy didn’t have ‘clearance’ to attack non-cultivators with cultivators.
That’s how the enemy only sent troops from their individual territories after the second town was attacked. But the enemy was forced to retreat after numerous Frigates showed and started launching hundreds of missiles every second. Let alone the thousands of Fighters delivering rapid fire at a low attitude yet coming off safe from each passing.
The enemy was outmatched. Yet, after the second town, they started devising changes to their handling of the situation. Meanwhile, the citizen army continued advancing eastwards. From the 2 Crimson armies, they had the longest road to their second objective.
However, this would also be considered the citizen armies’ introduction into the world as the long march into the cultivation world’s strife and warmongering nature. But that was a historical record that’ll only become substantial in the hundreds of years to come…
After the citizen army took the 4th town, the enemy had finally gathered the top Soul cultivation experts and sent them to the encampments the citizen army continued to march on. However, they realized that their efforts to gather them after spending a good deal of treasures and benefits and wasting time losing settlements was fruitless.
The citizen armies’ armored vehicles and spaceships had a strange net-like invisible layer behind their armor. It reflected their Soul Arts and probing. In fact, only their harmless Spirit Sense could check the situation within those vehicles and spaceships. What’s more, when they, Bright/Silhouette realm cultivators tried to amend their uselessness by directly entering the fray, Captains, and their subordinates equally joined the fight.
Comparing the Soul-focused cultivators who didn’t have much potential and only relied on their Souls with the Crimsons. The former were stronger than ordinary, and were in the initial and medium stages, while the Crimsons were at the peak of the Bright/Silhouette realm. It was a completely one-sided massacre the enemy could never forget.
But that wouldn’t stop them, and a few days later, on the same night of the morning when the citizen army conquered the 10th encampment. They fortified the rest of the east with citizens of their own and more machine guns and pieces of artillery. However, the next day, they were aghast to realize the citizen army wasn’t moving anymore.
The citizen troops remained there for a whole week!
On the other part of the territory, in the west. The cultivator army never stopped moving. After facing the town north from their position for a day, they moved on to attack it. It fell in less than half an hour, with the Captains forming battle array formations to easily destroy the protective barriers while the Frigates protected them with Elemental Water Eyes.
Afterwards, the cultivator army ignored the city on their right and continued north, occupying another encampment slightly to the north before retreating and leaving a Captain behind with all their 20,000,000 auxiliary units.
However, instead of returning to the town they just conquered, they directly marched north, taking a different route to the north and slightly eastwards. When the enemy saw this, the citizen army in the south was still marching to the third town of those they would occupy. Of course, the enemy didn’t know that yet.
Slightly taken aback, the enemy still fought the invading Crimsons. However, instead of making a strong stance to show the others that the Crimsonbreaking Faction could be fought, they became a stage for Heian Ciemnosc’s subordinates and Eternal Return Team to perform.
Tulla and Floris took the leading role in the first pitched battles, with nothing but their energy, Spirit Sense, Soul, and wits to battle each other. Tulla was headstrong, but not to be trifled with. The first 10 million enemy soldiers were executed by her troops, despite the loss of nearly 600,000 soldier units. Her elite soldier units exhausted themselves to the point the enemy, lacking Life-Long realm cultivators, could only hope to corner them.
Floris led from the back, but she fought when the enemy’s commander lost it and nearly struck her people, taking a chunk of 1 million troops along with him. After avoiding such a tragic result, she battled the enemy commander until her left arm was broken and her right leg disfigured, but she still killed someone in the Silhouette realm 4th stage while at the Bright realm 3rd stage.
Her people organized a berserk-like charge to the enemy, who nearly ‘won’ because of their commander’s low dignity. It was a bloodbath that spent the lives of less from what Tulla suffered, but it was still 2 battles that didn’t require the use of any resource or the destruction of the town.
Following their battles, Heian Ciemnosc’s Eternal Return Team fought the enemy with less soldier units, as most were vanquished in the first 2 pitch battles. They showed the Eternal Return Team’s nature, even Rosina, the brand-new member in their ranks.
Ruo Wei was the fiercest of the 7, with her hands borrowing Cara’s sword and shield, leading her troops into battle while meeting the enemy commander head-on before soaring to the sky and diving underground. Tremors ran everywhere as Bright/Silhouette realm powerful remnants caused endless shocks to turn the dirt over the grass amidst the battle.
On the other hand, during the battles, Anastasia no longer had to fear the Third Step enemy soldier units. She fought alone, only followed by Molto to strike a new enemy batch afar or near their current spot. Dividing her forces, Anastasia reached an astronomical number of commanding 5 different battles on the battlefield, with her soldier units spread out.
Molto also had to distribute her assassins to cooperate with Anastasia’s well-known, old and some new troops. Although she was just a smallish dot on the battlefield from countless, they were still influential on their level.
Like this, the town surrendered before their auxiliary units and their smaller number of soldier units were massacred or imprisoned. The civilians saw the skies change, trusting their safety to the cultivators who had led the town for decades. Now, however, they were terrified upon seeing the Crimsonbreaking Faction enter their home.
What’s more, they even demanded them to move down south and join other settlements! What were they thinking? Of course, what they also didn’t know was that the villages that were once looked down upon in this border Kingdom were told the same…
As for Tulla, after the town’s pitch battles, she became pensive and fell silent for the upcoming days as they traveled northeast. Unlike the citizen army, they could be targeted at any time, by anyone. This gave her enough time and opportunities to put her thoughts and desires to the test.
The cultivator army didn’t rest, and like they had done, as well as the citizen army has been doing all along, they left the settlements they occupied behind with defenses and a few soldier units to respond. They left the auxiliary units farther behind, and continued to their next objective.
They passed a hundred thousand kilometers below an organization’s individual territory, ignoring it and speeding to another individual territory just northeast from the former. Without stopping, not even resting, the citizens in high positions took some pills as days passed with continuous harassment from the enemy.
When they were just a day from reaching the second individual territory, the town they had just occupied was mobilized against by the first individual territory they passed by. The army immediately rushed backwards and fought the enemy army of tens of millions, exterminating them and half-crippling the organization who sent them.
Afterwards, the responsible party was harassed for a few days before the Crimsons resumed their trip. However, the enemy understood something. They couldn’t mess with the Crimsons to try sneaking upon their settlements. Maybe if they were too far away. But the Crimsons were too clever. Who knew what they had planned? Nobody wanted to be the first to know it. They’d rather remain inactive and wait for another to expose the Crimsonbreaking Faction’s hand.
They detoured around the second individual territory before heading to another town, but they also detoured it and continued to advance a little by the mountain range’s foot before heading directly eastwards.
At that point, the citizen army had waited long enough, and in a turn of events, they divided their 400 million-strong army into 20 military units, led by 20 Captains, and headed to the north. Each Captain took a vastly different path from the others, all so they could reach the individual territory north of their position.
The enemy was dumbfounded to see the citizen army detour around the individual territory. But more shocking instead was when they traveled north. The citizen army directly moved northwest on a diagonal path… towards… the center?!
…
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Let It Rain's note: Phew, it was brain consuming to write the citizens' point of view. But I won't just write they did good and were now accepted in the Crimson cultivators' minds. That'd be too poor of me. -___- tired~.