Chapter 7: The Elite Troop
The Elite Troop was a miracle. Without it, Zalfari would have lost the war fast.
However, it was no easy miracle.
It required one hundred, not only highly talented but also highly motivated youths with appropriate backgrounds, or in other words, orphans.
Composing the elite troop took years. Gabriel was the first to be chosen. He always felt Ares might've favored him due to that.
There were more than a hundred in their training, but the rest were weeded out. What was left was a family. One big, ruthlessly efficient family with Ares as the father.
Often it happens that talented young people stop improving once they reach their mentor's level. That wasn't an issue with Ares. He didn't try to make his training grueling, nor did he take any pride in being harsh. That just made the training that much more arduous.
Nobody complained, though, and everybody learned what they needed to learn to achieve the main objectives: survive and kill.
There were no special missions bestowed on the elite troop. It was an agent of death. It was never meant to win a war, only to make it meaningless. No border moved while the troop existed.
The elite troop went somewhere and fractured the battlefield, killing every enemy in sight. Still, the most important thing was always to make it back alive. That was how the Elite Troop differed from other military units. That is why the hundred stayed as a hundred for years. Talents trained by Ares were more important than any mission, especially while they were still developing.
Ares always kept his distance, especially in the early years. It was evident that he was thinking of leaving as soon as the Elite Troop could take over his duties.
It didn't take long for Lundkirk to start working on strategies against the troop. Many traps were set. The troop always scattered and regrouped elsewhere before taking the enemy head-on.
When Kendrick made his great pushes, he sometimes shrank the empire by an eighth or so. Then the troop wiped out their critical areas, halting the expansion before taking back the areas one by one.
If Kendrick was an unstoppable force, the Elite Troop was an immovable object. An object so deadly, Kendrick had trouble gathering the forces necessary. His most capable soldiers were getting old while the young were much too poorly trained.
Additionally, by the time the Zalfarian War began, the populace of Lundkirk was satisfied. What drove them was belief in Kendrick's vision.
The hope the Elite Troop operated under was that if they negated Lundkirk's efforts for long enough, they'd simply settle down.
The only thing Gabriel ever heard Ares say to justify all the killing they'd done was, "Those who are to be wept were wept for when they left home. The rest is null."
Then members of the troop started dying.
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It would happen that a whole army would target a fraction of the troop. A thousand essence blades pointed at one man.
After one particularly bloody mission, Ares carried a Zaphina—a 24-year-old young woman—all the way back to the base. Her blonde hair swayed in the wind as her head hung back, glassy eyes on the gray sky that rained down the bitter tears of God. She had so many stab wounds that nobody ever counted them. Not even Forhea, and she counted everything. Gabriel only later learned that they'd been in a relationship against the regulations of the troop.
Zaphina's death was a message from Kendrick. No matter how many soldiers or how long it would take, "Karase aki."
Ares changed his ways that day. He started fighting a winning war.
***
8: Way of the Commander
Sometimes seemed to hate everything. The emperor and Kendrick alike, but he sensed where the war was going.
"Do you think there will be peace if Kendrick dies?" Ares once asked Gabriel.
Gabriel had matured and begun the scholarly pursuits he had been denied previously in his youth.
Still, he could give no better answer than, "It is a possibility. Lundkirk is held together by Kendrick alone. If he's gone, the countries may go back to how they were."
"And how is that?"
"Unequal, poor, and unrighteous."
"Would it be better if they became part of the Zalfarian Empire?"
"I believe so."
"Then that is what we aim for from this day on."
The emperor was thrilled by Ares' ambition. It seemed he'd suggested it before, but Ares only now accepted such a plan: to conquer the conqueror.
At last, the Elite Troop began working as a proper part of the military, partaking in missions to seize areas instead of simply destroying them. Even after having been granted the first emperor's most honored title in the army—"Hero of Zalfari," which previously belonged to his mother, Id—Ares took no interest in anything except the missions of the Elite Troop. When that changed, everything changed. Ares revealed a keen mind for strategy. Though he always preferred straightforward methods, he knew the Elite Troop so well he was able to split it up into functional and the most effective groups imaginable.
That year was the first time ever that Lundkirk lost land area.
"Everything escalated in those times," Alexander the 6th recounted. "Ares became aware of the effect he has on people. He had been an inspiration before, so when he began consciously inspiring, it was like the world turned on his axle. His words began bearing more weight to the point that many valued them over those of my father."
That year was the first time ever that Lundkirk lost land area.
"Everything escalated in those times," Alexander the 6th recounted. "Ares became aware of the effect he has on people. He had been an inspiration before, so when he began consciously inspiring, it was like the world turned on his axle. His words began bearing more weight to the point that many valued them over those of my father."
That in turn led to Ares' and the emperor's ties turning even more troublesome.
"The world was almost too alive back then," Alexander the 6th said. "The people were riled up behind Ares; Ares was conquering Lundkirk, and the emperor was doing his best to keep a hold on his power. Watching Ares and the Elite Troop mow down the armies of Lundkirk was like a fever dream. Every other week, Ares accomplished some feat everyone had thought impossible."
Indeed, it was a dream. A false reality was allowed by Kendrick while he plotted his next grand campaign. And when the Man of Autumn came, the entirety of Zalfari was plunged into freezing waters.
Zalfari's conquered land was gone in an instant. Kendrick had accumulated new forces, and what followed for the next three years was the bloodiest warfare in recent history. Kendrick pushed and pushed. Ares and the Elite Troop were worked ragged.
The situation soon became clear.
Kendrick was more unstoppable than Ares was immovable. In one way or another, Kendrick was going to go through Zalfari. The Conqueror of the West would soon be much more, and the Great Zalfarian Empire was just an obstacle, even if a large one.
The situation soon became clear.
Kendrick was more unstoppable than Ares was immovable. In one way or another, Kendrick was going to go through Zalfari. The Conqueror of the West would soon be much more, and the Great Zalfarian Empire was just an obstacle, even if a large one.
By that time, Gabriel had gained some distance from the war even as he fought in it. And from that distance, he watched the events that transpired, leading to Operation Ultimus and the eventual extinction of the Elite Troop.