[MA] 366. It Had Been So Long (Patreon)

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[Chapters this week: 3/4

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The Seventh Exemplary Brigade and its two guests stood atop a Samir-7's mobile fortress. They watched almost a billion Guardians materialize outside the row of city-sized cubic forts.

Despite Shen's power, he couldn't see even a tenth of the total from where he stood. Yet, what he could see was enough to awe him. So many troops from a single place! So many B-ranks! So many cultivators!

And so many races!

Humans still dominated the Republic of Imperia, but he saw three-foot-tall fairies, young dragons up to fifty yards long, earthgans, sapient beasts of multiple species, and so on. About one-fifth of the cultivators before him were demi-humans—mostly beast people—and another fifth was entirely non-human.

Shen always found it weird how almost every race was an entity unto itself in the Alliance. Shen, for instance, was the Human Rising Star, not Earth's Rising Star, because that's the identity humanity there had taken for itself. Rayna, too, was the Drow Maiden. It made sense, but it didn't feel right.

The Eternal Empire had been different, and the Republic followed its principles. Although Shen had mainly dealt with humans in the Eternal Empire, he liked seeing so many different races under one common banner—not geopolitical, but cultural. Even if there were some differences here and there in how some races did things, as there might be in different regions, they were indeed one people. United and strong. From what he had heard, they had faced the Cultivator Association together.

For the first time in a very long while, Shen saw his home.

Oh, he didn't doubt no one there cared about him. He also felt no sense of familiarity with any individual. But this was the remainder of the Eternal Empire. This was the closest he would ever come to his culture and people.

Nevertheless, his heart also sank. There would be no Feng Clan among these cultivators, and the Immortal Emperor still owed him an explanation about that. Shen had gotten the information that the Feng Clan had sinned greatly against the Republic of Imperia and thus been exterminated by the Grand Senator like a pest. Shen couldn't just accept that. He had to hear it from the man himself—preferably when Shen was strong enough to do something about any potential foul play.

Sure, on the one hand, he had been expelled, and there were few greater dishonors in the Eternal Empire. He couldn't even state he had once belonged to them, for he was unworthy of saying their name. Still, on the other hand, he had grown up in the Feng Clan, and filial piety—not just to one's parents but one's ancestors in the clan—was a big part of his culture, too.

Shen was at home, but there was a big hole in its center.

He didn't dwell on it. He had a job to do. He also had to be ready to report these people to the Acting General if they refused to follow orders. He had no delusions about being capable of dealing with them if they ignored him.

His anxiety increased when no one attacked no one after they arrived. Instead, they stayed still, looking around. The only good news was that the ones who looked at him didn't attack, not even the B-ranks. A small mercy.

Most, if not all, B-ranks were also reading notifications, likely messages. They were discussing matters with each other.

Shen's suspicions of incoming betrayal rose as the seconds passed.

The Republic of Imperia had nine hundred provinces, each with at least six cities, for a total of over sixty thousand Mayoral Clans. Each province also had a Senatorial Clan, so, nine hundred of them. And thirty-three High Senatorial Clans stood at the top. Suddenly, that political structure became visible in the skies.

Tens of thousands of C-ranks and about two hundred B-ranks took to the air. Thirty B-ranks flew above all, then nine hundred people in the second strata, including what remained of the B-ranks, then the remaining thousands of C-ranks.

As if that weren't enough of a clue pointing at rebellion, everyone stood at attention. Shen had purposely placed people of different cultivation realms close to each other to make coordination harder, but the Republic was an entity unto itself. In their military, even commoners might boss over a B-rank. They were well-trained and moved in perfect sync without any rank prejudice. Everyone stepped up, back, or sideways almost in unison, creating evenly spaced lines and rows.

There was no clear hierarchy yet, no clearly defined separated units, at least not on the ground. Still, that looked a lot like an army preparing to receive orders for war.

Shen suspected an actual insurrection was about to happen.

He prepared his whole body to speak Stangue so the system would detect his report in time, even if some of his senses or speech were blocked. He even let go of his tight hold over his soul to allow the system to detect his brain waves and identify his thought patterns if needed.

The Republic's next move relaxed him while also making him frown.

Sworn enemies ignored each other despite being teleported together, most of them with Bounties on their heads. Instead, every B-rank Clan Leader—as Shen supposed the flying people to be—went around capturing people of their own rank and clan. Then, the C-ranks did the same. If a clan only had B-ranks flying, new C-ranks took to the skies to capture their peers. Likewise, after they were done, D-ranks seized D-ranks. Lastly, E- and F-ranks ran in absolutely impressive coordination, grabbing people from their ranks and clans. Lastly, the Bounty targets who didn't belong to any politically relevant clan were also captured by people of their clans. A select few clanless cultivators ran by themselves to the front of the crowd.

A little over two and a half million newcomers had Bounties on them, and soon, most were all floating before Shen. They formed pyramids and presented themselves before him.

No one resisted arrest.

Pride and defiance were in an approaching B-rank High Senator. The black-eyed man had long hair held in a ponytail and wore a highly enchanted red and blue robe with the Eternal Language's character for "Sun" on his left chest. Obviously, he belonged to the Sun Clan. He, like every other B- and C-ranks, displayed no weapon. Still, Shen could tell one of his Path's five Axioms came from the sword, as was the case for the vast majority of cultivators from the Republic.

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| Sun Weisheng (B) — Captain (Unassigned)

| Republic of Imperia's Rising Star

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Although the man was technically under Shen, he didn't legitimately belong to Shen's chain of command. Therefore, while Shen could query the system for information directly related to his mission, especially about those people's relationships, the military's system interface still limited how much information Shen could get on them.

The cultivator clasped his fists before his body and very slightly bowed his head. "Sun Weisheng presenting himself as ordered, Commander. We have complied with your directives. Every Bounty target has surrendered, and we captured them with no bloodshed."

Shen had to control his soul again to not reveal his pleasure at the greeting. The Ethereal Harmonization realm cultivator had shown Shen the exact respect he would've been owed in the Eternal Empire.

It had been so long since he found someone who did things as they were supposed to be.

He clasped his own fists and returned the greeting, bowing slightly lower. In the military, Shen was hierarchically above the man, but Sun Weisheng was from a High Senatorial Clan, which Shen considered similar to a Seat of the Eternal Empire. Shen was an exile from a clan that had supposedly been extinct for treason. Only the lowest criminal would have a lower status than him. If not for his backing in the form of Long Hei—and thus Shen indirectly representing the dragon—he would've had to bow. However, showing too much subservience here would humiliate the Acting General.

After the straightforward culture in the Alliance Military, such considerations felt a bit weird, but he liked it. It was politics but of a simple kind. You knew what you were supposed to do to whom and even how to avoid offending anyone. If they took offense at your doing things properly, they would be humiliating themselves. You knew what reactions to expect and what they meant. You even knew how to offend anyone to test the boundaries or to cause a war. Such a culture allowed for a more fluid hierarchy to be established than in the military while being transparent to everyone involved.

Shen then nodded, "Good job, Captain. Stand by. System, send a message to all newcomers: 'Welcome to Samir. You'll be assimilated in instants.' Then, proceed with the planned bureaucratic assignments."

Although Shen didn't have access to the system subfunction that would allow him to give multiple orders to be executed simultaneously, he could prepare military orders ahead of time as a Brigade Commander. Now, he assigned everyone to the bureaucratic positions they were supposed to occupy. He had to. Not enough people remained in the Detention Department to process every prisoner.

Shen had also been prepared for people to capture others. No Bounty Hunter would be assigned any position until they delivered their prisoners.

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| Bureaucratic assignments given

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"Captain Sun Weisheng," Shen continued, "Please give the bureaucrats ten standard minutes to get in position and become familiarized with the place."

"Yes, Commander," the man replied. "Should we take this opportunity to chat?"

That question was almost against the rules. Shen was deployed, and, thus, technically, so was the man. A subordinate shouldn't suggest wasting the leader's time when it might distract both from their duties.

Still, the spirit of the law was to prevent issues in dangerous situations, and no problem was about to happen that he could detect. This place was relatively safe, and Imperia had behaved exemplarily until now. Shen could give them the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming a security breach.

"Very well," he replied.

"Can I go now, Commander?" Lieutenant Specialist Taeral Miavalur interjected before Weisheng could say anything.

His interruption wasn't against the rules, which were brander for a guest specialist, but Shen still frowned as he turned to the man. The high elf had helped a lot but not hidden how keen he was to leave. It had already worried Shen, now more so than ever. Why did a SpecOps agent want to get away from this right now? Wasn't this an excellent opportunity to acquire information about a future member of SpecOps, the Republic of Imperia, and their relationship with each other?

"Not until everyone from Imperia is assigned a position," Shen replied. He was half legitimately worried he might need the man's expertise and half using it as an excuse to keep him around for as long as possible. He might yet learn something valuable about SpecOps from Miavalur.

The Lieutenant Specialist didn't hide his unhappiness but nodded and kept quiet.

Sun Weisheng waited a few moments to see if anyone else would interrupt him. Meanwhile, every Imperian Guardian was getting to their position. The ones posted in the mobile fortress below Shen were moving physically, but all others requested a teleportation.

When the cultivator spoke, he went straight to the point, "Commander, as we're waiting, would this be an acceptable moment to talk about internal Imperial military structure and your place in it?"

It didn't take a genius to guess this was about Shen's Field Commander position. Shen still didn't know what it meant, but he had claimed it, so Imperia would at least want to clarify things with him.

He took it as an opportunity to learn more instead of the challenge he heard in the man's voice. "That's acceptable, Captain. What about it?"

Weisheng snapped his fingers, and a female C-rank approached from the ground.

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