Chapter 110: The Secret Army

The commander who had flashed a medellion towards Alexander, was a high ranking member of the secret army of the kingdom. Every month, if Alexander was not in seclusion, the Commander of the secret army would come to give him the status update about the army.

The act of showing the medellion was a signal to let Alexander know that the commander was requesting to meet him in order to give the regular reports. The protocols governing the secret army were different from the normal army. Alexander was concerned about any respect being shown towards him in such a serious issue but his men insisted that proper respect must be given to him. The Imperial Punishers were one of the main fronts for the secret army.

Alexander had not told anyone about the true purpose of The Imperial Punishers. To all his subjects, even Carter, Imperial Punishers were a group of sadistic and mad people who were employed by The Emperor to punish those subjects who had committed serious offences or to interrogate the natives of any world The Emperor planned to conquer.

The Imperial Punishers did all this but that was only the intelligence department of the Imperial Punishers. The Imperial Punishers was a front for an elite secret army under Alexander's direct control. Alexander had gotten this idea of forming a secret army when he was in seclusion after the conquest of star wars world, till then The Imperial Punishers were used to punish the serious criminals. Alexander had called the Head of the Punishers to him and had put forth his idea in front of him for consideration.

The Head had agreed to the plan and it took them 10 years of planning to hatch out all the details related to the secret army. Forming a secret army was not that easy, the amount of manuevering and planning they had to do was mind blowing. Alexander had not liked it at that time but trillions of orphans from the star wars world were the prime candidates for his secret elite soldiers. They were not going to make child soldiers but these children were to be observed and recruited when they became adults.

They had first recruited their first members from the intelligence department of the kingdom and of course, from The Imperial Punishers themselves. Officially, they had no names and the members also never bothered to name themselves but Alexander himself called them as 'Ace', as they were his ace.

The behaviour analists of Ace studied all the subjects who had acceptable combat capabilities and were in the condition to be trained further, in order to estimate the likelihood of agreeing to join Ace and approach those who were given above 80 percent rating. This had shrunken the recruitment pool but secrecy was important as in future if any high ranking officer of the kingdom was compromised, Alexander would still have trump cards hidden under his belt.

To filter through the quadtrillions of people living in the empire, they had used the results of the series of tests which were meant to test the fitness level of their subjects. It was the policy of his empire to check the health and fitness level of all the new subjects. The candidates for the secret army were chosen on the basis of the results of the fitness test.

They had also organised many self-defence camps and fighting competitions to test the combat prowess of all the subjects. Alexander had also made a law that every subject would train to fight as one needs to know how to defend themselves. The recordings of the mock fights organised in the defence camps were studied through SQC and those who were above the threshold were marked for further tests. Then, these candidates were further tested against each other in the various fighting competitions. The fighting competitions were also opened to public admissions. Many hidden gems were found among public participants who were trained by their families or some combat masters.

All those who managed to reach the quarter-finals of the provincial level tournaments were marked for recruitment. As the competitors participated in the higher level tournaments, their fighting skills also became more polished and Ace recruiters found more candidates for recruitment. For 10 years, the recruiters just polished their skills by acting as sales personnel, lawyers, or anyother profession which required interaction with numerous people, in order to successfully recruit their future targets.

During those 10 years, many of the marked candidates were made to join the normal army by hook or crook, without revealing any outside interference. Some were stubborn and didn't join even when facing many difficulties while others had willingly joined the army without any urgings by the Punishers. All the marked candidates after a few years of service were clubbed together into special army units and were rigrously trained. When the candidates reached their standards, they were recruited in the secret army. The secret army also recruited from civilian population.

These movements had not completely gone unnoticed by the people and many conspiracy theories had surfaced on the internet. Alexander had not ordered the suppression of these theories as it would have deepened the doubts in the minds of his subjects and had a comedy show made out of them, which gave reasons for the falsehood of these news. In a few decades, the matter fall out of the mainstream as those who were following or making these theories were buried neck deep into work and they didn't have time to do anything else. Still like sone disease, these theories popped up from time to time but the Ace intelligence memebers limited their scope of influence.

The secret army was given 100 times more resources than normal army of the same size. According to the last update he was given, the secret army had 5 quadtrillion soldiers in it and all of them had reached HighGod Realm in cultivation with exceptional fighting standards. A small number of them had reached Heavenly God Realm and were engaged in the conquest of Divine World. Alexander had gotten angry over the tardiness of his normal subjects and had made the new law for them.

These laws also gave additional smokescreen to the Ace soldiers as they cleverly hid themselves among the civilians. Alexander planned to massively increase the secret army as he had 860 quadtrillion subjects under him. The normal army had already filled it's quota of 86 quadtrillion. Now, it was the turn to increase the numbers of his secret army.

Alexander was brought out of his thoughts as a cloaked man appeared next to him. Alexander had already known about him as his subjects cannot hide from him. Alexander nodded and started a mental conversation with the man. To normal people, the man was a member of Imperial Punishers holding a datapad and giving status updates to The Emperor. Alexander asked, " What is the status of my army?"

The man bowed and said, " Your Highness, we have started to make plans for our mass recruitment among the native population of this world. We are also conquering and inflitrating various small forces in the Divine World but the progress is slow as our people are not that powerful right now. We have 50 Billion Heavenly God Realm soldiers active in the Divine world on 100 Million world surfaces occupied by humans. We have started to conquer small tracks of land on the various world surfaces. We are planning to have the rest of the soldiers advance to Heavenly God Realm in this universe on some distant solar system but such a big movement will surely attract attention...."

Alexander cut in and said, " The destruction of the city has presented an opportunity for us. I will order all the cultivators above God Realm to resume our campaign in this universe while allowing the Saint Realm cultivators to come and build the city. I will give the reason that it will save time and also gave the lower realm cultivators, a glimpse of the origin verse. This city will take months to rebuild so you will be able to sneak in quite a lot of our undercover elite soldiers."

The commander nodded and said, " Yes, this can work, Your Highness!!! I will also order the soldiers hiding among the normal God and HighGod Realm cultivators to go to distant planets in teams and advance to the next realm."

Alexander nodded and asked, " Anything else?"

The man shook his head and said, " No, Your Majesty!!"

Alexander replied, " Then, you can go. I will be also returning to the palace to rest. The Punishers have stablished the situation and there is longer any need for me. I will also post the regular army here." Alexander watched as the man bowed and expertly mixed in with the crowd of Imperial Punishers monitoring and helping in the relief efforts. Alexander ordered the army to help and then returned to his suite for a long rest.

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