Blood and Power

Five people stood sat around a table. Three young and beautiful girls, one boy and an old man. The two girls that looked like twins glared at the old man while the young boy was gazing off into the distance. The other girl was staring at a clipboard in her hands as she read through it silently.

"234,587 foot soldiers, of those around 180,000 are men and the rest women. The ship will not be able to carry that many people. The cargo that needs to be loaded is more than 5 times their total weights too. This would take at least 12 trips to carry back to Hazmit. Any suggestions?" Delilah asked as she furrowed her brows and looked up from the clipboard to the people sitting at the table.

"I say we bring back the cargo and leave the soldiers here. They aren't worth the trips or the fuel. Thinking realistically, the fuel available to us currently is only enough for 2 trips to the moons and back. In the first place we had only designed the ship to carry 100,000 men but it can't truly carry that many, Delilah. If we did then the ship would go so slowly and the fuel used would be even greater, we would spend double the fuel and tenfold of the time taken. It's inefficient and stupid to think about taking those worthless scum back." responded Maria in a cold and analytical manor.

"But we can't just let them all die, sister!" interrupted Julia

"If I may, I would like to say that I agree with the brown haired miss. I've lived among these fools for centuries now, they aren't worthy of mention. I suggest instead that you take only the most competent and useful soldiers with you and instead go on to end the Batak instead of going back to Hazmit. I've fought against the Batak for long enough to know that right now they are thinking of a way to attack you all. They are always the ones to strike first, and they are always watching for when one is at their weakest. They probably assume that you will return to regroup and restock before going after them so instead you should attack while they still haven't prepared themselves!" Axolot said from the side.

"But the people!" objected Julia.

"But the cargo!" objected Maria.

Delilah shook her head at the fact that they all had different plans. Truthfully, Delilah wasn't really that smart about these things. She was incredibly talented when it came to cultivation and battle but not so good at commanding and leading. She had a forthright and aggressive personality so she naturally assumed the position of commander but as soon as such a difficult decision had to be made, her head started spinning with all the different plans that wouldn't work. As she was thinking hard about what to do she noticed that Lucius was still looking out of the windshield of the ship at the other moon across from them. She felt a tinge of anger at how he had the audacity to just stare off into space while she was toiling away.

"Lucius! Why are you staring off into space like that? Tell us, do you have an answer to our problems, Mr. Slacker." she harrumphed.

"My dear, dear Deli, you always think so simply. You need to expand you thinking, you know, think outside of the box for once," Lucius began as he turned his head to her. " There is a very simple solution here, send the people back while we go and finish off the Batak!"

"You haven't been listening! We don't have enough fuel or space to do that!" Delilah shouted with a scowl on her face.

"No, no, I didn't mean to use the ship to send them back but the Garden! If we simply send those men back to the clan grounds and tell Johnny to let them out then the problem is solved. The cargo can be sent back too and we can even have fuel transferred over to us! In the mean time, we should go and finish this war off for real, right?" Lucius explained.

"Hmph. You can be leader now then, you know it all!" Delilah answered with a red face.

"Haaa.... But I don't really want to. You can be leader, big sister Delilah, I hate having to take care of everything. I'll just give you the right answers to your questions, haha!" Lucius responded in a way that irked Delilah. It was clear to everyone in the room that he was messing with her on purpose.

"Fine then! Maria send back the soldiers, cargo and this old man. Explain the situation to your mother and begin the end of the war. Julia tell the rest of our soldiers to eat up and rest for a while, we'll be able to reach the Batak moon within 8 hours!"

The twins nodded as they got up to complete their tasks, Axolot stood up and left with them as well. Delilah stared at Lucius who was sporting a smug look before leaving the room in a huff.

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"You know the drill, we go in, neutralise the opposition and then detain them. Lucius will take care of the rest!" reminded Julia as she and the troops were waiting in the cargo area.

"Yes sir!!!" they all responded with vigour and energy.

They had reached the Batak moon 20 minutes earlier than estimated because of the ship being closer to the moon. The ship was mostly solar panelled when in space, this was set in the event that they used all their fuel up when attacking the Yamir base. So if they did run out they wouldn't be stranded in space but rather, were able to recharge from the sun. It would take 30 days to gather enough energy for the return trip but since they were now closer to the sun, the time taken dropped to 20 days. This meant that indirectly they had been gathering more fuel as they travelled and sorted out the troops and cargo. The transporting into the Garden had taken 5 days, since Lucius and Delilah could only transfer around 500 people in one go so it took quite a bit of time for the full 200,000 or so soldiers to be transferred and even longer for the cargo since there was just that much more. In the end all of this only meant a 20 minute increase in speed but it was better than nothing. The main benefit was actually recharging and amplifying the mega cannon.

The Liberation army was no longer as nervous as they were in the first attack. They had experience now and since no one had died in the last mission they weren't as worried as before. After Julia and Delilah reminded them not to be cocky and such they were in a focused state, ready to end the war that had ravaged their lives. They had neither family or friends until they joined the Liberated Youths. The soldiers under the Batak and Yamir command were all mindless drones that knew only war. They didn't have any pleasures in their lives. Not food, not entertainment, not hobbies and not even pleasure. This was the main reason in the dramatic increase in the Liberated Youths numbers too as once they had felt even just one of these pleasures, they were instantly hooked and thus joined the cause. One of the key ways that Jessica had used to convert troops was to simply cook them a meal that wasn't a tasteless nutrient bar/solution. All of the children were made in factories and where given a name out of a database using RNG (Random Number Generator), so once they hooked up with a woman for the first time they couldn't go back to being a mindless drone. In fact, most of the men were enraged at the Batak and Yamir leaders for making them fight all their lives and inhibiting them from even the most basic of pleasures.

"Fire the mega cannon, don't give them the chance to use their missile! I want it intact so I can study it!" commanded Maria as her assistants triggered the cannon and caused the same scene of carnage as was done on the Yamir moon.

The front wall was broken through and a deep trench was made in the moon. Dust rose and scattered around blocking the vision of everyone. It was at this time that Julia started dropping in the troops, the cover of the smoke was a good opportunity to get in and set up the defensive line. They hadn't done this time since they were all nervous and hadn't thought of it. They were slowly gathering experience and improving on their tactics through this continued battle.

After around 500 shield men had dropped in and created an arrow formation, Lucius began to notice something with his enhanced vision. After that familiar sensation, he was able to see straight through the dust and although at first it wasn't obvious to him, he still knew that something was wrong. After a quick scan of the area near the wall he realised that there were no corpses at all. He searched further in and saw a defensive line that was set up far behind the wall. It seemed like the Batak were smart enough to step back from the wall after observing what happened to the Yamir's wall.

"There are no troops at the wall, they moved their defensive line back. Julia, deploy all troops as fast as possible!" Lucius explained through the ear piece.

Delilah had already dropped down and was heading the formation, Julia was still in the ship and was making sure the troops were deployed steadily without any clots or gaps. The deployment was going smoothly as the army filled out rapidly, within 10 minutes all of the troops where fully deployed. The front had already followed Delilah and reached the ruined wall. It was at this point that Lucius stopped looking at the troops and looked back to the enemies defensive line but he realised something even more strange than before. He looked even further and as he realised what it was that he saw, he ran backwards and exited the ship. He dropped down and used the nitro boosters on the bike to reach the wall within half a minute. He dived straight past the wall and jumped off of the bike from high up, storing the bike away before pulling out his sword-gun weapon.

Delilah and the front line troops watched as he fell through the air in a valiant arc. Delilah looked hard and saw the look in his eyes and immediately noticed that something was wrong. She had the troops stop there before she went forward to see for herself.

Lucius reached the peak of his arc before pulling out a chain of around 20 metres in length, he threw the chain straight out and lobbed it over 2 km in one go. The chain shot out and as soon as it hit the ground it burst into flames as a chain of fire spewing bombs detonated and decimated all of the enemy soldiers within a km radius. Lucius started breathing heavily as his eyes turned red. Rage! He had activated his bloodline ability!

Delilah ran up and through the rubble of the wall before dashing out and seeing Lucius' incendiary grenade chain being set off in the distance. She saw him in his enraged state reaching the ground and beginning his blatant massacre. She then looked back down and to her front and the scene shocked her greatly. There were Yamir men and women chained to posts! There was a full km of chained Yamir elves that were waiting there with expressions of grief and sorrow. Some of them were unconscious, some where crying desperately and others where just dazed out and looking into the sky. Delilah was enraged as she realised what was happening here, the Batak had created a meat shield of Yamir elves! They had chained and stocked a wall of people to defend them!

"Fuck me, what is wrong with people man! First that bastard king and now these guys, why the hell are they so fucking cruel!" Delilah shouted as she looked to Lucius and started thinking.

She turned around and relayed the situation to the others before commanding her troops to come forward and unchain the Yamir elves. The troops rushed forth with enraged vigour as they past the meat wall and formed a shield line in front. The troops behind then let them go as they brought the elves to the ruins of the wall and kept them protected behind the Liberation Army.

"Thank you! Thank you so much!" some elves said through cries and whimpers. Their bodies where bruised, scarred and burnt in places. It was obvious that they were being treated very cruelly and inhumanely.