Chapter 121: The Campaign (Part 2)

Alexander spoke up, " My people...." A loud cheering interrupted him as the sixty quadtrillion cultivators floating below shouted at the top of the their lungs. Alexander shook his head and said nothing to placate his overly excited subjects. He knew that the upcoming wars will change them. The native forces of the 12 universes will not surrender that easily.

Alexander knew that they will know after sometime that they were being invaded on a massive scale and they will fight back to preserve the status quo. Alliances will be forged, betrayals will occur, old grudges will be settled and the true dark side of Cultivators will be laid bare for his people to see. Moreover, his forces will also die at the hand of natives.

There was a not a single native cultivator who had reached God Realm without being a part of life and death struggles while his people had been safely cultivating on mainland or in the origin verse. They had occasionally fought with the desolate beasts in the fighting rings but that was only one percent of the total population. It was like sending lambs to the maws of a dragon but Alexander didn't balk at the thought of sending his subjects to their deaths. It was necessary that they exprerience all this so that they would not atleast faint in the wars against cosmic entities. The death of few trillions when compared to the destruction of the whole kingdom having a population of 900 quadtrillion was not a hard choice to make.

Alexander didn't flare his aura to make the rowdy crowd behave, he just sat on the ledge with his legs dangling below and waited for his people to become composed. A small part of him didn't want his people to go to war but it was necessary. Alexander knew his own weaknesses also.

Alexander knew that he was extremely powerful but he had no exprerience in fighting people who were as powerful as him or those who are more powerful than him. He also did not have honed combat instincts. He had trained with his people but it was not enough. He had not been to pushed to his limits till now in any of his fights. He had not faced life and death struggles. He had not arrived at death doors and had not fought back with his entire being. He also was not accustomed to fighting in his dragon form. He only relied on his draconic instincts to fight in his dragon form which was not good. His conquest had been unchallenged and unhindered till now. Nobody has derailed his plans and made him suffer losses. Alexander wanted to exprerience all this. The road to greatness was not made with success, it was made with failures. Every failure teaches a new lesson.

After a few minutes of shouting, the crowd finally settled down and Alexander spoke up, " Can I continue now?"

A few embarrassed grumbles echoed in the void but Alexander didn't call out the preparators. Alexander spoke up in a serious tone, " We are going to war. Don't think for a moment that the conquest of this world will go unhindered and unchallenged. The native cultivators have much more fighting exprience than you. You need to be on constant alert in the 12 universe. Many of you will die or get seriously injured. I want you all to register your closest kin in case of your death with the officials. The compensation on your death or injury will be given out immediately after confirmation of death or injury.

The native Cultivators will use everything against you from poisons to formations. This war will change you all. You will see things that you have never imagined. You are allowed to use everything you have in your arsenal from magic to technology. If you get captured, the rescue corps will try to rescue you but if all hopes are gone then kill yourselves. I don't want you to suffer at the hands of the natives.

I will not be able to help each individual as I will be directing this war. I will only relay your exact location and condition to the rescue corps. The future pillars of the kingdom will not get any special treatment in this war. You will be send on much more dangerous missions to improve your fighting skills. Also, one one more thing, don't go near the blackholes present in the galaxies. Only True Saints and above can survive the blackholes with some moderate injuries. The rest of the briefing will be send to your holo-comms. That's all. Now, we will reassemble here after 3 days. I hope that you all will fulfill all your personal matters. Good Luck!!!"

Alexander then shifted back to his room and sat down on his bed to take a deep sleep in order to recover from his continuous and sleepless cultivation session. He was woken up again by Rose and told that everyone would reassemble in three hours and he should address them. Alexander cursed the only common vice which every dragon across the existence had, the vice of laziness. All the dragons were inherently lazy and liked to spend their free time sleeping. Sadly, Alexander was also not exempt from this and liked to laze around quite a lot. It was only his ambition to reach the pinnacle that kept him from giving into his vices.

He let out a huge yawn and after freshening up, arrived above the realm gate. He sensed the very air buzzing with anticipation, excitement, determination and slight bloodlust. He focussed on these feelings and came to know that a majority of the these feeling were emitted by his assembling army but the developing laws of his world were also slightly influencing the minds of his subjects. Alexander made his disapproval known through the link they shared. The laws just gave off a feeling of indifference towards Alexander's disapproval. The laws of kingdom only cared about Alexander, rest were just pawns to be used and disposed off. Alexander just sighed and thought, " Just a few million years more."

He stepped forward and let out his aura completely. The whole kingdom stood completely still as they sensed the pressure emitted by their king. He spoke up, " We are going to war. In this war, at least millions of HighGod Realm Cultivators will die. We will first stick to the conquest of beast worlds and the small native forces. This will continue till we have conquered all the beast worlds in all the galaxies of the 12 universes. This will at least take a few decades. Our direct attack will start after this. It is not possible that our movements will remain hidden during the entirety of our campaign. So, each team will have 10 members; five will focus on conquest while rest will guard against and deal with unexpected guests. If our movements in some region are revealed, then, report to the commanders and go to another region to aid the conquest. Our commanders will deal with the situation accordingly. Remember, anonymity is our greatest weapon right now. I don't want to loose our military strength in exchange for fast conquest. We all have hundreds of thousands of years of lifespan, what's the rush? But, this doesn't mean that you will become lazy. Every soldier will be awarded contribution points which could be exchanged for money in the kingdom. In case of your death, the money will be transferred to your mentioned kin. I will be opening the realm gate to the first universe in one hour. Your commanders will address you now."

Alexander stepped back and allowed the 12 commanders to take the main stage. He was not interested in listening to what they were saying as their speech was prepared by the prominent psychologists employed by The Imperial Intelligence. The speech was just a way to motivate the soldiers to spend decades fighting in a war started by their king. Alexander smiled as a thunderous applause was heard by him in response to the speeches given by the commanders. Alexander didn't add more and simply opened the realm gate to the first universe. The realm gate was of the same size as the origin verse but was opened in the ocean. Alexander had not told his men about this as he wanted them to expect the unexpected.

He watched as the soldiers assembled below divided themselves into 12 smaller armies, each having 4 quadtrillion HighGod Realm Cultivators in it's ranks. The kingdom right now had an army of 90 quadtrillion, out of which 48 were going on the campaign while the rest will guard the kingdom. In reality, all his subjects were trained to fight but the soldiers employed in the army were the elites. Alexander planned to increase the training of his people after the conquest of this world was complete. He chuckled as the first arrivals found themselves deep inside the ocean and were quite perplexed. They were not harmed as they were HighGod Realm Cultivators but their reactions were amusing.

It took a few hours to transport all the soldiers invading the first universe. The universe were numbered by the experts according to their time of formation. The Yellow Dragon Universe was the third oldest one. It took one week to transport all the soldiers to their respective universe. His army had not started the conquest yet and were discretely travelling to all the beast worlds present in the universe. It would take them years to reach their destination. Moreover, all the worlds in between were being also conquered by them. Already, thousands of world surfaces across the 12 universe had submitted to Alexander's rule. A team of 10 Peak HighGod Realm Cultivators was enough to conquer a normal world surface occupied by the humans within an hour. Alexander went back to his cultivation as more and more worlds began to come under his rule.

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