Chapter 137: Chapter 137: Military Training
Noir giggled softly against Neo’s chest. She gracefully slid off his lap, smoothing her dark silk dress with a completely unapologetic smirk.
She glanced at Zestia with a amused smile.
"Fufu, a relationship? My dear, naive little knight. An Emperor does not limit himself to simple mortal relationships. He conquers, and we submit to his glorious authority. Though, I must admit, I am currently leading the race for his affections."
Zestia’s golden aura erupted violently. She stomped forward, entirely ignoring the dark-haired woman, and stopped right in front of Neo.
"Is that true, Neo? Did you already choose her over me?"
Neo looked at Zestia’s trembling shoulders expressionlessly.
"I have not chosen anyone, Zestia. Noir was merely testing my patience, exactly as she always does. There is absolutely nothing happened between us."
Zestia let out a long breath of relief. And the fiery aura around her armored shoulders slowly dimmed, but she still turned her head to glare fiercely at the seductive demoness.
"You heard the Emperor. Keep your hands to yourself, witch."
Completely unfazed by the threat, Noir simply chuckled,
"For now, perhaps. But our lives are very long, little knight."
Neo silenced their bickering by unleashing his newly forged Type 5 Ascender aura.
It washed over the grand bedchamber, making them shut their mouths.
"Enough! We have a newly conquered army to integrate and an entire empire to build from the ground up. I deeply value both of your strengths. But I need my two best allies working together, not fighting a petty war inside my bedroom."
He looked down at the crumpled military reports scattered carelessly across the marble floor. He raised his hand, and a gentle wave of blue cosmic force lifted the papers neatly into the air, organizing them back into a single stack.
He passed the documents back to the blonde knight.
"Now Zestia, would you care to tell me how you will be managing the logistics of all those thirty thousand surrendered Federation soldiers."
Zestia’s cheeks turned pink at his warm smile. The jealous warrior from a moment ago vanished completely as well.
On contrast, she quickly straightened her posture, coughing lightly into her armored fist to regain her professional composure.
"Right away, my Emperor. The immediate issue is the food supply. Zenith’s current agricultural output cannot sustain an army of 100,000 Beyonders. We need to import food resources from nearby life planets. For that, we need a lot of credits, and more importantly, we must establish diplomatic relations with the neighbors of the Gardion Solar Sector."
Neo replied,
"Don’t worry about the credits.I have invited someone who will be working to develop our economy to greater heights. As for diplomatic relations with our neighbors, you can try to see if they agree. Regardless, it doesn’t matter. Sooner or later, I am going to conquer their worlds as well."
Neo spoke as if he were just making a casual statement, and Zestia could only watch him in speechless disbelief.
Who talks about conquering neighbors when they are in the midst of a crisis?
Regardless, she also knew the conflict was entirely unavoidable.
A Dominator must conquer and expand, or else be erased if failed to do so. Such was the destiny of the Dominators.
Kindness, mercy, and compassion had no place here. They would only drag him down faster.
---
Outside the pristine white walls of the Imperial Palace, the vast green fields had been completely transformed into a military academy.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The ground trembled beneath the synchronized footsteps of hundreds of thousands of warriors.
The newly absorbed Federation soldiers were being aggressively integrated with the original Zenith forces.
And the scale of the training operation was nothing short of mind-boggling..
In the center of the dust-choked physical training grounds, an older knight paced back and forth like a prowling lion.
It was Leon, Zestia’s uncle and the newly appointed Master of Arms for the Zenith Empire.
He took great pride in whipping the newly awakened rookie Beyonders into absolute shape.
"Square your shoulders, mutt!"
He said to a muscular rookie who was struggling to contain his newly awakened cosmic force.
Leon swiftly kicked the back of the giant’s knee, forcing him into a proper, grounded stance.
"Look at you, big boy. You hold the power to shatter mountains. But without absolute discipline, you are nothing but a bomb waiting to go off in your own hands! The Emperor did not awakened you to act like wild beasts. He awakened you to be his sword! Control your energy, ground your footing, and strike with purpose!"
Leon chest buffed with pride as the young soldiers immediately corrected their postures, their eyes burning with fierce determination.
He had spent his entire life fighting for Aizenberg, but under Neo’s reign, he was actively forging an army capable of shaking the stars.
However, the physical conditioning was only one half of the Zenith Empire’s absolute military doctrine.
A few miles away from the dusty combat pits, massive open-air pavilions had been erected. Here, the atmosphere was entirely different. Instead of the sound of weapons clashing, the air b with the quiet, there were murmurs of thousands of mouths devouring new information.
Standing before massive, glowing holographic star maps were the three High Elven Commanders: Vaelar, Aeliana, and Nyxaris.
They were given task about instilling the intellectual foundation of warfare into the masses.
The warrior Commander, Vaelar barked,
"Remember, soldiers: a Beyonder’s strength can win a single battle. But logistics, supply line management, and terrain manipulation will win us the entire solar system. Brute force without intellect is simply a waste of cosmic energy."
The Archery Commander Aeliana followed suit,
"To conquer an enemy, you must first understand them. How do they deploy their mechs? Where are their orbital blind spots? What is the psychological breaking point of a Federation conscript?"
Every single soldier, from the lowest infantryman to the highest-ranking officer, was handed a massive Textbook on War Tactics.
These books had been flawlessly synthesized by Neo himself, compiling the absolute best military strategies from both Earth and the wider cosmic universe.
The Dark Mage Commander, Nyxaris, practically growled.
"Read it. Memorize it. Breathe it. Our Emperor does not want a mindless horde of meat shields. He demands tactical supremacy."
This educational mandate had a very specific purpose. Neo knew that somewhere within his army of discarded slum dwellers and rogue soldiers, there were hidden or unpolished geniuses waiting to be discovered.
By distributing the collective knowledge of warfare to the absolute masses, the Zenith Empire was actively filtering the thousands to find the brilliant strategic minds who would one day command entire fleets and conquer the neighboring worlds in the name of the Flying White Dragon.
