Ch.202202. Devil

And the reorganization wasn’t limited to just the mounted golems.

New armor began to be manufactured and distributed starting with frontline units, Magical-Muskets were gradually replaced with more advanced models, and crucially, a “national conscription system” was introduced, establishing a new army—the National Army.

Until now, there had been clear limitations to mobilizing civilians, and on the battlefield, the National Army couldn’t be expected to do much more than serve as meat shields.

But with the introduction of new Magical-Muskets and the surplus of still-usable older models, the National Army could now demonstrate proper military strength on the battlefield as a legitimate regular force.

If about 500 National Army soldiers armed with Magical-Muskets fired a volley of mana lasers at a mid-tier enemy, the Magical-Muskets could penetrate its aura barrier and kill it.

Therefore, while they couldn’t become the main force on the battlefield, they could supplement the insufficient numbers. With the conscription of the National Army, all citizens began receiving training as soldiers.

Of course, this training only lasted about a month, after which conscription was limited to about 7 days of training per year.

The conscription system was merely being operated to prepare for worst-case scenarios. The main forces of the Dawn Empire’s military remained the Avenger Corps and the Black Sun Corps.

Ah, by the way, there was almost no opposition to the introduction of the conscription system.

Partly because the social atmosphere itself glorified fighting for the deity, but also largely because the mood surrounding this Age of Darkness couldn’t be ignored.

The media constantly repeated warnings about the terrible tyranny and endless wars occurring outside the Dawn Empire, alerting people to external dangers.

Meanwhile, such military changes weren’t limited to the Dawn Empire.

In the mental world, the Sanctuary of Vengeance, my Blood Warriors who protected it also underwent a process of consolidating their previously chaotic troop composition.

The most representative example was the Wolf Berserker, assault troops with blood-filled armor.

Until now, following the orthodox To■wer-style troop formation, shock infantry had been quite useful, but as the Sanctuary’s technology approached the Arcane Punk style, their necessity gradually diminished.

Now that the Blood Warriors’ ranged firepower overwhelmed their close combat capabilities, the current strategic standard was to first pour long-range bombardment to devastate enemy lines, then easily sweep up the forces decimated by the barrage.

As a result, shock infantry had become something like “not bad to have, but why bother?” So I reorganized the entire branch while clearing out the shock infantry.

Considering that quite a number of the Holy Assault Squad had died in the previous imperial main force subjugation, after much deliberation, I decided to completely replace them with humans.

Wolf Berserkers were a kind of battle machine with blood inside fully-sealed full-body armor, which made them excellent characteristics for suicide assault troops to push into enemy lines, but…

Thinking about it, there was no need to be concerned about casualties in the divine realm in the first place.

When fighting in the divine realm, if the spiritual body equivalent to a physical body is destroyed, the soul returns to its original position unless there’s an attempt by another deity to capture it.

And since these deceased souls can have their spiritual bodies restored with some appropriate intervention later, it’s quite inefficient to lament the loss of souls.

Of course, divine intervention is necessary for the restoration of spiritual bodies, but compared to the reality where the catalyst price for a single resurrection is expensive even at a national level, restoring a spiritual body is literally possible with the snap of a finger.

In fact, the benefits that skilled warriors bring to the battlefield by engaging in close combat outweigh the risks of spiritual body destruction or annihilation.

Originally, since the difficulty of manipulating souls that have become a deity’s followers is so high that it’s theoretically impossible for anyone except another deity of equal rank to even attempt it, and attempts to annihilate specific souls are not only difficult…

By that point, there would clearly be a war between deities, meaning one could get themselves stripped bare for needlessly trying to do something to another’s souls.

So considering all this, the risk is quite low while the return is thought to be reasonably good, which is why the Wolf Berserkers disappeared and Blood Berserkers emerged.

Warriors who committed sins in life, served in the Holy Assault Squad, and achieved martyrdom through death in battle. And Blood Warriors with outstanding military achievements or exceptional skills are given the right to volunteer for Blood Berserkers after several reviews.

Of course, there are those who wish to escape post-mortem combat and live peacefully in the divine realm, and in such cases, their choices are respected and allowed.

But in the society under my influence, Nordic warrior culture has been introduced, making “fighting for the deity” itself accepted as something that gives value to life.

This branch, which “gathers only the elite for close combat,” instantly became the most popular.

Unlike other Blood Warriors, they have a considerably higher risk of death in battle, and their weapons and equipment with black base and golden decorations are quite stylish, which is another reason for their popularity.

In addition, the recently introduced medals and equipment upgrades through military achievements, specially implemented to boost warrior morale, also raised their enthusiasm.

Meanwhile, I keenly felt the need for new aerial forces.

Of course, even before, there was no shortage of branches capable of aerial combat, such as the Angels of Vengeance or winged Blood Wolves—in fact, there were more than enough…

The problem was that these were commanders leading soldiers before being aerial combat units.

Winged Blood Wolves were rare beasts ridden by angels, and having commanders deploy whenever aerial units approached would leave no one to command and create fatal gaps if they were to fall in battle.

So, I began mass-producing various Blood Wolves in earnest by inducing several mutations in what had previously been merely custom beasts.

From Blood Wolves given eagle characteristics resembling griffins, to those developing fins and gills to swim in blood rivers and lakes, and further, I unlocked the path to growth toward mid-tier that had been blocked until now.

Of course, it would be impossible for Blood Wolves, originally beings of the material world, to evolve, but I used a few tricks to make their promotion possible.

Normally they fought to the death and repeated the cycle of dying and reviving, but I enabled them to absorb a bit of soul each time they killed an opponent.

Thanks to this, continuously killing enemies would lead to the birth of mid-tier Blood Wolves, which would complement the large monsters that Wolf Berserkers alone were slightly insufficient against.

By making soul absorption effective only in battles between equals, I was also able to prevent farming problems.

※ ※ ※

And while I was happily investing in military reorganization for quite some time.

‘………’

Suddenly, I could feel an unpleasant energy brushing past the boundary of the divine realm.

Though quite similar to the evil deity’s characteristic malignant divinity, unlike the evil deity’s which had a shell of divinity, this felt like a primordial malignancy.

Demons had slowly begun to extend their influence into the divine world.

Demons—the native species living in the Demon Realm, the widest dimension in the world, formed from the dregs of emotions generated across all dimensions.

Since their origins lie in the dregs of sentient beings’ emotions, these demons, who are essentially devoted to the very concept of “evil,” grow stronger by absorbing the emotions of sentient beings, especially negative ones.

Therefore, they seek to contract with sentient beings from other dimensions to obtain their souls, which become emotional factories for demons to suck power from.

Typically, they cause various sufferings to induce negative emotions, and depending on their origins, they may do specific things to evoke particular emotions.

Unlike evil deities who, despite their different direction, essentially have aspects of “deity,” demons belong to “evil” and view their followers as nothing more than consumables.

The fact that such demons had begun to seep into this world’s divine realm—the soul realm—was something I could hardly view positively from my position.

Even with maximum embellishment and metaphor, it was an environmental invasion by an alien species, and to put it bluntly, they had begun preparations before invading this nation (dimension) from another country.

Yet these short-sighted and foolish evil deities fought among themselves and ultimately pointed their blades at me, who had declared neutrality and left them alone…

‘…Please, be born quickly.’

All I could do was deeply hope for the good deities to be born into the world as soon as possible, while preparing for the future.