Angel Monarch

Chapter 146: An Army of Devotion

As she stood before the large gate, the hinges groaned and the large door made of some strong alloy opened. It could withstand attacks ranging from ascended to corrupted, but even this alloy wouldn't be able to hold up against her flames.

When the gate was opened to a crack she went through. Behind it were about a dozen evolved soldiers on guard duty. When they saw Sera each went on their knees, she didn't even look at them.

In the past two years she had many achievements, which made her citizens and soldiers near fanatical. The old Seraphine would've felt uncomfortable and even embarrassed, but the new Seraphine didn't feel anything.

Looking at the soldiers' devotion there was only one thought in her mind. 'I'm late.'

She quickly went through the gatehouse and exited onto the main military compound. The area was large and circular, about one and a half kilometer from its center. This complex held everything related to the New Athens Army.

There was a large garage full of vehicles like SUVs, tanks, APCs and even a few Self-propelled artillery. At another place was a small airfield which mostly held helicopters and about 3 orbital ships.

They were getting dusty since the patrols usually moved on foot. They are mostly used by the leadership to get to places fast within the city, and not necessarily for emergencies.

The people either knelt or saluted when she passed them by. The regular soldiers and civilians were thankful for everything she accomplished, all of them heard rumors of her military record, which increased their beliefs even further. The evolved soldiers though...

They were there on at least one or two campaigns. They saw the victories with their own eyes. They saw that every time Sera died at the hands of the enemy, she would come back even stronger!

The nickname Immortal nearly got stuck on her, but she quickly corrected their mistake. She wasn't immortal, since she can die. She is Deathless, since death couldn't keep her.

Her eyes passed the ranks of soldiers heading in different directions. By their latest count the evolved soldiers' number reached the 1200 mark, from which 35 were ascended. The regular soldier count was a bit all over the place currently. Sera judged them to be at a hundred thousand soldiers, but she didn't really care about them...

Technically she didn't care about anything...

Back two years and a month ago she woke up next to Harold in that destroyed outpost. He told Sera that losing all her memories was a punishment for her disobedience.

The only things Harold let her remember were details of Earth, its history, what evolved and monsters are, her own powers and fighting capabilities, basically anything unrelated to her personal memories.

Also he had done something else to her. Harold never said anything, but she can't feel any emotions. Throughout the past two years she had gotten a bit used to it, although it was a pain in her ass to pretend not being an emotionless robot.

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The only people who actually knew the truth about her were the five captains she had appointed.

It wasn't like she had zero emotional intelligence though. As she walked down the road, she saw the people looking at her with pure devotion and love. It should've made her uncomfortable or at least a little bit annoyed, or if she would've been a worse person maybe arrogant, but there was nothing.

Also, another thing that remained was her moral compass. She knew what was wrong or right, but it felt weird. Like her morality was being interfered with.

'Its probably one of Harold's experiments that he didn't deign to inform me about... Typical...'

Instead of thinking about those experiments and Harold's research she watched the buildings around her. Sera didn't feel comfort or anything like that, but it was still good to be home. It had a sense of calmness to it.

The warm air was moved by the light breeze coming from the ocean. The few trees that decorated the street was also dancing to the winds rhythm.

New Athens was special in its placement compared to the other city-states. It was at the edge of the Greek Peninsula, which got its name from one of the ancient countries of the Old World.

Its placement and survival made a lot of sense since the whole place was surrounded by multiple mountains. It also had a large port with a few battleships, but the patrolling of the sea was nearly impossible, so they stayed in dry dock most of the time.

It was quite convenient that people settled here after the Apocalypse. This was the main southern weapons depot of the country of Europe, which meant there was a very large amount of abandoned weaponry. It wasn't even destroyed in the Last War, which made it even more perfect.

Sadly the past leaders of this settlement were idiots to say the least. All of them used these machines as toys, not as actual military equipment.

After a few days of Sera taking control of the city, one of the first things she had done is making sure the vehicles were operational. From past records a few engineers tweaked them a bit.

Now, instead of the regular steel tanks and APCs, they are made of a specially made alloy. They combined an especially strong monster's bones, with a mixture of molten tungsten and added another monster's hide as coating. Now it could withstand most corrupted's attacks with ease.

The alloy was also strangely light, even though tungsten is a really dense metal. This meant that the top speed and acceleration of the vehicles increased as well.

The weapons couldn't be made better by much. Every time the technology got too advanced it stopped working. Nobody could figure out why that was the case.

What they could change though were the ammunition. Instead of the past's superheated railgun bullets, they manufactured something incredible.

For the small guns they used the same monster bone alloy, but with a little added corrosive cartridge inside. As the bullet hit its target, it falls apart and delivers a large dose of poison right into the bloodstream.

For the APC's main turret, they use a special incendiary bullet. Which burns at high enough temperatures to melt most creature's hide.

The tanks shoot a cartridge that breaks into multiple smaller bullets, and the artilleries have something similar, with the difference that it explodes on impact.

Every single one of these weapons are very affective against rotten, but pretty useless against corrupted. This was the reason that Sera specifically asked the engineers to focus on crowd control instead of piercing.

It was strange thinking like a commander and military leader, but one thing she learnt from the past two years was, that she is an amazing tactician. Out of the dozens of battles and sieges she hadn't lost one.

Sometimes the losses of man were bad, but never overwhelming. Other times victory wasn't achieved because of her strategy, but her citizens and soldiers treated them all the same.

It was a strange devotion these people had, but understandable given how uncertain the times were.

In the past two years the European Continent had been absorbed in war. One side, the United Front got established because of the other side's increasing influence. Currently the Federal Alliance held most of the southwest of Europe, while the north and east were trying to hold their territories.

The biggest fights happened within the mid section of Europe. The Alps were painted in evolved blood.

Another interesting fact were the goblins. It was like they sensed the war and began their own destruction. Every city that didn't have enough defense got looted by them. It was quite scary since their movements were so random.

Also the worst thing about goblins is that they attacked citizens as well. Even though a large scale war was happening all over the continent, they tried their best not to hurt the civilian populace.

It wasn't easy and most sieges had a few thousand deaths, but they were focusing on not destroying the cities they wanted to capture. It also helped the people living there accept their change in leadership.

Sadly even though deaths were rare, other crimes ran rampant in newly captured cities. The drunk soldiers who lost friends were more than happy to take whatever they wanted from the citizens. They took items, food, drinks and there were also a lot of rape.

Sera's was one of the few armies who didn't go and cause disorder in a newly captured city. This also increased her popularity and fame, even in enemy city-states.

In reality she didn't care about any of those citizens, but it made her job a lot easier if the masses liked her.

As she was absorbed in these thoughts, she finally arrived at her destination. In front of her a gigantic complex spread. This was the main headquarters of her military. The building had a brutalist design, but they were already making plans of changing it on the outside.

In her opinion it currently looked like a villain's home. The new design is going to be a lot more open, with loads of windows, balconies and arches. It will have a bit of a gothic architectural style to it, which she liked the best out of all the options.

The building itself housed many of the evolved's offices, a large gym for keeping in shape, recreational rooms, a giant library, conference rooms and the main operations room.

Sera stared at the ugly building for a while before finally deciding to step inside.