Armipotent

Chapter 2240: World of War (1)

Tang Shaoyang was behind his office table, skimming the monthly report in his hand while listening to his wife’s report at the same time. His empire grew rapidly as more and more people reached God Ranks.

It had been a while since he took the throne, checking the progress and giving authorization for good development had become his work if he didn’t leave for the Administrator’s mission. Even so, he could not get used to the work, and he hated it because it took up his time. He would rather spend his time in his newly built cultivation training ground. It has a formation that enriched the room with energy, making the training more effective. But here he was, wasting his time reading such a silly issue.

However, something that required his permit was usually something big and drastic. A proposal for a new division, the Tarrior’s expansion, a fight between factions inside the Dimensional Tower, and more. It was his responsibility, and he went through it, especially his wives, who did most of the work.

The report in his hand was the progress of his people. It was a report about the people who had reached the God Ranks. Zhang Mengyao, Lu An, Alton, Moonsong, Zowen, Zaneos, and more had reached God Ranks eight months ago. Not just that, Zhang Mengyao topped the trial in her batch, beating Lu An, Moonsong, Alton, Zowen, and Zaneos.

Zaneos, Moonsong, and Zowen were in the top ten. The others were in the top hundred. That was a brilliant performance, and fortunately, no enemy faction targeted them. Maybe his enemy solely focused on him so that they didn’t bother to target his people, which was a good thing. It was better for them to come for him instead of his people.

What surprised him was that Zhang Mengyao declined the reward to be an Administrator. She declined to take the class despite its potential. The number one in the Trial of God would automatically become an Administrator. The rest were added to the Administrator Candidate List, which could be recruited to be Assistant Administrator.

Khaya and the others from his team, Team Reds, wanted to recruit them, but they also declined. The reason was that they wanted to focus on the empire, not their personal power.

At this point, everyone, especially the upper echelons, was aware of the immediate war between his empire and the Nirvana Alliance and God Order. They wanted to prepare for that instead of splitting their focus as an administrator. They knew how busy Tang Shaoyang was when he started off as Administrator, so they declined it.

Their dedication to grow their force was proven with the report in his hand. Another batch advanced to the God Rank this month, too, thirty-four people to be exact. Most of these people were saved from the dungeon or Dimensional Tower. They had a more solid foundation than most of the Tang Empire’s natives, after all.

With more God Ranks, Zhang Mengyao was asking for his permission to further expand the Tarrior. They had established the training ground in the God Realm, recruiting people from the God Realm already. Their target was their new territory and their newest vassal there.

There were two ways to enter the Tarrior. It was a direct recruitment that they would be directly under Tarrior’s supervision, including their training, or it was the academy’s graduates.

Lately, Zhang Mengyao had intensified the recruitment. If he agreed to the proposal, this would be the second recruitment this year, and it was still the fourth month. She would most likely ask at least two or three times for another recruitment.

Tang Shaoyang agreed and stamped the proposal with his Emperor Seal. Then he read the next report, and his mood instantly changed. It was another trivial issue, at least, it was trivial that the report didn’t need to reach him. He felt like the TEIS or TEID should handle it.

”What is this?” He waved the thin scroll in his hand, ”This should not have reached my table!”

Li Shuang paused and reached for the scroll. It was just another case of ”human rights activist”. After the first few cases, usually TEIS handled it, and usually Li Shuang was willing to hold a conversation. As long as it made sense, but if it was nonsense, they would straight ignore it.

This time, however, they were too late to react, and this group, in the name of ”human rights activist” called Hope, became big. It had more than one thousand members, and they had five leader figures, of which three of them were veterans.

Veteran was a term used for the people who fought alongside Tang Shaoyang against zombies to reclaim their lands. The people who fought together with the founding members. Usually, veterans were part of the Tarrior or other core governing bodies in the empire, but there were a few who decided to leave with the reason to gain more freedom.

With these three veterans, the group grew so quickly that TEID, which usually handled the issue, didn’t take action. They usually nipped the bud before it grew too big if the group was too problematic.

But yes, using the name veteran, the group grew so quickly. TEID consulted the issue with Li Shuang, which resulted in the report in her hand right now.

”You should finish reading everything. There’s a sensitive issue that needs your attention for this group,” She handed the report back.

”I hate wasting my time on something trivial like this. I only have so little spare time, and I would rather spend my time with my daughters! Tang Shaoyang grumbled, but he listened to read the report, ”Their lives have been too peaceful; there’s no more threat or immediate concern that they create trouble for themselves.”

Since the last war against the coalition of the World Government, the empire has never been under threat. There was no issue, such as a dungeon break, because the Dungeon Division took care of the problem. The zombie no longer posed a threat to them as the Tarrior regularly did culling, reducing their number, but not wiping them out, so they could be used to train their people.

The empire flourished compared to the other factions, which were often dealing with a lot of trouble. There were no gangs or thugs as TEIS and TEID made sure to disband them before they became a parasite for the empire.

The expansion never stopped as city after city was rebuilt. Traveling between worlds was no longer bizarre for them, visiting the other worlds for vacation, though Earth was only connected to just one world as of now.

These people assumed the empire was free of external problems, and they started to think of ”perfecting the empire’s flaws”. It was mentioned in this report that this group, called Hope, mentioned the flaw in the empire’s criminal treatment.

First, they wanted the prisoner dungeon to be rebuilt, a worthy place for a human to live. One example mentioned was the fact that the dungeon lacks lightning, a proper bed, and a proper shower room. They demanded that the prison be renamed and rebuilt.

Second, they wanted to abolish the slave soldier practice. Slave soldier practice was a punishment for those who committed a crime without pay, with minimal treatment. They must fight for the empire to regain its freedom.

Li Shuang had improved the terms so that only people who committed the grave crimes would receive such a punishment. She also wanted to abolish the practice, but Tang Shaoyang insisted on keeping it. She decided to modify it so fewer people would receive such punishment. The same with the death penalty, only traitors and serial killers would receive such punishment.

There were long demands, but Hope wanted to prioritize the two issues above. The criminals were also human, and they wanted them to be treated humanely.

These people, the civilians, were not aware that they were just a few years away from the empire’s biggest war ever. They were oblivious to the fact, which was why they could have such thoughts.

Tang Shaoyang purposely kept the issue secret and didn’t want to create unnecessary panic among his own people. But because of that, there were always these people who would create an issue out of nothing. Why would they even care how the empire treated the criminals in the first place?

It was so weird that he could not understand why these people thought this was a good idea. If there were no deterrent effect, these people would commit the same crime again once they were out. Everything in the report was just nonsense in his eyes.

Before he finished reading everything, the thin scroll was burned by his Chaos Flame. It left no dust or smoke as the scroll never existed before.

”Send them the warning that the empire will not tolerate similar behavior and tell them to disband this nonsense group before I do it myself. If they don’t listen and continue their nonsense activity, then exile them, put them in the list, and make sure they would never step into my empire, ever again!”

Li Shuang expected such a decisive decision from her husband, ”What about the veteran?”

”Doesn’t matter, veteran or not, they will be kicked out! Who even comes with a ’veteran’ term? They can call themselves veterans when they just kill a few zombies!

If these veterans were strong and high-ranking, the empire would do its best to retain them. The fact that they were no longer part of the empire meant they were just nobody who claimed to fight alongside the Emperor.

Tang Shaoyang was about to read the next report until a notification rang in his head. Something that he never expected to hear because of the System’s compensation for him.

[Bahmes issues a challenge to Earth for World of War!]