The Martial Unity

The Emperor of Harmony sharpened his gaze as he read through several documents, skimming through their pages. His expression was strained even as his attentive gaze poured through the reports detailing the state of affairs of, well, the entire world.

His table was as messy as his dishevelled hair and crumpled clothes, cluttered with more reports than he could keep up with in a single day. His expression grew weary as he struggled to keep up with everything that kept happening even after the war had reached an equilibrium.

Human civilization had changed much in the past decade.

The Beast Incursion had thoroughly become a part of the daily lives and experiences of humanity as an entire generation of adults had grown up having known the Beast Incursion their entire lives.

This was their normal. While the adults spoke of a time when humanity ruled the continent with bitter nostalgia, the children of the present only knew of a reality where beasts and monsters ravaged their borders.

They only knew of an era where human civilization was on the backfoot, passively defending against the countless monsters that sought to destroy them. Their psychology and mindset was so different from that of the prior generations that they were almost from a different culture entirely. They were also entirely of a different species.

Emperor Rael’s attention grew keen as he read through reports featuring data surrounding images of babies, infants, and children with red hair and red eyes.

The first generation of the Blood Goddess’s offspring had already permeated the world. The Divine Doctor, in his seemingly endless mastery of medicine, biology, and biotechnology, not only created organic artificial wombs from the Blood Goddess’ tissue but had even managed to trigger enough genetic variety to greatly mitigate the risk of inbreeding. Then, with the help of the Beggar Sage, they create a system of checks and record-keeping relying on the Beggar’s Sect’s intelligence to ensure that no inbreeding inadvertently occurred.

With the help of the Psycher, they managed to account of the psychogenetic traits of the offspring of the Blood Goddess based on her genes and had created certain upbringing protocols that would help humanity raise the next generation of superhumans in a fitting manner.

Many millions of red-haired and red-eyed boys and girls were already born across the entire world.

They were born with superhuman power.

They already displayed physical power that far exceeded human limitations.

With training and discipline, they could already exert the power of a full-fledged Martial Apprentice even at the foundational stage, with an extraordinary realm of physical power that far exceeded even natural freaks of nature like Nel.

It drastically altered the dynamics of human civilization as the world learned how to integrate these superhuman children into society and civilization. While the help of the three original Immortal Sages of human civilization had prevented the worst of outcomes of unfolding, there were still many, many horrific incidents that had happened.

Human civilization had learned the hard way that taking care of superhuman children was extraordinarily difficult.

A system of Squire chaperones was instituted to make sure that there were some checks on the children while they grew up, fundamentally altering the dynamics of their upbringing.

The Psycher had lent his immense expertise and mastery of the mind to ensure that their upbringing was steered away from the worst, but the fact of the matter was that humanity had already changed beyond recognition.

The map of the Panama Continent had changed beyond recognition.

More than half the continent had returned to becoming extensions of the Beast Domain as the esoterification of the continent had progressed to an extreme degree.

Now, most of the continent had become an unknown.

Much of the continent had become ‘undiscovered’ and ‘unexplored’ again.

They became mysteries.

They became part of the unknown.

New beasts and monsters adapted to the new environment at a shocking speed of evolution through natural selection. So many changes had happened in the past ten years that not even Emperor Rael was fully able to fathom everything that happened. His three centuries of experience as Emperor were no longer as much of a merit.

They even held him back. His psychology was a relic of the past, and he found it difficult to alter his mindset to account for all these changes despite his innate flexibility.

When he gazed at the countless red-haired children that has permeated human civilization, he couldn’t help but grow a but disgusted. His rational side understood that this was just a part of the solutions that were needed to restore humanity’s dominance in the long run.

However, his instincts didn’t lie.

This wasn’t the only area where he felt this way. Humanity had changed more in the fifteen years of the Era of Darkness than it had in the three hundred years he had been Emperor prior. He felt like he was in an alien world.

Like he was ruling an alien kingdom and guiding an alien civilization.

One that he understood nothing about and could not relate to in any way.

He understood what this meant.

“…The time will soon come,” a faint whisper escaped him.

The time would soon come where his aged psychology became more of a liability than his intelligence and expertise was an asset. No matter how extraordinary and individual he was, he too had limits.

He was ultimately still a human being himself.

He was too old, too fixed in his ways, too hardened in who he was for him to be able to lead effectively in such an absurd era with absurd happenings.

He had always known that this day would come.

Where, no matter how intelligent, competent, and experienced he was, he would simply be unfit to rule.

And he could sense that the day was close.

“The day I abdicate the throne.”

CLACK

He gazed up as his Royal Secretary opening the door to his office, having aged a decade herself, walked in.

“Your Majesty, the Martial Sages will soon commence the siege upon the final haven.”

He heaved a deep breath as he closed his eyes, trying to maintain his composure.

“…Would you like to exercise oversight, Your Majesty?”

He stirred for a moment before shaking his head.

“I have full faith in my son.”

His golden eyes opened, brimming with confidence.

“He will lead us all to victory.”

–