Celes had originally planned to use Mila's strength as a way to secure his footing within the Sovereign Army.
So naturally, he had no intention of refusing her offer.
"Then shall we go now?"
"Mhm. Since we've already made the decision, let's go now."
"If we wait any longer, I'm afraid I might lose my nerve and end up wanting to wait until you break through to the Asura Prefect level, Mila."
"Senior Celes really does love joking."
Mila smiled and shook her head, clearly not taking his words to heart.
Little did she know—that had truly been Celes's original plan.
Between having a Seven-Star Fiend as backing and having an Asura Prefect–level powerhouse behind him, anyone with a functioning brain knew which was better.
A Seven-Star Fiend was strong, but still not among the top experts of the Netherworld.
Only those at the Asura Prefect level were truly renowned throughout the various Divine Planes and Higher Planes.
Such experts were powerful enough to claim an entire prefecture and become its lord.
More importantly, most Sovereign Emissaries were also at roughly that level.
Of course, Sovereign Emissaries possessed Sovereign-bestowed artifacts, making them more than ten times stronger than ordinary Asura Prefects in either offense or defense.
Celes rose to his feet and walked with Mila toward the Sovereign Army camp.
The process of Celes joining the Sovereign Army went incredibly smoothly, without the slightest trouble.
Everyone had already been here for hundreds of thousands of years.
Unless they were newcomers, even the soldiers of the Sovereign Army would, when off duty, head into the mist just like everyone else to cultivate.
Not to mention that Mila, as a Seven-Star Fiend, was fairly well-known here.
And since Celes himself was a Six-Star Fiend, after joining he was directly appointed as the commander of a company, with roughly five squads under his command.
A fully staffed company commander would normally command ten squads, with one hundred men per squad.
However, the Sovereign Army had not yet reached full strength.
He would have to wait until enough soldiers were recruited before his unit was filled out.
After parting with Mila, Celes followed the recruitment officer toward the Sovereign Army encampment.
"Oh, right, Malik—do you know which Sovereign this army serves? And what is the name of this Sovereign Army?"
Walking behind the recruiter, Celes suddenly asked the soldier leading him.
"Uh, Lord Celes… to be honest, you're not the first person to ask me that."
"But I'm sorry…"
At this point, the recruiter, Malik, gave a bitter smile.
"I'm just like you. I've been in this Sovereign Army for many years, and I still don't know which Sovereign this army belongs to."
"However, all of us speculate that if the standards for this army are this high, then the Sovereign we serve must certainly be one of the stronger ones among the Sovereigns."
"Indeed…"
Celes nodded, agreeing with Malik's reasoning.
Among divine experts, there were naturally differences in strength.
The same had to be true for Sovereigns.
Only a powerful Sovereign would dare raise the standards for their army this high.
If a weaker Sovereign tried to do this, they would probably have already been challenged by stronger Sovereigns.
Having only recently left the Frostsnow Plane, Celes had never witnessed Sovereigns fighting.
Still, from time to time, he found himself wondering—
among gods, strength was measured by one's fusion of Profound Mysteries.
Then what determined the strength of Sovereigns?
Unfortunately, even the children of Sovereigns often knew little about such matters.
It wasn't that Sovereigns were unwilling to tell their children.
Rather, the gap between Sovereigns and gods was simply too vast.
At the start of cultivation, what mattered most was one's spirit and drive.
If one learned too early that no matter how powerful a god became, they would still be nothing more than an ant before a Sovereign, it could easily crush their motivation to grow stronger.
Only after becoming sufficiently powerful themselves would the children naturally come to understand the difference between gods and Sovereigns.
By then, they would have no interest in asking questions that would only sour their mood.
"Oh, right, Malik."
"I remember our Sovereign Army has some method that can increase the strength of the soldiers, right?"
"If I want to learn that method, what do I need to do?"
"Oh? Lord Celes wishes to learn the magic battle formation?"
Ever since Lord Figroa had demonstrated the overwhelming boost that magic formations could bring to legion warfare, many soldiers—including officers—had begun studying magic formations.
So, Malik wasn't surprised by Celes's interest.
If anything, many of the newly joined high-star Fiend experts had come specifically for this.
"Magic battle formation?"
"Yes. A magic battle formation is a mobile military magic formation specially created by our Sovereign to allow our soldiers to unleash greater power."
"As long as you're part of the Sovereign Army, you can study magic formations."
"As long as you possess even a little talent in magic battle formations and can unify soldiers into a battle formation, you'll receive status and fame corresponding to the strength you can display."
"Take Lord Figroa, for example. Though he is only a Five-Star Fiend, because he can defeat Seven-Star Fiends while commanding his legion, he holds a status and position equivalent to one."
"Figroa… so that's his name?"
Celes recalled the Five-Star Fiend who had led tens of thousands of soldiers to defeat a Seven-Star Fiend and couldn't help growing interested.
"Yes."
"However, Lord Celes, you should address him as Lord Figroa as well."
"After all, while Lord Figroa may be weaker than you personally, within the Sovereign Army, both his status and rank are above yours."
Celes's heart tightened.
He immediately thanked him.
"I understand. Thank you for the reminder, Malik."
Indeed.
He was no longer a wandering expert.
He was now a member of the Sovereign Army.
As an independent cultivator, a Six-Star Fiend like Celes could look down on a Five-Star Fiend like Figroa.
But as a company commander within the Sovereign Army, he had to show respect to a battalion commander whose standing surpassed even that of ordinary Seven-Star Fiend battalion leaders.
"Lord Celes, this is where all the materials related to magic formations are kept."
"If you wish to study them, you can come here to learn the principles behind magic formations and how to construct them."
"However, for now, I should first take you to meet your own men."
"Alright."
From then on, Celes's life became extremely regular.
Aside from occasional drills with his own soldiers and the troops of other companies to maintain combat coordination, he devoted nearly all of his focus to studying magic formations.
Most of the people in the Sovereign Army were the same.
There was no denying it—
Figroa's battle had allowed many ordinary Highgods who had already reached their limits to glimpse a new dawn for their strength.
If they too could use magic battle formations to gather the power of their units and amplify themselves tenfold, a hundredfold, then both their strength and status would rise dramatically.
If Lord Figroa could surpass the Seven-Star Fiend commanders as a mere Five-Star Fiend, then why couldn't they, with only Three-Star Fiend strength, obtain the position of squad leader—a role normally reserved for Five-Star Fiends?
Without Celes around, Mila entered the mist more and more frequently.
Sometimes, the moment she finished cultivating after exiting, she wouldn't even rest before diving right back in.
Under such relentless effort, Mila's strength steadily continued to grow…
…
On this day, Celes was deep in thought, pondering how to arrange nodes that could guide the Laws of heaven and earth, when he suddenly heard cheers erupt among the soldiers.
Looking up, he discovered that the most popular figure in the Sovereign Army—Figroa—was currently speaking with the army commander.
After making a few inquiries, Celes learned that Battalion Commander Figroa had apparently made further progress in his mastery of magic battle formations and now wished to lead his unit in challenging Commander Oakes.
The news made Celes's heart jolt.
The last time Figroa led his soldiers, they had easily crushed the troops led by a Seven-Star Fiend and then decisively defeated the Seven-Star Fiend commander himself.
However, everyone who had witnessed that battle knew the truth—
it had only happened because that Seven-Star Fiend commander had chosen not to retreat and instead directly clashed head-on with Figroa's army.
Had the Seven-Star Fiend commander chosen to flee, the soldiers arranged in a magic battle formation would never have been able to catch him.
After all, a magic battle formation was a large-scale method of legion warfare.
It could never compare to the flexibility of an individual expert.
And now Figroa wanted to use that same battle formation to challenge Commander Oakes.
How could he possibly win?
Still, without some confidence, Figroa would never have issued such a challenge.
So, like the rest of the soldiers, Celes quickly followed them out to watch.
After leaving the Sovereign Army encampment, Celes had originally intended to remain with the soldiers.
But the moment he spotted Mila, he immediately flew over to where the independent cultivators were gathered.
"Mila."
"Senior Celes."
Seeing him, Mila nodded before curiously asking, "Senior Celes, I just saw the soldiers gathering over there. Did something happen?"
"Yes. Battalion Commander Figroa intends to lead his soldiers in challenging Commander Oakes."
After saying this, Celes suddenly realized Mila didn't know who Figroa was, so he quickly added,
"Battalion Commander Figroa is the most skilled person in the Sovereign Army when it comes to magic battle formations."
"He's the Five-Star Fiend we saw before—the one who led his legion to defeat a Seven-Star Fiend."
"So, it's him."
Mila nodded and found a spot together with Celes, both of them looking toward the two sides facing off in the sky.
A battle at the Asura Prefect level was no trivial matter.
Even the shockwaves alone could kill a Six-Star Fiend if caught within them.
As such, everyone present kept at least ten kilometers away from the battlefield.
Only a handful of Seven-Star Fiends dared to observe from five kilometers away.
Confident in her ability to protect Celes, Mila didn't retreat any farther.
With a light stomp of her foot, a spherical yellow barrier spread out around them.
"Boom!"
Divine power surged.
Figroa's divine sense connected with the ten company commanders under his command.
Within the span of a single breath, the entire legion had already completed the deployment of the magic battle formation.
In truth, Figroa's divine sense alone was insufficient to control a large-scale battle formation numbering ten thousand men.
However, he had found a clever workaround.
Every one of the company and squad commanders under him possessed a certain degree of knowledge in magic formations.
As such, when constructing the battle formation, Figroa treated ten major nodes as the core, one hundred medium nodes as support, and one thousand minor nodes as the structure that stabilized the formation.
This way, Figroa only needed to control the ten company commanders to establish the framework.
The company commanders then directed their squad leaders to arrange the secondary nodes.
The squad leaders, in turn, filled in the remaining smaller nodes according to the positions of the medium ones.
While this made the entire formation rather bloated and significantly reduced its flexibility—
there was no denying that, in large-scale legion warfare, Figroa's magic battle formation was an absolutely unparalleled support formation for weaker forces banding together.
While Figroa was constructing the battle formation, Oakes made no move to interfere.
After all, this battle was not only Figroa's challenge.
It was also Oakes's inspection of him.
As the Sovereign Army commander personally appointed by Lord Locke, Oakes knew better than anyone how much hope Lord Locke had placed in this army.
And as for the magic battle formations that Lord Locke valued so highly—
if Figroa could not demonstrate the corresponding capability, then Oakes would never allow him to command an entire army on his own.
"Boom!"
The moment the magic battle formation took shape, the ten thousand Sovereign soldiers suddenly seemed, to everyone's senses, to become a single entity.
That said, the aura of this "whole" was still somewhat mixed and impure.
Clearly, Figroa's control over the formation was still incomplete.
The day he could fully master it, that aura would become perfectly unified.
"Boom!"
As the controller of the magic battle formation, every movement Figroa made could move all the soldiers within it.
With a single slash of his sword—
instantly, the tens of thousands of soldiers slashed in unison.
Their divine power flowed through the magic battle formation, converging into Figroa's attack and forming a sword arc over a thousand meters long.
Riiip—
Without the slightest surprise, the strike directly tore through space itself.
Dragging behind it a long black spatial rift, the attack roared straight toward Commander Oakes.
(End of Chapter)
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