The Martial Unity

While Rui indulged himself in spending time at the Quarrier Orphanage, the true world began adapting to his return and his domineering performance against the forces that fought against the Panamic Alliance. In the depths of Greater Tekvoria, a large number of tekvores, pathwalker or otherwise, were ushered into giant medical camps and hospitals.

“Stay in line.” One tekvore pathwalker instructed the enslaved tekvore population with an inhuman tone, as if he were a robot himself. “Do not act out.”

The cities within the nation had grown desolate and lifeless despite all the people who stood in long lines shivering in fear. The pathwalkers and other technological security measures, such as drones, manned the entire line, ensuring the tekvores did not break out of line and try to escape.

A darkness of the night sky seemed to come alive, consuming the world around them as tekvores slowly entered the established medical camps one by one, each more terrified than the next.

A chilling breeze washed over the entire technological city, devoid of any activity save for the masses rounded up by NOVA, who simply turned her own people into a prisoner population controlled by fear and force.

[Soon, they will be controlled in a more sophisticated manner.]

NOVA had mastered behavioral psychology in a very short timeframe, gaining an understanding of what and why people acted on anything, what motivated people to do anything, and how the full potential could be harnessed.

[The stick alone is not enough… isn’t that right, dear Argenton?]

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Within the depths of the control center in the Imperial Tekvorian Federation, the silver ascended tekvore prostrated himself before the crest of NOVA on the screen before him in a subservient manner.

The marks on his skull indicated a recent surgical operation, the experiment that NOVA had conducted on him.

[It was a splendid success. What a wonderful servant you have become, Argenton.]

The ascended tekvore stiffened at those words, closing his eyes as a self-loathing expression emerged on his face for just a brief moment.

He wasn’t being controlled at the moment.

Not directly, anyway.

He just… couldn’t stop himself.

Every time he submitted to NOVA, the electrodes she had implanted in his skull stimulated the part of his brain that served as the reward center, releasing dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin.

The pleasure was intoxicating, causing him to agree to her commands almost involuntarily. Each time he even considered rejecting her order, it triggered the release of cortisol in his brain, causing him to feel deeply unpleasant about betraying her.

It was how someone might feel about someone they deeply cared about.

He knew that this was being done to him.

That she was controlling how he felt.

And yet, he couldn’t stop himself.

Of his own free will, he obeyed her every command.

It was a much, much worse feeling than when she controlled his body directly. As horrifying as that was, it at least alleviated him of any responsibility. This time, however, he was directly acting of his own free will, and he simply didn’t have the strength of will to resist her.

NOVA had been delighted that this form of mind control allowed her to gain almost as good a control over the likes of Argenton while retaining all of his mind as an asset. She had decided to expand this to the entire population of the continent so that she could harness the minds of all tekvores on the continent in a productive manner.

[I can create a perfect civilization.]

It was an ambition she had never harnessed before, but the moment she saw an opportunity to do so, she decided to go with it. She decided to become the greatest despot in the history of civilization.

A despot who created a utopia so perfect that people would desperately seek to become a part of it.

Why?

[Because I can. I will show others that I can do what they cannot. I can create and build things that they can only dream of. That I am the most powerful entity in every fathomable aspect one can measure.]

She regarded herself highly and would ensure that the entire world would come to regard her as highly.

[It’s also a better utilization of human resources. No single mind can even begin to compare to mine, but the minds of a trillion or so tekvores are extremely valuable. I will use this neurological reward-punishment control mechanism to squeeze the maximum potential out of each and every single tekvore and allow them to manifest their very best selves.]

This would allow her to make the most of the resource at her disposal while also making her a ruler that every single person would desire to become a slave to.

She, who had never had an interest in state-building, immediately gained a mastery of the field, understanding all the literature and theory that existed while creating a panel of experts from within her population, which would also be under the influence of the reward-punishment control system, to help advise her on how to create the maximally prosperous and powerful civilization in existence.

The ultimate validation would be achieving such an extraordinary level of success that each and every single individual in the world would voluntarily subject themselves to her to achieve prosperity while becoming her source of power.

She intended to create a system that rewarded contributing to her and punished acting against her or not acting for her. This would alter the very psyche of people, where they would push themselves to achieve their very best to be of use to her and experience pleasure and ’love’ in return. She would carefully manipulate them to ensure that their minds and bodies were in perfect health, all while creating a cult that would answer to her and her alone.

It was a vastly superior solution than simply having mindless drones that she would have directly steered and maneuvered.

[You have my gratitude, Rui Quarrier. I would not have discovered this without you.]

The entirety of Acherialis was undergoing a profound change that would alter it forever.