The Martial Unity

Kane stirred at those words. He wasn’t particularly interested in being recorded in the annals of history. He was fighting because he wanted to influence the outcome of the war; that was all. He genuinely didn’t care if they didn’t even bother recording his name at all. He had more than enough prestige as a Martial Corporeal and one of the fastest pathwalkers alive.

”The Seventeenth Armada will be among the leading forces to be deployed through the world bridge when the time comes,” Mr. Seaton explained patiently even as Kane skimmed through the information that the man had transmitted to his neural inlay. ”It is what is known as a Decapitation Force. It is composed of four siege fleets, four carrier fleets, and two line fleets, and two raider fleets, each serving their own purpose. The fleet that you are assigned to, the 26th Sol Carrier Fleet, is one of the four carrier fleets.”

Kane furrowed his eyebrows as he tried to grasp the big picture of the fleet that he was being deployed to. Even he couldn’t be bothered with trying to decode the astronaval doctrine surrounding the armada that he was being assigned to; it behooved him to understand his own fleet.

Thankfully, Mr. Seaton was quite forthcoming with explaining everything that he needed to understand. ”Carrier fleets have one primary purpose: to carry smaller forces to battle. Smaller crafts such as fighter, bomber, and interceptor crafts. Also, mechs and MECHAs that have become a staple in our military. And Martial Artists like yourself. The 26th Sol Carrier Fleet that you will be a part of will carry not just you, but many Martial Sages, Martial Masters, and MECHA Artists.”

”I see, so this fleet is primarily designed to deploy smaller combat assets into space,” Kane remarked with faint interest. ”That’s quite different from how things were when we fought with the laminar integuments.”

”Haha, at the time, our astronaval doctrine was nowhere near as developed as it is today,” Mr. Seaton chuckled. ”That war was fought haphazardly because not even the civilizations that had ventured into space had a good foundation of how space wars ought to be waged.”

”What about the ship that I’m a part of?” Kane asked. ”You said it was the Empiercer something?”

”Empiercer LXXVI,” the liaison helpfully replied. ”The ship that you are assigned to is dedicated entirely towards carrying Martial forces.”

He transmitted a more detailed package of information to Kane, who promptly swept through it. The visual exterior of the ship was what immediately jumped out to him. It had a very Martial vibe to it along with a high presence of esoteric matter that marked it as a ship of Panamaic spaceship paradigms. It was a relatively flat cuboid ship in its shape and structure, stretching for nearly two kilometers in length.

”The ship’s Martial Artist composition is like so; one Corporeal, one hundred MECHA Sages, and one thousand Martial Sages,” the man explained patiently. ”As you can see, your Martial carrier is one of the most extravagant and most powerful war assets. The entire 26th Sol Carrier Fleet and the Seventeenth Armada are filled with assets like this.”

Kane’s eyebrows rose. ”You’re telling me all the combat assets on my ship are Martial Sages? You don’t even have a single Martial Master?”

”Martial Masters are only present from the twentieth Armada and below,” the man explained with a smile. ”Martial Masters are simply too weak to participate in a battlefield with yourself, Your Corporeality.”

Kane’s ears pricked at that mouthful of an honorific. ”Just call me Kane.”

”I’m afraid that would be a violation of my duties. You are a Martial Corporeal. You are the hope of our civilization!”

He shamelessly laid it on thick. Even Kane could tell that this was part of an attempt to coddle Martial Corporeals and Transcendent Candidates and ensure that they acted like loyal soldiers instead of solo heroes. And although Kane didn’t have that big of an ego, he knew the same wasn’t necessarily true for others.

Almost all Martial Corporeals and Candidates were among those who had managed to break through to the Sage Realm during the Age of Martial Art. Back then, military doctrine centered Martial Artists as heroes who largely fought by themselves, devoid of any battle formation or discipline.

Although the Siege of Sages that Rui had led during the Era of Darkness forced them to act more as part of a group than as solo heroes, this mindset was very difficult to remove from centuries-old Martial Artists who were set in their ways.

Kane had no problem blending into the background and being a cog in a machine, thankfully. However, that would probably be difficult to do if he was the sole Martial Corporeal among a thousand Martial Sages.

”Still, a thousand Martial Sages in one ship?” Kane raised an eyebrow. ”Isn’t that a bit much? You won’t be able to fill all ships if you put that many in each ship.”

”Other carrier ships have other assets, and other carrier fleets have other pathwalkers,” the man explained patiently. ”Martial Artists are the most volumetrically efficient combat-oriented pathwalkers. The elves, the therianthropes, and even the tekvores require more space, thus filling up ships. You won’t need to worry about running out of things to fill ships. The concern is the other way around.”

He smiled at Kane. ”We are running out of ships. Ships are the biggest constraint. We are producing them as fast as we can, but they are extraordinarily resource-intensive. Thankfully, human civilization has just got its hands on two infected worlds recently, so we can expect a flush of new ships to gush into our ranks starting six months from now.”

Kane kept quiet about that since it only reminded him of his son’s condition.

”Not to mention,” the man continued with greater confidence. ”Human civilization has more than thirty thousand Martial Sages, although most of them are extremely inexperienced junior Martial Sages. This is still an overwhelming number. More than enough for us to generously fit our most powerful armadas with the best Martial Sages in our civilization and have plenty remaining.”