Gunner continued to tear through the landscape of Fallon with ease, nothing even coming remotely close to stopping him. Even the empires near the belt and slightly below were cannon fodder for him, because of a certain key fact.
Achilles, and some of his Elite Troops had been dispatched over!
Of course, the Demi-God himself had gone through a complete makeover courtesy of the Medipod, now looking similar to a handsome Caucasian warlord with blue eyes and golden hair that reached his shoulders.
He wore a set of armor made of a combination of the strongest traits of the Holy Metals, granting its wearer invulnerability to most physical forces and magical ones, as well as rapid energy regeneration, rapid healing, boosted physical, prowess and boosted magical prowess.
Even a normal man who wore this would be able to slaughter a thousand men, much less a Demi-God. With his spear, Achilles was like a whirlwind of blood and gore, tearing through groups of elites with ease.
Now that he had been supplied, it was no longer Gunner's duty to fight Grandmasters and the like. That was originally the task of the Elite Troops anyway, only that they had not been released yet.
Similarly, those normal troops who had been sent on subjugation missions had been recalled and added to the main force. Achilles' men would also take over that task.
Each of them was equal to a Grandmaster, so they were dispatched by Miranda tactically to various locations, such as dungeons, special ruins, or locations that Darius had recorded on his map to retrieve special items.
Once they got back, Darius would complete a lot of Accolades and Achievements, earning himself quite a bit of True Coins. He hadn't yet bought anything significant from there since he already had Transmutation, but he was thinking every day of what to capitalize on.
Back to his General, Gunner and his troops were currently 30% into the southern half of the continent. As one could imagine, their progress had naturally alarmed those stronger empires, who scoffed and disdained at their attempts.
Of course, that was a mistake. Even the normal army led by Gunner could not be beaten by Grandmasters, much less the Elite Troops that murdered them like dogs and sent their bodies back to Safemoon.
What they were being used for, no one knew. No, rather, it was for the best that they did not know. If one were to see the fates of those 'corpses', some even still alive using special means, they would not hesitate to overrun Safemoon with any force they could find.
Right now, though, things did not seem as critical to them. They still held confidence in themselves to stop the charge of Safemoon's army. After all, one thing any conquering army always had to do was to consolidate their rule over their new territory to suppress local uprisings.
However, this was something that Gunner had failed to do. The half-giant would only spend the bare minimum of time in each conquered territory before moving on.
Seeing their chance, some scheming fellows got ideas and tried to seek power for themselves in this vacuum, declaring city-states and the like.
Even worse, the empires to the south were insidious!
Instead of waiting their turn, they decided to strike pre-emptively by sending out agents to the conquered but not fully consolidated territories. Their people would then stir up troubles and try to fill the power vacuum themselves.
As such, the conquered kingdoms became a mess of conflicts, battles, and crime, looking worse for wear than when had Gunner left them.
Even if Safemoon's army were to suddenly stop, they would have to spend at least months cleaning out the shit and perfecting everything, which would give the other empires more than enough time to find a suitable countermeasure to this invasion.
One had to understand, that right now Gunner was moving too fast. Don't forget, Fallon especially was styled liked medieval Europe, so they thought in that level. Horses, carriages, wagons, etc. were their modes of transport usually.
When the empires calculated the movement of the army, they subconsciously used their own standards. However, the army was riding all-terrain APCs that were powered by Source Energy, so they never stopped.
From a high point of view, Gunner was moving like lightning. To the locals of this continent trying to follow his march, it seemed as if that fellow was practically teleporting.
Ironically, the half-giant and his troops, who knew about the existence of planes and the like, felt that they were moving at a snail's pace. Unfortunately, Darius had refused to dispatch air support for them, as he didn't want to take over Fallon too quickly.
He still wanted to observe the Magistrates of Ludo who he had given resources and see how they would develop upon it. After all, once he conquered Fallon and fully consolidated it, he would announce his True Lord status over Ludo and begin working on the continent in earnest.
Besides, Gunner could not keep going forward forever.
After all, one had to simply realize that Fallon had been a 'free' continent since the inception of Faust. This should frankly have been impossible.
As one might recall, Thanatos had been on that continent, so couldn't he have simply chosen to rule over it? He had his old Necromancer Empire that had swept through it but it had been mostly focused on fighting the Demons of Armadon, as the Titan God likely held a grudge.
At one point, the entire continent had banded together to try to take his empire down, yet they had been brutally defeated. Like Gunner now, the Titan God of Death had no interest in this flimsy land and had refrained from consolidating it, rather relishing the new flow of corpses that became troops for his fight against the Demons.
This bit him in the ass as the ruined kingdoms and empire had decided to invite wolves into their homes, calling for help from Elysium.. The churches, seeing a chance, came down with full force to eradicate this 'evil empire' to 'bring peace, justice, and security to their new continent'.
