“Ehehehehe,” Eliza kept giggling. “Eheheheheehehe,” she snuggled closer to John, “ehrhrhrhruhuhuahahahaaaaaaa,” she tried to get her unstable laughter under control, “…bwahahehehehahaha,” she failed miserably.

John didn’t mind, holding the blood mage in his arms and giving her a belated aftercare for yesterday. Sitting in one of the armchairs of his apartment, he recalled how yesterday had ended. Quite uneventfully, once he had used Eliza to the breaking point, he had picked her up and left the room he had entered with no words with just a few. His display had left everyone hot and bothered, but he had been too tired to oblige anyone if they had approached him.

When he had woken up in his bed this morning, among the usual configuration of harem girls, Aclysia had informed him that the night had essentially ended once he was gone. Rave had been too tired to continue, and with her, the heart of the party was gone. While the Gamer waited for his breakfast, he had exchanged a number of messages with Maximillian. The gravity king was jokingly complaining that some of the girls that had been present at that presentation of sadism had wanted to try and see what being in Eliza’s position would feel like. Likely, they would just do some dabbling rather than dive head-first into what had happened yesterday, but the Gamer still enjoyed this development. In his opinion, the world was better off with more sexually submissive women.

If nothing else, the world was better off with people that discovered and were comfortable with their fetishes.

‘Unless that fetish is paedophilia, I have to say,’ he thought, quickly exorcising that uncomfortable topic from his mind by smelling Eliza’s hair and squeezing her compact body. Squeaking like a very perverted rubber duck (it would have been a pig if John had been in a different mood), she continued to giggle for several more minutes. There was something delightful about squishing her between his arms like this.

“Ehe.. ehe… ehem!” Eliza finally got her voice under control and presented a question, “Why were you that fucking worked up yesterday anyway? You waltzed into the party like a stallion that hadn’t bred anything in a year and was ready to choke a bitch out to get his cock wet.”

“I only choke girls that consent,” John made very clear and gave her neck a little squeeze to underline the point. “Anyway, it’s because I saw the video of you singing.”

Eliza’s smile dropped. “What video?”

Sensing the opportunity to tease the life out of her, John could not resist and pulled out his phone. Scrolling for a little bit, he eventually opened the video for Eliza to enjoy. While watching herself sing her drunken re-interpretation of ‘if you’re happy and you know it’, Eliza became progressively redder. Halfway through, she had assumed a tomato red with a purple tint to it. She grabbed his phone and tossed it with as much strength as she could muster.

Luckily, with her position in his lap, that wasn’t close to her actual maximum output and John had anticipated this development anyway. That was why Jack stood in the trajectory and caught his phone before it could smash against the TV, something that would have likely ruined both. While the destruction of neither would have been a monetary concern, replacing them would be a pain.

“DELETE THAT!” Eliza shouted.

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“Even if I do, it was filmed by one of Max’ girls,” the Gamer told her. “No way you can scrub that off the records.”

“You just watch me, you cocksucking little bitch!” Eliza declared, still remaining in his embrace despite her hostile tone. “I will learn to fuck your skull so hard you forget every last syllable of that shitty song and, more importantly, I will crush your capacity to even THINK of me singing.”

“I think you sing well,” John told her.

“No, you fucking don’t, you cum hose! Let me… gooooooo…!” Her complaints weakened into miserable little noises while John rubbed his face against her like a loving cat. “I’m maaaaaaad,” she grumbled. John kissed her neck and watched the hickey disappear. Then he kissed her directly, and soon she relaxed a little better. “…I’ll never drink that shitty ass stuff again…” She still maintained some discomfort with the situation.

The words were doubtlessly in reference to the Aphrodite’s Chalice that she had hammered herself with. It was an alcoholic beverage that was mixed with a number of other ingredients to unfold its effect over an incredibly long duration or, if drunk by someone with a metabolism that usually churned through alcohol in a matter of seconds, over the course of a few hours. A link to the goddess was likely more tangential than anything else, as the drink also had the effect of serving as a mild aphrodisiac.

It wasn’t the only way to get Eliza drunk, but of all the ones Rave had reported she had found, the blood mage had picked that one.

“Don’t worry, they won’t spread that video around,” John gave her a little bit of assurance.

“How’re you so fucking sure of that, huh?!” she wanted to know.

“Because there’s a fair bit of naked women in that frame that wouldn’t enjoy having nudes of them hit the internet. Would cause a lot of drama,” he told her. “Plus, even if it does, I’m sure Scarlett can do something about it.” If she had been there, the Technomancer would have probably grumbled about the possibility of being handed yet more work. As she was currently in the shower, they were spared that particular bit of discussion.

“I guess…” Eliza hummed.

________________________________________________________________________

The following Monday, John was working in an expectedly great mood. His life was good in general, the blowjob he received from Nia was proof of that, but a night out with his male friends did lift his spirits even a bit further beyond that. With flying fingers and a cheery tune, he chomped his way through the administrative tasks presented to him. A notable part of which was the current organization of the military.

It was the first of October. Fusion’s promise to halt any form of military expansion had run its course and now the Gamer was free to invade wherever he wished – at least as far as basic contracts were concerned. Not wanting to create the impression that he was a warmonger, John had held off on even mobilizing the military for any potential out-of-borders action until that date.

Fusion’s military had grown by quite a substantial degree, being almost two thousand people strong at this point. In terms of real-world military sizes, that was laughable. Compared to most Abyssal armies, it was respectable.

From his experience in the Five Days War, John knew that Romulus’ empire had been able to field 2’500 people immediately. That was a strong and consolidated military force, all wielding abilities that aided them well in engagements.

When approaching things purely mathematically, about 1 in 100 Abysswalkers was a worthwhile member of the standing military. John had once crunched the numbers and calculated that about 47’000 people in all of Europe had the individual power required for that.

The enemy of that war, the Blood of the Proletariat, had managed to get a fifth of that number by, in large part, not actually tapping into it and instead just going for the rabble. Equipped with a few offensive items, a couple of thousand weak bodies could take out a substantial amount of more powerful people. It wasn’t nearly as much of an equalizer as the gun was for mundane people, but it could still yield results.

Since John was looking more for a qualitative force than a quantitative one, he oriented himself more on Romulus’ numbers. Effective as it may have been to send wave after wave of ‘disposable’ bodies to exhaust more powerful foes, John viewed that as a desperation tactic, not fundamental military doctrine. He didn’t have the disregard for life to do something like that, not even in the name of his own ambitions. Only faced with elimination, would he consider drafting everyone and everything.

Until then, he was happy to look for those 1 in 100 people that made for a substantial fighting force on the basis of their individual powers alone. He already knew that the 2’000 he had wouldn’t measure up against the 2’500 Romulus had raised at the start of the war. They were a cut above the different factions John had stapled together and, if Romulus had the time to gather more than the forces at the very heart of his empire, he could likely gather a force double, triple or even quadruple of what John had seen. It wasn’t impossible that Romulus could have met the Blood of Proletariat with a similarly sized army with superior quality, if he had just enlisted everyone that could fight well.

Which was, of course, the second diminishing factor on army sizes.

Aside from those that COULDN’T fight well, there were those that COULD but weren’t willing to. Pacifists, cowards, rebels or simply disinterested people all existed and many could not be baited into serving through the promise of wealth. That was how an empire spanning Italy, Germany, Spain and many other areas managed to ‘only’ field 2’500 men in its immediately available standing army.

Despite his army being, for the moment, qualitatively inferior, how did John manage to enlist a number so close without recruiting from the weak members of society? How did he get 2’000 people together out of a population of about 140’000? The answer was simply found in a difference in history. Because much of the land Fusion had absorbed at this point had suffered decades or even centuries of strife, the 1 to 100 was not a rule that properly applied to the population. There simply had been less room for the weak to survive. Some areas were more forgiving than others, but it was all harder to navigate than the broadly tamed landscape of Europe.

Those that had survived and those that had been moderately powerful were already used to fighting. Presented with the opportunity to use those skills for some higher purpose and in exchange for wealth, many people gladly joined the military. Because of this, John had been able to grow his forces about 50% above what could be expected through common wisdom. Again, Romulus’ army was stronger. Using numbers to illustrate the point, Romulus could afford to recruit people from level 30 upwards, while John had to put the bar lower at 25. A small but still substantial difference, taken in aggregate.

Comparing Fusion against the world’s strongest guild would have left John’s state looking the loser under any circumstance, but the Gamer had several points going in his favour. The Training Hall allowed people to train until they hit the very bottom of the necessary level to present a threat on a battlefield. Optimally, this meant that he would have a much larger pool of qualitative manpower to draw from. Romulus may have had that superior army at the start of the war, but as losses mounted, the empire would have to fall to the standards of the rest of the world. A level at which John felt comfortable his people could win out. Not only because of better, reality defying training, but also because the Guild Hall’s production Building would make it remarkably easy to equip everyone with above average armaments.

All of that said, it would be a long while until John was even considering fighting Romulus. Fundamentally, he didn’t want to fight the Apex nor his empire, but at the moment even thinking about challenging the hegemon to push Fusion’s interests was foolish. For now, all he should do was to check what he had and how to organize it.

At the moment, Fusion’s army was organized into four distinct bodies. First was the navy, Fusion’s smallest and least important military formation, at least for the moment. Because of a lack of ships and power to project interests into foreign areas, the navy was hardly needed at the moment. Its formation was purely in anticipation of future developments. As of right now, John himself was in charge of this part of the military. That was to say, he was taking care of it himself, as he was the supreme commander of the armed forces in all cases.

Second of Fusion’s military bodies was the general army. It unified under it the people drawn from all across Fusion and drilled them on group tactics and battle plans. All of it was an expansion of the Little Maryland’s military structure, and thanks to all of the officers they took over, the formation had gone largely well. There were some specialized formations within it, such as the sabotage and trap experts of the former Small Lake Pact, but all were incorporated into the basic strategies Fusion employed. Chemilia and Ted were in charge of this, with the former being de-facto in charge of tactics and the latter in charge of leadership. The soldiers sympathized more with Ted, doubtlessly because he had been less blessed with talent than his wife and therefore kept working hard. Both were popular, however, and both got occasional advice from the general of the third body.

The Eastcoast Defence Force primarily recruited from the Hidden Tradition and was born from John’s promise that they would not have to fight in any offenses. This was a privileged position to be in, but they had earned it, and because of how their unique school of necromancy worked, it was best to keep them close to their ancestors’ lands anyway. Elu led this segment of the military.

Last but by no means least were the ‘real’ special forces of Fusion. The odd and powerful were part of this formation. People like Alice, who wouldn’t work well in groups or whose powers were so intense that even allies fighting around them would be affected. This body coordinated these individuals to go on special missions or assigned them priorities to chase, such as specific targets or resources. Nia was in charge of this bunch.

Between and within these four bodies, John had to establish a number of things. How did ranks work between the bodies of the military? Did a member of the special forces outrank an officer? A lieutenant? If someone died within a battalion, who was the next to take charge? If two were near depleted, should they be merged and how? What was the standard equipment and how did it deviate between the specializations of each formation? Where and how often could they resupply?

Many of those questions had been considered and answered in the past, but now that John got ready to use his military outside of his borders again, they deserved a second look. Along with those general questions, there was also the drafting up of specific plans and doctrines for different situations. Those, however, he would design along his generals.