Chapter 28: A Divine Action.
From his Crystal Throne, surrounded by most of his Honor Guard except for Sigismund, Titus, and Dorn he watched with interest like a god. It had been a little more than a year since Justinian had considered the name 'Marcus' his own.
He still remembered everything of his previous life and he now considered his anger at his reincarnation foolish. In his past mundane life, he had been better than the majority, but all that was worthless in the face of his power.
In this reality, he was a demigod, a conqueror, respected, feared, worshiped even. He could barely believe that just a year ago, he had been weak of body, will, and soul. Now, he could perceive reality in ways a human could never hope to see.
He alone had the power to destroy a planet on a whim if he so wished. As he observed three of his most powerful servants, he observed their actions. Each of the three Burning Martians had different ways of leading. Sigismund had started the assault with a bombardment to create shock and confusion.
Titus had not done that and had rushed in leading for the front commanding his forces to crush the opposition brutally. His Marines moved in and used the power of their powerful Psychic abilities to crush the wills and minds of the native population.
The intention was to capture, not exterminate as killing all of the Martians in these cities would deprive Justinian of future servants. As for Dorn, he was sieging the city, using his Warshaper abilities to cause the temperature inside the Bounded Field to rise.
It was so hot that the White Martians, sensitive to heat and fire, were panicking. Dorn's Shapers continued to bellow messages of surrender or the heat would increase until it was so unbearable that even the Elites had to surrender.
As he watched, he knew that it wouldn't take Lauralina long to convert these to his worship. In all honesty, he didn't want to rely on worship as that was a weakness. In all honesty, even now he could feel a formless energy flowing toward him from the population of Cadia city.
That was the energy of worship, but he didn't absorb it in a raw form. When it entered his body, he used his Psychic Energy to purify it in a way to avoid having to become a part of him.
In a sense, he was harvesting Faith Energy only for the sake of keeping it away from the Martian gods. He knew that those gods could take offense to his actions, but so far they had not contacted him or fought against him.
Justinian took a cold glee in watching armies march in his name making him feel above the games of good vs evil. There was no such thing in the 41st Millenium, you either were the winner or looser.
As he was in deep thought, Remnosh shifted to lay down on his lap which was kinda difficult since she was wearing a heavy set of Power Armor he made for her. However, he would not have it any other way causing him to look down at her.
Being Psychicly Bonded to him, she could see what he was seeing, and hear his thoughts when he allowed it, which was usually. There were a few times she couldn't tell what he was thinking, but this was not one of those.
'What do you intend to do with the cities, my love?'
He leaned back on his throne as he thought about it.
'What do you think I should do?'
Remnosh paused to think about it before she came up with an answer.
'Each of those cities will be led by an Elite that acts as the Patriarch. Their families and guards are going to be the only Elites, so rather than bring them here, leave them where they are after you force them under that contract you love.'
'A good idea. I will see who needs to be purged and who needs to be kept. Having Lauralina move in to begin her religious conversion would be great. Speaking of which, I have wanted to set up an Inquisition.
Knowing that girl, she will be the best at this kind of thing. Torturing and finding information from traitors sounds like something she would like.'
Remnosh leaned back to the point her head was having off his armrest. He preferred it when she was relaxed like this since it meant she was happy.
'That does sound like something she would like. That girl since I have known her has been kinda crazy. You should ask her what she did during the Green Extermination.'
Justinian began to smile as he looked over to the Martian in question.
"Lauralina."
With a smile, she turned to him.
"Yes, my King?"
"Tell me, what was the worst thing you ever did during the Green Extermination."
With almost a sick joy, she leaned back as she looked back to those days.
"The worst? I think that would be the farm I set up, I kinda liked the taste of Green Martian farm. For a limited time, I took a village as my snack. I devoured the children first, women second, and men at last. I can taste it now."
She touched her face as it warped into an expression of predatory hunger.
Justinian chuckled to himself.
"Guess we are not so different. Even now, I can taste what your species taste like. Not good, but I would eat it again."
She walked over to his throne and kneeled.
"If you so wish, I could cook up those we kill just for you. I know how to cook Martians better than anyone."
Justinian thought about it before he decided other wise.
"No. My days of eating your kind are over."
With a smile, Lauralina bowed her head.
"Of course."
He noticed how the rest of his Honor Guard sighed in relief that the crazy one wasn't going to be cooking them up or their King wasn't going to be eating them. Justinian instead focused back on his three servants.
Even now, their forces were moving with exceptional efficiency causing nearly no casualties as they avoided killing and only ways to capture. Even at this distance, he could see just how efficient his trained forces were compared to the frenzied fighting style of normal White Martians.
With proper equipment, training, and a disciplined mind, his forces rapidly dealt with the common population who didn't fight back much at all. The hate of their rulers helped and the fear of the advanced Psychic and Magical abilities of Justinian forces helped a great deal to crush their desire for resistance.
In a mere 2 hours, Sigismund crushed all resistance and got a complete surrender of his city. Titus achieved something similar and since he led from the front, his use of terror tactics using fire resulted in some deaths among the population, but those could be expected.
Dorn took longer, but when the heat inside the Bounded Field reached temperatures hot enough to cause strokes, the entire population surrendered to him. As a result, his forces had an easy time achieving compliance in their captured city.
Once all three cities were complying and their Elites were captured, Justinian decided to act. He telepathically communicated with his three commanders.
'Sigismund, Dorn, Titus, well done the three of you. You all did exceptionally well, but I will admit that out of you, Dorn resulted in the least number of casualties. His actions to subject the population to extreme heat to exhaust them worked wonders.
Sigismund, your actions resulted in an easy conquest, but you caused more deaths than needed. Regardless, well done. Titus, your actions of fire bombings resulted in severe panic, but you did kill less than Sigismund. When you get back, Dorn, you will receive a gift from me.'
Dorn who as his name suggested was shifted to appear as Dorn. Now as a Burning Martian, it was his true identity and he would never change it for another.
'I thank you, my King.'
Now, came the intimidation factor, Justinian using his Psychic abilities amplified by the Concepts of Domination and Supremacy. The effect was instant and every Martian from a Laborer, Shaper, Soldier, or Elite all crumbled to their knees feeling as if the weight of several mountains was on their backs.
When he spoke, it felt like their minds were crumbling from the pressure.
'I am Justinian. The future master of Mars, you are just the first of my conquered cities. As of this moment, you all are under my rule. If you refuse, I will burn your souls to nothing.'
To get his point across, he let them feel what it felt like to have their souls burned and reduced to nothing at the same time for just a moment. It was only a moment of what it felt like to be subjected to the Reduce and Blazing flames at the same time and they felt that it was better to be torn to shreds than to face that.
'With that dealt with, welcome to my Empire.'
When he cut the link, he focused on the Psychic Crystals in the three cities, and using his Crystal Throne, he connected those to the Psychic Network of Cadia city. In moments, those Psychic Pillars were linked to his throne.
As a result, his sun-like Psychic presence pressed down on the minds of these Martians on top of the fear of what he could do. With a smile on his face, he leaned back as he now had 240,000 Martians under his command.
It might take some time to get true loyalty instilled in the newly conquered territories, but he would have an easier time with his ability to instill absolute fear. With a smile, he patted Remnosh on the shoulder getting her to get off of him.
When he stood up from his throne, he took a deep breath.
"It is time."
Remnosh could get a vague sense of what he was about to do.
"So, you plan to change the planet?"
"A bit. Wait for me here."
He opened his hand and his Guardian Spear with its glowing Enochian runes appeared in his hand. In an instant, he teleported above ground onto the red Martian soil. He looked at the massive fortress that was being constructed which was close to completion.
Massive weapon batteries lined the outer walls which all had been enchanted for maximum range and destruction. If his calculation were correct, these weapons could bomb Earth from this distance.
For now, he had other things in mind, so he lept off the ground and he started to fly higher into the Martian sky. Mars' atmosphere was beyond thin as it didn't even have a magnetic field. He planned to fix that and any that dared to fight him would face his armies.
In a few moments, he left Mars' thin atmosphere until he was flying above the planet.
"Now, to use this power."
Justinian drew on his new Perpetual enhanced Psychic abilities and the Conceptual based powers of his two Dragon God partners. The Concepts of Domination and Supremacy enhanced his Psychic and Magical abilities to exceed or even match some of the greatest magicians.
He held his palm out toward the red planet as his power began to fall on the planet.
'Mars is far too small, time to change that.'
A tidal wave of Psymagical Energy fell on the red planet.
'If only Ddraig and Albion were awake to see this. Damn slackers, how are those two dragons more exhausted than I am.'
Instead of focusing on his two draconic friends, he focused on his work. Subjecting an entire planet to this kind of modification might be tricky for others, but with his unique abilities, it would be simple enough.
Drawing on the amplification of the Concepts of Ddraig and Albion, he subjected the planet to reality manipulation. He could feel his vast energy reserves begin to fall as the planet sucked out his energy to fix itself.
Mars was a very small planet as it would take 6 Mars to make up the mass of Earth. That was what was taking up most of his efforts as he could visibly see how the planet began to grow larger.
He was keeping the planet stable to avoid any damage to the population of Mars, but all Martians living underground were undergoing massive panic. Their planet was undergoing massive changes in real-time.
Changes that would have been impossible without magical means. Justinian clenched his fists together as he surged more power into the planet causing its size to balloon to nearly 6 times the mass to equal Earth.
It took him quite a bit of effort to prevent the deaths of the Martians or the destruction of their cities, but he achieved it. Reality itself changed to cause Mars to be similar in composition to Earth and size, but he was just getting started.
He looked into the sky at Phobos, which was a small asteroid that needed to change. He unleashed his power on the asteroid that acted as a moon and just like Mars which he changed down bellow he began to expand its size until it matched the size of Earth's moon.
Of course, just changing the size of things was the easy part and he still had more modifications to do Mars and Phobos. However, by the time he is done, he will have a planet the size of earth under his control.
By controlling the planet itself, getting compliance would be easier than not.