Red and blue lights tussled with each other in mid-air, creating a scene that would have been surreal to soldiers who had been used to the conduct of warfare in the Second Extermination. Weaving and bobbing around at a scale that was rarely scene, the Republic’s First Aerial Division was currently conducting training for the East’s fliers.

For the umpteenth time, the East had reorganised and redesignated the Eastern fliers; they were now officially the Eastern Territories’ First Air Army. Aziz had taken the liberty to actually remember this name, after being reassured that this was the finalised designation for the motley crew he had been mentally referring to as the Eastern fliers.

The First Air Army— or FAA for short — had four divisions, with the last one as a reserve force. They were now subscribing to the tactics the Mortal Light Dynasty had been espousing from the very start; anvil and hammer, as well as defeat in detail.

As to whether they could carry out these doctrinal changes…

Aziz didn’t want to think too hard about that. For starters, however, they had been training the FAA for the past week or so, conducting back-to-back exercises on a division level. The East’s individual battalions had finally learned how to fight on the battalion level, and although they weren’t on the same level as Thunderbolt, Stardust or Avalanche, they could finally put up a decent struggle.

“If only the same could be said on a division level, though,” Aziz murmured.

“You can’t blame them,” said Marie, who was the supervising officer for this particular training. “Even we didn’t try to operate on a top-down basis for manoeuvres like this.”

“An entire army.” Aziz shook his head. Formally speaking, for infantry, an army was made up of four divisions, with each division boasting at least three brigades, which were in turn made up for battalions. However, for some reason, Minister Eventide had been rather sloppy in naming the First Aerial; if they were following the infantry standard, they should have been called the First Aerial Brigade…

The First Air Army, however, was clearly named with the infantry designation in mind, which was why their scale was so much bigger.

Either way, the command structure for such behemoths were incredible, and as a rule of thumb, they were expected to coordinate on a strategic level. Granted, for aerial troops, the numbers that actually made up a division was far smaller

The East, however, wanted an entire army to coordinate as a singular entity on all issues. If they managed to get such a thing up and running, it would be impressive, but…

“A hundred and fifty thousand fliers, all trying to achieve simultaneous targets. What madness.”

“Still, there is some merit in aiming high, right?”

The blue lights expanded into protective barriers as the red lights — the First Aerial — continued to make pass after pass at their beleaguered counterparts. FAA’s First Division had put up a good fight, but there was only so much they could do against the vastly-experienced First Aerial.

Within five minutes, the exercise had ended. Of course, the result wasn’t surprising — the Republic’s forces were acting as trainers for the Five Lands at large. Other than artillery, which had trainers from the Mortal Light Dynasty, most of the forces here were being actively trained by the Republic.

It wasn’t just the aerial forces; the Republic also boasted the strongest and most efficient infantry troops. It was a nation forged in the fires of war and other unique circumstances. More importantly, many soldiers still remembered what it was like to fight, and to be at the receiving end of a systematic extermination.

All these, combined with the State Council’s initiatives, meant that there was a very strong martial culture going on in the Republic.

“What do you think?” Marie asked.

“Uh, they’re still trashy,” Aziz replied, giving out his honest opinion without thinking too hard.

A few stares came his way, and the colonel cleared his throat. “Ahem. I was thinking about the…uhh, standard issue Straight Shots.”

The stares relented somewhat, and Aziz let out a sigh of relief. There was something to be said about how sensitive the East’s commanders were when it came to completely justified criticism, and although Aziz usually tried to be diplomatic, he had been increasingly influenced by Oberon and Titania.

“Excuses,” said Oberon.

Aziz felt the last of the stares swivel away from him, and he let out a small sigh. Behind him, Oberon and Titania opened a heated discussion about what the East did wrong, and the colonel shook his head at how routine things had become.

“Your trainers sure are blunt,” Marie murmured.

“Well, they have the leeway to do that,” Aziz replied.

“True. Both of us can’t just waltz up and tell them that they should be a bit more realistic when it comes to goal-setting. Neither can we tell them that their training standards are too low to be of use.” Marie looked at the returning troops. “And of course, to hear that from the two of us will simply worsen morale.”

“Let the old ones do the scolding, eh?” Aziz chuckled. “Tale’s as old as time. The younger trainers are like friends. The older ones are like parents, all stern with overly-high expectations. That way, you get to confuse the trainees.”

“I’m not sure why you thought the end goal was to confuse the trainees, but okay.”

Marie stretched her neck and got up from her seat. The observers had been staying in the same room for the past ten days, which was more than enough for Aziz and the other bored commanders to take in even the smallest details of the place. After a while, everyone had even settled on a sitting arrangement in silent accord, which just spoke volumes about how boring lightshows could get.

It didn’t use to be that boring. When the exercise started, the room would enable real-time eavesdropping over communications, which obviously made observing livelier. However, five days ago, someone from the East had forgotten about that detail, launching into a tirade of abuse against his commanders.

After a short and detailed investigation into the claims that were made by the anonymous speaker, Commodore Tenouji arrested one of his subordinates for a whole slew of crimes.

From then on, the Eastern commanders petitioned Minister Eventide to remove this eavesdropping function, something that Eventide was all too happy to do, since the East was learning from the Republic’s communications.

The whole event was absurd, from start till end, but surprisingly enough, Aziz had privately received information that the officers’ stress levels had dropped as a side result.

“How many more days do we need to sit here?” Aziz asked.

“Four more, thankfully.” Marie had an equally bored look on her face. “If only the kids would let us into their command centre.”

“Something something independence, I guess,” Aziz replied glumly. “Can’t something interesting happen?”

“Boring is nice too, so don’t wish—”

Marie’s words cut off as a tremor ran through the world itself. Aziz turned to look at the source — the Great Divide — and his eyes widened as an ominous black sheen began to glow.

“The Great Divide…is crumbling ahead of schedule?”

Aziz didn’t know who said this, but it felt like the right answer.

“Ahead…of schedule?”

Someone stood up abruptly, and the room descended into chaos a moment later.