The Queen made good on her promise, and Shen read the Primer on Military Justice on his way to Alicia and Sai. He would talk to the two before the other D-ranks.

He set a meeting place with them using the internal military message system built on top of the Guardian System. First Lieutenants and above could use it whenever they wanted, but as a Second Lieutenant, Shen could only do it when it was related to a deployment.

Without it, it was almost a challenge to contact anyone during resting time in the maze that was the mobile fortress. That was on purpose. It made people more prone to group together and gave the F-rank Corporal guides a chance to make themselves useful. It also forced everyone to develop at least a superficial relationship with each other, even the lone wolf types. Eventually, they needed to find someone and found out how annoying it was, so they learned to be considerate of others who might need to find them. Shen, too, had told every C-rank from his Brigade he passed on the way to the mobile fortress entrance that he had been called to meet with the Acting General. If the meeting had been meant to be kept secret, she would've said so.

As Shen walked to the meeting point, he found a group of D-ranks from his Battalion moving elsewhere. They nodded to him, and one said, "Waterfall 87," as they passed. If anyone asked about them, he'd know.

The room he picked for the meeting with his friend and his bodyguard was the same small one they had met the first time. To think three Earth years had passed! Well, to him, it had been nine. Time in elite combat training ran much faster than outside.

His six years there had been a much worse struggle than his training under Liya. She had focused on teaching him how to kill while honing his willpower. In elite combat training, every technique she had brushed on had been expanded upon and deepened without wasting time with his willpower. The training had also gone beyond the simple D-rank of her training, fully explored the C-rank, and even introduced him to concepts that would only be used at B-rank.

He had been forged into a weapon by violent hammers and come out stronger for it.

Faceless hammers, too. Anything that could be used to identify the instructors or people training with him was missing, blurred, or modified. No names, no voices, no camaraderie; only discipline and single-minded improvement.

Shen hadn't learned only how to kill Void Spawn, either. Anything that could give him an edge against any opponent was taught to him. Hence, he wasn't surprised that SpecOps wanted him. Most of his abilities were honestly wasted with the usual missions he had been assigned since his return. He had even started making a game out of predicting the Void Spawn movements using his tactical and strategic training to make it more interesting.

That same training also let him notice the precise moment Alicia had decided to kill her romantic feelings for him. Just as with the Queen, he had to know about people's interactions and feelings to notice signs of attachment so he wouldn't be surprised by a sudden interference in combat.

He was glad he knew what was going on. Alicia had suddenly grown very distant and cold towards him. His training let him avoid an awkward conversation.

On the other hand, his training didn't make it any easier to enter the small room, which still simulated a forest clearing beside a lake.

Alicia glanced at him before avoiding his eyes. They still needed to talk at some point, but he had decided to wait until the Calamity's end if she didn't come to him first. She only had a D-rank mind and was struggling to adapt to the way of the Alliance. She lacked emotional training, too, and he could train her in it because the only way he knew how to do it involved her unwilling participation. He worried their talk might make things worse for her heart, and they constantly had to deal with the Void, which could subvert some beliefs with its whispers. He wouldn't risk her life just so she would stop giving him the cold shoulder.

Physically, Alicia had blossomed into a peak D-rank beauty. As her stats increased and she walked her Path towards what she understood as her perfected version, some of her blemishes were smoothed out or removed, enhancing her genetic attractiveness. She had become more symmetrical, and her skin and brown hair almost glowed with healthiness. Shen preferred women with long hair, but she still looked good with her new short haircut. It highlighted her verdant eyes.

Alicia had started wearing dark golden leather armor to hide her figure, but Shen's Law Vision pierced it and let him see how her curves were more in line with the golden ratio. It wasn't the same as seeing actual skin, not even close, but if he let his imagination run wild... He didn't, though. It would be creepy and very invasive, to say the least.

To sum it up, although still far from the Queen, Alicia was above the most breathtaking movie stars from before the Alliance.

Honestly, if their Paths were compatible...

Alas, they were incompatible, and Shen wasn't about to propose they wait for each other like Liya had done. His relationship with each woman and his circumstances were completely different.

In fact, his recent conversation with the Queen gave him a vital hint about Liya, too. The Queen claimed her Realization affected her and that external events affected her Realization. A dead son and a new child marked the end and beginning of a new cycle. Those were key events.

Likewise, looking back at his talks with Liya, Shen could tell how grateful she felt for being part of her life in those moments before her Realization, even related to it in some aspects.

So, Shen wondered: how much of Liya's actions had been her authentic self, and how much was her Realization?

Sure, a Realization was a Path made manifest. It was one's most pure self given form. Shen knew the theory, and the closest thing to it he could experience was his True Self. However, a Realization's goal was to become an Axiom. It necessarily meant finding common ground with the other Axioms through Concepts. Unlike his True Self, a Realization had to be open to being modified in some ways, or it would either need to find a way to rule over all the Laws of Reality, which sounded impossible, or be crushed by their collective power.

The only silver lining was that it sounded like someone had to allow their Realizations to be affected by some actions. They determined what was acceptable and what wasn't. So, it was part of Liya's beliefs that what he had done for her had earned her favor.

To walk a Path was to move; it was to change. Some obstacles could be crushed, but you had to learn to adapt to others. No one was the same at the end of a millennia-long journey as when they started. To pick a Path was to forgo all others. It was exclusive by nature. It was to kill possibilities. It was the refinement of the self. You ended up molded by it as much as you formed it when you decided whether to go right or left.

Still, Shen kept wondering: Was it right to let a set of decisions about some Concepts at the start of your Path, then some Laws, define the rest of your existence?

How much of himself was he shedding away on his Path of power?

How different would things be if he didn't have to pick a Path and could just grow powerful with a more fluid mind?

"Life is a struggle," the Queen had said. So, the very Laws of Reality, the Axioms that controlled existence, demanded hardships. And anyone was changed by how they faced challenges on the way.

Alicia had given up on her feelings for Shen, though they evidently hadn't given up on her yet. That's how she faced this obstacle.

Shen felt admiration, kindness, goodwill, and friendship for Alicia. However, he wouldn't allow it to become anything else because their Paths weren't compatible. That's how he faced this struggle.

Shen and Liya, on the other hand, had tried something and were now on a pause. That was their collective choice.

He was always affected by everything in Reality. He always affected everything in Reality. Reality was bound and linked together through the series of Laws and Concepts that defined everything. That was reflected in everything inside it. Shen, Alicia, Liya, and even Sai were mere reflections of the circumstances of their existence and their personal choices on the way. If Will wasn't an Aspect, Shen would even doubt they had had any choice in what they did.

But he did have a choice. They all did. Because they had a Will of their own.

That's why one's mind was so sacred, and mental manipulation was banned and scorned. It was a subversion of one of the core Aspects of Reality itself. Will, Time, and Space were guaranteed for all living beings. To deny either to anyone was... sacrilegious.

The sudden realization made Shen look at Sai.

The man had had his mind controlled. Physically restraining someone was to refuse their power and reach, but they still existed as themselves somewhere; Space and Time were respected. However, while Sai's Raw Self had remained untouched, the group of different Wills that formed his sentient and sapient mind had been denied agency. Shen wasn't sure how a mind was formed, but he was confident it was related to the Aspect of Will.

Shen had gone through something much worse. He hadn't been able to even kill himself when Valentina compelled him. He wasn't sure whether his mental torture or a physical one was worse.

That brought him to the next point: to injure someone was to deny their Space, and to kill someone was to deny their Time. Why, then, did Shen's Will feel so much more important to him?

The answer was simple, really. He wasn't his body. He wasn't his soul. Not fully. When he limited the I that was him to its most fundamental essence, when he peeled the layers that he could do without if needed, it was the Will that remained.

He could say "I am" because there was an "I" somewhere, and its most extreme expression was his Will. Twisting it was to corrupt the fundamental part of someone. Killing them was also terrible, for the "I" ceased to be. But while Shen intellectually had trouble seeing how death was any better than keeping existing as something else, everything he was, his own "I," his True Self, recoiled at the idea.

It didn't need a reason to reject it, for reasons were things of the mind. The Will was. And even without actual feelings, it would rather cease being than be changed.

That reminded Shen of how the Void corrupted people. They had to let the Void in. Yet, he also recalled the Pioneer Tutorial. The souls of the corrupted individuals in the Second Stage had been saved while their bodies transformed. They had remained as themselves, even though a new Void Spawn came to be.

Shen had once considered the possibility of people being trapped in their new Void non-existence, but what he had seen in the tutorial disproved it. The Void had only needed to corrupt the soul to be let in on the body. It was like a house owner letting invaders in. And the invader just killed the useless owner.

Those who turned into Void Spawn weren't wanted for their souls or minds. The Void just wanted the space they occupied. Only Prophets and Heralds needed to maintain their full agency.

That didn't explain how the body moved, though. The Void couldn't create anything; it was against its nothingness. It had an overall Will because it touched on Reality's Will and existed at the edge. How, then, could it form Void Spawn with their own thinking abilities? Did it clone its own Will somehow? That would be incredible. Or were those artificial minds? That sounded more likely.

What did it have to do with his initial musings about Will?

Nothing.

Shen sighed and shook his head.

Moments of sudden epiphany had become too frequent after his return from his elite combat training. He had learned too much but hadn't been given time to link those things to others he already knew. Not even his C-tier learning ability could make up for that, and his talent hadn't triggered even once since then. Instead, random things he saw or thought led him to make connections and form new ideas.

They weren't always conclusive, even if they were enjoyable thought exercises and elucidating in many ways. He had just understood a little better why Liya had done something that even he considered too impulsive in hindsight. He also felt he had gotten closer to some secrets that weren't explained by the Alliance. And that was it. For him, it sufficed, but Alicia and Sai weren't here to look at his thinking face.

Shen took him Sai as he had Alicia. He had also grown more handsome, his skin was healthy, and his black eyes and bald head made him somewhat intimidating. He wore a black cultivation robe because he was Shen's bodyguard, even though he had given up on making mana and qi work together. He wasn't suicidal.

"We got a deployment on another Node," Shen said without preamble. "We and the other human D-ranks are going to Samir." They were as surprised as he had felt when he heard it. "We'll be briefed by our superior when we get there, but I can already tell you that our mission is to be the most perfect soldiers we can be. We'll need to do everything by the books and play the part of absolute paragons of morality and justice. There's no room for errors; we'll be scrutinized on our every step. That means planning ahead. If you have anything to say before we meet the other D-ranks, now's the time."

He pointedly looked at Alicia. Meeting others from Earth might bring emotional turmoil. He worried the most about her.

She and Sai exchanged a glance briefly, then both shook their heads. "I already told you everything, Lieutenant," she said.

"Me too, Lieutenant."

Shen sighed. "So be it." As both Alicia's friend—if she even still considered him one—and superior officer, he found it better to let her postpone their conversation. "Let's meet the others, then. I'll brief everyone together."

He sent the other six surviving D-ranks from Earth a message to meet nearby and headed there.

There wasn't much to say, really, except impart to them how they were not to mess up. Not in any way. They were going as role models. Any mistake would receive a much harsher punishment than it might in La'sing. On the bright side, anyone who survived it would receive some good rewards, and you just had not to be an idiot to survive.

Alicia and Sai weren't idiots.

But as Luthdel appeared on a corner, breathing heavily as he ran towards Shen, Shen wondered if the Queen had actually called him to ask him to protect her stupid son in a very roundabout way.