MCDWTBS Chapter 68

Edwin’s voice was calm, gentle, and firm to Serra, possessing a power that bewitched the heart and soothed the soul. He was not disturbed at all by the “spectacle” Serra had created earlier, but rather cast his gaze past the unsightly male insectoids, focusing on the stiff, unmoving female insectoids.

Edwin hardly recognized any of their faces, yet he seemed familiar with each and every one of them.

He had once been them, and they were once him.

He looked at them and saw himself, saw his comrades who had perished on the battlefield, saw Marshal Ax, saw his adjutant, Lian.

In a daze, he seemed to feel a familiar weight on his shoulder. Marshal Ax cast a firm gaze at him in the void. He saw a path stretching out beneath his feet, a path piled with the corpses of his comrades. Sharp fragments of bone pierced his protective suit, staining the soles of his feet red, but he only had this one path before him.

The path Marshal Ax had walked.

“I stand here,” his voice sounded somewhat distorted by the electromagnetic waves of the loudspeaker. Edwin gently closed his eyes. He knew he was not suited for this place, not suited to lecture his comrades from a high platform. He was clumsy with words and inarticulate. Only with Serra’s bottomless indulgence could he pass the most basic language test.

He was suited to fighting on the battlefield, suited to quietly observing fleeting opportunities in dangerous battles. His body moved faster than his brain could analyze. His reason could never race with his intuition. He was never a female insectoid adept at expressing himself. Before meeting Serra, he didn’t even remember being able to participate in casual conversations of more than five sentences, let alone giving a speech in front of countless insectoids.

He could never possess the easy confidence and ability to control the overall situation that Marshal Ax had been born with. On the battlefield, he might be comparable to Marshal Ax in combat power and decisiveness, but outside the battlefield? He was not comparable to Marshal Ax in the slightest.

But the Marshal was no longer here, and he had to force himself to walk out of the gloom that Wrapped like poisonous vines on his soul, sucking his blood.

Edwin opened his eyes, his voice no longer wavering in the slightest:

“To be completely frank with everyone, with no concealment. Duke Noah’s Mansion has regained the right to command the Fourth Army. This decision was voted on and decided by the council and the court and personally signed and finalized by the current imperial ruler, His Highness Colean. Duke Noah’s Mansion has also made the decision that in the future, the military affairs of the Fourth Army will be fully taken over by the Duke’s Mansion. Female insectoids at the rank of colonel and above will undergo ability and loyalty reviews, while the positions of female insectoids below the rank of colonel will remain unchanged. The Quartermaster Department will be reorganized and re-appointed and resources re-allocated by Duke Noah’s Mansion.”

“Of course, these written contents will be distributed to all departments in the army afterward. Each department will coordinate and review to complete this transfer of power with the least amount of change and the lowest amount of damage. Today was originally my inauguration ceremony as the commander and general of the Fourth Army, but now, I know that I need to provide my comrades with a choice. The answer I want is, fellow members of the Fourth Army, are you willing to follow me and obey the orders of a marked female insectoid?”

The sudden turn in the topic made Serra hold his breath for a moment. He suddenly realized what Edwin was doing. He was giving these female insectoids a chance to choose. He was giving these female insectoids, who had spent their entire lives obeying orders and had never been listened to or valued, a chance to express themselves, a right to vote.

Edwin was creating an opportunity for himself, a true opportunity to win over the Fourth Army and gain their loyalty.

Even Serra himself would not have the courage to do this. Serra was not good at playing with power. Today, he was pushed to the center of the insectoid society’s power, which was a helpless act of self-preservation. This was not difficult to understand. He was just a fledgling teacher of Marxist philosophy. He might be proficient in philosophy and some political science theories, but in the end, he was an ordinary person with a strong sense of morality, and he could not be a cold-hearted, cunning politician at all. The reason he could get to where he was today was, frankly, due to the “snatch mother”‘s favor and his advantage as a male insectoid noble.

Including his regaining the Fourth Army, it was also based on his identity as a male insectoid and a noble. He took it for granted that Edwin would take over the Fourth Army forcefully. They still had too many things to do. They were preparing an imminent revolution, and there could be no wavering.

But Edwin did not choose the safest path. As a former general, he had more courage in battle than Serra, and as a female insectoid, he also knew more about female insectoids than Serra.

Serra was worried that the female insectoid’s obedience and years of indoctrination by the church would make them more obedient to the church and the male insectoids, but Edwin believed that these female insectoids had the right to make their own choices, and they also had the ability to make the right choices.

Serra’s rapid heartbeat gradually slowed down. He stared intently at the black-haired female insectoid on the high platform, cheering for the light in his blue eyes.

“I am a 2S-level female insectoid, just like Marshal Ax five years ago. I think all female insectoids know that body level means a shorter service life and forced retirement after the age of 25. I was forced to leave the First Army, where I served for ten years, a year and a half ago and entered the Duke’s Mansion. I accepted the marking, and it was the marking that allowed me to survive until now.”

“The church tells us that the snatch mother believes that marked female insectoids and sub-male insectoids will become the best ornaments of male insectoids, becoming puppets under their tentacles. This is also why marked female insectoids, even if they return to their peak abilities, never have a chance to return to the army. Being marked by a male insectoid may mean that the life of a high-level female insectoid can be extended, but it also means that the career we have devoted our lives to is destroyed, and our past is completely denied.”

“The church despises female insectoids. Through the mouth of the snatch mother, they portray female insectoids as vulgar, barbaric, and unteachable heretics. They do not allow female insectoids to enjoy the fruits of battle and the glory we have earned with our lives. They send punishment robots into the army. They replace our medical treatment facilities with useless old machines. They tamper with the empire’s thousands of years of tradition, drive female insectoids out of the army’s power hierarchy, and replace them with male insectoids who have never been on the battlefield and never fought to the death with the enemy.”

When Edwin said this, the blasphemous meaning in his words had already caused many insectoids to change their expressions drastically. Not only did some female insectoids who had not yet had their personal will obliterated reveal surprised expressions, but also those church male insectoids who had taken over the army also suppressed their fear of Serra in shock and revealed extremely angry expressions.

They could not believe how this daring, cheap female insectoid dared to slander the church and blaspheme the snatch mother!

One of the male insectoids wearing the uniform of a Fourth Army general stood up angrily. His two ridiculous mental tendrils cowered behind him, obviously still feeling fear from Serra’s power just now, but his wealthy face turned purple with anger, and a pair of swollen eyes like goldfish revealed turbid and angry accusations, shouting at Edwin on the stage in a hoarse voice:

“Cheap female insectoid! Ill-mannered mongrel dog! How could your male master let a heretic like you out to pollute the army!”

Serra’s affectionate gaze turned cold. He glanced at this shameless male insectoid who was still wearing a military uniform, and his gaze did not linger on those two weak tendrils for a moment:

“General Edwin is just telling the truth.”

Serra did not release his mental tendrils, but his words were like a piece of hot coal, causing the male insectoid’s question to disappear painfully in his throat. Even though these male insectoids had previously lived in the safe fortresses created for them by the empire and had never experienced the feeling of being threatened, they did not have amnesia. The terrifying scene like the Day of Revelation just now was still vivid in their minds. None of them wanted to experience the feeling of being torn apart by the empire’s most powerful male insectoid.

“When I joined the army, Marshal Ax once stood on the high platform of the First Army and spoke to all the female insectoids. He said that the snatch mother would not favor us and that we only had each other. When the church coveted the power of the army, in the darkest depths, he reminded us with his life that we still had each other. This was the last thing he left to the world, but unfortunately, after that, the army underwent a great purge, and all officers had to repeat more than three times in the interrogation room that Marshal Ax was a traitor among us and that we did not remember the last thing our marshal left to us.”

Edwin’s voice blurred for a while, causing Serra’s heart to clench – he knew that other insectoids could not tell that his male parent was suppressing a sob, but he could:

“But I remember everything. I remember that they shot Marshal Ax on the spot because he was the only female insectoid who dared to tell the truth. I remember every word of Marshal Ax, just like I could recognize his pure white wings, and I -”

With a “bang,” a pair of huge, jet-black wings suddenly unfolded from behind Edwin, causing his body to levitate upward. The wings were extremely large, as black as the most gorgeous night, with intertwined gold and red magma patterns on them, as if constantly burning the darkness.

Steaming black energy, like vaporized ink, hovered around the beautiful wings, setting off the female insectoid’s face, which was sandwiched between the wings, as mysterious and unpredictable, like an envoy of God. Whether they were church male insectoids or media workers, they looked at the female insectoid in mid-air in shock, as if they had never seen such a creature before.

The power of female and sub-male insectoids, their inviolable beauty, had never truly entered the eyes of arrogant male insectoids. They had always regarded female and sub-male insectoids as a group of stupid, barbaric, and worthless things. They had never respected the female and sub-male insectoids who had served them all their lives. They had been told that female and sub-male insectoids were defective products, inferior creatures, and did not have the power to be mentioned in the same breath as them.

Until this moment, they knew that something was out of place. The female insectoid in front of them spread their wings, as if an Asura from hell had descended. Pure power, like an invisible scent, spread to the huge training ground, causing the male insectoids who had never looked at female insectoids directly to feel timid.

The church told them that even the strongest female insectoid would collapse at the touch of their mental tendrils, that only male insectoids possessed divine power, and that the power of female and sub-male insectoids was just a mortal joke, but at this moment, no one would be willing to touch or attack the hovering female insectoid with their mental tendrils. Their subconscious knew that the steaming, dense black energy mist would burn through their tendrils.

“- My wings once floated with Marshal Ax’s ‘Pure White Judgment’ in the depths of the universe, tearing apart the vanguard of the enemy. The Four Legions were once the pillars of the empire, the dignity of female insectoids, and the dreams of trillions of young female and sub-male insectoids. Because they knew that after becoming a female insectoid, they could have companions, they could have a future, and they could have each other. Here, is the only pure land belonging to female and sub-male insectoids. Here is merit, a haven to escape endless oppression.”

Edwin’s voice was still calm, but his words accurately reached the ears of every female insectoid, and even the sub-male and female insectoids watching all this through the hand ring network. Countless gazes were intertwined on his body, and countless eyes of his comrades looked at him with confusion or bewilderment.

Countless eyes were secretly lit up by him.