After a very impolite conversation, Shen understood those people were operating on misinformation spread by the US government.

The US had claimed Shen had murdered the President because he had been a Chinese plant all along. After all, only the Chinese had another cultivator, which was proof enough. Now, the US had sworn to help the Maiden, some troops had even landed on Italy already, but the allied forces were supposed to beware Feng Shen and attack him on sight. Those soldiers hadn't attacked because they were scouts and were under orders to only report his location—as they admitted to having done.

Shen hadn't expected such a complicated mess and wasn't sure what he should do.

He was here for the Maiden, so it made sense to ally with her official protectors. However, now those protectors were against him. Should he kill them? Avoid them? Try to negotiate?

He would definitely kill whoever attacked him, but he decided against killing the five soldiers. They were misinformed idiots, not actual enemies.

Shen thought of the French Captain, who had talked to Shen without prejudice or aggressiveness. Had the man not been told the lies? If so, why?

He didn't want to waste time guessing things. Fortunately, there was a way to directly ask those involved what they were thinking.

"Alright," he said, "Make a call with your little radio and let me talk to your commanding officer. For your people's sake, let's hope the attacking force doesn't get here before I leave."

The Free Republic of Florence's command center was in a fancy underground restaurant. The tables were filled with papers and laptops, and adjuncts ran everywhere.

Of the ten countries allied to Florence, only one had sent a general, France. General Vivienne Boisclair was therefore making all strategic calls—she was pretty good at it—except when overruled by the Commander in Chief, the Free Republic's self-appointed Interim President, Giorgio Martino.

Theoretically, a local country's ruler shouldn't have command over the allied forces. However, the General was obeying the man for whatever reason—politics, probably—and the military was under her. In the end, the man ruled over everyone.

The Interim President and the General sat side by side at the head of what looked like a very long table created by pushing many smaller tables together. The most important people were also sat there, and they could talk to each other quickly to make important decisions.

Giorgio Martino, the Interim President and the Maiden's father, was a ruthless former mafia leader. He had been uniquely positioned to become an insurgent leader backed by foreign nations who didn't want the Italian government to have control of the Maiden.

Most powerful countries had experience financing and training insurgents to varying degrees of success. Now, ten of them were putting everything on the line to fall on the graces of the fifteen-year-old Maiden who, her father promised, would do whatever he wanted. Therefore, they did what they could to fall in his graces.

Colonel Walter Schneider was one of the German soldiers sent there to protect the Maiden. Unlike Giorgio Martino, he had had neither the political clout nor the cunningness to use his son's position as a Pioneer to his advantage. However, he had been a lieutenant colonel at the time, which did put him in a position to try something stupid if he had wanted.

Therefore, he had been considered a potential threat to Germany's public order, got promoted, and was sent to Italy to give the powers-that-be time to make his son obey them.

Walter didn't mind. He was a soldier first and foremost. He wouldn't get himself killed on purpose, but he understood his country came first.

General Boisclair was a fair commander. Walter had shown he was competent enough to be in the commanding tent but not enough to make big decisions. Therefore, he didn't sit by the big table. Instead, he sat not too far, by a small one, alone. From there, he commanded the scouts in Florence.

That task effectively made him a glorified errand boy slash supervisor. The General determined where his subordinates should be deployed and the directives of the deployment, and he merely organized how the orders were sent. Then he read the reports, made minor decisions, and told the General the important stuff and the lay of things.

Just as he didn't mind being in Italy, he also didn't resent the post. Rather, it put him in the safest building in Florence, especially now that nukes were out of the picture. Regardless of the Maiden's survival, he would likely return home as a war hero.

There were many worse places to be or things to do.

But when a Major came running to tell him they got a priority message claiming the Rising Star had been spotted, he found himself torn between family and country for the very first time in his life.

His leaders had taken him away from his son as soon as possible, but he had talked to the boy for a few days before that. The Pioneer had pleaded repeatedly that no matter what, Walter should not, under any circumstances, go against the Rising Star.

"Feng Shen is a monster," the young man had said. "He'll survive, and he'll take revenge. Stay away from him. Surrender if you must. Please, dad, this is important. I'd be willing to bet my life on this. Please, don't fuck with him."

However, Interim President Giorgio Martino had been clear when he said they were now allied with the US and that the Rising Star was to be killed on sight. Walter didn't need to obey the man, but he had to follow General Boisclair's orders. And she had explicitly and directly told him to pass any sightings of the Rising Star to her, so she could dispatch the right troops to Feng Shen's position.

He sat frozen for a long time. His adjacent asked for directions enough times to attract the General's attention. The woman was like a hawk, what with her E-rank and E- stats.

She stood up and approached Schneider's table. Isolated, her brown eyes were clear and beautiful, yet her facial features were so fierce that her eyes looked like weapons that could kill. Her blonde, almost platinum hair was held in a tight, perfect bun. She was at least sixty but looked twenty years younger than that.

"What's the matter here, Colonel?" she asked.

Schneider gulped, saluted, and decided to trust his boy in this one. After all, his son hadn't become a Pioneer by being stupid.

"Ma'am," the Colonel said, "I want to be discharged or imprisoned for desertion."

There were very few political moves Schneider knew, but no one became a Lieutenant Colonel without some political savviness. He was worse than almost everyone but not completely daft.

When your subordinate would rather become a deserter than follow through with an order, they had all the confidence in you being absolutely wrong. That was a somber statement.

General Bosclair frowned. "What kind of joke is this, Colonel?" Before he could reply, she turned to the likely source of the disturbance, the Major. "What did you just tell him?"

"The Rising Star has been spotted, ma'am!" he said loud and clear.

That attracted the attention of everyone nearby. The General squinted her eyes and turned to Schneider. "And you would rather go to jail than tell me that, Colonel?"

"Yes, ma'am," Schneider replied.

"Why?"

"As you know, my son is a Pioneer, ma'am. He was very clear when he told me any attempt to kill the Rising Star would fail and that he would come for revenge."

"And you would rather trust your son's words than the mighty of the military?" she asked as if talking to a particularly dumb child. "A power that had to be outlawed because it could destroy the entire world?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied.

"Good," she said, to everyone's amazement, then turned to her adjunct, who had come with her. "Major Weber, Operation Star Hammer is a go."

The Major said, "Yes, ma'am," and left the room.

The General left too, through another door, following the Interim President who had gone there as soon as it was revealed the Rising Star was in Florence.

Colonel Schneider just sat there, unsure of what had happened or what he should do.

After Shen asked the soldiers to use the radio, they looked at each other confusedly. After he prodded, one of them finally went to the radio and contacted their people.

Well, he tried to.

"I don't understand," the guy said. "No one is replying."

"What would be the reasons for that?" Shen asked. He knew absolutely nothing about that tech or military protocols.

"Equipment malfunction, jamming, the other got destroyed, or they don't want to talk to us."

"Try again," Shen ordered. The guy did. Five minutes later, it was obvious it wouldn't work.

"Looks like I'll have to go talk in person—" Shen started, then heard multiple vehicles approaching. "We got company," he told Alicia and left the room.

His hearing was superb after his rank-ups. It took a while for the three Humvee-like vehicles to get in sight, running fast through the broken road. Above the ground, dozens of jet fighters and as many helicopters had been deployed for air supremacy.

The vehicles stopped in front of Shen, who was prepared to fight at the slightest offense. Instead, a female Major with short brown hair and blue eyes left the car, walked quickly toward him, and extended her hand.

"Rising Star," she said, "I'm Major Lavigne of the Free Republic of Florence. We would like to discuss terms to ally ourselves with you. Would you come with me to discuss things in a safer environment?"

Shen let himself raise an eyebrow to showcase slight confusion and interest. "I was told I am to be shot on sight."

"The Americans demanded we do that in exchange for their help." She spoke quickly while looking around. "We knew we were just being used, so we pretended to accept to understand their operation better and plan how to protect ourselves. To look like we were helping them, we deployed recon units all over Florence but under orders not to engage under any circumstances. The units with standing orders to shoot on sight are kept much closer to the command center, and whoever is outside the scouts' range was told nothing about you." That explained the polite Captain that Shen had met. "We're cutting connections with Americans as we speak and repositioning ourselves to fight them if they attack. Please, come with me to a safer place—"

She was interrupted when an RPG hit one of the helicopters flying the perimeter. All other helicopters opened fire. Enemy jet fighters appeared on the horizon, and a new air battle started.

"Let's go," Shen said.

Lavigne nodded and rushed to the Humvee. Shen followed but waited for Alicia to get in before entering.

He considered that the vehicle might be bobby-trapped and that the woman might be a weird suicide bomber. However, he trusted his ability to protect Alicia and himself from lethal damage if that happened.

The three vehicles rushed to safety as war raged in the skies.

Major Lavigne said nothing as they traveled the streets of Florence. There were multiple checkpoints, and they eventually got to an underground garage. Once there, they led Alicia and Shen to a restaurant kitchen of all things.

A man in his early thirties and an old lady General were there. With brown hair and eyes, the man resembled Marzia to a fault. Shen Inspected them.

| Giorgio Martino (G) | 100 / 100

| Charges: murder x7,544, attempted murder x11,988, torture x75, assault x20,774, blackmail x72

| Vivienne Boisclair (E) | 110 / 110

| Charges: murder x7,388, attempted murder x10,877, torture x72, assault x20,544, blackmail x11

Shen was impressed, in a bad way, by what he saw.

"Don't let the system deceive you," Boisclair said. "It doesn't acknowledge our war, so we get charged when our engagement orders are followed."

Shen kept what mortals called a poker face. "Did it also force you to torture and blackmail people?"