In the distance of the smoldering remains of the Free Nation’s walls a torrent of men in Krizian military attire flowed from the horizon through the remnants of the wall not knowing when or if it would regenerate. They only knew that it was made of ARMS material and they’d never witnessed an ARMS device being destroyed by anything other than its own self destruction. They lost cohesion in their ranks as they raced to cross the border into the Free Nation, reorganizing themselves once the threshold had been breached. They were prepared to do combat to make it to the other side, but there was no resistance. There were orders to have soldiers prepared just in case just such a situation like this occurred, but the local lords had neglected to assign them, afterall, why station soldiers in a place where they’d never be needed and could be used for labor and policing their cities. That would prove to be a critical deadly mistake.

The reorganized Krizian army split into several companies and began heading for the Free Nation cities along the borders, each one having their own target to lay siege to. Not a single minute was wasted as they marched in the most orderly and in sync fashion that any one had ever seen before. Whatever the training that they underwent there was one thing that could be said, it instilled the fear of god into these soldiers. If they made one mistake they would face terrible punishment.

Each of the cities were no more than a few kilometers from the wall and each were only at most a few dozen kilometers from the Krizians. At the pace they marched each of the companies reached their destination with an hour, many within 30 minutes of the explosions that took down the border walls. The sound had reached them, shaking the buildings. Many still couldn’t dream of what had happened and the Lords wer slow to react even if they had figured out that the boom had come from the direction of the border. Even if they were giving out the order to prepare, no one fathomed that the walls had been so thoroughly fallen. The cities further away had time to fully prepare, but those closer were caught with their soldiers in disarray, in the middle of gearing up to send out soldiers to find out what had happened.

The Krizian army washed over the nearby cities. Two hundred men charged through the defenses that were never activated directly into the core of the settlement. They had their own walls, but the gates had not been shut and they were not as high or as well built as what they had just overcome or what they had in the inner part of the Free Nation. The Krizian made short work, finding the entrance or simply scaling the walls. Civilians in every corner were unprepared for what came next. The Krizians were under orders to spare only the fertile women and slaughter the rest. That is exactly what they did. Every man they found had a blade ran threw them. The elderly were dismembered. And the little boys they were rounded up and placed in a pen to hold them till the rest of the city was ransacked and the women brought to heel beneath the boots of the might Krizian Empire’s army.

The soldiers attempted to stop the invading forces, but they were no match. At most, there were only a few dozens poorly equipped guards half undressed grabbing whatever weapons they could find to defend themselves and other civilians, but it was hopeless. The invading forces were at least twice their number, had better equipment, more training, and had the most devastating of advantages an opponent can have. The Krizian enemy had all been brainwashed, or trained like dogs, to follow every order they were given coldly. Only glee from degrading and destroying the enemy was acceptable. If Chris were asked he would surely say that it was no challenge to make these men the brutal homicidal creatures they’d been turned into. All one had to do was punish the behaviors that were unwanted to the point where they’d never reasonably do what was done again, at least not on purpose. It didn’t matter if they did it on accident or couldn’t control a given action though. Just continue punishing them and eventually they will regulate themselves. When a child is punished and trained to self regulate and they finally get it, it’s a beautiful thing. They have learned and grown to become a better person. But in the case of the Krizian soldiers it was only partially about making them better. The other part was that when even the notion of going against the authority of Chris led to self-flagellation it was a near guarantee that every soldier would be loyal or they’d take their own life. Of course there was also the fact that Chris and many of his underlings just got a sick pleasure out of it, but that just all part of the system of subjugation to the will of Chris and that’s precisely how they drew out the sick and twisted joy of brutalizing others. Where there is punishment to stop a behavior, on the other side there is reward to create one.

Those soldiers that would show signs of joy when they harmed others would be rewarded. There only needed to be a few that took legitimate pleasure in the whole thing, and there would always be a few. Then you just reward them. Others will catch on and they’ll mimic it. They might even find the whole thing grotesque at first, but the more they show the desired actions and display of emotions the more they’d awarded point, treasures, privileges, and many other things, reinforcing in their brain, through neuronal biology, that the most insane of things were not just normal, to be cherished as the highest of virtues.

It could be said, that the invasion was very virtuous. So much so that they wished to announce it to the whole of the Free Nation. The boys that were rounded up were cowered in the corner of their pens, fearing what would happen next. They’d never gone anything like this before and didn’t know what to expect. Had war been common in this world these children would not have hoped to be saved, but not knowing that no one would be coming for them they held onto that till their final moments. It would have been bad enough had they just been killed, or any of the myriad of terrible things that happened commonly in war, but this was an army whose cruelty was unmatched by any in known history. The boys, mere children that knew nothing of the world, were stripped, forced to line up single file and watch as they were one by one impaled on pikes anally before being lifted above the city’s walls on the side that faced the Free Nation’s interior. They were then left there to slowly slide down the pike of the next month, kept alive on water and minimal food that would be forced down their throats until they were dead or the spike protruded out of their mouth making it impossible to feed them any more. It was just like Vlad the impaler had done, but worse, Vlad let his victims die.

At first the boys were hopeful that they’d see an army march over the hills in the distance, retake their city, and save them. They didn’t know how long it took to travel nor how long a body could last like they were. Had they known, they have given up hope from the beginning. By the end, their jaws were forced open and made to look into the sky where every day the sun overhead would beam down its life giving rays of light onto their faces and directly into their eyes. It wasn’t long before they could no longer see the world, only blackness, but their lives went on. Their torture was unending. They begged the soldiers to let it end and when their pleas went unanswered and mouths no longer worked all they could do was cry out with their soul for some deity to end their suffering. Eventually it did whether by the hands of a god or just their bodies giving out, but their humiliation did not end with their lives. Their bodies were left to rot as it slid down the pole, inching its way towards the ground for as long as the occupation would last.

The women and girls who were allowed to live watched from their pens in terror as their sons and brothers were impaled, unable to do anything. All they could do was helplessly wonder if that was also in store for them. Some were relieved to learn that it wasn’t. Others wished that it had been their fate. The Krizian soldiers gathered them to the center of town where each was ordered to remove their clothes and stand in the blood soaked mud, and then commanded to put up no fight as they were looked over by the soldiers. They didn’t understand, but did as they were told as multiple soldiers came by. They groped, fondled, pinched, their teeth examined, among other violations. It didn’t strike them what was happening to them till the seventh soldier examined them. They had become the produce to be sold in the market where once they were the buyers, but now it was the soldiers who would be doing the purchasing.

After a while, the Krizian captain said, “Time is up. We need to get back to work. Make your choices according to rank.” He said something to the soldier next to him and then grabbed one of the women from the crowd dragging her away into one of the many now ownerless homes. There were 3 women and girls for every soldier there, but if that was how things were divided up it would provide little reason for the soldiers to strive for higher ranks. The the soldier the captain spoke to pointed to more than 2 dozen women and girls and and them escorted to a pen. Aftwards, one after another, a soldier would step up to him, before being allowed to select from the remaining captives. The earlier soldiers were all allowed to choose several, but for the majority of soldiers, they were given the choice of one, maybe two of the lot, and by the end all that were left were the little girls who the lowest of the lowest ranks were allowed to choose from.

As the first day of the Krizian conquest ended and light of the sun faded to twilight shrieks terror and moans of sadness filled the walls of the fallen cities. Whether they were over the lost of their loved ones or the position as sex toy to their murderers every eye of the once free people were filled with tears and their guts filled with agony. It did not sway even a single soldier. It only made it that much more pleasurable to them, revelling in the pain that they were causing to their underlings, their pets, their slaves, their enemies. However, they looked at their captives, they took joy in defiling and branding them as theirs with whatever barbarism or savagery that they could think to inflict. Some were lucky.They were required only to service their new master. Others would die from what they would endure through that night. And while not every captive female could possibly be abused that night, there are few men that have the stamina needed for that, there were none left unscathed by that days events.