( 5 days before the war )

A total of 120 million people had signed up for the war from Rudra ‘s church and alongside the additional 5 million troops promised by emperor Cervantez Rudra currently had a standing force of 125 million soldiers which was expected to reach 5-7 million more by the time the war actually started in next 5 days.

Naturally after the players signed up they needed to stay at Purplehaze city and prepare to be drafted into units as currently the city was flooded with millions of refugees loaded into small camps at max capacity just outside the city.

However the number of these camps were so large that it seemed like another city outside Purplehaze city as the sheer scale of people gathered was pure madness.

Small scale merchants made a killing at their business as war items sold as hotcakes as morale was high amongst the troops.

Rudra also extended a generous hospitality to these people as food and services such as weapon repair and war clothing was provided for free to these players.

With the elites having a total of 43 tier 4 players and the total pool of outer players adding another 57 of them along with the 10 men from emperor Cervantez Rudra’s forced had a total of 110 tier 4 generals amongst nearly 130 million players.

The disparity was huge and it went to show how only one in a million players could actually reach the height of tier 4.

Rudra had no doubt in his mind that although by the end of the coming war this number would go up significantly, it would still be very few people at the tier 4 compared to the cattle breed that tier 3 would become.

Having a solid idea of his strength Rudra finally met with Hades and the other generals in the seperate realm to listen to the final situation from their side and finalize the battle plans.

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( Hades’s realm , the battle room )

As Rudra walked into the room after being summoned through a portal all the other commanders threw a glance at him.

Rudra’s natural aura had became way more terrifying than the last time and as Asmodeus checked his power level and failed , Rudra unleashed his aura on him as he said ” Yes , like i promised I’m tier 5 now “.

Rudra’s presence was so heavy that Asmodeus felt suppressed under his aura as the final strand of doubt vanished from his heart and he accepted Rudra’s position as the first commander.

He was thoroughly shocked to see Rudra having an aura so powerful that he felt life threatening fear from it , being a man who respected strength above everything Asmodeus could finally let go of his reservations about Rudra as he accepted his place at the top of the food chain.

Initially when Rudra claimed that he would become tier 5 by the next time they met , Asmodeus scoffed at his arrogance however now that Rudra actually proved his point, he had nothing to say.

” Congratulations First commander” Asmodeus said as the other generals repeated ” Congratulations first commander “.

Rudra nodded as he took his seat right beside Hades as he saw the god smiling from the corner of his lips.

Rudra knew that respect for authority was everything in military and to make the others respect him he needed to command and earn it and not receive it from Hades’s word.

Establishing his dominance early Rudra established his place in the food chain as he made it abundantly clear who the top dog was in this room.

Hades naturally respected this and smiled as Rudra had once again delivered on his promise to become a valuable asset to his cause.

Hades said ” So since the first commander was not here , why don’t you fill him up on the situation Belphegor”

Fifth commander Belphegor stood up and bowed to Hades as he said ” First commander Shakuni, currently the forces from the side of the lord Hades include :

At tier 6 – God Hades himself

At tier 5 – The 5 commanders.

At tier 4 – We have 108 winged demon generals.

At tier 3 – 20 million greater demons

At tier 2 – 4 million demons

At tier 1 and 0 – 2 million lesser demons.

Due to the demons diary being destroyed, lord Hades was unable to expand his forces further than the last meet , but we did manage to train the existing forces extensively to make them an extremely lethal and cohesive unit with many special archery and cavalry divisions “.

Rudra nodded his head , Lord Hades was supposed to generate 30-35 million more troops and atleast 20 more tier 4 demons but those plans were ruined by Dronacharya.

Standing up he said ” I will have nearly 130 million troops on my side

At tier 4 – 110 generals

At tier 3 – 40 million

At tier 2 – 70 million

At tier 1 – 19 million

At tier 0 – 1 million

The unit is not cohesive and has never fought together, although we have the numbers i am not sure about using sophisticated battle tactics with these numbers although we do have many small specialist units within the group “.

Rudra gave the others a piece of critical news as the room nodded in understanding. He had delivered on his promise to raise 110-140 million troops and it was the only way in which Hades stood a chance to win this war.

Although Rudra made it seem to the common masses that lord Hades could easily conquer hell without their help , in reality that was not at all the case. Without the church of death volunteers Hades was powerless.

This brought the total standing army to about 159 million troops, 218 tier 4 generals and 5 tier 5 commanders .

On paper it was an extremely impressive force however the question was , was it enough to win the war?

With the final strength of the forces decided that was exactly what needed to be figured out as Rudra started to reverse calculate the odds of winning In his mind .

For 14 long hours as the others discussed war strategy Rudra chose to remain in a human calculator mode as he analysed and reanalyzed the odds of winning to understand where they stood and what was the margin of error at each step.

According to his reverse calculation they needed atleast 150 tier 4 generals , all 5 commanders and God Hades alongside atleast 90 million troops to seige the capital of hell.

That was the only way they had a 85% or higher win probability In the final fight and from there when he reverse calculated battle by battle the amount of forces they could afford to lose he found out that there were 4 extremely critical battles that needed to be weathered smoothly to make this reality happen.

The most important battle was the one on the riverfront to successfully get a military hold on the other riverbank and secure a transport route for the massive army from one end of the river to another.

It was going to be the most bloody battle that needed a lot of careful calculation to win and also the most tactically challenging one as the enemy had a superior advantage in positioning at that junction.

Apart from that there were 3 major cities that needed to be secured to establish a smooth supplies line in the war and which were all sure to be bloody battles by how well defended the walls of the city were.

Rudra understood that he would need to fight in constant battles on monthly basis and that too with extremely minimal margins of error for the next one year to pull this impossible mission off.

While the other generals could not look at the bigger picture and debated on what town to capture first in order to make a base , Rudra was already calculating 50 steps ahead as he set the criteria for each battle and how many losses could be afforded.

Rudra broke the full strategy down to the others once he was done planning and once again his sharp mind stunned everyone as they felt like nursery school children listening to a college professor give them lectures.

Once Rudra was explaining his plan it was already 3 days since the meeting had started and 2 days before they started the March as Hades approved of his strategy.

The plan was hence sealed and from then on Started the task of delegating work from commanders to generals to the captain’s of the various small units , as Rudra talked about some other finer details with Hades.

By the time everything was planned out it was only 18 hours before the war was supposed to be started as Rudra was teleported back to Purplehaze city to ready the masses for what was about to come.

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/ Guys do you all want an illustration of how the map terrain in hell and how the battle will progress ?

One of you readers suggested me to make a patreon and use the money from there to make illustrations and the like for the book , i can put in the work on urgent basis from my side if you guys are interested in such a concept.

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