The Martial Unity

He felt silly in himself for getting angry at a thing. Before, he was just flinging insults at her; robot slurs that had begun to form to describe autonomous technology, because he thought she was getting angry. But once he realized that she wasn’t conscious by Integrated Information Theory, then he just couldn’t bring himself to remain angry at the quantum computer. He realized that he was trying to make a thing angry.

And worst of all, he was letting a thing make him angry.

It was like trying to harbor bloodlust against a rock.

It felt so pointless.

[You know what, damn you! You think I thought it would be like this when I transferred to this body?! No! I didn’t want to be like this—]

“Shut up.”

His chilling voice cut right through her rant.

“I don’t care to listen to the rant of a non-living object.”

His ethereal eyes sharpened.

“Just perish.”

He simply raised his hand, flicking his finger at her.

BOOM

A small impact was enough, for quantum computers were extremely fragile. The titanic structure broke into smithereens as the entire machine broke apart, its shattered components flying in all directions. The sound of crumpling metal and other materials hung in the air as he apathetically watched NOVA cease to exist.

He couldn’t even say that she, it, died.

It just… was dismantled like the non-living object that it was.

By the time it was done, he found himself drowned in absolute darkness, for any and all sources of light were utterly destroyed by his two attacks. A pure silence hung in the air as he found himself simply standing there, closing his eyes as he heaved a deep breath.

It was an empty sensation. There was no real satisfaction and certainly no closure. From the moment he realized that NOVA was non-living, he just felt depressed and empty.

RUMBLE

He undid the Garden of Salvation domain, allowing space and time itself to unfurl into how it used to be, returning to reality. Just as he was about to teleport away, his eyes caught something.

Something that made his eyes widen.

It was a nameplate of sorts. Crumpled and damaged as it was, the words on it were still legible enough for him to read.

[Non-Organic Vectorized Assembler]

“…’NOVA.’” His balled fists fell open loosely as he found himself feeling even more depressed. It was an assembler.

All this time, the enemy of the Panama Continent. The person who murdered his father was just an object. An object had seized all of Acherialis by force and had enslaved every single tekvore alive.

He simply heaved a depressed breath.

At least, he had managed to fulfill his objective of getting rid of an impediment to his plan of creating a civilizational seismic shield. That meant he could get on with his preparations for the confrontation with the Fear and the alien entity.

Before he could teleport away, a hatch opened up as a familiar figure descended from it.

“NOVA! What happened—” Argenton froze as he saw the utterly destroyed quantum computer. Pure horror emerged in his eyes as he beheld the death of his liege and his master.

He turned towards Rui with a severe expression, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists. “You bastard…”

Rui raised an eyebrow. “Did you grow to actually like the thing that enslaved you?”

Argenton didn’t respond, but his body language made it clear that the answer to that question was a resounding yes. Rui simply heaved a deep breath, shaking his head lightly.

If this was the state of the most powerful tekvore in Acherialis, then he had no doubt that the entirety of the race of tekvores was undoubtedly experiencing even more severe Stockholm Syndrome.

The nature of the human mind was such that it had the propensity to adjust to any situation and even come to be comfortable in it. This led to victims of kidnapping, imprisonment, and capture sometimes coming to develop genuine affection for their captors.

It appeared that NOVA had done a good job ruling over Greater Tekvoria, ensuring that it developed. Now its people had regained their free will, and would have to grapple with the tribulations that came with it. “From this day forth, Greater Tekvoria will be under my rule until you guys have gotten back on your feet. Did you get that?” Rui growled at him. “The first thing that we’re going to do is remove the cranial implants with which NOVA controlled all of you. After that, we will create proper institutions so that you guys can go back to being a normal civilization. You will go through this rehabilitation program, whether you like it or not.”

Rui’s eyes flared with a fierce glint.

“Don’t even try fighting back with an army to get revenge or resist this. You guys are not even insects in my eyes. I could easily wipe all of you out in the blink of an eye. And even the threat of mutually assured destruction doesn’t work against me. Just shut up and obey, and you will regain self-determination and autonomy. Is that clear?”

Argenton wanted to fight back, but he knew that he didn’t stand a chance. Rui had fought the Suneater and Sentinel Prime all at once and had managed to emerge victorious for the most part. He simply lowered his head, nodding with a grim expression. Rui heaved a deep breath before simply teleporting back to the Kandrian Empire, to the conference hall where he had been communicating with NOVA.

WHOOSH

He arrived before Secretary Claris, who smiled at him with genuine appreciation, having understood everything that had just unfolded. She realized why Rui had wanted to speak with NOVA in the first place, and that he never intended to cooperate with her from the very get-go.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” She bowed deeply to him. “Thank you for avenging His Majesty.”

Rui huffed lightly. “It was a long time coming.”

He didn’t have the heart to tell her that NOVA was just a non-living object. He simply allowed her to bask in the closure to the death of the Emperor of Harmony that she had managed to get her hands on.

“Have Ru and the Shepherd take control of Greater Tekvoria to help rehabilitate that civilization back to normal. Simultaneously, send a liaison to control the civilization in the short-term. We’ve overcome basically all hurdles to the civilizational shield safety measure. We’ve taken one large step towards dealing with the alien threat underneath Panama.”