The Martial Unity

The discovery of the memories of the Emperor of Water was utterly mind-boggling to the Divine Mother. She immediately called -o- over to show her what she had found in the memories of Captain Flia, who also realized that she had been wrong all along. The aquadites had absolutely nothing to do with the death of Divine Mother, the crashing weight of guilt and anger crushed down on her.

As a Divine Mother, very few things made her feel that way, but starting a war against the wrong culprit was one of them. Especially since that war was taxing and couldn’t be taken back. The aquadites had already begun retaliating now and had forged an alliance with the dessandrites.

Even if they went and tried to resolve the issue peacefully, the S’rrigin, the elected leader of Aquadite Ocean Civilization, was not going to back down. They had caused too much pain, and the people of his civilization wanted blood. He simply couldn’t back down now, for it was politically non-viable. He had chosen to ride the wave, for that was the only option at his disposal.

”This. Is. Why. I. Told. You. To. Be. Careful. And. Cautious,” -oo—oo- growled at her little sister with an unusually angry expression. ”If. You. Hadn’t. Rushed. To. The. Conclusion. You. Wanted. Then. We. Would. Have. Been. Able. To. Focus. Our. Efforts. On. The. True. Culprit.”

Unfortunately, because they were fighting two wars already, their hands were much more tied than when they were facing merely one opponent. The only solace they had was that the civilization in question didn’t appear to be that large based on the information that they had acquired from the mind of Captain Flia.

Although she didn’t possess any truly classified information on human civilization, she knew enough that they were able to learn a lot about Gaian Civilization.

”They. Have. Only. Conquered. Ten. Thousand. Stars. An. Easy. Opponent, but…” -oo—oo-’s six eyes sharpened. ”…They. Have. Acquired. This. Territory. In. Just. Thirteen. Years!”

-o-’s eyes widened at those words. ”What?! Are you telling me they grew ten thousand times larger in just thirteen years? That’s utterly impossible!”

Conquering ten thousand stars in thirteen years was something that only a civilization as large as the arakai would have been able to do. For it was only a minute percentage of arakai civilization.

But for a Type-Two Civilization, the first ten thousand stars were not something that could occur quickly, normally taking up to a millennium before one could finally claim to have conquered that many stars.

Yet, based on the information that they had managed to extract from the captain’s brain, the Era of Expansion had only begun thirteen years ago.

”This. Does. Not. Make. Sense,” Divine Mother -oo—oo- muttered. ”How could they have expanded so quickly? How are they growing so prodigiously? Not to mention, how does a civilization so small have multiple Administrators?”

The arakai had a little over a hundred Divine Mothers despite having conquered many millions of stars. The sheer amount of population needed to yield even a single Divine Mother, not even including the dead, was more than that of a quintillion. It was an unfathomably low success rate, which is why each Divine Mother was another short of a cosmological miracle.

It was why the death of one had provoked such a reaction from the arakai.

Yet, despite only having conquered ten thousand stars, Gaian Civilization had managed to produce at least two Administrators.

”One. Who. Killed. O-o-o-o. And. Another. Who. Covered. Up. The. Tracks. Of. The. First. One,” she concluded. ”That. Makes. At. Least. Two. But. I. Suspect. That. There. Are. More. ’Emperors of Water.’ Out. There.”

She unknowingly made a grave error in her calculations, confusing the title of one individual as a common noun for a collective. She had concluded that ’Emperor of Water’ was the same as ’Divine Mother’ or ’Skyfather’. That there were multiple Emperors of Waters who each had the same general abilities.

Her conclusion, while deeply flawed, was understandable given the premises that she was working with.

Administrators paid the price for the power of Transcendents. They would cease to exist for extended periods of time for intervening in reality through the information dimension. This was an absolute rule, as far as the two arakai were concerned. Not even the Universalis Mensis could dodge this rule, so lesser gods like themselves were shackled by it.

As far as they were concerned, the Emperor of Water should have disappeared the moment the battle ended. Thus, whoever cleaned up after them and erased all signs of Transcendence, something that required Transcendence to do, had to be a second separate Emperor of Water.

The two Divine Mothers could further deduce that it was very unlikely that a civilization would sacrifice all of its Administrators in one fell swoop, thus, they likely had even more Emperors of Water.

”This. Civilization. Is. Powerful,” -oo—oo- realized. ”Unusually. Powerful. It. Is. Very. Powerful. For. A. Civilization. That. Has. Only. Conquered. Ten. Thousand. Stars.”

The fact that it possessed multiple Administrators was proof that they needed to take it seriously. Administrators were virtually invincible in battle. No warship or technology could truly defeat them without extreme and perilous sacrifice. On a purely tactical level, they were unstoppable berserkers who could lay waste to an entire star system’s worth of battlefield, crushing all enemies asunder.

However, the reason that non-Administrator civilizations like the Laminars could still dominate smaller civilizations that did have Administrators was due to the price of Transcendence.

The moment an Administrator activated Transcendence, their disappearance was guaranteed. Sure, they could utterly dominate a battlefield, but once time was up, it was up. They would cease to exist. The losses would be significant, but for a civilization that had conquered hundreds of millions of stars, the losses were able to be recouped.

That was why having an Administrator was generally not the end-all-be-all. It was why civilizations like the Laminar Integuments were highly respected and feared despite lacking even a single Administrator.