The Martial Unity

At the destination of the conference, there were three fleets of ships. The first was, of course, the arakai fleet, the dessandrite fleet, as well as another fleet that looked like it was made out of ice.

This was the aquadite fleet.

They had been brought up to speed and had been invited to the conference by Divine Mother ooo—o-, saving Rui the effort of having to address them separately. He could just sell them the deal that he was offering altogether.

The purpose of this particular meeting had been to iron out the details of the agreement and to confirm each other’s message, and to ensure that there were no misunderstandings and mistranslations.

When Rui’s fleet arrived, however, he could immediately feel the presence of at least five Administrators. His ethereal eyes sharpened, wondering if he had walked into a trap. Of the five of them, he only recognized one, which was Divine Mother ooo—o-, who had chosen to show herself in person this time, a surprising move considering she had never deigned to do that with him.

The other two were separated across the other two convoys, so Rui could infer that they were two Administrators from the dessandrites and the aquadites, each. That was unlikely to be an ambush. He highly doubted that the Administrators of different species had experience working together or could coordinate with each other well. More often than not, their Verses would simply fight with each other.

Speaking of which, he could even sense details of their Verses. This made him want to fight them. However, he put aside these impulses. The goal was to forge an agreement between civilizations. He couldn’t paint himself as a volatile variable, or he would lose their trust, and they might even decide to void the deal entirely.

He felt his inertia change as the Golden Chariot ship stopped some distance away from the other fleets.

”Your Majesty, we have received an unencrypted stream of data that appears to be in video format, requesting an input feed from us,” the voice of the captain rang in the conference room he had been seated in.

”Huh,” Rui frowned. ”I thought face-to-face meant literally face to face, but I suppose there’s no need to go that far. Just being able to share signals directly would be enough. That’s essentially face to face, for all practical purposes.”

”More importantly,” Ru remarked with a serious expression. ”If the stream is unencrypted, then there is the risk that it could be intercepted.”

Rui shook his head. ”We’re isolated in this remote star system. As long as we prevent the signals from leaking, we’ll be fine.”

He turned towards the captain. ”Accept the video stream and share a stream of myself from the projector capture system. Figure out all the latency issues, though there shouldn’t be any problems.”

”Understood, Your Majesty.”

Soon enough, the projector before them changed, projecting three-dimensional holograms of the various parties partaking in the meeting. Opposite him was the dessandrite representative who had chosen to negotiate with him the last time they spoke, Lord Sheshank of the Firebreather Tribe. This time, he was only with his advisors while the other Alphas of the dessandrite tribes weren’t present.

The other group of individuals was led by a strangely humanoid, but distinctly alien species. Their bodies were a bluish green. They were taller, and their bodies were longer than those of humans. They had gills on their necks, while their limbs were entirely webbed, resembling fins more than the hand-like appendages that many advanced species seemed to have.

Their bodies were covered with flap-like, fin-like flat protrusions that seemed to slowly oscillate to and away from their skin, while their bodies were covered with what seemed like a refined but rough fabric fashioned from underwater flora. It reminded him of the elven tribes that lived underwater for underwater flora. It was like somebody had taken them and fused them with the seafolks that also lived in the oceans.

These were undoubtedly the aquadites, the people who had taken the blame for Rui killing a Divine Mother and had borne the brunt of an arakai invasion. He had no doubt that they were extremely displeased by those events. He wouldn’t have been surprised if they harbored a grudge against him.

”Divine Mother ooo—o-, Lord Sheshank, and S’rrigin Seraptara,” Rui began with a respectful tone, directly transmitting the signals from his stream to each of their ships. ”It’s a pleasure to hold this small conference with all of you.”

He turned towards the S’rrigin, the elected leader of the aquadites. ”S’rrigin, I believe that this is our first meeting. And while it may be our first, I am aware that this isn’t our first entanglement, albeit indirect. I find it truly regrettable that the arakai have punished the aquadites for an action of mine. I swear an oath that this was not an intentional outcome on my part. At the time, I did not know that the aquadites even existed. It is truly simply an unfortunate coincidence that our fields match closely enough for us to deal with each other as well as we have.”

He hoped that the aquadites didn’t blame him for this. It would not be good for the cooperation that he sought from them. Although he could still make this deal with the dessandrites, it would be more than doubly effective if both of them agreed to it. It was very taxing for the dessandrites alone to exert a lot of pressure on the arakai. But if both of them were brought on board, then the cost would be less than half.

The S’rrigin made an expression that Rui didn’t understand. Although they all had faces and some kind of eye-like organ, their expressions and the corresponding emotions were both very different.

He made several infrasonic sounds that were transmitted to Rui. The translation key that had been arranged by the Divine Mother and vetted by all parties automatically translated the message.

”Rest assured, Emperor of Water, we do not blame you for the tragic, yet unjust war that has been thrust upon us,” the S’rrigin replied with a steady voice.