The Martial Unity

Chapter 4571: Offended Sovereign

”I am happy that he agreed to this little duel,” an advisor of the S’rrigin remarked once the meeting ended. ”We’ll be able to see just how he evades the price of the Verse.”

Aboard the fleet of ships carrying the S’rrigin, several advisors around him happily mused at the fact that they had managed to get what they wanted. They floated in the oceanic environment aboard the ship, hovering several centimeters above the solid-water floor of the ship.

”Is it not odd that he fell for that, though?” One advisor couldn’t help but frown. ”He seemed intelligent and capable, so he should have understood what our goal was. And yet, he agreed nonetheless. That seems very odd, don’t you think?”

”It doesn’t matter why he agreed,” the first advisor said, shaking his head. ”Once we see how he evades the price of the Verse, we can reverse engineer it. It’s just a shame that the dessandrites are here. Otherwise, we would have been able to kill this alien Administrator, and we would be the sole owners of the technique.”

”We can’t do that if one of our Administrators is exhausted and disappeared from the battle.” .

”We can do that because he too would be exhausted from the battle.”

The S’rrigin turned towards his caucus of advisors with a disapproving expression. ”Right now, my goal isn’t to be the sole owner of this technique. The highest priority right now is ending the war with the arakai on a victorious note. Everything else is secondary. Don’t forget that this war is hurting the party’s popularity in the polls. If we can finish it quickly and dominantly, then we may turn this curse into a blessing. Compared to that, trying to be the sole monopolizer of this technique is not worth the risk. This alien Administrator is willing to take the risk of wading into arakai territory even at the cost of the risks of ambush. He is more useful to us alive than dead.”

His words set his advisors straight, who immediately admired his wisdom and insight. The S’rrigin, however, cursed at his power-hungry men. Their positions of power within the party were more eternal, while his power was transient. Which was why they cared more for things like the power they gained by being the sole keepers of the method of overcoming the price of the Verse.

He, however, was an elected leader with term limits. He was more concerned about the immediate future.

Besides, unlike what they thought, it wasn’t just that he wanted to see how the Verse was evaded. He also wanted to see how similar the power of this alien Administrator was to their own Sea Sovereigns. There was a chance that they would be able to learn something from him that could qualitatively improve the power of their Administrators.

”Your Excellency Septara.”

A powerful voice called out to him, rippling through the flow of time into past, present, and future. It was the voice that marked the Administrators. Though most Administrators made an effort to try and communicate normally, there were those who didn’t bother to make that gesture.

Sovereign Ar’amados was one of them.

The male aquadite was nine meters in height, which was typical for the aquadites. His scaled skin was a darker shade of the typical bluish-green of his species, belonging to a different sub-race from the majority. His body was covered in an armor fashioned from a hyperdimensional isotope of water, which was a level of material science that vastly exceeded anything humanity could conceive of at the moment.

Surprisingly, the Administrator wasn’t barehanded.

In his arm was a trident that was black, blue, and gold. It thrummed with an unfathomable power, seemingly resonating with the water around it. It made the Administrator warrior seem much more threatening.

Then there was the nascent presence of his Verse, yet to be activated. It made the world around them shift in its color as the phenomenological uniformity of the aquadite bore down upon the information dimension governing all of reality.

His large fish-like pupils were unnerving, even for the aquadites.

But the S’rrigin simply nodded with a satisfied expression. ”Good. Go and show this alien Administrator the power of Aquadite Ocean Civilization. Exhaust him and force him to disappear. Show him that we are the true masters of the waters.”

This was another motivation that the S’rrigin had.

It was pure nationalism.

The aquadites were the masters of water. Not this alien Administrator or his species. The S’rrigin had mistakenly assumed that because the Administrator was a master of water, their entire species were also aquatic or amphibious beings. He couldn’t be blamed for the misunderstanding, since neither Rui nor Divine Mother ooo—o- volunteered information about human civilization.

”I shall heed your command, Your Excellency Septara,” Sovereign Ar’amado nodded. ”Please take care of my family when I’m gone.”

”We certainly will, Sovereign of the Seas. Now go. Go and make our civilization proud.”

The Administrator departed from the spaceship, floating into outer space. He was determined to defeat this Administrator who dared to claim to be the ’Emperor of Water.’ As far as Ar’amado was concerned, only he or one of his peers had the capital to undertake such a title.

How dare a lesser Administrator of a primitive species dare to take the title in the same star stand as the aquadites?

’He must be quite arrogant, thinking that just because he’s the strongest of his species, he can fight the Sea Sovereigns of our civilization,’ the aquadite Transcendent grumbled inwardly, all but eager to crush this native Administrator.

This wasn’t the first time he had dueled an Administrator of a more primitive civilization. And each time, he would achieve an overwhelming victory. This was simply because his civilization bred superior warriors with superior combat and training resources, with a richer Administrator tradition that allowed for quicker development.

The fact that this so-called ’Emperor of Water’ dared to accept this match in the first place showed just how arrogant he was.