Sovereign of the Ashes

The war between two top-tier civilizations continuously drew out the latent potential of the Magus Civilization. More and more members of the younger generation rose to prominence, and the cohesion of the Magus Alliance grew stronger than ever.

It was a process of separating the wheat from the chaff.

The same was true for the Gallant Federation. Under the immense pressure of the Clash of Civilizations, it was forced to dig deeper into its civilizational foundations.

The Gallant Federation no doubt felt more pressure than the Magus Civilization.

While Magus World spread that pressure across the Magus Alliance and its ranked knights and full-fledged mages, the Gallant Federation drove it all the way down to the base of society, making every citizen bear the cost.

The human population of the Gallant Federation numbered in the hundreds of billions.

Thanks to its extraordinary terraforming technologies and highly advanced interstellar migration systems, the Gallant Federation’s total population was likely several times larger, despite occupying a star domain smaller than that of the Magus Civilization.

That figure also included the countless beings living across the federation’s controlled planes.

Population itself was a resource, and the Gallant Federation’s bold decision to wage war against the Magus Civilization was undoubtedly built upon it.

Moreover, the sheer scale of that population, combined with the constant emergence of so-called “geniuses”, had driven breakthroughs in several technological fields that had long stagnated before the war.

If left unchecked, perhaps this wave of technological advancement and latent potential could really bring about great changes.

At this very moment, deep within a private experimental facility of the Icarus Group in one of the federation’s rear star domains, Syphen was examining the remains of an overlord-class entity recovered from the frontlines.

Throughout his lifetime, Michaelis—the creator of the Magic Cube and the Nexon intelligent robots—had acknowledged only three peers among the top federal scientists: Samaret, Illo, and Syphen.

The four of them were renowned scholars who had once participated in Pavlov’s research on the God’s Realm.

Samaret specialized in fleet technology and had personally designed and refined multiple overlord-class warship fleets for the Gallant Federation.

Illo, on the other hand, focused on the development of giant mobile suits. His groundbreaking Brain Interconnection Theory opened the door for the Gallant Federation to assimilate overlord-class mobile suit technology from the Rosen Dynasty civilization.

Syphen’s primary research focus at present lay in biotechnology, or more precisely, advanced robotics manufacturing.

His approach to robotics research was different from that of Michaelis Bell.

Where Michaelis Bell sought to create entirely new life forms, Syphen was wholly devoted to developing combat weapons.

The Gallant Federation’s archived data on angels of the Radiant Celestials had deeply fascinated Syphen.

This was exactly why many of the combat robots jointly produced by the Icarus Group and the military in recent years took on the form of “angels”.

Moreover, the Icarus Group itself had experienced unprecedented growth and advancement during the war.

The Clash of Civilizations had undeniably brought enormous profits to the Gallant Federation’s military-industrial companies and arms industry.

As a result, technological advancement had largely revolved around military applications.

With both the manpower and resources of an entire civilization tilted in their favor, rapid advancement was inevitable for these military-industrial companies and their manufacturing technologies.

In the past, the highest-tier robots produced by the Icarus Group could only match Rank Six combat capabilities.

This had represented the upper limit of robotics technology previously achieved by the Gallant Federation. Likewise, Nexon’s Titanfang and Skyhold had also peaked at just Rank Six.

In recent years, repeated technological breakthroughs had pushed the combat robots designed by Syphen to the peak of Rank Six.

Although various flaws and stability issues still appeared during testing, they did not diminish the accomplishment!

The highest-tier robots the Gallant Federation planned to deploy in the future were now highly likely to reach the peak of Rank Six.

With this breakthrough achieved, Syphen had gradually turned his attention toward the higher realm of the overlords.

Among the four federal scientists previously mentioned, Samaret held the highest standing, followed by Illo, while Syphen and the late Michaelis Bell ranked lowest.

This was because Samaret and Illo had already begun exploring the overlord realm and achieved notable success, while Syphen’s and Michaelis Bell’s research had remained confined to Rank Six.

As the youngest of the four, Syphen shared Michaelis Bell’s conviction that he was just as capable as his peers. Both had harbored ambitions of one day leading the federation’s scientific community.

The overlord-level remains delivered this time came from the Saitos Star Domain.

It belonged to an overlord-class android from the Norman Federation, a major technological civilization under the Magus Civilization’s control.

Syphen had also been closely monitoring the massive energy fluctuations in the Saitos Star Domain. He had even participated, to a limited extent, in the Gallant Federation’s Infinity Light project.

However, he was not the lead researcher. That would be Samaret.

Syphen’s efforts were focused primarily on humanoid combat weapons, the Angel Blueprint Cloning technology, and the Nanobioregeneration technology.

Among the Gallant Federation’s mid- and lower-ranking military personnel, as well as the general populace, the results of the Infinity Light were met with overwhelming enthusiasm.

It was exhilarating wartime news.

Yet for the military high command and top federal scientists like Syphen, who understood some of the technology’s inner workings, the outcome was far from satisfactory.

The Infinity Light still required extensive upgrades and refinement.

Syphen did not know how many Infinity Crystals the military currently held in reserve.

What he did know was that Infinity Light’s destructive power, capable of wiping out an entire medium-sized star domain and a Rank Seven overlord in an instant, came at an enormous cost. The vessel used to deploy Infinity Light was left in a near-unusable condition.

Its activation had even triggered the collapse and destruction of nearby starfields.

Fortunately, the vessel used to release the Infinity Light had been secured within a subspace.

Not only would the Magus Civilization never be able to locate it, but even within the Gallant Federation itself, only a select few knew its exact whereabouts.

The severe aftereffects meant that the Infinity Light was never a weapon that could be deployed freely.

As the Gallant Federation’s so-called civilizational treasure, its greatest limitations lay in the long intervals required between activations and the staggering energy cost of each use.

It remained unclear whether technological breakthroughs and the rapid growth of the military-industrial sector could make the Infinity Light better and more controllable.