The Martial Unity

As nervous as Consul Notera was, Consul Sergenilius was far more nervous. He needed to ensure that didn’t give away the plan with his body language. Even if Notera didn’t pick up on it, her Sages were far too sharp to fail to notice any anomalies in his behaviors.

The plan had already begun.

Thankfully, they hadn’t noticed.

“Let’s begin our negotiations with a firm affirmation…” He began, hiding his internal nervousness as well as he could.

The plan had already begun.

The biggest issue that they had was bypassing the Sages that protected the Dawnbringer. For two whole months, his faction had tried their damnedest to detect the Dawnbringer and dispatch Martial Sages to his position as soon as possible.

And each time they tried, Notera’s Faction successfully intercepted any and all attempts to reach Prince Rui.

They did this simply by keeping active track of the positions of all Sages. The positions of all enemy Sages were roughly known to the Martial Faction at all times. All they needed to do was ensure that a defending Martial Sage was placed between the enemy Martial Sage and the Dawnbringer.

Thus, they could easily intercept any and all attempts to find the Dawnbringer.

Thus, the plan that the Sergenilius’ Faction had come up with was remarkably sophisticated and complex.

Misdirect and draw Notera’s Martial Sages away from the defense of the Dawnbringer with a meeting just like this. And more importantly, feed them powerful misinformation about the location of one of their Sages.

Consul Notera had entered the meeting with four Sages as they had agreed, and she was under the impression that Consul Sergenilius had also done the same, with four Sages clearly standing behind him. She was wrong.

He spoke to her courteously and perfunctorily, simply engaging in endless sophistry. ‘I hope she doesn’t notice…’

Although his eyes were fixed on Notera, his attention returned to one of the four Sages standing behind him.

A burly Martial Sage who donned more than a mere tunic, baring his scarred upper body.

He was a Martial Sage known as the Terrampager.

A Martial Sage with an earth-bending Martial Art that had tremendous speed and power with his earth-bending. He was one of the weakest Martial Sages of the Nest of Terra, which drew less attention to him from their enemy, which was perfect for their plan.

In reality, the Terrampager standing behind them was just a clone made from earth that was indistinguishable from the real-life Terrampager. This was courtesy of the Miragearther, Silencer, and the Terrasoul that stood beside him. The Miragearther was a powerful Martial Sage who could manipulate earth to become anything. His specialty was conjuration and conjuration, which was so powerful that even Martial Sages were unable to tell if they were real or not.

By leveraging space manipulation, he was able to make his creations consistent on a quantum level, allowing even the most powerful of senses to be unable to tell if they were fake or real.

The Terrasoul was a Martial Sage who specialized in subtle and passive hypnosis through earth-bending. He utilized his power to create the illusion of consciousness, a Martial Mind, and a Martial Soul within the constructed clone of the Terrampager.

The Silencer, on the other hand, canceled out any and all energy signatures of their power with his impressive mastery of the Lorentz force in electromagnetics, hiding any hints that the two Martial Sages were using their power.

Together, the three Martial Sages were able to fool four of their own peers that the Terrampager was in the room with them at that moment!

The fact that none of the Notera’s Sages expressed any hints of suspicions on the conjured Terrampager brought thrilling excitement to Consul Sergenilius. It took every ounce of willpower and self-control to prevent his excitement from leaking out into his body. He couldn’t wait to laugh in her face after the Terrampager successfully captured Dawnbringer.

Of course, the very moment that the real Terrampager deployed his power to capture the Dawnbringer, the Martial Faction would detect traces of that, instantly ending the farce, but by then, they would have succeeded.

‘Any minute now…’ Consul Sergenilius continued deliberating with Consul Notera over her disgustingly Martial Supremasistic demands.

Passing Bill G17 had been a truly excruciating decision. It was also after he explained his secret strategy to the legislators of his faction that they finally agreed to get on board. Consul Notera was too cautious to give him a chance if he didn’t do at least this much.

However, once he captured the Dawnbringer, he prevented him from sharing the Scriptures of Terra with his opponent’s factions and had him share it only with his faction; along with his breakthroughs, they would grow even stronger.

Strong enough to dismantle the Martial faction and annihilate its leaders. They would be able to use his gifts to bring over all the Martial Artists from the enemy side to theirs, permanently ending the Martial Supremacy Movement.

And once that was done, they would let him go and continue his voyage across human civilization.

Yes, they would make an enemy of the prince and the Kandrian Empire, but that was something that Consul Sergenilius was resigned to accept.

RUMBLE…

A wave of tremors washed over the meeting.

The Martial Sages behind Notera froze as they recognized the power that they were faintly detecting, immediately turning to the Terrampager with a shocked expression.

BEEP BEEP BEEP!

Consul Notera’s eyes widened with horror as she read through the emergency message that her comms artifact beeped with, turning to Consul Sergenilius with a bewildered gaze.

The air tingled.

It tingled with peril.

“You should have known better, Notera,” Consul Sergenilius’ gruesome grin was diabolical. “This was a trap indeed. But not for you…”

His grin widened.

“But for him.”

“GET TO THE DAWNBRINGER IMMEDIATELY!” Consul Notera bellowed to her Martial Sages. “GO NOW!”

“IT’S TOO LATE!” Consul Sergenilius laughed in her face with euphoric delight. “YOU WILL NEVER MAKE IT IN TIME!”

RUMBLE!!!

The four Martial Sages behind shot away, only to be intercepted by Miragearther, the Silencer, and the Terrasoul, who each held back one Martial Sage. The only Martial Sage who was able to get away was Sage Kyria, who rushed towards the location that the Surveillance Corps gave her with gritted teeth.

WHOOOSH!

“Please,” she clenched her fists as she surged through the Nest of Terra as fast as her limited environment allowed her to. “Please just last long enough…!”

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