The Martial Unity

She stared at him as she understood the true merits of what he was offering. She would not tolerate the killing of any Divine Mother, even if it was her opponent, because she did care about the well-being of her civilization.

Instead, he was offering a way to get them out temporarily.

She had many questions, but one among them stuck out most prominently for how important it was.

”You say that as if you don’t have to pay the price of the power Administration,” she pointed out with piercing eyes.

Rui remained silent as she connected the dots.

”It was you,” she realized. ”You were the one who killed all three Divine Mothers yourself. There are no other emperors of water. There was only one, and it was you from the start.”

That explained the discrepancies that they found in the data that they collected versus the hypothesis that Divine Mothers —oo-oo— and -o- had offered. They had proposed that because the cost of the Transcendent Realm would mean that the one who attacked o-o-o-o was gone, there had to be numerous emperors of water.

But the research they had recently done from scratch showed that there was only one individual who had ever assumed the title of Emperor of Water and only one individual who had ever been associated with water. She had thought the others were simply well hidden, but now that she was before him, listening to his idea, she finally realized the truth.

”You can use the power of the Web of Information without any limitations,” she realized with a stunned expression. ”But… that’s impossible!”

Rui didn’t respond, neither confirming nor denying. He knew that it would eventually come out, it was simply too difficult to prevent people from learning that he was the only Emperor of Water.

”How… how do you do it?” Divine Mother ooo—o- grew shocked. ”How do you avoid paying the price?”

”I’m afraid I can’t disclose that,” Rui remarked. ”More importantly, I want to know what your answer to my offer is.”

He leaned forward. ”You give me the locations of Divine Mothers of the War Faction and the Virus Faction, and I temporarily eliminate them from the list one by one.”

”And why should I trust you?” She stared at him with six eyes. ”What if you do kill them? If you think I believe that you wouldn’t when you have already killed three of us, then I’m afraid you think too little of my intelligence.”

”If I kill one, then you would find out,” Rui replied. ”After all, information scrambles after death, but it remains intact if a Transcendent pays the price of the Transcendent Realm. If you can’t find the information at all, then you’ll know I killed them and you can stop the arrangement.”

”You will have still managed to kill one Divine Mother if I try that,” she huffed.

”Oh come on, one Divine Mother is worth it to gamble,” Rui scoffed. ”Just give me the name of the Divine Mother you hate the most. If I am lying, then you will have gained something.”

”I don’t believe you’re capable of killing the one I hate the most.” She shook her head. ”But still, a Divine Mother is a Divine Mother, and even a single excessive death is too much.”

”Listen to me, my goal here is to protect my civilization,” Rui leaned forward, directing a determined expression to the Divine Mother. ”I don’t gain anything from killing one Divine Mother; there are probably dozens of you. It doesn’t change the destiny of my civilization. In order to protect my civilization, I need to get you Divine Mothers to stop the war. And for that, I can’t kill one. I would have to remove a dozen Divine Mothers of the War Faction in order to make a dent in whatever political process you have so that the war can end.”

He purposefully acted like he didn’t know how many Divine Mothers there were or how their politics worked in order to make her think like he didn’t know much about the arakai. The last thing he wanted was for her to learn that the sister she thought was dead was actually alive.

It didn’t stop for her from directing suspicious and wary looks at him, nonetheless.

”…Even if I were to gamble that you won’t kill a Divine Mother, what makes you think that I would be able to locate the other Divine Mothers?” She asked with a serious tone of voice. ”Each of us knows that our location being divulged could allow our enemies to force us to disappear by ambushing us with enough power to activate our Webverses.”

”…I know you can find what I’m asking of you because the intelligence that I have managed to gather suggests that your Webverse’s specialty is tapping into the web of information,” Rui replied. ”In other words, your specialty is knowing things. Even your title of ’Web Binder’ is a misdirect, is it not?”

Her six eyes immediately sharpened with even more seriousness. ”And just where did you get this information?”

Rui knew he was pushing the limits with what he could explain away through normal sources of information, but he needed her to admit that he was an intelligence broker.

”If you’re a good intelligence broker, then you know that I can’t answer that question. I would never reveal my source, even if you were to accept my offer and become an ally,” Rui replied calmly. ”So, what’s it going to be? Are you willing to supply me with information about the Divine Mothers of the War Faction so I can temporarily eliminate them from reality? You know just how much you would gain from this.”

She did. Temporarily removing the Divine Mothers meant that the damage wasn’t permanent. It would give her centuries to change the nature of Arakai Web Civilization. She could weaken the War Faction permanently, and even realize her ambitions of a pan-racial pluralist society in Arakai Web Civilization.

But alas, there was just one snag.

”…If I agree to this, my sisters will realize what I have done eventually, and I will pay the price with not only my life, but the lives of a lot of other innocent arakai,” she spoke with a serious tone of voice. ”Treason is not tolerated. And I do not wish to see a civil war. Thus, I can’t sell information as crucial as the location of my sisters to outsiders.”

Rui itched to tell her that he knew she was colluding with the dessandrites based on the suspicions of the o-o-o-o, but there was no way he could possibly explain how he got his hands on that information. There was also the fact that what he was asking for was far more serious than whatever minor tips she was giving off to the dessandrites every now and then.

”…So you’re refusing?” His expression grew disappointed.

”No, there is a way to overcome this shortcoming,” she spoke with a serious tone. ”You see, it’s only treason if you’re an outsider.

His ethereal eyes widened at those words. ”You mean—”

”That’s right, if you and your civilization were to join Arakai Web Civilization in some capacity such that you’re no longer outsiders, then I can sell you all the secrets you want.”