The Martial Unity

Rui’s ethereal eyes lit up as the animation played on, over and over again. ”…So Bodhisattva Maitreyi converts a large swathe of the incoming ships, which will undoubtedly be in the thousands, into pure light, and elves redirect the light towards the remaining ships?”

”Yes, Your Majesty, that’s the plan. If successful, it would inflict tremendous damage on the incoming warships before the battle even begins.”

It was a resourceful strategy. Rui could understand why this would work. Pathwalkers were harder to trace than warships. Thus, even if they secretly transferred the Boundless Light and a ton of elves to the Arimar III System, the arakai would never know because of how light the logistical footprint would be.

”My grandmother-in-law is strong, but not that strong either,” Rui remarked. ”The arakai are not fools. Antimatter is a thing. They have defenses against it and presumably against other means of converting matter into energy. They have quantum field stabilizers that would make it impossible for her to use Omnilumina to sever the Higgs field from the particles of the ships.”

”We are aware, Your Majesty,” the deputy commander nodded. ”That’s why this machine is in use.”

Rui hadn’t forgotten the animation featured a distant machine that resembled a telescope. It was labeled ’Photonic Phase Induction Catalyzer.’ That name alone gave away its role, but Rui frowned nonetheless.

”I don’t recall hearing about this.”

”It’s dwarven technology, Your Majesty,” the deputy commander remarked. ”Under the technological and military disclosure that comes with invoking Article Two of the Gaian Charter, this technology was listed in the database of technological assets that the dwarves disclosed.”

”It’s dwarven technology, Your Majesty,” the deputy commander remarked. ”Under the technological and military disclosure that comes with invoking Article Two of the Gaian Charter, this technology was listed in the database of technological assets that the dwarves disclosed.”

Article Two of the Gaian Charter didn’t just give the Gaian Alliance the right to conscript, but it also gave them the right to demand military, defense, and technological disclosures. Forces were required to share information with the Chancellor or the Central Human Command on all the secret technologies that they might have possessed.

Out of all the forces in human civilization, the dwarves had the largest list of technologies. Rui hadn’t bothered reading through all of them himself; he trusted the strategic committee of the Central Human Command to go through all of them and evaluate their strategic potential properly.

”Based on the name, I’m guessing… it has something to do with making it easier for matter to turn into light?” Rui’s expression grew curious. ”And I’m guessing the plan is to have this machine used in conjunction with Bodhisattva Maitreyi’s Omnilumina technique to bypass the quantum stabilization technology of the arakai?”

”Precisely, Your Majesty,” the deputy commander replied. ”We assigned a committee to verify whether this would be enough to turn ships into explosions of light, and the scientific reports compiled indicated very promising odds. We also ran the scenario by Martial Sages of the Silas Clan, and their prophecies indicated that this strategy is likely to succeed if we execute it properly.”

20:33

Rui’s appreciation for the strategy grew by leaps and bounds. This strategy, if successful, could allow them to inflict a massive blow against the arakai even before the battle began. They could cripple their forces, making the war more costly for the arakai. The costlier the war, the likelier the arakai would eventually give in.

After all, that was the victory condition for human civilization. To get the arakai to back off. There was no universe where a civilization that was only ten thousand stars large was going to defeat a civilization that was ten million stars large. It simply wasn’t going to happen.

The strategy made him appreciate the merits of the Central Human Command. Rui hadn’t been involved with the minutiae of the command, and he couldn’t afford to, for he had far too many important things going on, things only he could do. It was why, even before the Era of Expansion, he insisted on developing powerful institutions that would function robustly. So that when the time came, they could do what was expected of them without Rui intervening.

”This strategy has a risk factor of mistiming the attack, however,” a military strategist from the Kandrian Empire warned. ”If the esteemed Bodhisattva is off by even a millisecond, then she will be bombarded with attacks. If she strikes too early, then the electromagnetic forcefield at the wormhole will prevent them from the light from inflicting too much damage. She will have to nail the timing perfectly.”

Clearly, the strategists, the generals, and intelligence officers in the central command were concerned about the risk of human error, but Rui wasn’t even remotely unbothered.

”Do you know how difficult it is to remain alive when you’re a beam of light?” He asked, leaning forward on the metal table.

It was a question that nonplussed the members of the command.

”Even the slightest imprecision and inaccuracy in your manipulation of the relationship with the Higgs field, or even the slightest mistake in the manipulation of light, would lead to instant death,” Rui remarked. ”You would cease to exist. Bodhisattva Maitreyi has done that countless times, and not once has she ever failed, or else she would be dead.”

He directed a sweeping gaze of certainty across the council.

”The esteemed Transcendent Candidate is very precise and accurate.”

His words seemed to convince most of them.

”Everybody makes mistakes,” the nonchalant voice of Edward drew attention from everybody around him.

The man had been invited to the command as a consultant, but he seemed to have thoroughly embraced his retirement, entirely comfortable with listening. He wore casual clothes that stuck out of place like a sore thumb, except he didn’t seem to care about how others regarded him.

Rui smiled at the old man. ”Yes, they do.”

”You should have numerous contingencies for if she does,” he remarked, leaning forward with an intrigued expression, studying the animation. ”Because if she does, then it means you have essentially left an entire star system undefended against a massively powerful enemy fleet of warships.”

Those words gave everybody pause. For they were true. The stakes were so high that even if the probability of the Bodhisattva failing were low, it was still something that ought to have been taken extremely seriously.