The Martial Unity

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”Alert! An. Intruder. Has. Invaded. The. Colton. Star. System. Of. The. Fallen. Rain. Cell!”

”Divine. Mother. O-ooooo. Has. Engaged. In. Hostilities. With. The. Divine Mother!”

”Intruder. Identified. As. The. Emperor. Of. Water!”

The ambush upon the Divine Mother was hardly gone unnoticed, of course. The rest of the Divine Mothers were immediately notified when the conflict began, shocked at the fact that not only did the Emperor of Water have the brazen audacity to invade their territory, but also knew the exact location of a Divine Mother.

Divine Mothers were extremely possessive of their location, of course. They would never reveal it easily, even to most members of their faction. Most Divine Mothers had a few cadre of trusted sisters that they were willing to meet in person, but otherwise, the risks were simply too high.

The fact that the Emperor of Water had managed to find out the location and decisively invaded and attacked was a huge blow to the Arakai Web Civilization. It was outrageous. And yet… when the question of reinforcements came up, their fiery determination seemed to simmer a bit.

”Which one of us is willing to go?” Divine Mother oooo—— asked with a grim tone of voice in an emergency meeting call.

Despite the fact that a member of her own faction had been ambushed and was still fighting the Emperor of Water, she didn’t sound particularly eager to join in the fight. And the same could be said for each of the Divine Mothers in the meeting.

It wasn’t that the Emperor’s power was beyond them, certainly not. If several of them went, they would be able to ambush him. The biggest problem was that they hadn’t prepared for such an ambush. They hadn’t even thought it was possible. Where did the Emperor of Water get his information from?

Divine Mother ooo—o- smiled inwardly while maintaining a grim posture outwardly. She knew that none of her sisters would be particularly willing to jump into battle. Doing so would guarantee that they would lose decades, if not centuries. Even the best-case scenario of them killing the Emperor of Water after acquiring the secrets of Transcendence didn’t change that, unless they were confident that they could take him down and employ the method before they faded.

Doing so would mean taking him down while having plenty of metaphysical stamina left.

It didn’t help that the Divine Mother in question was a weaker Divine Mother who mainly spent time reproducing. She didn’t network, she didn’t connect with the others, she didn’t leverage her power to deepen her ties into the War Faction to immediately make it worth for her supposed allies to sacrifice temporary existential erasure for her sake.

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”You’re. All. Cowards!” Divine Mother o—o bellowed in the meeting, drawing the attention of her sisters.

She appeared to be one of the few Divine Mothers willing to fight for a sister purely on principle. She was also notorious for being a Divine Mother who spent most of the time not existing due to the consequences of the Administrator power.

Not all Administrators were bothered by the consequences of their power. After all, from their perspective, no time would have passed from the moment they disappeared to the moment they returned. They would have missed a lot of time, and the history they missed would be beyond their grasp.

But at the same time, if an Administrator was not bound by the shackles of civilization, then did it truly matter that they would miss a few decades or centuries? If they had nobody to protect, no land to guard, no wealth to secure, and no agenda to fulfill, then the consequences of the Transcendent Realm weren’t that big of a deal.

Divine Mother o—o was one such person. She sharpened her six arachnid eyes, sweeping across the presences she sensed in the Divine Mother Council virtual meeting. The hesitation and reluctance that she sensed from her sisters was truly disappointing.

So what if they disappeared? She couldn’t help but wonder. Did it truly matter? The way that these Divine Mothers were acting was profoundly base, mortal, and lesser. Shackled by all kinds of material and political interests.

This was not what a transcendent Administrator was supposed to be like.

According to her, an Administrator should have severed all shackles that bound them to a baser world.

They were gods.

Gods were not supposed to be scheming politicians.

Gods were supposed to be above such mortal affairs.

That was her interpretation of the price of the Verse. It was as if the universe was telling them, ’only someone who has severed all ties with a baser world is fit to be a god.’

Of course, more Divine Mothers disagreed with this interpretation and view than those who concurred. A Divine Mother had reproductive duties to their people. Without them, weaker female arakai would have to give birth to weaker arakai. The number of male arakai that would perish would also rise dramatically. Thus their shackles could be regarded as noble.

However, more plainly, many Divine Mothers had accrued a tremendous amount of power over the centuries. Their cells were nothing short of semi-independent duchies with great territory, resources, and wealth. They had armies at their disposal. They had the power to influence the trajectory of the Orion Star Strand.

Who would be willing to let go of all of these so easily? If they disappeared for decades, there was no way their material accumulations would stand the test of time. And even if they did, they would undoubtedly be usurped by another Divine Mother.

Divine Mother oooo—— stared at the younger Divine Mother with a strange mixture of condescension and admiration. On the one hand, these Divine Mothers who regarded themselves as literal gods who were above mortal affairs were useful tools. On the other hand, she envied the freedom that came with simply severing ties with mortal affairs.

Alas, as the leader of the War Faction, her aspirations for the arakai as a civilization were greater than her aspirations to be a god.

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”Are. You. Willing. To. Fight. Him?”

She nodded with a fierce expression. ”Right. Away.”

She wasn’t the only one who expressed a willingness.

”I. Am. Willing. To. Fight. As. Well,” another Divine Mother declared. ”It. Would. Be. The. Greatest. Shame. If. We. Do. Nothing. While. An. Outsider. Invades. Us. With. An. Ambush.”