The Martial Unity

”Your. Excellency, Lord Sheshank. We have received some shocking intelligence on an incident that occurred within arakai territory.”

In an ephemeral building made up of solid clouds, a dessandrite intelligence offer reported to the Alpha of the Firebreather Clan. Lord Sheshank had been highly invested in the unfoldings of the war with the arakai, his cloudy table scattered with documents made from a paper like material.

The dessandrites, while being an advanced civilization, only relied on technology to the extent of maintaining an advanced civilization that spanned stars. They had all manner of decently advanced technology when it came to space travel, space war, and interstellar expansion. But in other regards, they regarded technology as an unnecessary complication.

There was no need to replace sheets of paper with touch screens or interactive holographic technology.

Lord Sheshank, the Alpha, was a distinctly masculine humanoid creature with fiery red feathers on two folded wings. He hovered slightly above the cloudy floor of the floating cloud infrastructure, while his face had three eye-like visual sensory organs.

He was one of ten leaders who oversaw the entire Dessandrite Sky Civilization.

He shifted his gaze towards the report that his intelligence officer had brought with a raised eyebrow, before accepting and reading the documents. His expression grew more and more bewildered at what he read about what had happened.

”What…?” his tone was stunned. ”Someone invaded arakai territory and ambushed a Divine Mother? Then proceeded to fight three more?”

The dessandrites played close attention to the movement of arakai troops. After all, they were in a war with the latter, and intelligence on attacks and plans that the arakai created against them were priceless.

They had noticed several days ago that the arakai had mobilized a small but not insignificant set of troops. They had even used the Gate of Conquest to invade. However, they had no idea where that web of war had gone.

After all, they were keeping a close eye on their own territories and battle fronts, as well as those of the aquadites, but they couldn’t find the invading troops. They suspected that the arakai had been trying to invade a third enemy.

And now, an unknown enemy of an unknown species invaded their territory and fought Divine Mothers, which undoubtedly meant that he was an Administrator. Could he have been from the same species that the arakai were invading? They didn’t know.

It was harder to infiltrate the ranks of another species because of how different the species were. So they had to rely on stealth-based surveillance and long-range surveillance, though they were also working with the Pluralist Faction to get intel to minimize their losses.

”According to our teams,” the intelligence assistant remarked. ”This Administrator is the same one that is responsible for the death of Divine Mother o-o-o-o.”

Those words made Sheshank’s three eye-like organs widen. ”What?! That’s impossible!”

After all, wouldn’t that Administrator have disappeared after paying the price? How could he possibly have returned to reality in just a matter of months instead of staying gone for centuries?

He shook his head. ”That’s not possible. It must be someone else. It must be some other Administrator of the same class. Nonetheless, find out where this civilization is located. I’m also curious to know more about them. And more importantly…”

His three eyes sharpened.

”Contact them. Since they are waging war with the arakai, we have some opportunity to potentially work together.”

”Yes, Your Excellency.”

Far away, the aquadites received the same intelligence report, having also kept a pretty close eye on the arakai for quite some time.

BLUB BLUB BLUB…

An older male arakai sat atop a throne sculpted from solid water. His green body was covered in fibers woven from esoteric seaweed, imbued with special properties, both aesthetic and functional. Behind him were two aquatic guards, covered in head to toe with fluidic armor fashioned from esoteric-fluid blends.

He was the S’rrigin, the leader of the Aquadites.

He gazed down at the director of the intelligence agency with a stunned expression. ”You mean to say a random Administrator that we have no information about simply waltzed into arakai territory, fought Divine Mothers, had them disappear, and then left?!”

”Yes, Your Majesty. Not only that, but…” the director grew more excited. ”This administrator appears to wield the power of water!”

This made the S’rrigin even more interested. Water held special significance to the aquadites. Water was the medium of their life. It was the medium of their existence. For them to learn of an outsider who had mastered it to the extent of wielding it as an administrator was profoundly interesting.

”Was this Administrator of an aquatic species or amphibian?” he wondered.

The director shook his head. ”Neither. This was a land-dwelling organism, although at his power level, the environment doesn’t matter that much.”

”Land?” the S’rrigin spat it like he was speaking of Hell. ”How did a land-dwelling animal come to master Water to such an extent?!”

They knew a lot about Administration, after all. They knew that there had to be thematic uniformity to their power. If they had mastered the power of water, then it would have to be a profoundly deep mastery of it.

He didn’t understand how a land-dwelling organism could master Water. He even doubted.

”…Hm, find a way to contact this Administrator. Tell him the Aquadites welcome him as a brother,” the S’rrigin waved his hand. ”We could work together if he’s truly this powerful.”

”Understood.”

It wasn’t just the Dessandrites or the aquadites that learned of what had happened in the Arakai’s territory. Several other advanced civilizations in the Orion Star Strand had also learned the truth of what had happened, of course.

Thousands of light years away from human civilization in a different star strand was a planet that was entirely comprised of engineered machinery, resembling a highly detailed spherical component made up of black and gray metals from outer space. On its surface and throughout its depths were numerous autonomous machine-like lifeforms that moved out about independently.

At the very depths of the core was an AI core of profoundly unfathomable processing power.

[Self-sustaining Administrative anomaly discovered in Orion Star Strand Sector L7-115-308. Investigating…]