The Martial Unity

Oooo—— heaved a deep breath as their final preparations were completed. It had been very difficult for six powerful Divine Mothers to prepare for this battle. Unlike lesser Divine Mothers, their cells were considerably larger and more important to the civilization. If they failed in their operation, their departure from reality would have meant that their cells would have to exist and function without them.

Had it been an abrupt disappearance, their cells would have fallen into chaos and other Divine Mothers would have fought to conquer it. The Divine Mothers had planned a phased division and distribution of territory for the possibility that their operation failed.

Of course, they didn’t think they would fail. There were six of them versus the Emperor of Water and one non-combat Transcendent. On top of that, the six of them that had gathered were among the strongest in the War Faction, compared to the three weak Divine Mothers that the Emperor of Water had fought.

On top of that, the terrain was quite favorable this time. Even though they weren’t familiar with it and it belonged to their target, it was still a powerful form of leverage. The arakai had done their research on the Emperor of Water quite well. They had come to the conclusion that this was a man who valued his civilization and especially his home world. Public records spoke about how he defeated an army of nebulars and even fought the laminars to protect it.

Most likely, if the six of them attacked it, he would definitely fight to protect it. They could use that to restrict his movements to an extent and then extract the knowledge of overcoming the price of the Transcendent Realm from his mind, before killing him and destroying the heart of human civilization.

Once Gaia Prime was destroyed and the solar system was ravaged, human civilization would crumble quite quickly after. Although the civilization wasn’t completely centralized, it did coordinate a lot with the center. The civilization would become a headless chicken, and destroying it would be a piece of cake.

They had planned on taking a bit more time, but the terrifying rate at which human civilization grew compelled them to deal with this threat sooner rather than later. The added pressure that they had begun sustaining from the dessandrites and the aquadites also helped them make up their mind.

It was no longer possible for the arakai to destroy the humans in a frontal war as they planned. From what they could surmise, it appeared as if their enemies were working together and were coordinating attacks and pressure to restrict the arakai as much.

That was another reason to complete this operation sooner rather than later and get their hands on Administrative impunity, as they had come to call it. This power was more seductive than any gains in the war or in political power. Just the thought of succeeding was so alluring that they were willing to risk everything in order to achieve it.

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”We. Have. Confirmed. That. Target. Is. In. Gaia. Prime.”

Tracking the Emperor of Water was extremely difficult. He didn’t make use of institutions when traveling, and mostly did his own thing. Thankfully, they had managed to tap into the Gaian interweb to scrape out some information that he was currently training.

The interweb was a powerful source of information to the arakai. They specialized in webs of any nature, but especially webs of information. Every advanced civilization had some equivalent of it, and they had mastered the art of tapping into it. They were the ultimate OSINT and CYBINT experts, in that regard.

The information was verified and then again, just to be safe.

Everything was ready. Now it was just time to do what needed to be done.

WHOOSH

The six Divine Mothers floated before the Gate of Conquest in outer space, their demeanors being distinctly martial. Each of them had resolved to disappear despite their many ties to their civilization and the webs they served as the nexus of.

Divine Mother oooo—— of the War Faction. She was the eldest of them all, her age visible on her face and in her hair.

Divine Mother o—o-oo-o, the Webslinger. An unusually young Divine Mother, one who appeared to be the arakai equivalent of a young teenager who had yet to become an adult. The fact that she had been chosen for the battle nonetheless spoke to the disproportionate amount of power that she possessed despite her age.

Divine Mother o-oo—oo, the Netweaver. A Divine Mother who specialized in capturing her opponents in wide-scale net attacks. She had been chosen to lead the capturing effort against the Emperor of Water.

Divine Mother o-ooo—o, the Mindstitch. She specialized in mental manipulation to an abnormally high degree. Not only could she enhance minds and Verses. But she could mind control her targets even if they had a different neurology that she had never seen, as long as it relied on a network-style mind model.

Divine Mother ——, the Shredder. Her Web Stinger had been modified to produce web strands that were closer to thin strings rather than thick wires. So much so that she could produce nets that chopped whatever they attacked, rather than capture. She was called the Shredder because she reduced a planet to a swarm of small cube-shaped pieces with just two attacks.

Divine Mother oooo, the Mindwebber. She could create networks between minds that increased coordination to extremely high degrees, essentially creating a mini hive mind. She had been included because capturing the Emperor of Water was not merely a problem of power; it was a problem of coordinated suppression. They didn’t believe that he would die to protect Gaia Prime and that he would try to run away if he believed he was on the verge of capture.

The kind of coordination that was needed to keep him from escaping was the reason they had decided to bring this particular Divine Mother on board.

Each of them was aware of their roles in this conflict.

And they were prepared for both success and failure.

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”Activate. The. Gate. Of. Conquest.”