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654. The Empire's Age of Exploration: Jean Claude's First Surrender
🕑 Added 2025-02-04 17:04:45 +0000 UTC“We can call it the Arcane Body,” Claude said with a smile. Everyone knows the Emperor likes to use the word [Arcane] for everything, so it has become a joke amongst the people to put the name [Arcane] in as many inventions as possible. As such, there were even laws that granted artificial intelligence the ability to reject such namings when it was not appropriate.
“Alright, let’s end this war as soon as possible,” Claude declared. He was prepared for a more prolonged confrontation, but this conquest became infinitely easier after discovering such a significant weakness of this race.
…
Three Empire Council:
Numerous people sat in this large room with three seats at the front. Most of the people present appeared as holograms, and the three main seats were designed to be much larger, even extending the appearance of the people occupying them to make them look like giants.
Everyone was silent as they watched Lieutenant General Grandax battle the invaders. Everything was fine one second, but the next second, the invaders started using extremely potent spells and decimated their legion.
“Can someone tell me what just happened?” asked Emperor Karak, the ruler of the Sassyx Empire. He was close to 3 meters tall and had extreme muscle, but his strength and build gave him a natural majesty.
“We lost and lost miserably at that,” replied a beautiful woman with black hair and blue skin, wearing a black magic robe. She was Empress Serashi, the ruler of the Vanisha Empire or the Empire of Mages.
“He meant, how did we lose?” said President Virek of the Korak Empire, which differed from the other empires because it was an elective monarchy. He was dressed like a nobleman, and his mannerisms indicated the same.
“I don’t need you to clarify for me,” Emperor Karak snapped back, and President Virek just shrugged. The world was ruled by three significant Empires — although there are a few other kingdoms. Unfortunately, the other empires had royal families that had ruled for thousands of years, while his Empire had to elect a new ruler every 200 years, meaning their strength was the weakest.
“Magic is supposed to be your expertise,” Karak continued. “So, explain why their spells suddenly became so strong?”
“The spells they used — it seems to use runes instead of the previous incantations,” Empress Serashi said with a contemplative look. “With the right runes, they can perfectly combine the resonance of their mana, thus casting spells that are way more powerful than an individual.”
“I thought runes were only used to make artifacts,” Emperor Karak asked. His Empire celebrated warriors more than mages, so this was outside of his field of expertise.
“Low-level runes can be used to cast spells by powerful mages,” Serashi explained. “However, high-level runes require the power of the soul, and that’s why we can’t use them.”
“Are you saying these invaders have powerful souls?”
“Or the runes they used do not have the same effect on the soul,” Serashi replied. The empress was unwilling to admit these invaders were so much better than them in that department.
“Who exactly are these invaders?” Korak asked. “The World Will just sent a message that invaders from the stars had appeared and asked us to fight them off. However, it did not provide much information.”
“I may have someone that can clear our confusion,” Virek suddenly said. All eyes were on him, and he calmly waved his hand to activate a hologram at the center of the room. An elderly styrex with regular clothes, all white hair, and a white beard appeared in the room. His eyes were cloudy, but it did not hide the wisdom and maybe madness hidden deep.
“It’s you — the Mad Scholar, Kroll,” Karak said bluntly.
“Mad? I was never mad — you were all just fools,” Kroll reported.
“Watch your tongue,” Karak snapped. However, the scholar only laughed derisively.
“Hundreds of years — I spent hundreds of years trying to persuade you to stop fighting for the mere resources of this world and explore outside the stars. But you all said I was mad and my theories were nonsense. But now? Foreign civilizations have invaded, showing how small-minded you people who think too highly of yourselves are.”
“Now is not the time to show your superiority,” Empress Serashi said.
“If not now, then when?” Kroll snapped. Of all the rulers, he was most disappointed with Serashi. Lauded as the reincarnation of the Goddess of Magic herself, he thought such a wise and powerful mage would recognize his theory. Still, she was just like the others — short-sighted and only caring about her world domination path.
“Kroll,” Virek warned. Kroll took a deep breath to calm down. Virek and the Korak Empire were the only ones willing to give him refuge when everywhere else treated him worse than a dog. So, he decided to show the latter a modicum of respect.
“You once asked me what we should do in the situation?” Kroll said while looking at Virek.
“My recommendation is to accept his offer and surrender.”
“So, now you’re blatantly betraying our world,” Karak said in a cold tone. However, Kroll ignored him and continued speaking to Virek.
“We are doomed,” Kroll stated. “And that is an irrefutable fact.”
“You’re exaggerating things,” Virek said, trying to prevent these people from using his words as an excuse to persecute Kroll.
“Any civilization that can travel through the stars has developed to an unimaginable level,” Kroll continued. “The invader said he was a member of the Arcane Empire, which we can deduce is an Empire that spawns countless worlds and stars. His presence means that our world’s coordinates have been discovered, so it does not matter whether we can defeat him — someone else will come. And by then, they won’t send only one of those towers.”
The room immediately became silent, and then a representative from a medium kingdom suddenly yelled, “Maybe he’s lying. He might be some rogue or pirate from the start who accidentally found the vessel of an ancient civilization.”
“Yes, he may be trying to intimidate us,” agreed another. Soon, more excuses were shouting to dismiss Kroll’s words. However, he remained calm before saying:
“According to my experiments, the World Will will severely restrict any foreign matter that enters our world, and that restriction is harsher for any living creatures. However, that Arcanist was not only able to enter but send a legion of warriors and mages that fought, no, defeated, us without any consequences. Do you understand what this implies?”
“Everyone was once again silenced.
“Their civilization has developed the technology to interfere with the World’s Will,” Kroll finished. Empress Serashi groaned as she caressed her temple: “We will take your words into consideration.”
“You can do whatever you please — it won’t matter to me,” Kroll responded. He then prepared to close his hologram.
“Wait,” Virek said, looking at him directly. “Kroll, where are you now?”
Kroll paused: “I guess there is no need to wait later. I’m on my way to surrender.”
“What!” The room became chaotic until Serashi and Karak used their power to temporarily mute everyone.
“What’s the meaning of this?”
“I will do one last thing for this world,” Kroll calmly explained. “I’ve left a Life Card in my lab. If it extinguishes, then you’ll know the Arcanist did not keep his words and had no desire to surrender.”
“You!” Virek said.
“As my term of surrendering, I’ll ask that I will not be used as a form of propaganda to influence our world to surrender,” Kroll continued. “If you see me doing this, then know that my mind and soul have been captured by him, and don’t trust me in any circumstances.
“May the Goddess of Magic, Vi’vek, bless all of you.”
Comments
[GLD]Guto
Tftc
hector lyng
Thank you very much for the chapter
