"The Suneater has returned." Prime Minister Edward's voice hung in the air with a grave tone. "…If the amount of power he generated with his return to Gaia is telling, then we can be certain we are dealing with a powerful monster the likes of whom cannot be defeated without equally extraordinary forces of retaliation."

In an isolated chamber, the projection of the prime minister gazed heavily at the Emperor of Harmony, who sat opposite him across the table. The room he was in was heavily barricaded and almost entirely cut off from the outside world, save for the highly secure connection between the Kandrian Empire and the Britannian Empire that he was employing to make use of.

Emperor Rael looked tired.

Dark, heavy bags hung under his eyes while his entire being radiated exhaustion. Trying to keep up with NOVA's machinations had been one of the most tiring things that he had ever done. He was only a human, no matter how intelligent he was. His opponent was a quantum supercomputer that never got tired.

Every moment of every day, NOVA attempted to subvert the allies of the Panamic Alliance.

She didn't aim for the core members like the elves or the therianthropes, but she did nibble around the edges a lot, aiming to chip away at the base of power that her enemies made use of.

That was why he needed to work all the time virtually to protect his alliance's integrity and to attack hers with rich offers of negatron matter. Over the past year, he had made many concessions. Almost twice as many concessions as he normally would make had already been made just to keep NOVA away.

It had worked, but at great personal cost and at reducing the gains that the Panamic Alliance and the Kandrian Empire ultimately got from the Great Void Ocean.

And now, just when the war had truly stabilized after a year, the Suneater's long journey from the sun to Gaia had finally concluded. The Emperor of Harmony's expression grew severe. "Rui… is still immersed in training."

Prime Minister Edward looked like he wanted to strangle Emperor Rael. "Training? Training?! We're in an all-out war here! What do you mean by training?! It's been more than a whole year! What kind of training takes sixteen years?!"

He said that, but he was well aware that training times tended to increase extraordinarily the higher the Realm of the Martial Artist. Martial Apprentices could master techniques in months, but Martial Artists of the Upper Realms took so much time that years would pass.

Martial Sages in particular were known to very often take more than a decade just to make any progress. At their level, Martial Art was a complex phenomenon that made use of multiple sources of power across different dimensions of their being, while deploying their power through extremely complicated laws of reality.

Still, Prime Minister Edward truly couldn't fathom why the Dawnbringer wanted to undergo a training regime at the worst possible time.

The Emperor of Harmony heaved a deep breath. "That's how Rui is."

"Is he finally done?"

"He should be done soon…" Emperor Rael murmured. "I have been informed by the medical team overseeing his metamorphosis that he has completed his goal. Right now… he's immersed in some mental phenomenon that we don't have a good understanding of. But I have faith that he'll be done soon."

"Soon is not the same as now." Prime Minister Edward's eyes sharpened. "The Suneater has already returned. We need a powerhouse of our own who can take him on. There's a limit to how much Amare can do, even when fed with Transcendent healing fruits. Those priceless fruits don't grow on trees!"

"Well…" Emperor Rael stirred. "They do."

"You know what I mean," Prime Minister Edward growled.

Emperor Rael offered a wry smile before heaving a deep breath. "Right now, we need to focus on dealing with the Suneater one way or another. There's no telling what NOVA might do now that he has returned. She hasn't made any overt changes in the battlefield over the past year, compared to her relentless siege in the diplomatic war. There's a good chance…"

His golden eyes sharpened. "…that she was waiting for this to happen. There's no telling what might happen now that the Suneater has returned to Gaia."

RUMBLE!!!

The two of them froze as the world shook, as waves of seismic radiation washed across their entire continent. It wasn't easy to produce such power across an entire planet, leaving very few possibilities for the identity of the origin.

"Your Majesty, we have just received intelligence that the Suneater is making a move! He… appears to be moving east towards the Panama Continent and the Kandrian Empire!"

Emperor Rael's eyes darkened at those words. "This…"

"Leave it to me," Prime Minister Edward told his former archenemy. "You have entrusted me with the defense and security of our continent over the past year, and I have kept true to my word and denied our enemies any victory. Focus on reinforcing our ties with all of our allies. There's no doubt that many of them are terrified of this new development and are entertaining thoughts of defecting from the Kandrian Empire to other nations in the world. NOVA is undoubtedly racing to exploit these fears to pull them to her side."

Emperor Rael nodded with a serious expression. "Very well. I shall protect our continent diplomatically. I will entrust you to oversee the military battle once more."

The two of them had grown closer over the past year as the cooperation over an existential war that threatened to destroy their civilization melted away any grudges that either of them, especially Prime Minister Edward, had. Their seamless coordination proved to be so synergetic that it allowed them to ward off NOVA's astronomically powerful cognition.

They immediately ended the meeting, heading to complete their respective duties while entrusting the other with theirs to deal with the latest crisis besieging the Panamic Alliance.

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