"Zosia, calm down. We can handle this." Maganda Chief assured after seeing that Zosia had snapped.
"You are right…We can handle this." Zosia took a deep breath to regain her composure.
She knew that losing control of her emotion would merely make things worse…Especially, when if she lost them over an educated guess instead of facts.
"Chief, you are in command now." Zosia informed, "I need to meet with someone."
Before Maganda Chief could react, she disappeared on them.
This naturally didn't fly well with the leaders.
They were amidst a surprising invasion and their important planets were already being contested.
Yet, the great commander of the army was bailing on them?
"Focus everyone!" Maganda Chief bellowed, "Whatever Zosia is doing, I assure you that it is for the alliance."
"I am out of here." King Sollumas scoffed, "I will take care of my people by myself."
He had no patience to listen to Maganda Chief defending Zosia when his territory was being invaded…If the Great Commander refused to give out commands to help out his people, then he would take matters in his hands.
"If I knew you guys will be this incompetent, I would have never joined this cause." One of the leaders left a snarky remark as he followed King Sollumas.
"Ever since this war started, she was always ten steps behind emperor Rawal. I have no idea why I believed in her."
"Pa! I should have listened to my advisors and stayed out of this mess."
The other leaders of the invaded regions expressed their negative emotions on the matter and went away too.
Maganda Chief attempted to stop them, but it was useless. Even Zosia would have struggled to keep them here when their territories were getting raided.
"I am leaving as well. I need to bolster the defenses around my planets." A Bloodline Clan leader mentioned with a worried tone and then disappeared.
His region wasn't targeted, but it was connected with one of the ten regions that were hit.
Although he heard nothing worrisome from his subordinates, he was still terrified that he would be next.
The alarming method used to infiltrate those regions had scared the shit out of everyone here.
If the royal family had the capabilities to bypass using the wormholes in their territories, then what's the point of defending them heavily?
In fact, King Sollumas and the other targeted leaders knew that the situation was beyond terrible for them.
Almost 70% of their forces were positioned to defend the wormholes in their territories.
They were like the gates of a castle with one hundred meters tall walls.
What the royal family had just shown them that they could easily fly over the walls and hit them whenever they wanted.
Because the wormholes were quite far from the invaded planets, it would take many days to return and provide their assistant.
Hence, everyone in the gathering had thoughts of pulling some of their forces from the wormholes to the heart of their territories immediately.
"This is baaaaad." Berry trembled as he watched everyone leave the gathering with clear intent to mess up their entire defensive structure.
He couldn't fathom the chaos that would arise when all of them begin pulling their forces from the wormholes to defend their planets.
It was the same as giving up on the gate and simply focusing on defending the throne chamber.
The royal family's alliances wouldn't even be required to use that shady method of infiltration anymore.
They could simply walk through those undefended wormholes and spread their fleets throughout the federation territory.
When that happens, the war would take a really horrible turn for them.
'Zosia, where are you at?' Maganda Chief could only sigh in frustration, knowing that nothing he could do to stop them from leaving.
Honestly, even he was freaked out by what's going on and felt chilled at the thought that his tribes were getting enclosed in by the royal family.
'Might as well check on our territories first and inform the elders.'
Maganda Chief informed Gabriel and the rest, then he left the gathering.
No one was thinking reasonably at this moment, making it impossible to order them around.
It's not like he could ask them to send backup to those infiltrated regions when the others were scared to the point they were planning to pull back their forces.
This was the real aim of Emperor Rawal's strategy.
From the get go, his general plan was to strike the newly added alliance members.
He predicted this exact reaction since he knew that a ragtag group of backgrounds would be too easy to break apart.
All of them cared only for their territories. If they won the war and gotten a seat in the federation, then it was worth celebrating for.
However, the instant their territories' survival was on test, they would drop everything and concentrate solely on their benefits.
The leaders' reaction had just validated emperor Rawal's reasoning.
***
In the throne chamber of the Norfolk royal palace, Zosia could be seen standing in front of emperor Rawal and Commander Hade.
He was sitting on the throne with a leg above the other and a faint smile as he observed Zosia.
She wasn't trying one bit to hide her fury. Her murderous eyes made it abundantly clear that if she wasn't just a holographic image, she would have already attempted to slit his throat.
"Are you here to beg for mercy?" Emperor Rawal joked, "Those aren't the eyes of someone giving up."
When Zosia left the gathering, she requested Queen Ai to set up a meeting with emperor Rawal. It was easy to do so as long as both sides agreed to it.
Since she was the one voicing the request, emperor Rawal had the right to pick the place of the meeting.
As Zosia expected, he had chosen his throne chamber as a power play.
"How could you do such a foolish thing." Zosia gritted her teeth as she accused him, "To be stupid enough to enslave a space worm elder is a one thing, but to actually bluntly use him in this war is another level of stupidity!"
Zosia wasn't the only smart one in this universe, who would figure out that the sole option to succeed in infiltrating ten regions simultaneously without using the wormholes was related to space worm elders.
The leaders were simply a bit slower than her and when they concentrate on the method used, they would end up with same conclusion as hers.
Since this war was streamed live, everyone already knew about the insane wide invasion and would start to ask questions.
The answer would be found in no time when trillions of viewers all around the universe were watching the live stream.
This signified that the space worm elders would hear about it as well and kick off their investigation on the matter to find out if the emperor truly enslaved one of their people.
She knew that their investigation rarely end up with nothing!
"Enslaving a space worm elder?" Emperor lifted his eyebrow in surprise, "I don't know if I should be mad at your false accusation or flattered that you think I am able to enslave one of those beings."
Emperor Rawal was right. Just because it was possible to enslave a space worm elder, it didn't mean that anyone could pull it off.
They are beings able to create large-sized wormholes that connect two points light years away from each other.
That was just the most common use of their space elemental manipulation.
If they wished, they could create pocket dimension and isolate themselves there or even trap someone in it. In addition, they could literally slice anything by slicing space itself.
Whenever they were out in the open, they create a space domain around them. It made them able to interact with the real world but at the same time be in a different space.
This meant that nothing could harm them whatsoever.
Finally, their physical properties gave them one of the best durability in the universe.
Even if they were cut into millions of pieces, they would persevere and regrow again like nothing happened.
So, how the hell could anyone manage to enslave one of those beings?
Zosia knew that she was giving too much credit to emperor Rawal for believing that he pulled of such an impossible feat.
But, it was the only option that made sense at this moment.
"I'm aware that you won't admit it." Zosia sneered, "But how long can you play dumb? I just need to capture one soldier who used one of those wormholes, and you will be exposed."
In other words, she had no issue using potions or other vile methods to retract memories from any captured soldier.
That's naturally if they were unwilling to talk…Typically, removing the AP bracelet makes it easier for them to confess to avoid getting tortured.
With a live confession from a solider that they had used a wormhole, the only thing left would be proving that an enslaved space worm elder created it.
"Go ahead." Emperor Rawal shrugged his shoulders carelessly.
His reaction just pissed off Zosia even further.
She could see that he was either unconcerned about the harsh consequences of his insane actions or he simply knew that she wouldn't rat on him even if she found solid evidence.
"You might think that I will hold back from exposing you to avoid losing the transportation system, but you are terribly wrong." Zosia reassured, "When I hand over the evidence to the space worm elders, I will negotiate to remove only the wormholes in your territory."
If it was possible to negotiate just the death of the entire royal family and leaving the transportation system alone, she wouldn't hesitate to do so.
Unfortunately, space worm race had suffered from a bad case of kidnapping and enslavement…
They were extremely heavy-handed in their punishment to let everyone see that they could tolerate anything but enslaving their people.
Especially if the enslaved space worm was an elder.
If they simply killed off the family or the person responsible for it, the others would not feel the gravity of their fury.
However, shutting down the transportation wormholes and refusing to do business with anyone who was connected with the kidnapper would leave a nasty mark for eons.
Sure, shutting down the transportation system in the royal family's territory would affect everyone involved in them terribly and cause a unfathomable lost of profit for the space worm race…But, that's a sacrifice the space worm tribes were always ready to pay just to keep emphasizing one thing.
In this universe, you can do anything you want, except enslaving one of their people.
Such a level of protection and unity was a concept that humanity as a whole would never reach….It's sad, but it's the truth.
