When Zosia returned to the office, the first thing she did was inform all the leaders that she met the emperor.
Then, she told them about the method used to infiltrate their regions and that she confronted him on it without any success.
As expected, no one took the news calmly. In their minds, the fate of the empire was on stake here.
Zosia shared the news for a simple reason.
To switch their hatred and frustration from her back to emperor Rawal. It was a smart move since no one cursed her or berated her anymore after this screw up.
They all knew that no one would have done better than her under this sudden invasion.
Now that the leaders were allied again on a common enemy, Zosia was able to pass her orders more smoothly.
Her first order was to rescue the ten regions from the invasion, so they could capture some high ranked soldiers and obtain some evidence.
Since the leaders were back on her side, no one denied her orders of mobilizing their troops to those ten regions.
The only issue with this was the time it would take for those troops to reach them.
Since they wouldn't be using wormholes, it would take them a few months at least to enter those regions.
It was doubtful that they would make it on time before the capital planets fall one by one.
Still, they needed to attempt to save them. It wouldn't look pretty to the alliance or the public if Zosia just gave up on them.
Speaking about the public, the reaction to the full-scale invasion was received in the best light from everyone.
Many sharp viewers realized that enslaving a space worm elder was the only logical method to explain this invasion.
It didn't take long before the news went viral and everyone went with the flow and believed it without a shred of evidence.
"This can't be real. Emperor Rawal might be greedy, but he is not dumb enough to take such a massive risk just to infiltrate ten regions." The Fang scowled as he read the news while watching the live stream with the other three guild leaders.
"Who knows? Maybe he already went mad?" Winfried shrugged his shoulders, "He only thinks of restoring all of his territories at all cost lately."
"Still, choosing this option is far too dumb." Hamaru shook her head.
"We will find out soon enough." Tobias mentioned, "Zosia isn't an easy foe. She is probably trying her best to find evidence that can convict him."
"I really hope no one does." The Fang sighed, "We can't lose the transportation network between us and the Mariana Empire."
"True, we are already struggling and if we can't receive any more troops or mercenaries from the empire, we are screwed big time." Hamaru said.
"The fact that we are at war between each other even when we have a common enemy is crazy to me." Winfried lamented.
He wasn't just mentioning the war between the federation alliance and the royal family but also their problems with the great commander Samuel.
The moment everyone's attention had been taken by the Mariana Empire war, he came for them hard just as they expected.
Their territories were left with minimum support from the army and the mercenaries in their squads were being treated like dirt.
This was just a few of the many inconveniences they kept experiencing.
"What's done is done." The Fang paused for a second and said, "Speaking of the bastard who caused all of this, did you guys manage to locate him yet?"
"Not yet."
"He really went dark."
"It's been more than a year and a half already." Winfried scoffed, "Maybe, he stopped bothering himself with hunting void creatures after getting that sweet contract from the army."
"Possibly."
"Whatever, just keep your eyes open." The Fang murmured, "I have a feeling that he will return more dangerous than ever."
****
A few months later…
The federation alliance were left at their wits end when it came to reclaiming the ten regions.
It took merely two months for the royal family fleets to reach the capital planets and claim ownership over them.
King Sollumas and some leaders were forced to escape when they realized that it was hopeless to defend their capital planets.
Meanwhile, some leaders refused to accept the reality of them losing their territories. So, they remained with their troops to the very end.
A few died in the chaos and some got captured alive with the rest of their soldiers.
While the royal family was celebrating this massive victory, the federation alliance managed to take down the supernova fleet that was targeting the Toppoki region wormhole.
In fact, a few hours after the wide invasion had started, commander Edward had surrendered immediately.
The moment they got captured, commander Hade had released a public statement that the royal family would never give up on their people.
They were willing to negotiate prisoners exchange. The royal family had captured many soldiers as well during their wide invasion.
Since he brought public opinion into this, Zosia was left with no choice but to negotiate the terms with the royal family.
Otherwise, she would seem as if she was willing to execute soldiers who already surrendered.
Just like that, the bait that was sent to Toppoki region as a 'suicide mission' had returned to the arms of the royal family.
This showed everyone that emperor Rawal had everything planned out and never had intentions to give up on his soldiers.
This shone some well-needed light on the royal family.
In the past months, everyone was accusing them of setting out to ruin the entire galaxy due to the slavery allegations.
Zosia made it even worse for them when she shared the Intel they got from ten captured soldiers, who confessed 'willingly'.
Each one was captured from a different region. Yet, all of them said the same thing.
They went through a wormhole that connected the royal family territory with the targeted regions.
Although this wasn't a solid proof that they enslaved a space worm elder, it was enough to support their allegation.
Since the war was receiving a monumental exposure in the universe, the space worm tribes were bound to notice those things eventually.
Unfortunately, they could not launch an investigation during a ruleless war.
The prime suspect was locked inside the UVR, and they were unable to enter the battleground even if the SGAlliance approved of it.
The rules were strict on this matter.
Still, they were able to contact emperor Rawal and explain himself. They had absolutely no respect for the royal family or the emperor.
He was just another human in their eyes even with his high standing in the galaxy.
Although emperor Rawal had an ego of a mountain and despised being looked down upon, he still informed them with his real method under one condition…They should not publish it until the war ends since it would affect the scale between the two sides heavily.
After all, if Zosia knew of the real method, her mind would be put at ease and help her focus more on the invasion itself instead of setting out to find 'the evidence'.
In addition, she would know that emperor Rawal could not open more private wormholes.
The space worm elders agreed to sign a contract with those terms since they didn't really care about the others' opinion.
They only wanted to know whether he truly enslaved of their own or not.
When emperor Rawal came clean about his cunning method and had Sir Ghodillo testify on it, the space worm elders were surprised.
It truly didn't come into their minds that someone would use such a method to involve their wormholes forcefully in a war.
Still, after careful examination, they realized that many conditions needed to be met for someone else to repeat the same strategy.
So, they didn't make a big deal out of it and simply excused emperor Rawal.
As he said to commander Hade, as long as everything was legalized, and they didn't harm one of their own, they would not bother them at all.
This interaction naturally wasn't known to anyone.
Hence, Zosia and the leader continued to worry about losing out the transportation system while emperor Rawal had his entire focus on the invasion.
After taking claiming ownership of those ten regions, the royal family's troops had restarted their journey towards the nearest regions.
Since federation alliance could not track them while they were traveling at the speed of light, they could only wait for them to reappear again.
It could be in a few months to even a year. It all depended on emperor Rawal next move.
Whatever it was, he had already proved to be the better leader and strategist in this war.
If Zosia wanted to cut away her loses, she really needed to step up her game.
…
While the empire was going through a lot, Felix could be seen drifting peacefully inside a pitch-black blob of void energy.
He had been like this for half a year now besides counting the few times he left to check out on the war status.
Inside his consciousness space, he was sitting in a lotus position while surrounded by a mountain of books.
At this moment, he was reading a book detailing exotic flowers, trees, and all sorts of plants that had been discovered by Lady Sphinx.
Those exotic floras were used only to make rank 5 potions and above.
In the past year and a half, he had already finished reading whatever there was about wars and also all the books related to rank 4 potions and below.
This mountain of thousands of books was a proof that he truly worked his best to gain knowledge.
"Guys!! The fat pig is acting abnormal!"
Abruptly, Felix's concentration was broken by Asna's spooked yell.
"What do you mean?" Felix closed the book and dashed towards Asna, who was standing in front of a giant fat black panda.
Lady Sphinx, Thor, and Jörmungandr had already teleported next to her and start eying Nimo, who was glowing brightly like a mini sun.
"Did we feed him too much, and he is about to blow out or what?" Felix commented speechlessly as he watched Nimo twitch while getting brighter and brighter.
