Kazdel had become the heart of Terra. If a terrorist attack were to occur now, an unprecedented war might erupt across the whole of Terra by the very next day.
For the sake of security, Theresis issued a stern order to all Sarkaz warriors: every hotel housing foreign delegations was to be protected so thoroughly that not even a rat or a fly could slip inside.
And it was not only the Sarkaz warriors.
Kazdel's mobile city gradually revealed its true nature as a monstrous city of war. The research and development department had adopted the Originium art once used by the Military Commission to enforce the military curfew in Londinium, and transplanted it onto the Swarm drone units. During curfew, the sky was filled with countless tiny points of light, all of them Swarms scanning every corner of the city at every moment to ensure that no suspicious individuals were present.
Whether they were tourists or merchants, everyone had to undergo strict security inspections before entering the city. Their blood components were even randomly tested to determine whether they were infected, and if so, what kind of Originium Arts they might be capable of using. It could be said that this was deeply disrespectful to personal dignity.
And yet, both tourists and merchants still flocked here.
This was Terra's golden age. Terra's future would rise from here. If one did not come now, would that not become a lifelong regret?
Not to mention that the Liberation King himself had displayed unparalleled strength and charisma in the video, and that four enormous land battleships, each over a kilometer in length, were anchored not far from Kazdel City. For some reason, the desire to settle permanently in Kazdel began to take root in many hearts. In the past, Kazdel had fought against all of Terra. In the past, the Sarkaz had been Terra's enemy. But Kazdel was no longer that Kazdel.
When forced to choose between matters of principle and petty disputes over wording, everyone wholeheartedly chose the former. As a result, the government officials in charge of residency and immigration became overwhelmed with work. When they sought to consult Liberation King Felix on the matter, Theresa stepped forward and said only one sentence:
"Kazdel, Terra's Kazdel, will become Terra's core in the future."
The officials understood immediately.
They accepted the influx, but the conditions for settlement would neither be raised nor lowered because of the growing population. Fortunately, Kazdel's other two mobile cities were already nearing completion, and the new residents could be moved there in due time.
Kazdel City Hall was crowded every single day. Officials never stopped moving. Though exhausted, their eyes shone with pride. The Sarkaz in particular took immense pride in seeing Kazdel transformed from a place reviled as a land of demons into the very center of Terra.
Reports from the front lines continued to arrive without pause, and the recorded footage became the most important propaganda material of all. Floating electronic screens hung above the streets of Kazdel, broadcasting news of Kazdel itself and of the battles at the front to everyone in the city, including footage of battleships bombarding the demons and Seaborn swallowing up the corrupted land.
Wait... Seaborn?
Not long after entering the city, Saint Carmen raised his head and looked at the images playing across one of the screens. The creature directing the battle against the demons was a terrifying Aegir... no, a fish girl, a being that filled him with dread. Her true form and full power were unknown, but merely seeing her command three deep-sea dragons and wipe out a demon encampment with each motion sent a chill straight through Carmen's bones.
If Iberia were ever to face such a Seaborn...
then Iberia might as well surrender outright, and the entire Inquisition might as well cut their own throats.
Because Iberia's Great Silence had always stood in opposition to the Seaborn, Carmen had spent nearly a century fighting them. He could only be grateful that the Seaborn he had faced in the past had all been of ordinary type, at most a handful of elites, all of which he had personally slain.
A wave of absurdity washed over him.
Why were the Seaborn helping Kazdel's battleships?
And with that absurdity came fear, and anger.
"Teacher."
Irene stood beside Carmen, watching the battle on the screen, her voice filled with confusion. "The Seaborn... why are they helping Kazdel? What do they want?"
That was the feeling shared by every member of the Inquisition. The shock and bitterness of seeing the enemy they had fought against day and night suddenly helping another group of Terrans was something only they themselves could truly understand.
"I want to see the Liberation King. Now." Carmen turned toward the Sarkaz Foreign Ministry official assigned to receive them. Beside that official stood twenty heavily armed Sarkaz warriors, all tasked with protecting the delegation's safety. Hearing Carmen's words, the official shook his head.
"My apologies, Saint Carmen. His Highness the Liberation King is currently speaking with Lady Russell of Kazimierz."
"And after that?" Saint Carmen's voice had gone slightly hoarse.
"After that, His Highness has an afternoon meeting with the Twin Empresses of Leithanien, followed by a meeting with Lady Sicily."
"Will I be able to see His Highness the Liberation King today?" Saint Carmen asked in a tone that was almost pleading, though his voice still sounded rather fierce.
"Yes." The official nodded. "After he finishes speaking with Lady Sicily, we can arrange a meeting between you and His Highness the Liberation King."
"Please do."
Seeing her teacher in such a state, Irene felt a pang of sorrow, because they might very well be about to learn a terrible truth, one that could shatter Iberia and render everything the Inquisition had done meaningless.
Saint Carmen would not allow himself to fall before learning that truth.
The Inquisition staff fell silent and followed the attendants toward their hotel.
Inside the round-table hall of the Capitol, Felix was holding his final discussion with Lady Russell.
"Lady Russell, as we discussed before, Kazimierz does not possess a sufficient military manufacturing environment. I will provide you with blueprints and technology, that much is certain. But even if Kazimierz devotes all its manpower and resources to it, I estimate it would still take you two months to assemble a battleship from scratch. In Kazdel, it would take only ten days."
Felix did not insist on the two-month estimate without reason. He understood that Kazimierz was not truly united. Although the vast majority of power was now controlled by the noble knights led by Lady Russell, the Chamber of Commerce still lurked in the shadows of Kazimierz, secretly controlling many factories and continuously generating wealth for itself.
In the end, Kazimierz had done an excellent job of maintaining balance, but that was also because its technology and manufacturing capabilities were distributed in a very even way. Their only real war equipment consisted of the armor and weapons of the Silverlance Knights, and the value of that equipment was not even comparable to a single main gun on a battleship.
Lady Russell understood this perfectly well. But when it came to the safety of all Terra, Kazimierz could not simply stand aside. Though their territory was larger than Kazdel's, Kazdel was Felix's personal domain, his empire, and he had been planning for this war from the very beginning. Meanwhile, Lady Russell was still exhausting herself trying to find a better way to govern Kazimierz.
"...I understand Your Highness's meaning. We will do our utmost to build medium-sized frigates."
Lady Russell chose a compromise.
"In addition, there will still be close-range battlefronts."
"Our Knights will take responsibility there."
Felix possessed the technology for medium-sized frigates, but he had never built many of them. That was because this was not a war against another country or political power. In such wars, frigates were useful for harassment, drawing enemy fire, and enduring artillery exchanges. But when facing demons, Felix cared only about maximizing firepower.
So everything he built was a large battleship.
"This is an excellent choice, Lady Russell." Felix smiled. "I look forward to seeing the heroic figures of Kazimierz's Silverlance Pegasi Knights on the northern front."
"I am pleased that we have reached an agreement, Your Highness." Lady Russell shook hands with Felix. "I, too, will personally go to the battlefield to see what kind of creatures these demons ravaging Terra truly are."
The meeting with the Kazimierz delegation came to an end.
A faint fragrance drifted past. A warm towel was gently placed over Felix's face, and at the same time, the soft sound of a kiss brushed against his ear.
"Loughshinny," Felix said, "you are clearly the Queen of New Tara. You should not be here."
"Am I not still Your Highness's right hand?"
Loughshinny's gentle voice sounded beside him. "That will never change. Even though I have become the new queen you raised up, my heart will always remain with you."
"The way you say that makes it sound as if I forced you out to become queen."
Felix took the towel from his face, and the first thing he saw was Loughshinny dressed in an aristocratic gown.
She gave him a soft smile with pursed lips, but the words she spoke were cool and calm. "Your afternoon tea with the Twin Empresses of Leithanien begins in half an hour."
"There is still half an hour..."
Felix stood and gently drew Loughshinny into his arms, burying his face in her long golden hair. Loughshinny blushed faintly, bit her lip in shy silence, and softly stroked Felix's head.
This tired state, the one in which he needed to lean on others, lasted less than a minute. By the time he lifted his head again, he had already returned to the familiar bearing of the Liberation King.
"I am glad our meeting is tonight, during dinner. Besides you, Eblana will also be there. I do not know what you were thinking, but now that you are here, things have already gone this far. The matter had already been exposed, and the impact went far beyond New Tara alone."
"I understand. Then I will return soon."
Loughshinny gave Felix a small wave. "See you tonight, Your Highness."
Felix collected himself, changed his clothes, and made his way toward the garden. He had not waited long before he saw the Twin Empresseses approaching gracefully in the distance.
Three hours later, after finishing his meetings and lastly with Lady Sicily, Felix finally had a moment to breathe.
The negotiations with Leithanien had gone relatively smoothly. Leithanien possessed its own combat force, the Spire Casters. Although its industrial base was only average, it could still afford to build frigates. If the Spire Casters were deployed aboard those frigates and used to operate and reinforce the turrets, the arrangement would be nearly ideal.
As for Siracusa, Felix shook his head inwardly. For the time being, Siracusa could not be relied upon as a frontline force. At best, he could only count on them for logistical support.
Siracusa's strongest force, the Bocca al Lupo, Sicily's own private armed force, was, to put it bluntly, little more than a group of "special forces" armed with daggers and Originium staves. The quotation marks were necessary because even calling them special forces was giving them too much credit. Lappland and Texas could probably cut their way through the Bocca al Lupo seven times over, but no one seriously expected them to be useful on a battlefield like this.
Siracusa's true value in this war lay in ensuring the steady transport of supplies. The families' transportation network was enough to guarantee that logistics would not break down along the way.
After that, Felix met Saint Carmen in the lounge. Standing behind Carmen was his student, Irene.
When Felix saw Irene, he merely gave her a slight nod. As a messenger who frequently traveled between Kazdel and Iberia, she had always performed her duties exceptionally well, ensuring that adventurers operating within Iberia never ran into unnecessary trouble.
"Saint Carmen, I know why you have come." Felix sat down across from him and went straight to the point. "I know what it is you wish to ask."
"Since Your Highness already knows why I have come, then please enlighten us." Saint Carmen spoke, his voice hoarse with the roughness of a middle-aged man. "I want to know what those creatures called the Seaborn truly are. Why did the Great Silence happen, and why are they now standing with you?"
"There is a misunderstanding in your question." Felix's voice remained calm. "The current Seaborn are not standing only with me. The current Seaborn are fighting alongside the Terrans. Whether those warriors come from Kazdel or Iberia, we all share the same enemy."
A slight twitch appeared at the corner of Carmen's mouth.
"As for the origin of the Seaborn, they were the product of a project from a previous civilization. The sole purpose for which they were created was to cleanse pollution in the deep sea, purify the ocean, and protect the ecosystem."
Saint Carmen's breathing quickened, while Irene stared blankly at the floor before her.
"Aegir was the first to attack the Seaborn, because they believed the Seaborn's existence had stolen away Aegir's living space. At the same time, Aegir's own technology polluted the ocean, which led the Seaborn, with their hive mind, to choose war against Aegir. And of course, Aegir was no match for them. As you have already seen, the Seaborn then set foot upon land, on Iberia's shores, and your Inquisition judged them a threat to Iberia, so you chose to drive them away by force."
"And that led to the first Great Silence."
Felix spoke softly. "There is a very interesting fact here, and that is the hive mind, also known as the shared mind. It means that if you kill one individual Seaborn, the entire Seaborn collective will know that you were the one who killed it, and from that point on, they will regard you as an enemy."
"I have never killed a Seaborn. That is why I am able to command them. The Seaborn have entrusted Terra's future to me." Felix interlaced his fingers. "In other words, Iberia no longer needs to fear a second Great Silence."
"Hehehe... compared to all of you, Aegir was far more decisive. They simply did not come to this war conference."