Chapter 94: Coalition

"..." Nio looks at her palace that rose from the ground, which created an immense crater because the entire island is gigantic. Beneath the palace it almost looks like there’s a small abyss where you can barely see the bottom from how dark it got down there.

’What a deep hole... I’d forgotten how large my island really is since you could only see the palace and the lawn blended into the plains’ plants... lucky the palace rose in an empty spot.’

"It looks like everything worked out. I’ll go get Stelaria in a little while, so I have enough leeway to explain everything and put our plans into motion. I’m planning to make the attack happen three days from now," Nio says in a much colder, more pragmatic tone with Nioh, losing that slight touch of intimacy from before.

"[Sounds good enough to me. The palace defenses seem to be working... although... the dragons won’t be very useful now. Are you still going to keep them?]"

"...I think so. They can still get rid of the weaker enemies that get close, and now that the palace is flying, most adventurers won’t even be able to get near it." Nio looks up, staring at how high her palace is. Without flight magic or an artifact that flies, it’s impossible to get up there.

"..." Nio picks up a stone and tosses it upward. When the stone enters the palace’s defensive perimeter, a black beam is fired, completely obliterating the rock and passing very close to Nio, creating a small hole in the ground while distorting the air around it.

"The first security system is working... any attack, unauthorized approach, or suspicious movement is met with a beam of magical energy with a random effect... although it doesn’t work against those in the base’s records, so my apostles won’t be attacked, and neither will the dragons..." Nio wonders if she should keep it this way, since she’s wary of being betrayed, but not giving them free access would lead to problems.

"I’ll leave it like this for now..." Nio uses teleportation magic to quickly arrive at the Theocracy, appearing above the church. Stelaria, already fully ready, watches as Nio enters through the window.

"...Nio..." Stelaria feels something stirring deep inside her when she catches Nio’s scent, which has changed and grown more intense since she laid her egg. Since Nio doesn’t know this, she just approaches Stelaria casually.

"Big sister, you’re going to love seeing the place I’m taking you to!!" Nio says, grabbing Stelaria’s hand and leading her to the window. Before Stelaria can say anything, Nio flies with her to the teleportation point and teleports with Stelaria to the throne room, practically kidnapping her without any prior conversation.

In the throne room, various maids await the two of them lined up. Nio chose the servants who most resembled humans, although some of the girls carry somewhat bizarre traits since Nio doesn’t have humans in her base.

"What do you think?" Nio asks, feeling somewhat proud to show her creation to someone else.

’These people... they’re strange... what races are they...’ Stelaria doesn’t like beast-people, but she can’t tell if these people are really "people" or just monsters. They all give Stelaria a sense of discomfort, since she’s human and feels weaker than them.

"..." Stelaria looks around, questioning where this place really came from, but without asking about it, she gives a nod.

"It’s a very beautiful place." Stelaria isn’t impressed, since it’s not that far off from any palace or castle belonging to royalty. Her lukewarm reaction disappoints Nio, who expected her to be impressed.

"That’s it? Beautiful?"

"Yes, it’s beautiful." Stelaria doesn’t see anything extraordinary, and even finds it a bit empty for a throne room, though she thinks the details in the carvings are well done, but nothing beyond that.

"..." Nio guides Stelaria through the corridor of bowing maids as she leads her to a hall with a banquet already prepared. Nio is satisfied to see that all the food looks "normal" instead of a horror movie banquet full of strange things.

"Sit wherever you’d like! We’ll have a brief meal before we talk about the great threat that I know will attack soon!" While Nio talks with Stelaria, she has her clone forge Stelaria’s signature to send letters to various places warning about the attack so everything happens as quickly as possible.

While also leaving Ryu knocked out with a medicine so Ryu wouldn’t get in her clone’s way.

"So then, who is this great threat?" Stelaria asks pragmatically as she sits at the table, serving herself when Nio tells her to take whatever she wants.

"It’s a monster! Called Typhon. He’ll carry out an attack in three days—a massive attack full of monsters!! He’ll attack the Theocracy, the Empire, the Ortyr Kingdom, and several other kingdoms!!"

"And that’s why we all need to unite to deal with this threat!!" Nio doesn’t expect help against Typhon, actually preferring to fight alone to avoid any ability that might increase Typhon’s strength through deaths caused or something similar.

So her plan is mainly to gain worldwide influence for her plan to become ruler of the entire world.

"How do you know this, Nio? Did you make some kind of prediction or something?" Nio stares into Stelaria’s eyes using Charm.

"What are you talking about, Stelaria? You’re the one who predicted this attack and already sent letters to other kingdoms before we left. I’m just helping." Nio forces Stelaria to believe she was the one who predicted the attack she just mentioned using Charm. Since Stelaria is already bound to a charm spell, the effect is immediate and requires no adjustments.

"Oh... yes... that’s right. Sorry for forgetting that... it’s just that I’ve been using my prediction power a lot recently."

’Wait, what?’ Nio wasn’t aware of this information, so she wonders what Stelaria was trying to predict, but decides to leave it for another time because she’s more focused on her plans.

"Stelaria, considering this great threat, I need your help with several things, okay?!" Nio smiles at her with a sweet smile that hides her malice. She mainly wants to collect magic from all the deaths that happen—from both monsters and humans—to create the perfect "arena" for her to face Typhon with total advantage.

"Of course!!" Stelaria simply accepts with a sweet smile, tasting the food—food she finds a bit bland, which makes sense since it’s food that tries to imitate human food in flavor and appearance using monstrous ingredients.