The Martial Unity

Rui was grateful when he heard those words. That was right; the Orion Star Strand may have been the smallest star strand, but it was still a star strand that occupied a visible, if small, portion of the volume of the entire Milky Way.

Searching it for an entity the traits of which they had no idea about was something that would too either too many resources or too much time. Having gained an intricate understanding of the Arakai Web Civilization, Rui understood that large civilizations did indeed have extraordinary capacities, but they also tended to have even greater commitments for those capacities.

For instance, the laminar civilization dominated much of the Scutum-Centaurus Star Strand, a major star strand of the Milky Way Galaxy. But that also meant that they faced a tremendous amount of pressure from the many minor civilizations beyond the edge of their territory. They constantly needed to dedicate a tremendous amount of military power to maintain the integrity of their control over territory.

On top of that, they actively pursued the extermination of who even knew how many infected worlds. And they were fighting some grand conflict at the center of the Milky Way. These were are all tremendously resources-consuming endeavors that sapped away at most of the vast strength of the Laminar Civilization.

Similar circumstances undoubtedly existed for most advanced civilizations. Their power was vast, but unwieldy, and consumed by countless matters. In hindsight, Rui figured that this was also the reason that no civilization had truly managed to establish a stronghold in other star strands, despite attempts being made. They had run into a gargantian, a mechanical outpost of BABEL, but none of the civilizations had managed to truly create successful colonies in other star strands.

The tremendous void between star strands meant that it was very difficult to transfer the large amount of resources needed to be able to fight off native advanced civilizations in their home turf to carve out such a large portion of their territory.

Thus, the Laminars would actually make more progress with finding the key in the Orion Star Strand by enlisting the aid of native civilizations, at the top of which was human civilization. Based on the memories of Divine Mother o-o-o-o, Rui knew that the Arakai Web Civilization and the Laminar Civilization had made contact in the past whenever an infected world farmed by the arakai had exploded.

It was no wonder that the laminars were willing to help human civilization in the war against the arakai in exchange for human civilization searching for the key.

Now, Rui found himself in a quandary. He knew exactly what and where the key was. If he accepted this deal, then he would have to commit to deceiving the laminars, because there was no way he was selling his daughter off.

He didn't have much of a choice, unfortunately. If he didn't agree to the deal, then the Tendril of Light would smell something fishy. It was absurd for human civilization to reject the aid of the Laminar Integuments in the circumstances that they were in right now, which were quite desperate on paper.

Humans were up against a determined enemy that was a thousand times larger than they were. Any rational entity would accept any help they could get their hands on. Rejecting it would require an extremely good reason.

Like if humans already possessed the key.

"Deal," he said in a heartbeat, even if he wish the Tendril of Light hadn't come with this offer to him. "We'll take all the power that we can get our hands on. However, the amount of effort we put into searching for this 'key' in the Orion Star Strand will only be proportional to the amount of effort that you laminars offer to us."

"Can. Dedicate. Entire. Worldship. To. War," the Tendril of Light flashed eagerly. "Will. Personally. Join. War. With. Worldship."

Rui's eyes lit up at those words. If the Tendril of Light was coming with the same worldship that he had come with the last time he came to the Solar System, then that would definitely increase their battle prowess by a significant portion. Human civilization had grown significantly since their battle with the laminar integument, but Rui had personally witnessed just how much battle power even a single laminar worldship had.

It had managed to stalemate all of humanity before Rui broke through to the Transcendent Realm. The Tendril of Light possessed so much combat power that not even the Jormungandr and the Suneater would be able to match him. He recalled how the laminar integument had threatened to destroy the entire Solar System with his extraordinarily charged dark energy-powered gravitational wave.

It spoke volumes of just how tremendously advanced their civilization's combat enhancement technology was. It was a whole other level beyond even the Arakai Web Civilization.

The only problem was that allowing the Tendril of Light to enter human civilization was very risky. There was a chance that a certain infected world brokerage company would catch the eye—or laminar membrane rather—of the Tendril of Light.

There was a chance that they would suspect the company for using the key to find infected matter. Of course, even if they didn't come to that conclusion, there was a chance that they would want to get access to the technology that EsoQuest Solutions used to make, since they hunted infected worlds.

'I'll need to keep them outside human civilization for as long as possible,' Rui realized. 'Best to deploy them for deep assaults into arakai territory.'

That way, he could minimize the amount of attention that they would pay to human civilization. He could also prevent them from investigating human civilization as long as he convinced them that human civilization didn't have the key. They would be inclined to believe him since he had great dominion over human civilization.

Choosing this path would mean walking a tightrope, but Rui was prepared to walk as many tightropes as he needed in order to protect his daughter and to protect human civilization.

"I accept your offer of aid," Rui declared with a quickness meant to convey his supposed desperation for laminar power. "In return, we will do our best to help search the stars for the key to the Universalis Mensis."

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