Olivia casually wiped out 99% of the Dead Zone’s remaining forces before dusting her palm as though it hadn’t been anything serious. The glowing rune inscribed on the back of her hand gradually dimd before fading away completely.
Then she clicked her tongue.
"It was a failure. It didn’t kill as many dead lifeforms as I wanted."
With those words, she turned away disinterestedly, opened a portal to her pocket universe, and stepped inside.
At this, Richard silently shook his head before muttering, "She single-handedly wiped out half the forces the enemy ca with, and that still didn’t et her expectations."
He laughed lightly as he imagined the reactions the commanders of the Intergalactic Accord’s forces would have if they heard those words.
Then he turned and stepped toward the portal as well, adding,
"Oh well. Those things were really just Deity Realms anyway. Compared to her, they might as well be microbes."
With those words, Richard stepped into the pocket universe, and the portal closed behind him.
◇ ◇ ◇
After the battle that Olivia ended with her newly developed rune, the dead lifeforms didn’t launch another attack for several weeks, and neither did the Accord.
Both sides had suffered extensive losses, but both also understood that whichever side recovered first would gain the advantage in the coming battles.
Within the Accord’s higher ranks, discussions began regarding whether they should launch attacks into the outer regions of the Dead Zone, areas that weren’t saturated with dense concentrations of grey fog.
Their goal would be to eliminate any dead lifeforms occupying those regions and, if possible, attempt to reclaim the galaxies consud by the Dead Zone.
Very few held hope for the latter outco, however, because over 400 million years had passed since the Dead Zone’s creation, and during that ti, many had repeatedly attempted to recover the lost regions of space.
Every attempt had ended in catastrophic failure.
During this sa period, Olivia continued her experints in trying to create a biological virus tailored specifically toward the physical characteristics of dead lifeforms, but those attempts failed just as frequently as the attempts to recover the galaxies swallowed by the Dead Zone.
It was during one particularly frustrating mont after another failed experint, when Olivia sat sloppily in her chair while silently tapping a stylus against the desk in front of her, that she sensed an intrusion into her pocket universe.
In less than a split second, Olivia instantly beca alert. A dense concentration of magic power erupted from her body, and the interior of her pocket universe imdiately flooded with cosmic energy so dense that even Lesser Supres would struggle to move properly within it.
However, when Olivia saw the face of the intruder, who casually ignored her hostility and was busy poking at the bodies of dead lifeforms slowly crumbling apart on a nearby operating table, she exhaled and said,
"You know, this is very rude of you."
"Hmm? What is?"
"Entering my pocket universe without my permission," Olivia snapped while retracting her power.
She threw the stylus in her hand toward the intruder’s head, but he simply stood there and allowed it to phase through his body before it embedded itself into the nearest wall.
Just then, Richard entered Olivia’s pocket universe, and upon noticing the additional presence that hadn’t been there before, his expression showed faint surprise.
"Huh? Jamie? You guys are done? Where’s Miranda?"
"Yes, we’re done," Jamie replied while sliding his hands into the pockets of his pinstripe suit. "Mira went to brief the Supres about their next deploynt."
"Deploynt? Supres?" Olivia and Richard echoed simultaneously, their expressions filled with surprise.
"Isn’t this a bit early to start bringing out forces on that level?" Olivia asked. "And besides, many of them are still under scrutiny for potentially being traitors."
When Olivia said that, Jamie nodded quietly before replying,
"Yes, that’s true, but the ones under scrutiny will be excluded from deploynt. I’ll feed so of them false information about our next course of action and see which of them passes it to the Neo-Extinction Legion."
"That still doesn’t explain why you suddenly want to deploy Supres," Richard said. "First of all, it’s too early to start bringing out forces on that level, especially when we still don’t know how many Cosmic Realm forces the Neo-Extinction Legion possesses.
There could be millions of them for all we know. Olivia and I have repeatedly scanned the Dead Zone, but we haven’t detected any Cosmic Realm signatures."
"Which is strange in itself," Olivia added, "because we know Cosmic Realm existences are definitely working with the Neo-Extinction Legion. We’ve encountered so of them before. You’ve encountered so of them, too, Jamie."
Jamie nodded silently before saying,
"Yes, there are definitely Cosmic Realm existences working with the Neo-Extinction Legion. The problem is the dead lifeforms."
When Jamie said that, Olivia narrowed her eyes and asked,
"Are you talking about normal existences like the one Richard fought in the Prison Realm, people who gained the power of pseudo-nonexistence and technically beca dead lifeforms?
Or are you talking about ones originally born as dead lifeforms and have reached levels of power equivalent to the Cosmic Realms?"
Jamie looked at her with a raised eyebrow before asking,
"Would the forr even constitute anything beyond the bare minimum level of threat to you?"
Neither sibling needed to answer aloud. The answer was an obvious NO.
And because of that, both imdiately understood that Jamie was referring to the latter category of dead lifeforms.
"Oh wow," Olivia muttered. "We only just theorised their existence a couple of weeks ago."
Hearing this, Jamie nodded.
"Yes. I saw the information you gave to the Accord. You two were quite generous in revealing those details."
Then he glanced around the expansive research hall, at the tubes containing imprisoned dead lifeforms, before adding with a chuckle,
"You really do take after your mother, Olivia."
The mont Jamie said that, Richard instantly responded,
"Aha! You see what I was saying?"
Olivia rely rolled her eyes at her brother’s antics before imdiately returning to the main topic.
"Alright, so there are Cosmic Realm dead lifeforms hiding their presence within the Dead Zone. We don’t know how many there are, so I’m assuming you want to use the Supres to force them into action?"
"Not exactly," Jamie replied. "I want to force them into action through another thod, and I want the Supres ready to counter them once they finally move."
"And what exactly is this other thod?" Olivia asked.
Her question made Jamie heave a heavy sigh before he answered,
"Olivia, we can’t afford to let this war drag on the sa way the war against the Destruction Supre did."
The ntion of the root cause behind the current crisis made Olivia frown lightly, but she stayed silent and allowed Jamie to continue.
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