Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, deep in the heart of the Association's Central Headquarters, a muscular man with bright red hair and a matching beard walks in circles in a large golden room.

His footsteps are light, almost like skips, and the air around him is full of silky yellow-white Divine Energy.

The room is hundreds of meters wide and dozens of meters high, yet it is extremely plain inside.

There is a single entrance and exit point, and on the other side of the room, there is a golden throne with a staircase leading up to it.

At its base, many tables and chairs lie empty, as though many speeches for a very important crowd have been spoken here in the past.

But now, the man walks in circles with a devious smile on his face at the opposite side of the room.

He mutters to himself as he thinks of grand plans, occasionally showing his mental breakthroughs in the form of massive displays of bright yellow flames emanating from his palms, tethered to their core with dense divine energy. Yet, once they hit the room's golden walls, the flames dissipate in an instant.

Even when the divine fireballs are thrown in seemingly random directions, headed toward the throne and stairs at the back of the room, they too are absorbed by the golden material, and the flames never disrupt the solid state of the room.

Deep below this golden coating, dense black stone lines the entire room and even makes up all of the artifacts within this tyrant's palace.

Not even the strongest flames of a True Core have any effect on the unique S-Grade shielding.

The man stops his pacing and pulls out an obsidian black cube with three bright yellow crystals on its face. He presses one of them, which burns the brightest.

"Shall I send out the scouts and prepare for a base to be built in the Dark Continent? The time is near..."

He smiles while pulling his finger from the crystal but holds the device in his palm as he continues to walk around the empty golden hall, leaving nothing but the light crackle of bright yellow flames that cover his body and the sound of his footsteps to fill the silence of the great room.

A few minutes go by, and the red-haired man gets back into a rhythmic display of walking in circles and thinking before another click sounds on the transmission device.

—

In a room coated in a dazzling silver lacquer, of a similar size to the last, there is another throne at its back with an identical staircase leading up to it.

However, everything below the first few steps is submerged in a super-cooled liquid that flows like water but has the white coloring and temperature of ice. Divine threads surge through the material, and they only manage to stay inside and not radiate out to the outside world because of the same dense black stone that lines this room.

Atop the throne, swirling the pool of divine energy beneath her, a woman sits with white hair buzz cut extremely short, and a muscular build that still holds the mystique of feminine curves. She wears nothing but a skin-tight glossy black material that covers portions of her body. It wriggles and moves to randomly expose areas of her striated muscles, feeding off the True Core's excess divine power.

It appears to be alive, made of originator stone, draining her divine core's essence as it wraps around her chest, legs, and shoulder to cover her vitals like armor.

The woman's white eyes stare at the black device on the arm of her throne that blares out the sound of the red-haired man's question.

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She lets out a sigh and raises a finger in the air, and the immense pool of white liquid ice swirls faster and faster at the base of the room until it all flows back into her finger, disappearing as if it was never there.

Her eyes pulse bright white a few times, then she answers the call.

"Redgrave. This world will be ours. There is no reason for us to rush the process now, especially as the Abyss has not yet revealed the number of doors that will open."

The white-eyed woman stands from her throne and looks at the shut door at the back of her room. Then, stretches her arms and puts on a smile as she realizes Redgrave isn't serious about his words and plays along.

"Then again, after Mr. Freeman's death, the 8 Great Regions must be in chaos by now. Maybe if we showed up now and cleared out those settlers with our presence alone, it would be doing them a favor."

The black tendrils of originator artifact that slither around her muscular body pulse with a yellow light, matching the excitement that builds up in her core, but a well-spoken, calm, and collected voice echoes through the transmission device, making her wandering thoughts cease.

"Both of you must have patience. There is a 9.93% chance that arriving five days early to the throne will result in an unnecessary fight breaking out among us. I advise we wait approximately 126 hours before arriving to limit our chances of fighting below 0.1%."

—

In a plain room, less than a quarter the size of the silver or gold, with nothing but a simple table and chair at its back facing the door, a man with pale skin, a jet-black suit, and thin-framed glasses sits.

The room itself is lined with the same unbreakable black shielding, yet the man inside doesn't test its limits. He has refused to coat it with an aesthetic wall covering like the other two as it is not necessary for its efficiency.

He stares down at a complicated system interface while pressing the small yellow crystal on the transmission device again.

"In addition to this fact, there are approximately 61.89 million citizens that reside in the 8 Great Regions and Dark Continent combined. If we arrive too early, our workers for the new world will be injured or even killed. We must conceal our presence until the doors reveal themselves."

He takes his finger off the device and goes back to staring at a fast-moving blue text interface in the dark black room.

—

Redgrave's flames fill his room again as he makes his voice sound impatient, but he smiles ear to ear, caring little about waiting a few more days.

"Come on, Beckman, what's a few million lives matter if we've already brokered half the new world away in your deal with the Demons."

Elara speaks up next, almost instantly after Redgrave's remark, as she begins walking down the steps of her throne to stretch her legs.

"It's been decades since you made that deal anyway, Beckman. I'm in the mood for a good fight. What if we just battle them for control? All three of us have become far stronger since that meeting. What's the worst that could happen if we broke the contract?"

She grins too, riling the meticulous man up for a bit of fun.

He replies after tapping away at his system interface in his dark lair for about a full minute before replying.

"It is our best course of action to honor the deal. Even now, if all three of us in our current forms were to face the Demon we met years ago, there would only be a 21.75% chance of our victory, and that would incur a minimum of one casualty between the three of us. It is not the optimal path to take moving forward. If we—"

Redgrave yells back through the transmission device, cutting him off from rambling endless numbers.

"Yeah, yeah—this again, I know. It was a joke. A joke, Beckman!"

Elara's chuckle sounds out through the transmission device before she adds to the conversation further.

"Thank you for your analysis, Beckman. I too was just having a bit of fun. There is no reason to stray from our deal. I won't leave the shelter until you believe the time is right... Though, one thing still makes me think. What do you make of the incident between Raven and Sebastian? Are we missing anything? Did she really kill the threat that ended Mr. Freeman?"

There's a long pause through the whole channel, but the man finally looks up from his dashboard and replies.

"There is a 95.68% chance that Raven has allowed them to live and aligned herself with the threat she was tasked to eliminate. Her death after the initial clash was certain—cause of death would be divine energy poisoning, without a doubt. Considering the resources available, she could not have survived without help. There is a 0.04% chance the threat she let survive would be strong enough to injure any of us if that is the display of their total power."

The man taps away at his interface, and numbers continue to pile up before his unchanging gaze.

After another moment of silence, the man speaks again.

"Redgrave, sending out a few scouts would be a great use of resources. Have a survey of the 8 Great Regions, The Dark Continent, and Raven's base conducted. If this Flame Emperor is a bigger threat than we initially anticipated, it would be best to nip things in the bud, even if the chances are minuscule. Anything that changes the odds of our ideal outcome must be eliminated."