Fortunately, someone had the sense to bring up that question shortly afterwards.

“The demons of the Wildlands are helping…in a way.” Hereward tapped his feet. “Their Demigods and foot soldiers will not be joining us in the battle, however. Their sole representative in this great crusade is none other then Demon Sovereign Asteria, who has reawakened from his madness cast by the Demon God.”

Something seemed to explode in Aziz’s mind, and the world itself spun madly. The colonel hadn’t quite understood those words, save for the fact that the Demon Sovereign was still alive.

In that case, was coming to a peace treaty with the Wildlands a good idea? The original reasoning was that since the Wildlands no longer had a supreme expert watching over them, they weren’t of much threat. With the Heaven-cleaving Fortress impenetrable to all but the most determined and suicidal of assaults, the Wildlands could never pose a threat to the Five Lands. In fact, the peace treaty included the provision that the Wildlands and the Five Lands would never build a second land bridge, which the demons had accepted happily.

At that time, no one had thought much of it, but if the Demon Sovereign was alive, what was the point of having such a provision? Perhaps, the demons themselves were laughing at them madly when the Five Lands fought to place that provision into the peace treaty itself.

There were so many other issues that Aziz could think of, but each and every one of them ended in a second invasion of the Five Lands by the demons, helmed by their terrifying Demon Sovereign. With the other great gods injured badly from the final battle above the Never-ending Ocean, few could stand in Asteria’s way. From how his captives back then had phrased things, it was clear that the Demon Sovereign was behind the masterful strategy of not killing, which showed that he had all his faculties from that point in time.

Such a being would not stand still and let the Locomotives bombard him with their Peacebringers, unlike his insane progenitor.

The same thought had clearly occurred to just about everyone else in the audience stands, but the demon Demigods, the target of their conversations, remained unruffled.

“Calm down.” Hereward’s voice rippled outwards. “The Demon Sovereign has no intention of invading your homes once more. In fact, the last I checked, he’s more interested in staying home and taking care of his baby daughter. Home affairs aside, however, the Demon Sovereign will be joining us as a great god, to suppress the Abyss Sovereign.”

“Daughter?”

Aziz rubbed his ears. For a moment, he thought that the Stabiliser’s words were but a trick of the mind, but the whispers around the auditorium convinced him otherwise.

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“The Demon Sovereign has a baby?” Marie asked, visibly amused. “That’s…really funny. The guy who was holding up that black-gold lance to impale the Heaven-cleaving Fortress is now carrying diapers around. Maybe he’s cajoling his daughter to sleep. Think about it. I’m going to giggle away, so don’t mind me.”

Aziz tried to imagine the Demon Sovereign, a being of black and gold light, holding up an equally shiny baby, before singing it to sleep. It was a delightful image, to say the least.

Amidst intermittent bouts of laughter, Hereward said, “He’s as much a great god as my other siblings. There is little to be scared about from him. Back to the main point, however. The Demon Sovereign will be the sole representative of the Wildlands in our march on the Abyss Sovereign. We must learn to work together. Fail, and Orb will be mostly depopulated in the centuries to come.”

“Hold, O Stabiliser.” A soldier from the Eastern Territories raised her hand. “I would like to know about this new world of the Abyss Sovereign. What is so special about it, that the Abyss Sovereign would expose Orb to such risk?”

Hereward hesitated.

“Is there something you can’t tell us?” the soldier pressed on.

“No.” The Stabiliser shook his head. “But even I am uncertain of the details. One would require a personal understanding of the Abyss Sovereign himself to know what world he desires. A festival of creation can only be commenced by a stern will and unwavering determination, especially for one as fantastical as a utopia.”

He inclined his head slightly. “My apologies for the lacking intelligence. I will now yield the floor to Pinnacle Kolya, who will now announce the military arrangements of the Five Lands.”

The grey radiance waned as Hereward returned to his seat, and Aziz found himself regarding the Pinnacle with trepidation. The war between the Five Lands and the Wildlands had just ended, but they were going to be embroiled in a new one yet again.

“Ladies, gentlemen. With this enormous threat looming over us, we must put aside our differences. Our initial estimate of the Abyss Sovereign’s strength puts him or her at the level of the ancient gods, our Orb’s Gods of Creation. This will be a harsh battle through and through, especially since we are the ones doing the invasion.” Pinnacle Kolya stared at everyone, and then shook his head.

“Whatever happened in the Great War that concluded today has been an eye-opener for us all. International cooperation is hard to achieve, especially when the threat of the Demon God was resolved. We do not have much time to prepare for the assault. If we are to prevent the Abyss Sovereign from completing the festival of creation, we must trust each other unconditionally.”

Aziz really couldn’t bring himself to do that, though. As a senior officer of the Republic, he didn’t like the prospect of sending a whole bunch of troops through the Southern Assembly. Who knew what those treacherous lowlifes would do to the crack troops of the Republic? He hadn’t quite forgotten how Speaker Sephira nearly annihilated an entire company with friendly fire back then…and at that time, the Demon God was still very much alive.

From the looks on Marie and Major Xi’s faces, they didn’t quite like the idea too.

“This is going to be wild, at least.” Aziz sighed. “Can we not? Voluntarily opt out or something? Please say yes, if only to maintain my last bit of sanity.”

“Dream on,” Marie replied. “There’s no way they’re letting the most competent of aerial troops skip out on this.”

Aziz mumbled some very fine words under his breath, and then tried to form daggers with his will alone, as he stared at Pinnacle Kolya.

Maybe those things could stab him to death.