2386 You Are The One
"What…" A faint, chilling whisper escaped the Britannian Prime Minister. "What did you just say?"
Master Brigsby's lowered head didn't seem to protect him from the wrath of the Britannian Prime Minister. Under ordinary circumstances, the former outranked the latter in a Martialocracy like the Britannian Empire, but the stresses of war had revealed the truth of the value heirarchy of Britannian Empire.
The Britannian Empire needed the Prime Minister if it had any hope of winning the war against the Kandrian Empire. It needed him far more than it needed someone like Master Brigbsby.
On top of that, while the Martial Supremacist in Master Brigsby hated being treated with scorn and contempt by a mere human, he was principled enough to accept that he deserved the blame that the Britannian Prime Minister was throwing at him.
"…I failed, prime minister," he met the cold fury in the prime minister's eyes head-on. "I led one hundred Masters with the primary purpose of taking down the Void Prince. And I was forced to retreat after the mission had failed. That failure led to the death of twenty-eight Martial Masters."
Prime Minister had been having a bad day.
His migraines and other disorders had been getting worse recently.
Yet, the news of the devastating fiasco of the most recent operation to kill the Void Prince made him feel worse.
"How did you fail with one hundred as many Masters?" Prime Minister Edward growled.
The edge in his voice was painful to the Master but more than understandable. "…He was extraordinary," Master Brigsby admitted with a grimace. "I don't understand how he did it, but he increased the weight of his Martial Embodiment to the point that most Martial Masters can't handle it. Ordinarily, Martial Embodiments are far too weak to affect Masters, such that even some of the strongest Martial Embodiments were entirely harmless. However…"
"I know," Prime Minister Edward's scorn towards the Master reduced when he understood the situation that he was in. "The Void Prince's Martial Mind is well known by now to be extremely powerful and burdening on the mind. I hear that lesser beings like myself are not even qualified to behold it without going brain-dead due to the sheer amount of information it releases that threatens to flood the brain with."
That piece of information chaffed at his pride.
He held great pride in his mind and his intellect. Belongs to (N)ôvel/Drama.Org.
Out of all the humans in the Britannian Empire, he alone had earned the full trust and acknowledgment of Transcendent Emperor Arthur, gaining implicitly unparalleled authority in the oversight of the Britannian Empire.
Yet, despite that, it was apparently not enough to withstand even simply glancing at the Void Prince.
He shook his head, heaving a sigh.
He was not fighting the Dawnbringer directly, it was irrational to be upset at not being able the personally match up up to him. "Master Brigsby…" Prime Minister Edward's sharp gaze returned to him. "If I were to give you some time to strategize and train before redeploying you against him a second time. Would you be able to take him down?"
The elder Master grimaced. "…Most likely not."
It was painful to admit, but he didn't want to be dishonest just because the truth hurt his pride.
"…Is he truly that strong? Such that even you, who killed a grade thirty Master, is giving up?" Prime Minister Edward's eyes widened with a hint of surprise. "…Had it been anybody else, I would have been confident that I would have been able to adaptively evolve faster and better, given time, but against him, that's a losing battle." Master Brigsby shook his head. "His capacity to improvise and identify the absolute best choices to make in a given circumstance is unlike anything I have ever seen. He tried solutions against my light beams, discarded the ones that didn't work, and then formed his combat approach on the ones that did and took them down, denying me any ability to intervene."
It was clear that while the Master deeply begrudged Rui, he had also come to gain a lot of respect for him. "You may leave." Prime Minister Edward closed his eyes, heaving a deep sigh.
Soon enough, he was alone.
His expression crumpled with rage and frustration at the most recent turn of events. He had been winning the war for allies for the first two months until half of all allies made their choice. It was also when they began dueling for the Shionel Confederation that things started going wrong.
He truly didn't expect the guildmaster to side with the Kandrian Empire. He had underestimated the man's respect and regard for the Void Prince. On top of that, he had not expected the attack on the Shionel Confederation to not be a complete success. And finally, he certainly hadn't expected that the Dawnbringer would be able to emerge victorious against a hundred Martial Masters.
He couldn't help but feel that his rival, the Emperor of Harmony, had been blessed with superior chess pieces that were just far more potent than his own. For all his military and Martial strategic prowess, he had no clue what he was supposed to do to take down a Master who overcame a hundred of the strongest Masters that he had. If he chose to escalate to sending only Martial Sages to fight him, then it would escalate to the very peak very quickly.
He would certainly win a battle of Martial Sages, but he would lose ninety percent of the Sages of the alliance in battle in a horrific pyrrhic victory. Avoiding that was why the war for allies was even happening in the first place. It left him with no obvious moves to play.
If only he had some kind of trump card that could turn the war for allies back in his favor.
BZZZT!
He glanced at the message on his comms artifact.
His eyes lit up as he happened upon a single message from the clan leaders of the Sekigahara Confederate.
[we found him.]
Far, far away on the ominous waters of the Great Nam Ocean stood a Martial Master.
She was wounded and tired, panting heavily.
The unconscious bodies of her comrades floated about in rocky waters.
Yet, she never once paid them any heed.
No.
Her eyes were fixed on a single being.
A single man.
She beheld the entire world in the profound depths of his black eyes. His black hair fluttered in the sea breeze while his dark, cold gaze pierced through her where she stood. She felt transparent.
Naked.
He could see everything.
And everything he saw was his. She felt insignificant compared to the sheer weight of his being.
She had only ever felt this helpless against one other Martial Master.
"You…" A weak murmur escaped her. "You are the one."
Her voice grew more certain and exhilarating.
"You are the only one."
Her eyes lit up with ecstasy.
"You must."
Her voice grew delirious.
"You must fight him."
The last of her strength escaped her as her vision blurred and her body buckled.
A final whisper escaped her. "…A battle unlike anything the world has ever seen."
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