Chapter 1189
Alliance Requirements
Chapter 1189 Alliance Requirements (Everyone, please refresh the page~)
The High Priest and Sean changed almost simultaneously upon hearing the Red King's name.
At that moment, a certain "temperature" on their bodies suddenly dropped. Their expressions, which had been maintaining rationality and restraint, changed upon hearing the words "Crimson King." It was as if something had directly touched their very core, and an undisguised hostility and hatred surfaced in their eyes.
That wasn't a personal emotion, but rather an instinctive reaction etched into the racial memory and even embedded in the belief system. The two Eldar representatives began to breathe.
Sean subconsciously tightened his fingers, as if suppressing some kind of impulse, while the High Priestess made no attempt to hide it. She looked at Xia Xiu, and the sharpness in her eyes for that instant was even deeper than when she faced Rhodes earlier.
"If you want an answer—yes."
"The Crimson King you speak of can indeed be considered one of the culprits behind the destruction of the First Otto World."
"At the end of the First Otto Era, the number of Wo's Untouchables had reached a scale that could not be described by conventional concepts. They were no longer scattered invaders, but formed a 'total erosion state' that covered the entire structure of the universe. You can understand it as a cosmic entity in the process of taking shape."
She slightly raised her eyes.
"At that stage, the so-called 'individual' is merely the manifestation of the whole at different times and in different regions."
Her voice deepened slightly.
"The Crimson King is just one of them, and also the one closest to the main body."
"You can understand Him as the concrete projection of that cosmic-level entity at a certain point in time; it is the most stable, most complete, and closest to the completed state of expression."
“It’s too early for us to discuss Him now,” she said, looking at Xia Xiu. “What we should be more concerned about now is the present.”
"The fortress beneath your feet has another name here."
Her tone returned to calm, but was no longer distant.
"The Symbol of Val".
"This is a structure that the Eldar built specifically to counter the 'stable individuals' of the Voidwalkers during the First Otto War."
"Once those things stabilize by devouring reality and truly enter the stage of 'physical universe existence,' they will gain extremely high resistance and adaptability, and conventional physical, energy, and even conceptual interference will quickly become ineffective."
"However, this also gives them an unavoidable weakness—they will instinctively begin to fear the ethereal subspace."
Her gaze fell on the depths of the core module.
"Because the etheric subspace is not entirely 'existence' in nature, it is a sandwich structure between reality and non-existence. Once these stable individuals are forcibly dragged into it, their structure will begin to collapse."
"From 'existence', it falls back to 'undefined'."
She paused for a moment.
"That is to say—forced degeneration."
"And the purpose of the Vaal Symbol is to amplify this process."
“Through the directed release of energy in the etheric subspace, those individuals that have already stabilized can be pushed back into an unstable state, or even, under the right conditions, directly exiled.”
She didn't say "eliminate," because that kind of thing doesn't belong to the category of things that can be killed.
“During the war of the First Otto, the Eldar built a total of twelve such fortresses. The one you see now is just one of the remaining ones.”
"The vast majority of the rest were lost in the war, scattered across various temporal and spatial rifts, or swept up in the already collapsed structure of reality."
She didn't go into details about the losses, but instead brought the topic back to the present.
“We don’t actually have much time to collect them one by one, because we’ve been fighting those things ever since the end of the First Otto World.”
"Even now, we are still fighting against them."
The high priestess's tone remained unchanged, but the message was clear enough. Then, she took a small step forward.
"The Fourth Saint has been searching for allies."
“Not believers, nor vassals, but—a being with the real power to confront—and He noticed you long ago.”
"Heaven, you have the potential and ability to become allies of the Second Ottoworld against the Wolverines. We are willing to communicate with humanity on an equal footing."
Upon hearing this, Xia Xiu had roughly figured out the other party's true intentions in laying out all this time.
From the essence of "Volno-Kingdom" to the destruction of the First Ottoman Empire, and then to the uses of the Vaal Rune and Blackrock Fortress, this seemingly grand and weighty narrative is not merely an exchange of information, but a meticulously designed logical framework. From the very beginning, they all point to only one conclusion:
The Eldar hope to form an alliance with humanity.
More accurately, it is an alliance with the Kingdom of Heaven.
He did not respond immediately.
Proposals at this level cannot be easily defined based on the other party's one-sided statement, especially when it involves cosmic threats and the future of civilization. Any hasty statement would be handing over the initiative to the other party.
Moreover, he never truly believed in the word "equality" from the very beginning.
Xia Xiu's gaze calmly fell on the High Priest. Beneath that seemingly casual gaze, he had already made an extremely calm judgment. He did not deny the facts stated by the Spirit Race, but he was equally clear that the stance and motives hidden behind these facts were by no means as neutral as they appeared on the surface.
The Eldar, once the dominant race in the galaxy.
A civilization of this caliber could not possibly truly acknowledge the equal status of other races at its core.
Even if they are willing to cooperate now, it is only based on the situation, not on mutual agreement.
From a human perspective, this relationship is actually quite easy to understand; it's like a group of monkeys suddenly getting a gun.
You might be wary of the weapons they carry, choose to cooperate when necessary, and even show a certain "respect" for a short period of time, but this respect is never directed at the "monkey" species itself, but only at that dangerous tool.
In the eyes of the Eldar, humans are most likely to be this kind of beings.
Short-lived, savage, emotional, and lacking a stable structure—a race that shouldn't have possessed such power, yet at a certain juncture, it gained the ability to manipulate the situation.
Xia Xiu's gaze shifted slightly downwards for a moment before returning to the High Priest's face.
Her tone was indeed restrained, and her wording was careful enough. She even deliberately maintained an almost "equal" attitude in some details. But this equality seemed more like a trained way of expressing herself than a genuine understanding.
Because in every pause and every subtle change in her tone, she would unconsciously reveal a hint of superiority that was extremely difficult to detect.
That wasn't directed at any one person, but at the entire race.
This arrogance has nothing to do with strength or the current situation; it is more like an instinct deeply ingrained in the underlying structure of civilization, a default stance accumulated over a long history and with absolute superiority.
Just like when humans see a monkey holding a gun, they will be wary of the gun, but will never truly regard the monkey as one of their own.
But her attitude towards Rhodes just now was closer to this instinctive, primal form.
Xia Xiu did not show any emotion about this. The Heavenly Kingdom is a human supremacist, and the Spirit Race was the former cosmic overlord. The two sides would instinctively have ideological conflicts.
The Eldar see humans as monkeys, and humans surely see the Eldar as heretics.
The reason we need to cooperate now is simply because we have a common enemy.
The high priest was slightly dissatisfied with Xia Xiu's performance. The other party neither expressed agreement with his narrative nor showed any sense of honor at having taken the initiative to make contact with a higher civilization.
However, since the Eldar had decided to make their first contact with humans, this contact had to have a good start, so she continued with her usual rhetoric.
“We know that you humans have always been fighting against chaos.”
"But your understanding of them is still at the level of phenomena."
She looked at Xia Xiu, her gaze steady.
"In our view, it is not merely the chaos you perceive, but four stable Wowutu individuals, which are known as the Four Monarchs in your system."
"And these four beings have been paying attention to the same place."
She paused slightly. "—Terra"
"The Four Lords did not simply invade Terra, but rather engaged in a long-term entanglement and continuous containment. All the conflicts and wars you have experienced have essentially been delaying their actions, which, in effect, has greatly reduced the pressure on our side."
"From the perspective of the development of civilization, this situation is abnormal in itself."
"A civilization capable of confronting four stable individuals of the Wolverines for a long time, and even dragging them into a war of attrition, should have the ability to transcend the planetary stage, and may have even entered into galactic-scale expansion."
"But the reality is—you don't have it."
Her gaze darkened slightly.
"Human civilization has mysteriously stagnated at the planetary level."
"It's not because of insufficient resources or technological bottlenecks, but rather because our development path is being continuously suppressed by some higher-level external force."
She didn't pause for long.
“We believe that this repression is related to those four Wo Wutu.”
“Even—related to the Crimson King.”
For the first time, her tone carried a hint of clear judgment.
“They are not just fighting against you, but in this way, they are locking you into a certain stage of development.”
“And that’s not all.” Her gaze deepened. “In the baseline universe, there are some things we call stars—they reside high in the universe and do not directly intervene in reality, but their gaze itself will affect the evolutionary path of civilizations.”
"For the Eldar, humanity shouldn't be trapped on their home planet forever, which is why we're here."
She spoke slowly.
"The Kingdom of Heaven is not an ordinary human force, but a civilization leader that is qualified to confront the Wowutu. The pressure you are under should not be borne by a planetary civilization."
"And we don't intend to continue to stand by and watch."
Her voice wasn't loud, but it was firm enough.
"Let's form an alliance with the Eldar."
"We will not betray our allies, because for us, allies are part of the existing structure, not resources that can be consumed at will."
She took a small step forward.
"We will help you break through existing limitations and assist you in establishing a foundation that transcends the planetary level, so that human civilization can truly enter the development track it should have, instead of continuing to be trapped on the home planet and passively bearing pressures that do not belong to you."
She paused for a moment.
Then, his tone softened slightly.
"And as a token of sincerity—"
She raised her hand and pointed to the black stone fortress at her feet.
"I can help you take control of it first."
When Xia Xiu heard that the High Priest wanted to help him control Blackrock Fortress, he simply gave a lukewarm reply.
"Oh, then I should thank you."
It's no wonder he had this attitude. To be honest, the moment he stepped into this Black Stone Fortress, in a sense, it had already become part of heaven.
Even without the Eldar, the Kingdom of Heaven has plenty of ways to take control of Blackrock Fortress.
As for the Eldar, they only showed up after I arrived at the core area, and at just the right moment offered to help control Blackrock Fortress, and then took the opportunity to bring up the topic of an alliance.
This approach, rather than being aid, is more of an attempt to redistribute the discourse based on the established facts.
Why did you Eldar have to come all this way, waiting until I arrived at Blackrock Fortress to jump out and say you wanted to help human civilization, and even help me control Blackrock Fortress... Ha!
If we really follow the Spirit Race's line of reasoning, wouldn't their Heavenly Kingdom be reduced to begging on its knees?
Xia Xiu didn't say any of that, but his "oh" was enough to show his attitude.
Shaun of the Eldar clearly did not grasp this meaning. In his mind, this was a gift from the Eldar to humanity, and humanity should be grateful, not act with a nonchalant "arrogant attitude".
His brow furrowed slightly, as if he were suppressing something, but he ultimately took a step forward, his tone restrained yet subtly revealing a hint of displeasure:
“Lord Hugh Abraham, what the Eldar are expressing is a formal and sincere offer of assistance and goodwill. Under the current circumstances, our willingness to voluntarily relinquish control of the Vaal Symbol is already a very high level of concession. If you respond with this attitude, it is somewhat... not in accordance with proper etiquette.”
He tried to maintain a scholarly composure when he said this, but the tone of "how it should be" itself crossed a line.
The next moment, before Xia Xiu could even speak—
Rhodes, who had been silent all along, suddenly let out a soft chuckle.
He turned his head to look at the high priest, his tone filled with undisguised sarcasm:
"So this is the etiquette of the Eldar? A mere Overlord dares to criticize the Miracle Being's attitude and words right in front of them, and even tries to instruct them on how to respond—"
He paused slightly, his gaze sweeping over Sean, before slowly adding a sentence.
"The Eldar truly live up to their reputation as overlords. Even idiots are well protected. If it were any other idiot who dared to spout nonsense in front of the Miracles, they'd probably be buried three meters high with grass on their graves by now."
The high priest's expression did not change significantly, but her gaze gently fell on Sean.
Sean's expression changed slightly. He immediately lowered his head, took a step back, and made no further sound.
The high priest, however, acted as if nothing had happened, completely ignoring Lot's sarcasm.
She looked at Xia Xiu again.
This time, her tone was slightly more subdued than before, but she still maintained that superior, calm demeanor:
"So—you mean, the Kingdom of Heaven isn't interested in the Second Otto, or rather... you don't think this cooperation is valuable enough?"
She didn't say "I don't like it" directly, but the meaning was fully conveyed in her words.
Xia Xiu chuckled softly after hearing this.
He spread his hands, the movement natural, and his tone softened accordingly:
"No, no, don't misunderstand."
"The Eldar's willingness to offer assistance under these circumstances, regardless of their reasons, is a significant act of goodwill, and the Kingdom of Heaven will certainly not ignore it."
He paused slightly.
"However, alliances are something that I can't decide on my own."
His tone remained calm, but the content had returned to the core issue.
“I can report your proposals in full to the highest authority in the Kingdom of Heaven, and the final decision will be made by the resolution assembly. Before that, I do not intend to make any promises on their behalf.”
"As for now..."
His gaze fell upon the black stone fortress beneath his feet.
"Since you've already brought it up, why don't you first get to the point of what you just mentioned, like helping me to truly take control of this fortress?"
The High Priest's grand narrative was good, but Lao Xia, as a corporate slave and top-notch civil servant in Heaven, chose to put it aside for now and focus on reaping the benefits he could get first.
Cooperation...we'll talk about it later. Anyway, if you want Heaven and humanity to beg on their knees, there's no way you'll succeed.
As for Sean's earlier offense... he wouldn't care about an insect offending him. Just like Rhodes said, if the high priest hadn't been there, he could have easily crushed that insect.