LIGHTNOVELONLINE 50: Planning In A Storm? More like… Brainstorming
With Astrid and Valencia living their best lives away from all the drama and stress of Marcen’s Cliffs, they were unaware as each faction’s preparations for another pseudo-war amped up.
Down below in the Church of Eternity’s underground bunker was a tense meeting room. Aelius and Luna sat at the head of the table as a holographic map of the city was projected in the middle of the room.
“So, the current update is that the Dynasty will probably be the one to spark the conflict.” Vera explained while pushing up her glasses. “They seem to be gearing up to take back the land that the Federation managed to win during the last conflict several months back.”
Sipping some tea he brewed himself using leaves bought from the Leaves of Dawn, Aelius took a moment to savor the flavor while mulling over Vera’s words. With Luna doing the same, Aelius pushed himself up before pointing to a certain area on the map. “I assume the majority of the conflict will be centered around the same area then, correct? Or will the Dynasty mount an attack on the Federation’s headquarters to try and force them to sign a deal to cede the area?”
“It’s hard to say,” Vera nodded, zooming in on the map to show the area in greater detail. “The area being feuded over isn’t very populated, so there’s a possibility that the battle will take place in the neighborhood.”
“Why do we even care?” Luna interjected as she sipped her tea, “The conflict is a matter between the two of them, we could stay out of this conflict completely could we not?”
“It still benefits us to gear up and prepare though, does it not?” Aelius challenged as he and Luna traded fiery glances. “It either allows us to swoop in and take some more territory for ourselves, or it allows us to survive when the battle spills over and brings us into it.”
“Yeah, but we don’t need to gear up nearly as much depending on what our goals are. We could save a lot of resources by only caring about defense. Who cares about taking their territory?” Luna shrugged, as she pointed to the relative distance they had to the predicted epicenter of battle.
“Ambition, sister! Ambition!” Aelius clenched his fist as his eyes glowed. “Don’t you dream of expanding our reach? We can’t become content after building what we have so far!”
Rolling her eyes, Luna sighed as she leaned back into her seat. “But further expansion could come with exponentially higher losses. At some point we do need to be content with what we have.”
Realizing the twins were back in their own little world, Vera just shook her head before turning to the rest of the conference room with a wry smile.
Even if they were twins, they still had their differences...
Looking over towards the corner, Vera raised her eyebrows as she noticed Ignatius and Adelyn having some light conversation.
Interesting.
Ignatius, after suffering a horrendous defeat at the hands of Valencia, seemed to have gone through a complete metamorphosis. He and Adelyn had gone from a frosty, but still respectful relationship, to one of genuine camaraderie...
They did enroll in the same year after all.
Catching their attention, Vera motioned for them to speak up as the rest of the room remained silent while the two twins bickered.
One awkward look between the two of them later, Vera watched as they played a game of rock, paper, and scissors to decide who’d speak up. With Ignatius grabbing his head as he lost, Adelyn covered her mouth to hide her silent laughs.
Clearing his throat, Ignatius raised his voice from the back of the room while raising a finger. “You know, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea to just mobilize more for this situation in particular!”
““Why?”” Luna and Aelius both turned and faced Ignatius with cold glances.
“Well, our scouting has shown the cults are planning something large. Specifically the cults worshiping the Crimson Cancer and the Viridian Taurus,” Ignatius pointed to the flags on the map marking where past altercations with various cult members had occurred. “We’ll probably get embroiled with their plots anyway, so why not be prepared? We might benefit from the whole Dynasty and Federation situation, but we definitely don’t want to be caught off guard and catapulted into a high-level emergency protocol if the cults’ plans come to fruition.”
Fist-bumping Adelyn as the two twins nodded and fell silent, Ignatius puffed his chest up before reigning it back in after a second or two. His hubris had already been checked once, he didn’t need someone else teaching him a similar lesson.
Getting a few sympathetic pats on the back from Adelyn, Ignatius thanked her before leaning back into his seat.
With Ignatius’s comments sparking some more conversation in the Church of Eternity’s conference room, the hours ticked by as they began planning their course of action for the upcoming few days.
Along with their conversation though came some jokes, laughs, and enjoyment as Aelius and Luna ordered for assistants to bring out some light food and drink. As bystanders who could choose if they wanted to involve themselves in the situation, they had much more leisure than the other two factions.
---
Speaking of the other two factions, a storm was brewing in the Dynasty headquarters.
Literally.
With their war room being jam packed with deities, high-level administrators, and their important peak mortal members, the Dynasty was tense.
Morgana, Lysander, and Elyse, as the three leaders of the Dynasty had sharp eyes as an administrator explained their gathered information and the state of their combat availability. Of the three of them though, it was Morgana, Goddess of the Ocean, and Lysander, God of Hurricanes, who had their divinity flaring out around them. Their emotions were heightened and powers manifested into the real world in preparation for the impending fight.
With their divinity manifesting into a light storm centered on the Dynasty headquarters in the middle of the night, it was as if the rumbling in the clouds mirrored the rumbling in their hearts and minds.
Within the debates between various leaders in the Dynasty, though, Elyse remained a voice of reason. Taking the logical argument that it’d be more efficient to funnel all their power into just taking on the Federation without involving the Church, she let out an internal sigh of relief as the others agreed.
Of course, it was still unknown to everyone except Morgana and Lysander that she was in a relationship with Adelyn. But, even while trying to account for her conflict of interest, not involving the church did seem like the logical path forward.
Falling silent and taking a step back, Elyse allowed Morgana to take center stage once more as they began wrapping up the meeting.
“We must retake the land stolen from us during the Federation’s last attack,” Morgana began as the administrator finished his report and returned to his spot. Waving her arm forward, Morgana rallied the crowd of people as her divinity surged forth. “We’ll be going on the offensive this time. Marcen’s Cliffs is a city by the sea, and we’ll show Casimir why Cataclysmic Monsters originate from the ocean.”
Grinning as everyone began cheering and laughing, Morgana lowered her hand as she walked forward to the closed box in the center of the room.
Hesitant, Morgana took a deep breath before flipping the lid open and pulling out a long wooden staff with a Cerulean Jewel enshrined in its center. “I believe this conflict shouldn’t be taken lightly. Therefore, I’ll be using my staff this time around... So, I hope you all treat this situation with the same gravity I am.”
Morgana took a moment to bask in her heightened divinity as everyone else in the room fell silent. The staff, as a divine relic, was too powerful to use for minor conflicts, so its presence signified the magnitude of the situation. Because of its unintended role as a marker for the Dynasty’s most severe situations, the staff, if nothing else, represented the power triumphing over the conflicts that built the Dynasty into what it was today.
With Lysander taking initiative and kneeling down, everyone soon followed suit as Morgana’s divinity began pouring out of her like tsunamis. With her eyes glowing a brilliant blue, Morgana tapped the staff against the ground. “We will march out tomorrow morning.”
