People in Terra, governing a bizarre little country

Shelag, Tukarim Grand Hotel, Duke of Caesar's Room.

Rita Scamander entered through the foyer, went into the study, and reported to the Duke of Caesar, who was reading inside:

"Your Grace, the people who have come are the Duke of Windermere and his daughter."

The Duke of Caesar paused in his book-turning, looked up in disbelief, and asked as if to confirm:

"Who are you talking about?"

Rita found it hard to believe, but it was the truth: "It was the Duke of Windermere... and her daughter."

"They've come knocking on our door?" The Duke of Caesar clicked his tongue. "This is outrageous! Tsk, luckily I'm easy to bully, otherwise I'd definitely teach them a lesson!"

"Closed doors, no visitors!"

“But Your Grace, they said it’s important business,” Rita said. “They said it’s about the World Summit.”

"Huh?"

The Duke of Caesar gave a cold laugh.

"You knew you needed to choose a seat, so you came to find me?"

As a purely political being, her political instincts were far sharper than those of the Duke of Windermere. She saw through the deeper meaning behind Ivangelista XI and Ernst's open scheme as soon as it was revealed.

Unfortunately, she had no intention of negotiating with anyone.

Victoria's hegemonic order is indeed crumbling, and Victoria should indeed have a place at the World Summit.

Dukes are indeed not nations, and mutual obstruction prevents them from all joining the World Summit.

But who says that Victoria will never have a leader?

But who said that she, the Duke of Caesar, must compromise and negotiate with other dukes?

She had been plotting in Londinium for a long time, luring the Sarkaz into the city, annihilating the Steam Knights, murdering the two dukes, allowing the Sarkaz to occupy the city, setting up an encirclement against Wellington, bribing Godottin, and trying to poison Kent, the strategist of Windermere. All these schemes were for one goal.

That crown will be placed on her head.

Victoria only needs one voice, and that voice will be hers, Christ.

Duke Caesar glanced at Rita and repeated:

"Rita, close the door, no guests allowed."

P.S.: This is a long chapter of 4500 words. Brothers, please cast your free recommendation votes!

PS2: I recently bought Monster Hunter during a sale and I'm now obsessed with dual blades. It's so satisfying to slash around!

Chapter 350 Theresis: Damn it!

Londinium, Victoria.

Sarkaz has also been restless lately.

The closing ceremony of the World's Fair has been held, and announcements of the World Summit have spread throughout Terra. For the first time, Theresis felt a sense of unease.

He seized Lentinium, exploited the Duke's power dynamics, and took advantage of the divisions within Victoria, all in an effort to secure a future for the Sarkaz.

But now, he suddenly realized that he was still unsure whether he had managed to find a way out, but it seemed that his hidden methods were about to be exposed.

What are Therese's next move?

The Sarkaz's weapon of war, the Sarkaz Airship, a revolutionary weapon devised by the Pardoners and the Sarkaz Dead Souls, using the Dead Souls as fuel and pilots, is only just beginning construction; not even the hull has been built yet.

As a result, Sherag had already produced a finished product.

With an existing airship already in place, if Theresis were to create another one in Londinium, the resulting shock and uncertainty would be far less significant than before.

In Theresis's original plan, the airship was to be used as bait to lure the dukes who coveted the technology into a trap, so that they would gather together and use the airship to guide another secret weapon to deal a devastating blow to all the dukes, thereby completely destroying Victoria's ability to maintain the current world order and causing chaos throughout the world!

But now......

When Theresis used to fly her airship, the dukes' reaction was: "Holy crap, that thing can fly! What is that? Quick, follow it and shoot it down! I want to study it properly!"

Now that Theresis is piloting an airship, the dukes' reaction is: "It's just a broken airship! Everyone has one! Deploy our airships and let's have an ace-class air battle!"

The plan was essentially doomed before it even began.

Fortunately, Theresis had more than one trick up his sleeve!

The Victoria superweapon that Sarkaz acquired in Londinium can artificially create natural disasters and launch targeted attacks on the Shards Tower via airships. With this secret weapon, even if others possess airships, they are not a threat.

But soon he realized that this was not right either.

The Sarkaz have only recently acquired the relevant technology. And as is well known, the Sarkaz are generally not well-educated, so figuring out something as cutting-edge as the Shard, a Victorian technology, is not an easy task.

To this end, Theresis has arranged for a city-wide search in Londinium for the craftsmen who participated in the construction of the Shard, related documents, and scientists.

Craftsmen might still be found, but information and scientists are much harder to come by.

You want to ask why?

Because the school was empty.

When Theresis first entered the city, he lacked control over it, and the Sarkaz were short-handed. In addition, they did not want to provoke a large-scale resistance within the city, which made it impossible for the dukes to turn a blind eye. Therefore, they tacitly approved the Duke of Käst's evacuation of some people from Londinium after Ernst's "humanitarian" initiative.

Therese did this for two reasons: first, Sarkaz was indeed powerless at the time; and second, to leave an opening for the Duke of Castile, using her plan to "raise a bandit to enhance his own power" before "making a heroic appearance" to temporarily restrain the other dukes, thus buying time for Sarkaz to develop and implement his plan.

But who could have imagined that the decision, which was initially thought to be a magic trick to turn the impossible into a win-win situation, would reveal its negative consequences a year later?

Among the academy staff who evacuated Londinium were many highly respected scientists and professors. They chose not to take their valuables with them, but instead took a large amount of Victorian research materials, artifacts, and books. As a result, the Sarkaz, after searching Londinium for several days, have only found a handful of people who were considered "cultured" in the Victorian sense.

These professors who stayed in Londinium for reasons such as greed for money, attachment to their homeland, or other reasons were not unskilled; it was just a pity that none of them were involved in the field of engineering.

Those who studied civil engineering must have left long ago; they can find a job anywhere. Only a few who stood out because of the environment in Lentinium chose to stay, hoping day and night for the arrival of the royal army to rescue them from their predicament.

When Theresis couldn't extract even a single useful piece of information from those few people despite sending a group of shapeshifters to interrogate them, he knew he was in trouble!

To expect a Sarkaz who dropped out of prenatal education to repair the Shards is like asking Kjerag's pack animals to take Rhine Lab's entrance exam. It's not that they'll pass every time, but it's certainly wishful thinking.

But Therese wasn't entirely without options.

Sarkaz may not understand science, but they are very knowledgeable about metaphysics! There is a clan within Sarkaz called the "Children of Earth and Stone," also known as the "Stonewing Demons." They are one of the "Royal Court Races" established when Quiron the Blue Fury bestowed the title of one of the Ten Royal Courts upon Sarkaz.

His ancestor, Godu, was the first Demon Lord of Sarkaz since the era of the [Far Chasers], and he single-handedly established the Grey City, known as the Second Kazdel.

Although he was later killed by the Sunbinder, his race, the Stonewing Demons, did not suffer the same fate as the Flame Demons after the Sunbinder's death. The Stonewing Demons have continued to exist to this day... or so it seems?

Theresis wasn't entirely sure if the Stonewing Demons had any descendants. She figured they probably did, since the Banshee Kingdom had never sung a lament for the Stonewing Demons.

Theresis sent people to search for their whereabouts, for a simple reason: the Stonewing Demon race possesses a very, very special racial talent!

They can communicate with the spirits of artifacts!

Ahem, this might sound a bit abstract, but Theresis is, after all, just a mixed-race ordinary Sarkaz, not a royal race, and he's not really sure how to describe the racial talents of the Stonewing Demons.

In short, they were born craftsmen, skilled in everything from city building and house construction to tool forging! Theresis didn't know how they did it, only that in the Sarkaz records, the Stonewing Demon only needed to shout:

"Earth, heed my command!"

The earth can indeed transform into stone figures, earthen walls, and earthen houses.

With their help, even if the Sarkaz don't understand science and technology, they can use metaphysical means to "telepathically communicate" with the Shard and, in a flash of inspiration, know how to fix it.

Of course, this is on the premise that you can find it.

Before they are found, it will probably be a long time before this secret weapon is used.

But there's no need to worry. Theresis believes that the means don't matter, as long as the fundamental goal is achieved.

So what is his fundamental purpose?

It is to destroy Terra's current international order, namely the Victoria-dominated hegemonic system. And the way to destroy it is by igniting a war!

In Theresis's script, once he has everything ready, he will tear off his current disguise, change the royal flag on the walls of Londinium, and officially announce that the Sarkaz have occupied Londinium, thus inviting the Grand Dukes of Victoria to besiege it.

Then, use airships in conjunction with the Shard Tower to weaken their strength in one fell swoop!

This is certainly the simplest and least damaging method, but now that the airships can no longer attract the Duke and the Shard's restoration is nowhere in sight, this method is naturally no longer viable.

However, Theresis is not without other means, such as... the drop of [Tikkaz Blood] within the Blood Demon Lord's body, and the [Originium] that can be summoned through that drop of blood.

That method, however, requires more blood loss.

As everyone knows, the nations of Terra have long suffered under Victoria's rule. Once Victoria's power is weakened, the nations will surely seek revenge for any wrongs they have.

When the old order collapses and the new order is not yet established, chaos will be inevitable before a new Terran hegemon rises to power over Victoria's corpse amidst blood and fire! And that time will be the best opportunity for the Sarkaz to develop during the war, as chosen by Theresis.

Nobody cared about the Sarkaz at that time; they were too busy taking care of themselves.

But now, listening to the news from Sherag presented by the pardoner, Therese felt only confusion.

No, it's really open, isn't it?

The airship got there first, and the Shard Building evacuated those Victorian scholars ahead of time. Now, they want to build a system of order for the World Summit to peacefully transition the Victorian hegemonic system.

How come you can foresee everything?

I can consider the airship a fluke, after all, you came up with the "Star-Picking Project" later on, which did seem like you genuinely wanted to go to space. As for the evacuation of the scholars, I can also consider it pure luck, since intelligence about the Shard is top secret even in Victoria, what could a Sheragian possibly have planned?

But this international summit, this world system, this...

Once or twice could be an accident, but three times means it's really open, right? There's a frame! If it peeks out, it's an instant kill; if it doesn't peek out, it has to go through the wall and be instantly killed?

Therese felt her blood rush to her head and a wave of nausea wash over her.

Even with his poker face cultivated for hundreds of years, he couldn't hold back any longer.

"*Sarkaz profanity*!"

Theresis muttered a curse under her breath and looked at the pardoner.

Don't you have any good news?

The absolution master was taken aback by the question.

What does this have to do with me? Why are you taking your anger out on me? If you're so capable, go fight Scherrag, go find Ernst, go ban his account in physics!

With a slight pout, the pardoner replied somewhat displeased:

“Regent, look on the bright side. We Sarkaz are already at rock bottom, so there’s no need to worry about these little things. Anyway, we can’t possibly surrender any further.”

There's still a lot of room for growth; it just hasn't risen yet.

Therese had recovered her composure and realized there was no point in blaming the absolutist, who was merely a messenger. So she simply waved him away, letting him leave rather than see him again.

The pardoner shrugged and turned to leave, but before he could walk out of the hall, Theresis suddenly called him back and asked:

"How's the resurrection going?"

"It's being done, Regent." The absolution master said no more and left the room.

Therese stared at the closed door and let out a long sigh.

It's numb now, it's really numb.

What should we do? Should we send someone to sabotage the World Summit?

Tsk, that doesn't make sense. If they can't do it in Sherag, they can find another place. This matter also involves Laterano. The way those traitors distinguish each other is something even shapeshifters can't imitate. They can't sabotage this path.

While Theresis was still pondering, a commotion suddenly arose outside the door. A moment later, the shapeshifter entered, looked at Theresis, and remained expressionless.

"Tracys."

"what happened?"

"[Time Sequence] The strike has occurred."

Theresis: "......."

Scratching his head, His Excellency Chairman of the Military Commission, you've lost another handful of hair today.

Chapter 351 Quota for Naturalizing Sarkaz

Shelag, Tukarim, Shelag Government Building.

Hedley brought Manfred and Ersula to Ernst's office.

Now that the World's Fair has ended, the two should return to Londinium to report back.

Although some minor mishaps occurred along the way, Manfred basically completed the task assigned to them by Therese. Hedley was indeed loyal, and the intelligence he provided had all been verified.

Kal'tsit was indeed in Kerrigan, and had a close relationship with Ernst. Rhodes Island also had an office in Kerrigan and stayed there for a long time during the World's Fair, establishing connections with the various nations of the land through Kerrigan.