Varian’s presence let the army birth to hope of a stalemate, and with the amount and quality of treasures he rolled out, they were certain that the war would end soon and in their favor.

But they had no idea that Varian himself was uncertain about the outcome.

The Abyss Emperor was looming over them and heaven forbid, if even a stronger version of his clone arrived, then it’d be game over.

Even if the Emperor didn’t come, if the Undead was left unchecked, then humanity wouldn’t be able to bear the wrath of the ninth abyssal sovereign.

The Undead was the biggest existential threat to humanity.

“They left?” Varian rushed into Neptune’s military headquarters and checked the monitoring of the planetoids.

After retreating, he hoped the abyssal and undead army would be retreating on the planetoids.

“Yes.” One of the officers sitting in front of the giant virtual screens nodded slightly as he pointed to the barren planetoids. “The last regiment left eight hours ago. Our bots showed they crossed the asteroid belt and headed for Pluto.”

As he spoke the last part, the Officer turned back and bowed his head. “Thank you! Because of you, they finally left! Neptune is safe now! We’re sending the reinforcements that other planets desperately need. So many lives are being saved…”

pAnDa (nov)e1​ “Corpses.”

“Yes?”

“What about the corpses of the dead?” Varian zoomed in on one of the virtual screens and swiped, the screen quickly showed the land throughout that planetoid.

The war already caused much destruction to the human defense buildings, but now, they’re all either razed to the ground.

The land itself was dyed scarlet red. Eerily, many places were filled with red lakes—pooled by the blood that just wouldn’t dry up.

The picture screamed the agony of the dead and caused even the usually calm Varian to lower his head for a moment.

Collecting himself, he asked again. “The corpses.”

“The abyssals burn them every time and sprinkle the ashes across the planetoid.” The officer pointed to the smoke clouds on the screen. “See. We know there have been cases of abyssals taking away the bodies of our martyrs, but the amount of smoke we measure matches with the number of the dead.”

Varian frowned.

The Undead was growing strong during his fight with Evander. There’s no about it. And it’s due to the level 9s dying.

Why would he burn the human corpses then?

Varian had a strong feeling that he was using them. But there’s no evidence. He needed evidence. Otherwise, the exhausted army wouldn’t just march with him to Pluto.

There’d likely be many traps set up on Pluto to counter him in case he invaded. Even the abyssals would learn that much after being screwed by him not once, but twice.

Under such conditions, leading Neptune’s army, whose current size was less than a quarter of the abyssals, was just pushing them into a fire pit.

‘What should I do?’

Unlike the last two times, Varian didn’t want to barge in alone. With the way the Undead looked at him last time, he had a strong feeling that they were waiting for him to jump into the trap.

— — — —

“Soon,” The Undead Leader caressed four coffins. “Soon.”

From a bird’s viewpoint, the coffins were at the center of giant concentric circles covering the whole of Pluto.

Right on these concentric circles lay the corpses of millions of humans. These weren’t just the bodies from Neptune, but also from the planetoids of other conquered planets.

There were enough treasures to trick the humans and their machines. Even though he despised such tricks, the Undead leader knew that winning came first. Any price was acceptable.

Even the Emperor said the same thing. While it’s a pity he couldn’t send them another death strand which would’ve already won them the war by now, the two coffin artifacts weren’t bad.

‘Soon…’

Invisible to the naked eye, the death energy from the millions of corpses rose into the air and dispersed. But a small part of this was attracted to the coffins and converged to them.

Meditating in the middle of the four coffins, the Undead Leader grinned as he felt his strength grow with each passing second.

“Soon,” He said in a low voice but it sounded in the ears of every abyssal and Undead stationed on Pluto.

Most of the level 9s were operating the special formations—originally intended for Julius or Albert to take them down—but now used early on Pluto for Varian.

“The boy will come soon seeking his death and I shall grant him his wish.” The Undead Leader’s voice was filled with incredible joy.

The lids on the four coffins next to him creaked and more of the death energy gushed into them.

The Undead Leader arched an eyebrow. This was…quicker than he thought. With a chuckle, he muttered. “The stars are on my side. This is destiny indeed.”

— — —please visit panda(-)N0ve1.co)m

Varian blankly walked out of the monitoring room and headed down a restricted hall that led to the planning room or as they called it, the war room.

As the door creaked open, the arguing old men and women turned to him in surprise. Sitting in a corner around the table was Evander. Surprisingly, Sarah and Sia were also there.

Their faces were pale and Varian’s senses found the healing injuries on their bodies. They fought on Uranus recently and were currently resting. But it seems like they couldn’t just sit still and come for this meeting.

Shaking his head, Varian grabbed a chair and sat beside Evander. “We have a situation.”

“?” Evander looked at him in surprise.

“The Undead Leader. He was growing stronger when you were fighting. How long do you think it’ll take him to reach the Sovereign state?”

The room grew quiet as everyone stared at Evander.

Right now, everyone was arguing about how to allocate Neptune’s army for reinforcements to different planets.

The Undead were dangerous, yes. But they weren’t an urgent concern. At least, that’s what they thought.

“…Months, at least,” Evander answered. “The gap between a peak level 9 and Sovereign is greater than the gap between a peak level 9 and level 1.”

“With his current rate of growth, right?”

Evander nodded.

“If the growth is sped up?”

“…”

An unease filled the room as the experienced strategists looked at each other and murmured.

“We can either send our planet’s army to support our army on other planets, reduce casualties and possibly even draw abyssals to a stalemate. The consensus is that the undead and abyssal armies won’t attack. You know the deal, they simply don’t have enough level 9s. And you…”

The old man straightened his back and stared at Varian with a smile. “You are enough to take care of all the level 9s. The rest of our level 9s can take care of their army.”

Everyone nodded with an assuring smile.

Varian, however, felt uneasy.

His current strength was that of a peak level 9. But when his paths reach peak level 9, he’d have the strength to rival, no, to crush possibly any Sovereign. But to progress there, he’d need a week or possibly longer.

If the Undead really didn’t attack for that long, then there’s nothing to worry about. But if they do attack before that and somehow the Undead reach the Sovereign state…

‘I’ll try to convince them, if they don’t, then I have to force them.’ Varian decided.

Sarah and Sia grabbed Varian’s arms and he told them what he was thinking. Sarah patted him on the back of his palm to reassure him and asked for a few minutes of time.

Tapping the table to draw attention, the blonde spoke. “This consensus could be wrong. Since abyssals managed to take out all the weird treasures since the start of this war, there’s no assurance they don’t have a treasure to boost their Undead Leader.”

“But that’s just speculation.” A female strategist shook her head. “The situation on our planets is a reality.”

“Correction,” Sarah raised a hand and glanced at everyone. “A speculation which if true would end up in our total destruction. Varian or not, if the Undead leader returns as a Sovereign, it won’t even take a week before he runs over the entire federation.”

Varian looked at Sarah in surprise.

“And there’s a strong basis for this speculation. The same Undead Leader that Varian severely injured during the last war gathered corpses to grow stronger. So did all the other abyssals to build their Undead army.” Sarah’s voice took on an authoritative tone. “It’s not a baseless speculation but a grave possibility.”

The expressions of the veteran men and women grew solemn. They were persuaded. Even if they didn’t really believe this to be the case, it’s worth checking.

Sarah also understood their position and said. “Send the reinforcements to other planets but after they take a trip to Pluto. We don’t need to fight as long as the Undead aren’t doing what we think they are doing.”

The veteran strategists nodded.

“But treat it as a war.”

The horn of war was blown and the army began gathering.

Meanwhile, Maya, along with other scientists accomplished in the formation field rushed to the secret realms near Neptune.

There were a couple of secret realms between Neptune and Pluto with teleportation formations that abyssals used last time and were destroyed by Varian.

Maya and others repaired the teleportation formations.

In less than thirty minutes, the human army of Neptune gathered and set out to Pluto.

Varian and team used the teleportation formations and reached Pluto.

What greeted them was the exact thing they feared.

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