Chapter 113: Chapter 113: The Era Of Hegemony

Bella’s face turned dark after hearing Aegis’ plan.

“You can’t,” she barked. “You and Eternia will be under great pressure.”

“There is no other way, Bella.” he addded, “We are going to negotiate for them now. We will offer them forty percent of our harvest and a ’Cooperation Pact.’ We will pretend to be the humble, primitive world they think we are. We will bow, we will scrape, and we will give them the tribute they want.

​Kaelen looked horrified. “Your Majesty, you’re serious?”

​”Yes. I am serious about winning, Kaelen,” Aegis snapped, his eyes flashing with Abyssal fire. “If we fight now, we will die. If we surrender completely, we will always be stagnant. But if we pay them off, we can buy the one thing that can close the gap: Time.”

​He looked at the chrome ship. “To them, a decade is a weekend. If we push our dilation to 1,000x, one year for them is a thousand years for us. In a thousand years of uninterrupted development with Tier 15 samples to study, we won’t be a Stage 14 anymore. We will be the ones holding the chrome spear.”

​—

​When the solar hour was up, Aegis reopened the channel. He stood on the bridge, but he had masked his God-Killer Trident, making it look like a simple ceremonial staff. He lowered his head, projecting a facade of weary defeat.

​”High Arbiter Vane,” Aegis said, his voice sounding subdued. “We have deliberated. We recognize the vast superiority of the Kyros Hegemony. We are a young world, and we do not wish for extinction.”

​The Arbiter’s image reappeared, the light of his form pulsing with satisfaction.

“It is a wise choice, little Conqueror. Many in your position let their pride burn their atmosphere away.”

​”But we cannot afford 60 percent,” Aegis continued, sounding as if the words were pained. “Our world is still stabilizing. We offer 40% of our stellar harvest and full access to our unique Abyssal mana-veins for your researchers. In exchange, we ask for the Tier 15 ’Star-Map’ and basic ’Law-Integration’ manuals so we may better serve the Hegemony as a protectorate.”

​Vane paused, his processors likely calculating the value of Abyssal mana, a rare resource in the higher sectors.

“40% and the Abyssal veins… Acceptable. You are more useful to us as a functioning mine than a shattered rock. The Kyros Hegemony formally accepts Eternia as a Vassal-World.”

​A stream of data erupted into the bridge’s consoles. It was the “Starter Pack” of an interstellar empire: thousands of years of scientific and magical data that the Kyros Hegemony considered “basic,” but to Eternia, it was the greatest treasure in the universe.

​The chrome spear hummed, and a massive siphon-beam reached out, latching onto the Helios-9 sun.

The sky turned a dark, bruised violet as the Hegemony began to draw their tribute.

​”We will return in ten of your solar years to check your progress and collect the next harvest,” Vane said. “Do not attempt to leave this system. Our stigmas are now synced with your coordinates.”

​The chrome ship blinked out of existence, the hexagonal gateway collapsing behind it.

​

​The moment the ship was gone, Aegis’s posture changed. The weary defeat vanished, replaced by a cold, predatory focus.

​”Felix! I am launching the dilation! Take charge!” Aegis roared.

​After hearing his roar, the planet Eternia groaned.

The indigo sky of the empire shifted, darkening until the stars became streaks of light. The 500x dilation field, which had been the Empire’s greatest secret, began to break its limit.

​”50x… 100x… 500x…” Felix shouted, his hands dancing across the controls as the palace shook with the force of a tectonic shift.

“We’re holding at 1,000x! My lord, the strain is immense! Are you alright?”

“Yes. Your Emperor isn’t as weak as you think.”

​I will maintain it for as long as the core can take it,” Aegis said.

​He turned to the council. They were no longer mourning their pride. They saw the vision.

​”Felix, take that Tier 15 data and the Star-Map. I want every runemaster, every Xylosian, and every mana-engineers working in shifts. We don’t just study their tech; we find the flaws in their ’Causal Erasure’ logic. Sora, Kaelen, the Million Man Army is now the Billion Man Army. I want training regimes that last for centuries. If the Kyros Hegemony thinks we are a mine, let them. We are going to be a trap.”

​Bella walked to him, her hand on her stomach. Her child would now be born in a world that would have centuries to prepare for its future.

“My love, you’re playing a dangerous game. If they find out we’re accelerating…”

​”They won’t,” Aegis said, looking up at the sky where the Kyros siphon-beam still lingered, though to them, it was moving at a snail’s pace.

“To them, we are just a primitive world slowly paying our taxes. They have thousands of worlds; they won’t pay attention to the ’fringe noise’ until it’s too late.”

​Aegis walked back to his throne and sat down. He opened the Interstellar Chatbox one last time before disconnecting the external feed to prevent tracing.

He looked at the ranking of the Kyros Hegemony. They were Rank 88,402 in the local sector.

​”Rank 88000?” Aegis whispered to himself, a dark smile touching his lips. “Then we have a lot of climbing to do.”

​Inside the 1,000x dilation, the ordinary day stretched into a decade, then a century.

While the High Arbiter Vane was likely still filing the paperwork for the new vassal world at his home base, the soldiers of Eternia were already mastering the first generation of Law-Armor. The Xylosians were evolving, their metallic bodies being replaced with the ’Law-Crystals’ they had stolen from the scan data.

​Aegis sat in his meditation chamber, the God-Killer Trident resting across his knees. He wasn’t practicing simple time tricks anymore. He was using the 1,000x focus to look into the very strands of causality that the Hegemony used to rule.

​The gap in magic and tech was great, but time was the ultimate equalizer. And Aegis had just stolen a thousand years of it.

​By the time the Kyros ship returned for its next harvest in ten years, they wouldn’t find a primitive mining world. They would find a Stage 16 Stellar Sovereign waiting in the dark, ready to show them what happens when you call the Sea God an ant.

​The era of submission was over before it had even begun. The era of the Hidden Hegemony had started.

​

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