Unsurprisingly such news quickly spread panic throughout the empire, citizens who lived near the former capital quickly abandoned their home and became refugees as the strange creatures eventually started expanding their territory with brutal efficiency, leaving behind only a wasteland filled with flesh eating fungus. Before total panic and pandemonium spread throughout the imperial continent, the entire world's sanctuaries came together and orchestrated a ma.s.sive evacuation of the entire continent, the new alliance was spearheaded by the one everybody called the outsider, a so called qiton from another world. Without taking any payment he used his ma.s.sive machines to build refugee camps on a scale not seen before, meanwhile, he also made sure that every single person was fed and had something to do while plans to retake the imperial continent was drafted in what history books would come to call the united power's first emergency summit.

"Are you ready?"

"Yeah, I've looked over everything."

Flying over the central kingdom's capital city Kingstead in a CAS-7A light transport Dax responded absentmindedly to his second in command Lux as he gazed down at the so called 'new city' which had sprung up around Kingstead. The sheer scale of the new city was hard to grasp unless one was flying at high alt.i.tude above it like Dax currently was. The 24 540 mill railgun turrets which used to mark the perimeter of the Kingstead only a year ago now marked the border between the old and the new, right outside the ma.s.sive outer wall of Kingstead stood the new city which scale outright drafted the old town in scale. Vertical farming blocks reached from several stories below the ground all the way up to the sky, so called 'mega blocks' of residential and commercial zoning and ma.s.sive leisure and training complexes divided the new town into blocks which reminded Dax of his previous world.

Which they should, as it was mostly a copy of that.

Defending the new city while keeping order was an entirely new battalion of drones integrated with normal soldiers and newly formed police units, all of which used a mix of magic as well as technology, just as all the other citizens of the new city. But it wasn't like the 'old' part of Kingstead had remained static doing this new age of magic and technology. While it was a bit more modest in scale, the convenience of modern technology like motorized travel and electric lighting had slowly found its way into Kingstead, all the while magic still thrived in the form of magic workshops and the new storey and knight schools Dax had helped found within city limits after the attack on the magic academy.

Crossing over the boundary of the new city into the old, Dax's slight immediately fixed itself on the new royal castle which could truly be said was the culmination of combining technology with magic. Build about 1 kilometre into the sky, the ma.s.sive tear shaped complex was about twice the size of the old castle, it was supported from the ground by ma.s.sive pillars which sprung up from the old outer wall, as well as the castle wall in the centre of Kingstead. Build not only for the central kingdom's new royal home, but the new castle was also a natural fortress which even Dax would have a hard time cracking open and was home to representatives of most of the powers of the world as well as the angels which had been made homeless when their sanctuaries were overrun on the imperial capital.

"I wonder what Mu would think of this thing?"

"She would properly be quite happy, seeing as you mostly ripped off one of her designs to build it."

"Define happy."

Sensing something more to Lux's words Dax pulled his attention away from the sight of the new castle to focus on her as he asked with a strained smile on his face.

"She would most likely try to choke you for copying one of the designs you didn't want her to build back home."

"... Yeah, that's what I was afraid of…. When we get back home my life is forfeit, isn't it?"

"Pretty much. Ra is most likely the most p.i.s.sed off due to us disappearing out of nowhere, although she'll spare me if I just call her 'big sis' enough like I did when I was a child~"

"Traitor."

Keeping up their casual banter until they landed inside the new castle, the unusual father daughter pair made their way to the top of the castle, up there was a sort of senate floor which had been set up for the sole meeting which was about to take place.

"Oh, Dax~ You're finally here~✿"

"Yeah, although I don't really have time to talk with you Ifrit."

Entering the Senate floor Dax was instantly hugged out of nowhere by an overly familiar demon.

"Ehh!? How come you don't have time for your precious partner?~✿"

Ifrit was the name Dax's cursed demon sword had taken for itself when Dax granted it its own body by fusing artificial nerves and mana circuits of a tank grown body with the sword's 'core' which was carefully extracted over several days of careful operation. With the ego of the cursed sword transferred over into its own body, Ifrit took full advantage of the situation and customized its new body to their own liking. Standing at a bit taller than a metre and a half ifrit chose to emphasize mana control over pure strength and as such it had gotten a thin body without any special features. With short curly hair which was bright red orange like their eyes, Ifrit gave off a wild impression when paired with its large mouth which was filled to the brim with razor sharp teeth, small pointy ears and a constant smile on its face which told everyone that they were up to no good.

"It's precisely because you are my 'precious partner' that you should know I don't have time for you right now~"

"Hau!~✿ Do that more~✿✿✿"

Flicking Irift in the face with a finger Dax managed to pry their hands off him as they let out some strange sounds which Dax did his very best to ignore. Despite their overall aloof att.i.tude, Ifrit's strength was on par with the strongest archangel's in the room, due to their ancient knowledge of spells which required incantations in long dead languages, combine that with a body which was made for the sole purpose of absorbing and utilizing mana at almost perfect efficiency the silly demon was a walking magic weapon of ma.s.s destruction wearing an oversized red hoodie and strangely coloured, mismatched thigh high socks.

Leaving Lux and Ifrit behind Dax walked past the lines with representatives from smaller powers like envoys from Roachdale and the Northern republic before reaching the central powers and walking up and sitting down behind a circular table in the centre of the room. Taking a deep breath Dax started the emergency summit.

"First of I would like to clarify several things for consistency going forward. Firstly, this is not debate, this is the creation of a military operation unlike anything this world has ever seen before. Secondly, the creatures which invaded the imperial capital just over a year ago through a portal formation come from the moon, those creatures, including the flesh eating fungus they spread, will from now on be named 'Elders' for the sake of simplicity."

Taking a short look around the room Dax noticed a party of the inner powers had something to say.

"Go ahead, Teresa."

Standing up after offering a slight bow to Dax, the first princess of the central Kingdom started her questioning.

"So, these elder's came from the moon through a transport formation? In that case, is it correct to a.s.sume that they can invade other places the same way?"

"That is incorrect. After the full evacuation of the imperial continent, all transport formation which was left throughout the world were carefully catalogued, then disabled to prevent that exactly that scenario."

Finding the first princess had no more questions Dax went on with the agenda.

"After the full evacuation of the imperial continent, an investigation of the world's sanctuaries was carried out by Solaris in cooperation with the 22nd sanctuary, discovering hidden archives containing information which has been traced back to that of my own world, through a.n.a.lyzing those doc.u.ments, as well as restoring corrupted data from caches recovered doing an incursion into the lost sanctuary, I and my team have managed to learn some information about the elders."

Just like the doc.u.ments Solaris had found at the 14th sanctuary after learning of a special spell she found inside the lost sanctuary, it was quickly revealed that all other sanctuaries also had hidden libraries of dad which did not belong to this world.

With a flick, multiple holograms appeared on every single table around the senate floor, showing a summary of the information Dax, Iris and the two homunculus twins had spent half a year decrypting.

"It is clear that some sort of event brought the elders to this plane of existence over 20.000 years ago. Those elders brought with them technology which bears a striking resemblance to that from my own world, although it is vastly more advanced than anything which should have been available at that time, leading me to conclude that they must, at some point, have had a relation to the mythical race of so called 'forerunners' or 'ancient's' which created my own race before paris.h.i.+ng to internal conflict."