After the message from the robots of the Mechanic Empire, the group of high-level government members of the Black Plain Empire watched those beings leave.
As soon as they were alone, Dillian, Maisie, and some of them decided to discuss the matter with Abby, with Minos' mother leaving for the current headquarters of the Black Plain Army.
After making her way there quickly because of the wormhole connecting the place to Dry City, Maisie soon entered Minos' Spatial Kingdom, where she would meet Abby and Gloria.
Upon arriving at the lake house of that place, where several high-level Demigods were in the vicinity, she would quickly summarize for the two women what had just happened.
"What do you feel about that?" Abby asked Gloria while they were in the business room of the house by the lake in the Spatial Kingdom.
Gloria closed her eyes and said uncertainly. "This could be an enemy strategy, or it could be sincere. The truth is, as much as we planned to involve Irpoll in our war to end the Mechanic Empire, we have no way of knowing for sure that this is Minos' doing.
If it is his doing, we will receive some sign when or if Irpoll's forces reach the Spiritual World. But we have to be prepared for something else. Nothing can guarantee that, even if Minos managed to alert Irpoll to our situation, such a civilization wouldn't turn against us by coming to deal with the Mechanic Empire.
We must remember that Irpoll is the enemy of our enemy but not necessarily our ally. Depending on what the Irpoll leaders think, we could be their next target after The Adamant Land."
Abby couldn't disagree with that. "You're right. We have to be prepared. I don't want to fight alongside the forces of The Adamant Land, but it might be interesting to keep ourselves on our toes. If Irpoll turns violent against us, we have to be ready to defend ourselves and act against them."
"So we're not going to attack our enemies simultaneously as Irpoll?" Maisie asked as that was one of the plans they had in case Minos succeeded in involving that other civilization in this war.
"I don't think it's a good idea. Unless Minos shows himself and assures us that Irpoll won't act against the Spiritual World, it would be too risky for us to fight the Mechanic Empire together with Irpoll.
It would quickly wipe out the forces of our old enemies, but it could become a problem for us. If The Adamant Land falls into Irpoll's hands, let it be with both civilizations suffering a harsh war.
I don't want another civilization with access to the Spiritual World easily winning a war." Abby said with confidence in her words.
"Yes, that would be dangerous. The best thing is to let Irpoll and the Mechanic Empire weaken themselves by fighting each other. When their victor shows and makes it clear what they want, we'll deal with the situation as it is." Gloria supported Abby's thinking.
"What about Minos?" Maisie asked.
"That could be a sign that he's made it to Irpoll," Gloria said. "But it's not a guarantee that he's okay or on Irpoll's side. He may have warned those forces about The Adamant Land's weakening. Or he could be held hostage by Irpoll. There's no way of knowing, so it's best not to get our hopes up."
"Unfortunately, that's the case." Abby sighed, still rather worried about Minos' uncertain situation.
After discussing that, Maisie soon left with Abby's orders for the Spiritual World forces to prepare to face a new enemy.
There were no guarantees as to what would happen from now on. Anything could happen. As concerned people, the leaders of this world had to be prepared for anything!
Unfortunately, almost all of the level 99 Demigods of that world had died during the years of war up to this point, so there weren't enough people for the leadership of the Black Plain Empire to invest in and provide Divine Medicines to try to help them advance.
The threat they faced could destroy them or at least bring the worst of the war back to the world in a matter of months. No one would advance in less than 6 years of cultivation with a Divine Medicine, so for now Abby didn't intend to authorize any of her many subordinates to go into seclusion.
The only way for them to prepare now was to strategize!
...
Seven months later...
While the Spiritual World was experiencing more or less the same peace it had been experiencing for about a year, the situation in The Adamant Land had evolved negatively.
From a peaceful world that was only dealing with the tensions of the war in the Spiritual World, this place has changed significantly in recent months with the start of the Irpoll attacks.
For the first time in the long history of the world home to the Mechanic Empire, they were the ones being invaded and attacked by a foreign force!
Months ago, Irpoll began its attempts to enter The Adamant Land and access that planet's universal wormhole, which is connected to the Spiritual World.
In The Adamant Land, there were a number of wormholes like that, which led to several of their domains around their galaxy and neighboring galaxies that they had already reached during their explorations.
But Irpoll specifically wanted the Spiritual World. Why was that? Simply because the world of Minos had been the first after Irpoll to demonstrate such resistance as to withstand the mighty Mechanic Empire.
That was something that only intelligent, powerful beings with good strategies could achieve, normally something that could only come from compelling worlds.
The stronger a world was, the greater its value to each civilization. As such, Irpoll didn't just want to take down the core of the Mechanic Empire. They also wanted to invade the Spiritual World, in particular, a planet that should be more weakened than the Mechanic Empire's domains, which they could access by invading The Adamant Land.
But even weakened, the Mechanic Empire was still a formidable force. In the months since the start of the war with Irpoll, this state had resisted the attempts of its enemies' forces to invade the wormhole connected to the Spiritual World.
However, this was not promising at all. As long as they had lasted this far, they had collected losses in those months, even losing two more of their Gods!
The entire planet of this force was now in tension with the inclusion of yet another world fighting a war against them, with the many artificial or biological inhabitants of the said planet beginning to fear the ramifications of this new conflict.
Amid this, the civilizations dominated by the Mechanic Empire were slowly learning about that situation while rebellious intentions were emerging here and there.
This was only the beginning of the problem for them. The War of the Worlds was about to prove to be a truly large-scale conflict involving several different worlds!
