Chương 589: Limitless Path Chapter Six Hundred Eleven

Beth was a bit surprised with how quiet the room had been generally, but her statement and, more likely, her grin, had caused enough of a stir that there was a good bit of murmuring and discussion as many of the aides talked about what she and Bjorn had just said. Alex seemed more reasonable about what she had said, but Jonathon was doing a good impression of the dictionary definition of apoplexy.

She was pretty sure her earlier display of power had also done a lot to prevent anyone, Jonathon in particular, from having an explosion and starting to yell or storm out or any one of many things. Still, she was pretty sure Jonathon was about to pop, and Alex looked a lot more queasy than angry, but there was clear frustration also present in his expression.

"Considering our current resources…" Alex began before trailing off.

"This is unacceptable! What authority does the CRA have-" Jonathon began.

"I'm glad you asked," Bjorn interrupted, the titan leaning forward towards both groups.

"The authority the CRA has is the authority to withdraw our presence."

"You wouldn't!" Jonathon exclaimed, the aghast. It was a rather dire threat, but the CRA didn't threaten idly. Beth had already experienced a world, along with Blood and Sera, that had refused the CRA's presence, and seen how they had all lived to regret it, being part of the group that had convinced them to accept the CRA back to their world. She knew what the difference was, in more than an academic sense, between having the support and cooperation of the CRA, and being a world without CRA presence.

To have CRA qualifications revoked for a planet was a harsh measure, but it wasn't like it was something that never happened, either. Bjorn wasn't stepping outside the realm of his authority or threatening something that they couldn't enforce; their orders for this mission had been clear, and non-compliance would be met with severe repercussions. It had been a few years since the CRA withdrew coverage of a world or system, and they weren't above making an example of someone to reinforce their authority.

Of course, Beth hoped it wouldn't come to that, but the two polities needed to know the exact stakes that they were gambling with; playing games as the party with the most power and strongest position wasn't her style, and Bjorn was on board for how they played it.

"We could and would," Beth said calmly.

"So, I suggest we come to an agreement."

"And are your two door guards there going to keep us trapped in here?" Jonathon asked, looking at Blood and Val askance.

"They're not door guards, they're part of the team," Beth said with a chuckle.

"And no, you can leave and return and do whatever you want, but the longer it takes, the thinner our patience is going to wear. Blood." Beth nodded to the wolf at the end of what she was saying, and first Val, then Blood flexed their power. For Val, lightning and death flowed around her, the aura a terrifying display of deadly power. For Blood, the very air was filled with blood mana, her power so great that everyone but the members of Beth's team could feel their blood freezing in their veins.

Blood's power over, well, blood, was so overwhelming and dominant that she could command the blood of weaker creatures, or physically control them, or even manipulate the mana in their blood to weaken them. If there were a person present in the room that was even close to them in power, they wouldn't have been suppressed in the same way, but the strongest two of the representatives were Alex and Jonathon, each of whom was early in Enlightened.

Not that they were the strongest from their polity, but they were the strongest of the representatives, with Alex at ten rebirths and Jonathon at, surprisingly to Beth, eleven. Still, even if they had been doing True Rebirths, which Beth highly doubted, their stats would be miles behind Beth's team's stats, and she doubted their Mana Physiques, skills, or even weapon skills were anywhere close.

"Just so you're aware," Beth said with another wicked grin.

"I supposed you don't need my wife to show off to complete the set, do you?" Beth had tilted her head at Sera while glancing between the lead representatives, and both shook their heads very firmly in the negative. Beth leaned back as Bjorn took over again, saying, "The fines the CRA is asking are steep, but you have to remember, you killed members. We don't take that lightly. You need to offer something to us to repair the damage. If you need to repay in goods, supplies, or over a longer time, explain your issues.

CRA presence on your worlds is on the table, ladies and gentlemen. Figure out a way to make up the differences."

"We simply cannot repay that much," Jonathon was the first to speak, shaking his head.

"Unless the Association is willing to wait decades, we can't come up with that kind of money. We're barely scraping by even considering the payments the Republic owes."

"This has changed everything, everything about the negotiation," Alex said.

"And you're daft if you think we were paying the Sovereignty anything after your flagrant violations. We were here to discuss minor reparations before the CRA signaled their involvement, and we're still only talking about an equalizing of damages, not a loss negotiation."

"That is unacceptable," Jonathon said, finding his footing again now that they were chewing on something other than the CRA's participation and demands.

"It is clear that you lost this war, even if we were to count the taking of Setchel. You were pushed back to half your territory, by the stars!"

"Territory you took that you had no hope of keeping in the first place," Alex responded hotly.

"You stretched your lines far past thin and depleted very little of our manpower. If the negotiations hadn't been called at the time they were, do you really believe that you would have held any of that territory. Or are you so brazen as to claim that the difference in relative troop strength is so great that one of yours could have taken four of ours? That is completely outrageous and you know it!" This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Beth just sighed and leaned back as the two sides really got into, not saying anything and giving a signal to the others to just let them go for a time. Best to let them recenter themselves and blow off a little steam before her team put pressure back on them, and having them argue about the war would do just that, as long as they didn't get too hot under the collar.

Yet, despite their interactions already and present appearances, both groups were composed of skilled diplomats that could argue with great fire but maintain aplomb and dignity. It was a bit of an education in diplomatic meetings and negotiations, not to mention post-war debates and negotiations, but it was also a bit drag of time, which they actually didn't have a ton of right now.

Platinum missions didn't necessarily wait around for people to show up; if a mission was issued at that level, there was often a serious and on-going situation that needed looked into. The missions that were assigned to Sera, Blood, and Val wouldn't get any better if they spent weeks bogged down in negotiations. Still, they couldn't just entirely run roughshod over the meetings without giving the two groups of representatives some time to hash out their grievances and issues.

It was, after all, a peace summit, even if it didn't seem very peaceful from just sitting in the room, and the two groups were trying to negotiate an end to an entire war. This wasn't something that was going to get down in just a few minutes, and Beth let the two groups go for a while before she signaled Bjorn, who was already leaning forward. Despite his very taciturn nature, the titan descendant had rather good social and diplomatic instincts, and he interjected himself at a fresh lull in the conversation.

"If the issue is territory, CRA management for a limited contract is always an option," he said.

"We would be prepared to negotiate such a thing, provided that the terms were to include a reduction in our payment obligation to the CRA," Jonathon immediately jumped on, his earlier fear and hesitancy gone as he thought he sensed a gap he could use as a wedge.

"And with what territory?" Alex immediately rebutted.

"The territory you still think you own and are owed after our preliminary settlement discussion? Don't be foolish; we won't give that territory up, especially not to lessen your burden to the Association. If you think you can give away someone else's land, we can end these negotiations at this moment."

"We are not ending any negotiations," Beth said, flexing her power to lock everyone, including the two Enlightened diplomats, in place without them able to even twitch a muscle.

"We would be prepared to reduce both parties' obligations in exchange for management and revenue access to certain swathes of territory. We are not, however, prepared to budge on the twenty orichalcums fine for the injury and murder of our membership. Decide yourselves if you're willing to cede territory to the Association for a set time and present us with an answer."

She sat back after that and let the two parties go at each other's throats again, metaphorically still, and waited for them to try to decide something. It was already afternoon, and the negotiations weren't going to be finished any time soon, and even their negotiations over land would take quite a bit of time. They were still on the topic of who would get what percentage of what the Sovereignty took when they decided it was time for a break for the night.

Considering how few people ever ascended very high up the rebirth ladder, it was considered rather gauche to hold meetings that lasted all night or went for days at a time with no chance for rest or time to relax. Beth and her team were just going to have to deal with the breaks, as none of the diplomats were going to push for longer meetings and late nights.

This was definitely going to be a multi-day affair, but they also didn't all need to stay for a negotiation; hell, any one of the five could take everyone in the meeting and both of the polities' armies by themselves, so they could divide and conquer if they needed to. They did have a few days, at the least, and they spent the night fighting, though just beasts, of course.

They were on track for their next rebirths, and several of them still had requirements to fulfill; luckily, Beth's gate was always with them, able to provide them the challenge they needed when they needed it. Unluckily, the whole team wasn't there, so the others would either have to join up with them at some point or they would have to circle up when they had a bit of free time. Beth wasn't worried about the others falling behind, especially because they weren't fully dependent on her to continue advancing.

The most important thing was that everyone was on the same page and communicating with each other, which was rather easier with the communicator network, and Beth also wanted to make sure that they were all still doing their rebirths together. She wasn't sure if there was really any significance to it, but the amount of resonance between the team during rebirths pointed her to the conclusion that there was something special there.

There was little information about it on the Outernet, leading her to suspect that very few people did as they were doing, rebirthing all together as a group without and qualms or anything held back. Those that did, she assumed, didn't share their information or just didn't have the same kind of resonance, but she couldn't verify it either way.

What she could verify was how much of a grind diplomatic arguments were, which was, yes, rich coming from someone who could easily spend a hundred hours fighting the same beasts without taking even a single rest, but the arguments really dragged on. It was, however, interesting to see how the parties went about the arguments; Beth would have thought the Republic was, essentially, totally screwed, but Alex was both a masterful negotiator and had several key points that brought more weight to his side.

It also seemed like both his assertions that the Republic had lost less of their strength and that the Sovereignty was spread very thing were true and a worry for Jonathon and his team. Not only that, Beth was able to read between the lines and figure out that the Republic had units in reserve that were much more powerful than just about anything the Sovereignty could field, making their position still very strong, even if they had lost quite a bit of territory.

Jonathon, not to be outdone, worked with the advantages he had, including the amount of effort, money, and lives it would cost for the Republic to actually reconquer much of the territory it had retreated from during the Sovereignty's big push. Holding them back to a certain extent, even though land was very easily won and lost, spoke to Jonathon and his team's skills at the table and in the extra discussions that always took place in the hallways, secondary rooms, personal rooms, restaurants, and more.

It was another bit of a learning experience for Beth and her team, though Val was much more knowledgeable about such things and Sera did have some experience with diplomatic talks; there were times when a lot of the negotiations happened outside of the designated room or hall given over to the talks and was instead done through secondary talks.

Much of that was still formalized at the negotiating table, but a lot more movement could be made on some issues with a few words between a few of the lower-ranked diplomats over dinner than what two hours of heated debate in the room itself might accomplish. That was all well and good, but Beth's team had a mission and they had to both steer the sides back to what they were there for; mainly, she had to force them to work out exactly how and what they were going to pay the CRA with.

Bjorn was good both for sitting at the head of the table and redirecting everything that was happening with just a few words and also good at cutting through the bullshit and getting them to concede based on just a couple insightful comments. Frankly, Beth could honestly not care any less about the two sides' little internecine feuding that they had been at for a couple thousand years now, but they had to work though some of that to get to what her group wanted.

It was going to be the product of more than a couple days, but she was hoping they could get enough to sign off on Bjorn's mission in under two weeks. In fact, she knew they could get what they needed, as the team could apply a lot of pressure, but she was only going to rake the diplomats over the coals if there wasn't any other resort.