When the request for contact forwarded by Wojin reached Saine, he was reviewing the arrangements for the next round of experiments in the area holding the Fragment Star Emperor.
The request was not fed directly into his consciousness.
Skynet first inspected the rule imprint attached to it. Only after confirming that it would not release any other power upon contact did Skynet display its contents in full.
After reading it, Saine's gaze paused.
What the other party wanted to discuss was none other than the Spirit-Seizing Bone Emperor!
And the one who had sent the inquiry was the World-Realm Emperor Monarch, someone both he and Locke knew well.
This powerhouse from the Source-Devouring Time-Space, with his level-13 peak strength, had left a profound impression on the Destruction Divine Kingdom Faction during the previous war.
This time, however, he had not appeared on some Dimension Battlefield with an army. Instead, he had found a way to send a request for contact through the trade channels of the Bewitching Time-Space.
Saine saved the rule fluctuations within the message separately, then had Skynet verify the various intermediaries through which it had passed.
These trading powers were only responsible for relaying the contents. They offered neither side any guarantee that an exchange could be completed.
But to Saine, the fact that the request had reached him was enough to show that the World-Realm Emperor Monarch was at least willing to try negotiating.
Back in the Source-Devouring Time-Space, when the World-Realm Emperor Monarch had first raised the matter with the Source-Devouring Progenitor, he had likewise received no immediate approval.
The capture of a level-12 Ancient Emperor was certainly a loss.
But voluntarily paying a price to the Mechanical Civilization, against which they had once fought, was not necessarily consistent with the Source-Devouring Progenitor's past habits.