"He stood on the only road leading to the City on the Peak."
"He stood there without moving, waiting for those armies to reach him."
The Emperor and Malcador hid in a ravine.
They could not see Qin Mo through Psychic Power. Malcador could only observe him with an essential survival item Nagase Ken had bought for him earlier: a threat detector.
The threat detector clearly marked out a green silhouette.
The Emperor neither watched nor listened. He stood in the pit, staring at the cracked earth, clearly deep in thought.
"An armored force is coming," Malcador continued reporting. "As expected of humanity's homeworld. Even some random warlord on Terra possesses such an impressive military force. What are they using to travel? Perhaps we can acquire whatever they use for transportation."
Malcador disliked this sort of spying, but he had to do it. He could no longer sit cross-legged somewhere, close his eyes, and instantly perceive everything thousands of miles away as he once had.
The Emperor said nothing, merely looking at Malcador.
At that moment, he felt nostalgic.
In the foreseeable future, Malcador would be rendered taciturn and utterly exhausted by terrifyingly vast administrative burdens and all manner of vexing troubles. He was the youngest among the Perpetuals, yet his state of mind would age to the point that the other Perpetuals regarded him as an elder.
"Actually, we should not have said those things in the hall," the Emperor said through Psychic Power out of habit.
"I was not truly blaming him for being overly protective. After all, we are hardly any different ourselves." Malcador smiled helplessly. "I merely wanted to test him, to see what exactly he was thinking."
"And the result?" the Emperor asked.
Malcador frowned, his expression turning grave. He said nothing and merely continued