"What, Sinvira?
"The Planar Gate!"
Everyone was shocked to hear it.
"Has the situation deteriorated so quickly?
"Even the Planar Gate over in Sinvira is in danger now..."
Antonia said, "Please take this seriously.
"The Planar Gate in Sinvira is one of the key passages connecting the Outer Realm to the Prime Material World. If they lose it, every material plane will inevitably be affected.
"I believe everyone understands that when the lips are gone, the teeth grow cold."
The introduction of Seris had brought a wealth of idioms and allusions into this magical universe.
Antonia needed no further explanation. That one saying about lips and teeth had already made the crucial point.
"That may be true, but why do I feel they're doing this deliberately?"
One Arcane Commissioner could not help speaking up.
"They're using the Planar Gate to hold all the worlds hostage, forcing them to send reinforcements.
"And that way, Sinvira gets saved instead!"
"Those damned bastards really might do something that stupid!"
The others agreed.
Given Sinvira's past conduct, they had every reason to suspect as much.
In their place, most of those present would also have refused to shoulder the burden of fighting the Abyssal Legion alone. They might even have kept the enemy around to bolster their own importance.
But now that things had come to this, there seemed little they could do about Sinvira.
They could complain all they liked, but they still had to provide aid.
Antonia was notifying them to prepare for war. Their discussions, too, had to proceed on the premise that they would take part.
This time, even Roland, a retired Arcane Commissioner with no official duties, was asked to stay and participate in the meeting.
However, he was neither a leader among the battle mages nor responsible for