When Zabia and Dyon stepped out, the rest of the plan proceeded smoothly.
Half of the Uidah army was sent to a specially chosen gate. As for how they’d leave without the Uidah noticing the influx of numbers? Of course, Dyon had already taken this into account.
For one, their numbers would be almost immediately halved, unbeknownst to them. According to the rules of the key, Dyon could teleport any number of people to any gate in this quadrant. However, there was a caveat he had specially taken note of. With the exception of this universe, he could only teleport to the very center of any other gate.
What did this mean? Every gate had the same characteristic regardless of whatever variety of dangers they provided: The center would always and unequivocally be the most dangerous area.
To teleport nearly half a million warriors directly into a disaster? The results could be guessed.
Dyon obviously wouldn’t have told the Uidah this in advance, that would have unnecessarily complicated the negotiation process, not that they had much of a choice anyway.
As for the second half of the plan, there wasn’t a need to account for it. A group of less than two hundred thousand, which would be the numbers after they helped attack the towers of the Uidah, would hardly be a drop in a bucket when considering the whole population of a gate.
Even if a general with keen eyes noticed, the turnover between the gates was too volatile to make any concrete assumptions. Even their first son traveled between tens of gates per campaign.
In the end, the remaining half millions could only meander their way back home, leaving the only Dyon, his allies, and first son.
As for Elwing, Dyon didn’t see him off. As a prince, he had his own pride. When he noticed that Dyon had truly turned the situation around by himself, he didn’t have the face to stay, nor did he ask for anything Epistemic Tower related. He didn’t want to partake in anything Dyon would have to give him. Unfortunately for him, this would turn out to be a big mistake.
After that army left, it was finally time for Dyon to once again step into the Epistemic Tower.
**
Later that day, Dyon and his 3000 or so companions sat in the very same cultivation room he had ironically fought Alidor in. Dyon couldn’t help but think what the situation would be like had Alidor won the key wielder position instead of him.
At the moment, Alidor and Clara were distributing cultivation cleansing pills to the demon generals. As for first son Dravil, he awkwardly stood to the side, confused beyond belief as to what was going on. However, Dyon wasn’t going to explain anything to him.
“Do you know why I brought you here when I had no obligation to?” Dyon, who had been quietly meditating, suddenly spoke.
“Those arrays you placed within us aren’t so simple…” Dravil answered immediately. “But this is an unnecessary investment. In the grand scheme of things, a million Uidah is a trivial number. There are hundreds of billions of us.”
Dyon shook his head. He didn’t expect everyone to be as intelligent as he was, but he was disappointed in this first son’s lack of foresight. He was too cautious and not ambitious enough, that would make him a problem to use in the future.
“I don’t plan on explaining everything to you. But, I will tell you that the important number here isn’t a million. It’s ten.”
Dravil’s eyes widened as he suddenly understood. This was never about the numbers, this was always about who he was bringing in…
In one fell swoop, Dyon had suddenly taken the future of the Uidah in his palms. Even with first son’s personality flaws, he was still among the only two faith seeded Uidah, and yet now, he was Dyon’s pawn.
If Dyon wanted to play the long game, in a few hundred thousand years, he would own at least 70% of the Uidah, accounting for sons and daughters who weren’t talented enough to maintain their positions.
However, would Dyon really bother waiting that long? He had plans that could make this approach viable within a hundred years. But, Dravil didn’t need to know that.
“Once your brothers and sisters are finished with their duties at that gate, they will take turns spending time in this tower. I don’t want my investments to be usurped by superior talents. Do you understand?”
Dravil nodded. If this Epistemic Tower was really everything Dyon said it was, he and the others really wouldn’t have to worry about others replacing them. In fact, Dravil could stop worrying and break into sainthood after this campaign and take the 5th son position, maybe even 4th son with his talent.
As for where the other 9 sons and daughters were currently, Dyon had sent them all with the other half a million warriors. After all, a major part of his plan was conquering the towers to make the Uidah regret focusing their attention here, so he needed to make sure there was enough leadership. In fact, he would be sending first son in a moment as well.
It was safe to say that Dyon’s gears were constantly turning. Every moment of respite that he received was spent planning out the next few thousand years of his life. He was determined to make his name reverberate through the quadrants.