I calmed myself down first and thought about different ways to handle such a situation. If there was such a deadly way to detonate the entire zone, then that meant there were explosive things scattered across the twenty entrapped races worlds, the ten controlling worlds, and the thousand pocket worlds.
I didn't care at all about the pocket worlds or the controlling worlds. But the twenty races' worlds shouldn't be allowed to be touched.
They were going to be my spoils of war. Not to mention these worlds were a safe place for me and my forces in the face of such an overwhelming attack.
"If others manage to do it, then why can't I do it as well?" I kept telling myself this in an attempt to find a way to solve this problem.
"That means I'd never allow them to use the last defensive layer until I'll join the worlds' wars and see what they know about such a thing."
I refused to believe that those living in these worlds were oblivious to any of this. Either it was a time trap or space trap, these races would be aware of such entrapment.
In addition to that, if the Holy Ones took out their worlds and entrapped them here, then that meant these worlds belonged to these races in the first place.
That also meant if the Holy Ones did anything there these races would be aware of it. I couldn't force the races belonging to the Holy Ones to tell me about the places or the mechanism of detonating their worlds. But I could ask this from the races whom I was going to save.
After all, without knowing such crucial intel and finding a way to solve it, none of us would walk out from here alive.
"So taking down the first three layers shall happen during the first year. As for the fourth layer… I can take my time and handle them properly and slowly before risking annihilating them."
There was still the risk of the enemy finding themselves losing out on all fronts, so they'd not wait for their race to get wiped out before activating such a plan.
That meant even if I got the chance to do so, I shouldn't push them too much. I had to let them feel hope in conquering me all the time, and that added another point of difficulty to my task.
I could handle any enemy face to face, but it was hard to control my power to keep the enemy feeling they got an advantage over me.
If I did this, I'd risk losing everything thanks to any unforeseen events. I hated such a possibility, but couldn't find any other way to handle the fifth layer's attack for now.
So out of fear of this last hit, I had to cautiously advance and thoroughly calculate everything before killing or forcing that fallen angel race to switch sides.
This couldn't be considered as a solution, but a contingency plan.
I still didn't know how to solve this crisis, and all my hopes depended entirely over people I never met before.
[I got what you wanted] and just in four hours, Silverlining returned back to me with the good news.
He took slightly more than one hour, but at least he didn't delay for too long. So I dropped the idea of reprimanding him, knowing that he wouldn't be able to get such contracts without the help of the sovereigns.
[Cool! How many did you get?]
[I got one contract that's considered as an artefact in itself] he sent such a weird answer before adding, [Don't worry! It can be used to produce tons of presigned and predetermined terms contracts. And as it's an artefact, it can work on those aliens]
I got what he meant, and for me it worked much better than normal contracts.
After all, I took a lot of time writing and signing these contracts. But using such artefact would make my speed in recruiting more forces much faster.
[How much shall I pay? A redbone?] I knew such an artefact wouldn't be sold cheap.
[Nothing] but what he said made me raise my eyebrows in response, [We only need part of the forces you'll gain]
[Oh… What quite an appetite you have this time] I shortly laughed before adding, [How much do you want?]
[Fifty percent!]
They indeed have quite the appetite! They knew I needed such artefact and so they got greedy about my yet to come forces.
They heard everything that demonesse said. And so they knew how ferocious the races I was going to face were.
Besides, they have no equal in the entire universe. And they were strong enough to be considered one of the top races and forces in the entire universe.
Their greed was understandable, but that didn't mean I'd agree.
[Five percent is fine]
[F… Five? No way! We can't accept that!]
Of course I knew they wouldn't agree. This turned into a long bargaining talk for the next five hours!
At last we agreed that for twenty percent of any race I'd take control using this artefact here, I'd get to obtain that artefact.
And that percentage would turn later on into ten percent of any future races I'd take control using this artefact.
It was like a long term investment from their part in me. But for me, paying such an amount wasn't too much at all.
I wanted to not only take control of the first two races in this forsaken place, but to take control of the mighty and formidable angels as well.
After getting out of here, I'd not need to use such an artefact unless I found a way to go to the outer battlefield.
So I'd not lose that much in return for getting another artefact for free.
[Send it over] after signing the contract of our deal, I got the artefact.
And just like what Silverlining said, it was a contract artefact that was able to create endless variations of any contract and force anyone no matter who he was to follow me.