Red crossed his arms. "Taking on a Rank 17 threat puts a massive target on my empire. My forces just survived a siege. I have no logical reason to import your pending invasions and fight warlords far above my current tier."
"You are already the primary target." Sylara rested her palms flat on her digital console. "You unified a dead wasteland and subjugated eighty pantheons in less than a year. Your growth rate defies the server's math. You will breach Rank 15 soon, Rubedo. When the regional lock drops, the central warlords will not see a peer. They will see a system anomaly. They will mobilize to delete you regardless of my presence."
She brought up a secondary data stream, projecting a string of system code between their screens.
