Soph appeared right outside of the large pagoda that was Lossa, Trella and Teira's home. The calm brush of the wind gently caressing her face told her everything that she needed to know about where she was if the massive Asian-styled structure wasn't enough to go off of.

"Wow... I really teleported so far with one skill use..." Soph mumbled as she contacted Lone via The Summoning Room's telepathic connection. 'Um, we're here. There, um, there are actually quite a few beastmen here staring at me and drawing their weapons. A lot of them aren't foxkin. Um, what should I do?'

'Oh? We must have arrived during a war conference or something. Activate The Glade's key, please, I'll deal with everything,' Lone responded in a calm voice.

Soph nodded despite him not being able to see her and did as she was told.

"This is ridiculous!" an eight-foot-tall man with three massive sets of iron wings and two big beady pupils - a ravenkin - shouted as he slammed his fist down onto the desk he and several other beastmen representatives were sat at. "Why must we wait here like cowards?! I highly suggest that we bring the offensive to those scummy humans!"

A woman with fish-like scales covering her bald head - a tunakin - nodded as she crossed her arms over her chest. "I am inclined to agree. The longer we wait, the more time the Free Nations' Alliance has to pull more of its speciesist kind to its side."

A White Dragonkin that Lone would recognise as Lord Elksworth, frowned. "I can see where you are coming from, but we must not be hasty. Representative of the Crimson Foxkin, representative of the Night Foxkin, representative of the Aqua Foxkin, Representative of the Light Tigerkin, I beseech you all to voice your clear opinions now. I refuse to mediate another one of these conferences if all that happens as a result is bickering and no absolute decision."

Lossa didn't look happy in the least. "I remain firm in my position; we wait and see what happens. We can't afford to open ourselves up to an attack on all fronts by launching a preemptive assault before the war had been officially declared. Doing as such would be madness. At the very least, we should wait and see if the eastern world tree will send over its promised support."

The foxkin sat to Lossa's left - a tall man with scars littering his face and grey hairs peppering his red-tipped black hair and six tails - nodded. "Rushing to our annihilation is not something that my clan is keen on doing, but I doubt the eastern world tree has the resources to spare when they just lost their king and their only other triple-X-ranker is out exploring the world."

The young girl to Lossa's right - a gorgeous foxkin with dazzling ocean-blue hair - swished her eight fluffy aqua-coloured tails about as she said, "I'm still of the mind to negotiate with the humans. If we can reach a compromise, then many lives will be spared."

Lossa gave the woman who looked three-times younger than herself but who was easily five-times her age a dirty look, however, she otherwise stayed silent.

Putting his chin in his hands and resting his elbows on the table, the representative of the Light Tigerkin clan smiled coyly. "This is all pointless."

Lord Elksworth knitted his brows. "What on Altros is he doing here..."

The people present who weren't soul oracles had no idea what the two men were talking about, so they had annoyed or perplexed looks on their faces in response. The next second, the door to the council room burst open violently.

"Who dares cause such a disturbance during such a private and important meeting?!" the ravenkin shouted as he got into a combat position.

"Yeah, no. Be quiet, would you?" a very fed-up voice demanded as an unbelievably oppressive aura burst forth from the nine-tailed foxkin that had strolled into the room with three humans following him. It was also hard to miss the albino snake wrapped around his arm.

The foxkin who was obviously Lone sighed a breath of relief at having some silence. "Ever since we stepped out of The Glade, it's been nothing but people yelling into my fucking ears. So annoying." He waved his hand, making two chairs appear out of thin air. He occupied one and let Soph climb up onto his lap while Envy sat on the other as he continued to hold Sloth.

Lord Elksworth had a very unimpressed look on his face. "Lone Immortus. I never wanted to see you ever again, but now that you're in front of me, care to explain why everyone here except your group, myself, Lossa Redtail, and Zeeb Whitestripes, are suddenly finding themselves attached to the floor as if a mountain is crushing them?"

"Well, for starters, there're three humans with me, so no amount of talking would keep the speciesists in this room satisfied unless I forced my hand - and don't you dare say there aren't speciesists here. Discrimination is a two-way street," Lone said with a big shrug before he glanced at the very happy-looking tigerkin sat on the far right side of the oval table. "You got any relation to Rangah Whitestripes? She had black stripes while yours are light-grey, but you look alike."

The man nodded. "You know my daughter? Lovely girl, isn't she? I'd love to say that she inherited her soul oracle abilities from me, but I'm only a journeyman."

"Nice kid," Lone commented offhandedly, resulting in Zeeb Whitestripes smiling in response.

The girl on his lap pouted deeply as she pinched Lone's sides. "Who's Rangah?"

Lone, not feeling any pain, kissed his lover's head. "She's a fellow master soul oracle."

"So you are a master... How in the name of the Primals above did you go from being an apprentice to being a master in less than a year? My soul detection abilities can't even come close to matching yours now despite me also being a master," Lord Elksworth claimed as he stroked his pointy beard.

Lone shrugged again. "Practice."

"Re... Release me..." the ravenkin whispered as loudly as he could. It was a struggle for him to even breathe under such an oppressive force, let alone talk.

"I'll remove my Ascending Aura if you all agree to suppress your biases about my companions. Blink twice for yes. By the way, if you lie to me, I'll beat you within an inch of your lives. I'm not here to play games," Lone declared confidently and very sternly.

Lossa was beyond shocked. 'Is this really Lone? He's changed so much... Where is this attitude coming from? He's somehow a triple-S-ranker now, but if they banded together, surely they could defeat him, no? Regardless of that, how and why is he here? Where's Rachel? Where's Breena? What happened to Eolande and the Lemurian, Swind, was it? Who are these humans and what is that snake?'

The poor matriarch of the Crimson Foxkin Clan was beyond confused.

Seeing all of the apparent clan leaders blinking twice, Lone undid his Ascending Aura. "As a secondary warning, I recently forced an Ancient to kill himself, and, less impressively, I instantly killed three triple-X-ranked Church of the Primals seekers in Mystopolis, so, seriously, don't make me kick the shit outta you. I don't want to do it."

The Aqua Foxkin slowly raised her torso and held her hand to her neck. "What a suffocating feeling... So you're the foxkin I've been getting reports about as of late? I was certain they were falsified somehow."

The Night Foxkin spat out a small ball of blood before he wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "I fucking bit my tongue. I'm not a loose cannon like the idiot over there, so you didn't need to slam me with whatever the fuck that was," he complained as he gestured with his chin towards the iron-winged ravenkin.

Lone didn't look apologetic at all. "I need you all to take me seriously."

"I have no issues talking to a Golden Foxkin regardless of your rank or the status of your beastkin awakenings," the Iron Ravenkin claimed with a very sour look on his face. "The humans though? Give me one good reason not to kill them."

"Because you'll be dead the second you tried," the tunakin at his side answered in Lone's place. "Have none of you ever seen nor heard of the Ascending before?"

Everyone looked confused. "Fools. Uneducated fools." She looked back at Lone and bowed her head respectfully. "Regardless of your intent to come here, I, Ifwaley Goldscales of the Golden Tunakin tribe, wholeheartedly support your cause."

"Well, that's handy," Lone replied with a smile on his face. "By the way, as for who these people are," he said as he gestured to the girl on his knees and the two humans at his side, "This is Soph, my lover and fellow Wanderer, while these two people are Envy and Sloth of the famous adventurer group, The Seven Deadly Sins."

"Hiss!" A pleading sound came from Lone's right bicep. "Yeah, I didn't forget about you. And this is Greed from the same group."

"Lone..." Lossa had a lost look on her face. "Why are you here?"

Grinning devilishly, Lone replied, "I'm here to stop this stupid war before it even happens, and I want to be back in my bed in Mystopolis by just after midnight at the latest, so I should be done by then."

Jaws dropped and minds spun at this stupidly outlandish claim of Lone's.

"Milindo still hasn't reformed a stable government yet?" a portly man in his later fifties asked the other men in the Free Nations' Alliance headquarters' temporary planning room.

A man who looked to be in his late nineties shook his head slowly. "No. That backwater place is still being controlled by the regency that The Adventurer's Guild put in place while they're holding several nationwide votes to decide on a new government type as well as brainwash the citizens to believe that nons are our equals."

"That damned grand guildmaster... To think she's also a human... What a disgrace to our species," one of the gathered men said as he gnashed his teeth.

"King Aldruin the Third has recently been dealing with complaint after complaint from the nobles and high-born who have graduates amongst their children from The Academy. It seems that Headmaster Erion has been explosively increasing his efforts to persuade our youths into also thinking that nons are our equals," a man with impressive sideburns and a long scar running down the entire length of his face said.

"Can you fools forget your superiority-complexes for a single second, please?" The person who had requested this looked like he should rightly be dead from how many wrinkles his robe-covered body owned.

Now with everyone's attention on him, he coughed softly before adding, "That is an issue for you fools and your rulers to deal with, but we of the Magic Empire refuse to continue talking today if we are not moving forward. Milindo shan't be aiding us, very well, but what of the other smaller nations? It's incredibly worrying that the Whitestripes Clan of the Light Tigerkin have joined the Beastman Alliance, would you not agree?"

Some of the other gathered officials and representatives of their nations frowned or wore embarrassed expressions, however, before any of them could reply to the incredibly old mage, a young soldier briskly ran into the room with a deathly pale expression.

"W-We're being attacked, Sirs!" the soldier claimed as he tried his best to politely salute or bow to each of the different gathered men.

"A foot soldier?" the man with the scarred face asked suspiciously. "Where are the Five Blades of Aymtar? What of the Magic Empire's Seventh Division? Why are you informing us of this 'attack', and not the Restolan Wings?"

"I can answer that," a casual voice replied as a nine-tailed foxkin confidently strolled into the room with a contingency of fellow beastmen and three humans behind him.

"No... Impossible... Lossa Redtail... Makatoo Ironwing... Ifwaley Goldscales... Drendol Blacktail... Kuu Bluetail... Brahman Elksworth... And... And Zeeb Whitestripes..." Dispair covered many of the gathered men's faces.

Obviously, they were aware of who the leaders of their enemy alliance were, so them being here meant one thing and one thing alone; they had lost the initiative.

Lone scanned the room calculatingly. "To answer your earlier question, I knocked out everyone in this castle before coming here."

"You did what?! You, alone?! Impossible!" the portly official screamed in denial.

Lone shrugged. "I don't give a fuck if you believe me or not. I've already gotten all of the beastmen leaders behind me to sign a magic contract of my own design to not go to war with any of your countries or empires. Breaking this contract will result in a magical signal being relayed to me, which upon receiving, I will destroy the offending clan."

The mage who looked too old to be alive raised an eyebrow in intrigue. "A magical contract that you yourself made, you claim?"

Lone nodded as he summoned a chair from his Dimensional Storage and sat on it. "Yes, and now all of you will sign similar contracts. Contact your kings, queens, emperors and empresses if you need to. None of you are leaving this room until you sign it. Any who refuse will have their homeland's governmental body destroyed and the land shall be divided up to the countries and empires closest to it or The Adventurer's Guild shall take them over with a regency council. You have until midnight in Mystopolis to sign or die, so about six-hours. The choice is yours."

Lone's declaration was extremely lazy and full of holes, but he hardly cared. His job was to end the war before it could begin, and do that he would, regardless of how sloppy the outcome was going to be.