The Almighty Dominance (by Sunshine) novel Chapter 679

The great hall of the imperial pavilion held its breath.

Alex sat on the emperor’s throne, the weight of the dragon robes pressing against his shoulders like a living thing. Eighteen governors lined the chamber in ordered rows. Zhuge Liang stood at his right hand, motionless, eyes fixed on nothing and everything at once.

A month had passed since the crown had settled on Alex’s head. The northern armies were broken, the provinces quiet, the old Murim Alliance reduced to ash and memory. Yet the silence in the room felt brittle, as if the peace they had bought with blood might crack at the first wrong word.

Alex leaned forward a fraction. The movement was small, but every governor straightened.

“I have an announcement.”

Eighteen voices answered in near unison, low and careful. “We are listening, Your Majesty.”

He let the pause stretch one heartbeat longer than comfort allowed. “For longer than any of us can remember, Xia has kept its doors closed to the world. That policy ends today. We will open our borders and stand with Estoria.”

The name landed like a stone dropped in still water.

A governor near the front—an older man whose beard was shot with silver. “Estoria, Your Majesty?”

“Prussia has always been the rival at our doorstep. Estoria… the old records speak of it only as a lawless continent, a refuge for exiles and men who had nowhere else to run. Some of us were taught it was nothing more than poor villages and empty plains.”

Another governor spoke. “Five hundred years ago the last reliable accounts described a backward place. Illiterate people. No armies worth the name. No industry. If the histories are even half correct, what could we possibly gain by tying ourselves to them now?”

Alex met their eyes without blinking. “We have been closed so long we stopped watching what happened beyond our walls. The world did not wait for us.”

He turned his head slightly. “Gaia. Show them.”

A soft mechanical hum rose from a concealed alcove. A single sleek drone descended on near-silent rotors and hovered at the center of the hall. Its projector activated with a low, resonant thrum that vibrated through the floor. Light bloomed in the air—sharp, clean, impossibly vivid.

Towering spires of glass and steel cut the sky. Streams of elegant vehicles moved between them on invisible lanes, their engines a distant, controlled roar. In wide plazas, crowds moved; laughter rose and fell like music. In open courtyards, men and women flowed through precise, powerful martial forms, every movement economical and lethal. Overhead, aircraft and coordinated drone swarms executed tight, graceful patterns against a brilliant blue sky.

The governors stared. One man’s mouth parted slightly. Another leaned forward. The holographic light painted shifting colors across their faces—wonder and disbelief.

A younger governor spoke first, voice hoarse. “They are… more advanced than we are.”

Alex’s voice cut through the stunned quiet. “While we fought our own wars and closed our gates, Estoria moved. If we stay sealed, we will fall behind in every way that matters—knowledge, technology, strength. We open not only for trade and learning, but because Estoria will soon be at war with Prussia. When that day comes, Xia will stand with them.”

For a long moment no one spoke. Then the murmurs began—urgent, overlapping, edged with fear. Another war. So soon. The northern front had barely cooled. Supply lines were still stretched thin. The people had only just begun to believe the killing was over.

Alex remained on the throne, one hand resting on the carved armrest. “I will tell you the truth,” he said. “Every aircraft and drone we have built over these years was never meant to fight any of you. They were created for one purpose only—to face Prussia.”

The words settled like frost. The governors had spent years watching those machines patrol their skies and wondering when the blade would turn inward. Now they understood it had always pointed elsewhere.

Zhuge Liang bowed. “Your Majesty, if we go to war with Prussia, what are our real chances of victory?”

Alex met his eyes. “With our full support and Estoria at our side, one hundred percent.”

A fresh wave of shock rippled through the chamber. One governor leaned back as if struck. Prussia had always been the northern colossus—vast armies, ancient wealth, technology that had outpaced Xia for generations.

Estoria, by every record they possessed, was little more than a forgotten backwater of exiles and poverty. The idea that these two nations together could guarantee victory over the strongest power on the continent felt like a fever dream.

A senior governor found his voice first, rough with caution. “And Estoria? Can we trust them? Their reputation is… uncertain at best.”

Alex scratched the side of his head once, a small, human gesture that somehow made the next words land harder. “The truth is, Estoria’s king is my blood brother. We have shared everything—life and death—since we were children. There is no daylight between us.”

The silence that followed was absolute. Governors stared openly now, some with mouths parted, others exchanging quick, stunned glances. In one day they had absorbed more shocks than in an entire year of rule.

The man on the throne was no longer simply their emperor. He was something larger, something already moving pieces across a board they could barely see.

Alex continued, voice steady. “So there will be no war between Xia and Estoria. We are building something stronger—true collaboration, the kind brothers share. Each province will decide its own priorities. Look for trade, for technology exchanges, for partnerships that strengthen us all. Treat Estoria’s people as you would treat your own.”

One governor rose and bowed deeply, voice thick with resolve. “We will follow Your Majesty’s command. Estoria will be received as brothers.”

“Good,” Alex said.

Zhuge Liang bowed again. “Your Majesty, when the time comes to face Prussia, will this be total war? Our aircraft and fighters joined with theirs in open battle across every front?”

Every governor echoed the sentiment at once, rising as one. “We stand ready, Your Majesty!”

Alex scratched his head a second time, slower this time. A faint, almost weary smile touched the corner of his mouth.

“No,” he said quietly. “It will not be an all-out war. It will be a military demonstration.”

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