Chapter 207: All Press Forward

James fought and easily crushed the next opponent before returning to the deck again. When he returned, he felt his body swapping with the clone summoned by the voice.

And the next he had was the short time memories he received when he was away. "Wow, this is simply amazing," he muttered to himself.

"What's amazing?" yet the distasteful voice of that witch came again knocking him back to reality. "Nothing," he answered before turning to his droid. "Show me the latest reports of the fight going on out there."

"Which fight exactly, my emperor?" The droid was careful as James seemed out of normal these days.

"Rigo and Dora of course," James replied, "show the reports now on the hologram.

"Right away," the droid hurried to press several buttons before the hologram screen changed from showing the ongoing fight on the lower planet with resistance to the map of the Terases empire.

"They went this deep?" he muttered when he noticed the expansion in fight all over the fronts. "How much losses did we have so far?" he asked.

"According to the latest data, Dora lost more than half of her fleet already, while Rigo lost only one tenth of it."

"Rigo is playing nice and cautious," James muttered while not commenting on Dora's rashness. "Send the word to him, make him be bolder."

James noticed the droid didn't execute his words, so he gave him a stern glance and the droid hurried to do what he was asked for. The droid saw this was a wrong decision to take, yet he couldn't dare to defy James or even negotiate with him during this weird attitude of his.

"He asks for me to advance further and act bolder?" Rigo received the order and was speechless about it for a moment. "Call the emperor and transfer the call to my room," he said as he stepped out of the deck in hurried steps.

He didn't understand his emperor's mind up till now, and this order was the last straw in his patience. "He better gives me a proper explanation," he muttered while entering his room and closing its doors.

"What's it?" James appeared in his room as well. When he received the call request he decided to take the call in his room.

"May I ask what is going on here?" Rigo directly asked.

"Nothing," James shrugged, "I just want us to press on the advantage we currently hold," he added while his tone told Rigo he was lying.

"I'm talking about you," Rigo said before adding, "I received strange reports during the last days stating how bizzare you acted."

"You mean what I asked Islinda to do?" James calmly said, not feeling any surprise for Islinda to speak up with him about this. After all he understood what he did looked strange and suspicious to others.

"Sure, and that is taking the anti-rebellious operation by yourself. This…" Rigo paused before adding, "are you alright? In here?" he pointed to his head with the shining part in it.

"Hahaha," James laughed before adding, "c'mon, you know me. I never do anything without proper reason."

"I doubt that!" Rigo instantly replied.

"Don't worry," James tried to reassure him.

"I'm worried, and if you don't provide me with an answer at the moment then I'll be more worried."

James wanted to tell his man everything he had in mind, but he couldn't. that witch was closely watching him, and if he did something to arouse her suspicions even more, the next visit of her wouldn't be a pleasant one.

"I have my own reasons," James said, while adding, "and for the current moment I can't share them with you."

"Why?" Rigo asked, not satisfied with this short and vague reply as an answer.

"This…" James sighed before adding, "let's say I held a deep secret that might endanger everyone if I leaked it out."

"Secret?" Rigo wasn't totally convinced by this, "how dangerous this secret is?" he added trying to assess this secret, if it was really there.

"Enough to cause the destruction of everything we held dear," James answered before adding, "and there is no stopping it once it spreads to others. So, believe in me, believe in your leader and just drop this for now."

"Tsk," Rigo knew from James' tone that he wasn't lying this time, which made him more worried instead. He hoped for something easy to have here, not such a dangerous secret. "It seems the words of the past leader of us weren't groundless after all," he muttered.

And these words made James recall the weird recording the last leader of Rigo had left to him long time ago. This message was vague in James' mind, yet he felt the need to check it out later.

"Go back and start working harder," James said before adding, "we need to crush this empire in less than two weeks."

"So soon," Rigo muttered, "weren't we supposed to have a month?" he asked in confusion.

"As I told you," James shook his head helplessly, "there are new things developing in the backstage right now and we need to be sure we are able to handle the upcoming crisis."

"Sigh," Rigo sighed before adding, "alright, I'll keep the boys working their asses for you," he said before warning, "but the losses will be great."

"No problem," James said before adding, "after all we are about to lose much more than what you think if we left this war stretched far longer than this."

"Alright," Rigo stood up before adding, "wait for the good news then," and he closed the call before returning to his deck and spreading the new orders to everyone.

"Press on," he simply ordered, "don't hold back anything," he added while sitting on his seat thinking about the strange call he just had with James.

James returned to his deck while his mind was busy thinking about what he just said to Rigo. He hoped he wouldn't have said something to expose himself there.