309 A Grave Situation

"This was all planned from the beginning?" Sage asked wryly.

"Yes." He replied coolly, "Major Grace has information on our enemy's larger forces and influences nearly three-fourths of the Sky Plane soldiers in a 300-mile radius. Persuading her into passivity could unravel the entire operation.

If she were a cultivation lord, we would have ambushed her. However, she wasn't—she posed no real threat to our forces, so attempting to pacify her was the rational option for long-term survival. Crux, General Michaels, and Veronica agree, so stop acting like you're rational."

Boom, boom, boom-boom-boom!

"I said they'd attack." The redhead growled, her eyebrow twitching to the cadence of the ironic backdrop, "And unless you're deaf—"