They had already been told that the world spirit of Aurora was too weak to pay attention to them and empower an inhabitant of the world at the same time. So this shouldn't have been surprising to them.
But after what they had experienced in Aries, they found it difficult to believe that the world wouldn't try to kill them at every moment. They kept expecting a storm to appear from somewhere and crush them, or for the sky to fall on their heads at any moment.
Since none of this was happening, it meant that they could move around Aries while simultaneously expanding the domain of the Ethera tree. This is something that they couldn't complain about.
But they didn't roam Aurora just yet. The first thing they did was to fortify their base with mobile fortresses and use the respite they had to build the walls of fortification.
The walls they built were similar to the ones they built to defend the Purple Flower sect. Each successive wall strengthened the ones before it. So the more walls there were, the stronger the overall defense would be.
They chose to set up an impenetrable defense first because they expected a massive counterattack from the gem people. So as not to be caught off guard, they chose to prepare now.
The level of effort they expect the gem people to dedicate to ousting them from Aurora next should involve 100 peak-level gem kings. These are just the best of the best of the gem people that will show up. They expect the size of the army that will come next to be at least 100,000.
Since they only have four people in the army who can deal with these 100 peak-level gem kings, they decided to prepare structures that defend the rest of the army while they hold on for their four strongest to defeat the strongest of their enemies.
In terms of numbers, the next army of people that will come knocking on their doors will be at least three times the size of the Blood Skull army, so the fortification will be important to prevent them from being overwhelmed.
While they were preparing to defend, the gem people were preparing to attack. But this time, the gem people didn't rush to attack them.
The first thing they did was to collect information about the size of the enemy and the type of enemy that had invaded them. From the information they could gather, they learned that the invaders had come to the world through a tear in the sky and came in a large black boat.
For many gem people, this information only made the enemies seem mysterious. The information didn't have any significance other than that.
But for the gem noble that had negotiated with Sword Flash for the cooperation between their two worlds, this information was like a bolt of lightning through his mind.
When Quartzite learned the enemy came in a large black boat capable of moving in the void between worlds, he immediately suspected that the enemy was the same one who had invaded Aries and sent the gem people there packing.
Then he heard that one of the enemies had wielded the power of lightning. Since there had only been one race that the gem people had ever encountered that could wield lightning, Quartzite was sure the invaders were the same ones who invaded Aries. So he quickly became anxious.
Quartzite shared his suspicions and what he believed to his superior, a gem king. The gem king told his superior, a peak-level gem king. The peak-level gem king personally went to confirm the news.
This peak-level gem king didn't go to fight the invaders in order to confirm the identity of the invaders. What he did was to fly up in the air and look at the base of the invaders. When he saw the phantom of a golden tree rising from the base of the invaders, he became confident enough in the conjecture of the identity of the invaders to inform a gem emperor of the situation.
So a gem emperor quickly found out that the same people who took Aries from them had come to take Aurora from them. This gem emperor quickly called an emergency meeting.
The first thing that the gem emperor did was to say to the Ivory Gem Emperor, "You twit. You nincompoop. You retard. I thought you said that we had nothing to fear from the strange rock people who invaded Aries. What a load of crap."
The Ivory Gem Emperor didn't like being insulted and berated so publicly at all. But he maintained a strong grip on his emotions and didn't have an outburst.
He was definitely angry. But he decided not to be rash.
Instead of shouting back, he said to his accuser with a low voice full of the promise of violence, "You'd better have a very good reason for saying all that to me, or I would make you pay a heavy price for your disrespect and insolence."
He was being magnanimous, but the other gem emperor didn't appreciate his magnanimity or calm down. The gem emperor raised his voice even harder as he said, "Insolence? Me disrespecting you? Of course, I have a good reason for it. And if I tell everyone my reason, I bet I won't be the only one who decides to be disrespectful to you."
Another gem emperor intervened, saying, "Don't keep us in suspense anymore. What happened?"
The angry gem emperor was quick to reply, saying, "The invaders of Aries have found Aurora and have invaded it. If they can find Aurora, then they can find our homeworld. And the worst part is that we don't know how they did it."
A gem emperor said with a grim voice, "This is bad news indeed. This is very bad news. But why are you blaming Ivory?"
The angry gem emperor pointed at the Ivory Gem Emperor and said angrily, "Because he told us not to worry about them, and even wanted to invade them."