They gave up on Aurora this despite the fact that Aurora was important as a major outpost of their invasion of worlds and possessed the resources needed for gem nobles to advance to gem kings.
For them, the loss of Aurora is a low price to pay to prevent the plague of war that this powerful invader brings with them everywhere they go.
Of course, not every gem emperor was in support of this decision. Some of them wanted to bring the fight to the invaders. But the majority of gem emperors agreed to seal off their homeworld and fortify it for invasion.
They also didn't tell the gem kings in Aurora that they were on their own forever. They told them to hold on for one year before they can get reinforcement.
This wasn't a lie. If the gem kings in Aurora perform well, then the council of gem emperors will have the confidence to fight the invaders and reinforce them.
But if the gem kings on Aurora don't perform well during the year that the connection to Aurora is cut off, then they won't receive any reinforcement.
This won't be considered as them breaking their promise because they never promised to send reinforcements. They only said that the troops on Aurora will have to wait one year before they can get reinforcement of any kind.
The gem emperors intend to use this year to reshape their homeworld and fortify it against an invasion. So they are currently doing the same thing that the Blood Skull army has been doing on Aurora. Another thing that they have in common is that both sides have misjudged their enemies.
The gem emperors think that the Blood Skull army doesn't already know where their home world is. They are terribly mistaken about this.
The reality of the situation is that the Blood Skull army already knows where their homeworld is. If not for the fact that they are not ready to invade the homeworld of the gem people yet, Aurora won't be the next one on the chopping block.
As for the Blood Skull army, what they are mistaken about is their prediction that the gem people will attack them with one large army to repel them.
They predicted this course of action based on the information that they got from the minds of the gem kings whose bodies were destroyed in the first confrontation between both sides when the mothership entered Aurora.
They learned the behavior of the gem kings, so they knew that after a failed attempt to repel the enemy, the gem people would gather their forces and launch a thunderous attack. That's what they usually do against invaders of Aurora.
However, the gem people have decided to change their response strategy this time around. This is all because the Council of Gem Emperors has cut off reinforcement and support to the gem people on Aurora.
In the past, the soldiers on Aurora always had the support of their homeworld, so they had the numbers, resources, and confidence to launch a large attack. After all, even if they failed to repel the enemy and lost the battle, they could always accumulate their army and try again.
But times have changed. Without the support of the homeworld and with the order to hold on for a year, they didn't dare to launch a risky maneuver that could lead to them being wiped.
Besides the lack of support, there is also intelligence about the invaders and how difficult it is to deal with them, so the leaders of the gem kings decided to take a defensive approach that would help them hold out long enough for reinforcement.
So the fortification that the Blood Skull army was building around their base was unlikely to be of any use. At least, not for the next year.
The Blood Skull army didn't know their diligent effort wasn't needed, so they continued to work hard on the fortification. They spent an entire month building the fortifications and didn't stop until the three nascent soul leaders got information that the gem people had decided to hunker down in their fortresses instead of attacking.
The three of them got this information after they went into enemy territory to scout. Thanks to the shielding of spiritual energy, not many people can see them, so they can serve as scouts. And thanks to the soul-searching technique, their ability to acquire information is top-notch.
It was the three of them who acquired the information about the normal strategic response of the gem people on Aurora and suggested that they should build fortifications. Now it was also they who were saying that the fortifications would be useless. Arthur didn't like it at all.
He made sure to make fun of them for providing the wrong information the first time around. He didn't blame them for being incompetent because their suggestion was good, and the fact that fortifications won't see much use wasn't their fault. But he made sure to mention it lightly to make fun of them.
However, after having his fun, he ordered the army to set out immediately. Their goal is to claim Aurora in the one year of no reinforcement they have.
He said to them, "Since the homeworld of the gem people won't reinforce Aurora, we should take it for ourselves before they can offer help."
So the domain began to spread aggressively as the mobile fortresses in possession of the hand of god runes began to scatter in every direction. As this was going on, the colorful sky of Aurora shimmered above them.
As the hand of god runes spread throughout Aurora, the range of the domain of Ethera expanded. The mana seed was planted on one of the fortresses of the highlands, but the boundary of the domain spread down to the lowlands beneath and even into the tunnels deep in the earth.
Those who were sensitive to energy were able to see the large golden tree growing larger and larger every day. The world guardian of Aurora, including the original indigenes, was all sensitive to energy, so they noticed the spreading domain as clear as day.