“Then who?” the leader who had accused the Empire retorted sharply, clearly stung by the Xelovra leader’s dismantling of his argument. “They’re the only ones who have all the pieces that fit the puzzle!”
His frustration was obvious, he had presented his hypothesis with confidence, expecting agreement or at least serious consideration. Being corrected and essentially discredited in front of the entire Conclave leadership left him bitter, and he wasn’t ready to back down.
Yet no one else stepped forward with an alternative suspect. All known external enemies of the Conclave were either too far away or still recovering from past conflicts. The aftermath of their long war had left the region between them nearly uninhabitable, making any large-scale operation prohibitively expensive in terms of mana stone consumption, especially for wormhole travel. And like the Conclave, they too had shown no signs of overcoming the technological limitations surrounding such feats.