The Martial Unity

Matriarch Nephi raised an eyebrow with a dubious glint in her eyes.

"…I can understand your skepticism." Emperor Rael shook his head. "However, you weren't here during the first and second war. We came close to loss each time, but especially the first time. This is not a man to be trifled with. He has undoubtedly honed his statesmanship and military strategy with experience in the time that I have spent dying and looking for a cure to my condition."

He narrowed his eyes as he fell into thought. "The fact that you don't foresee anything is more concerning than if you foresaw something enormous. The latter would at least be in my prediction."

His gaze shifted to the matriarch. "And you're sure that there is no way around your foresight, correct?"

She snorted. "Nothing in this world is absolute. But no lesser being should be able to deceive my foresight. It would take severe and grave measures for this to even be possible. And even then, I would almost certainly detect traces of it nonetheless. Anybody who could pull it off, and pull it off without me even realizing, would have to be extraordinarily capable."

Funnily enough, that didn't reassure Emperor Rael like she had expected it to. He had a higher opinion of Prime Minister Edward than anybody else.

His gaze fell back onto a detailed map of East Panama marked with the details of the war before him as he scrupulously analyzed his current circumstances.

The war for allies was not deprived of its own fair share of battles, with many battlefronts unfolding across the entirety of the vast expanse of East Panama. Each time the Kandrian Empire gained an ally, it also gained a new target to protect from the onslaught of the alliance.

The alliance possessed greater absolute numbers, allowing it to adopt a fruitful strategy of pressuring the allies of the Kandrian Empire with waves of attack every few days. While he wasn't indifferent to the outcome, he knew that just the fact that these attacks were conducted at all hurt the Kandrian Empire's allure to the nations who were being competed and fought for. The alliance didn't spare a single ally of the Kandrian Empire in East Panama; even if the ally was right next to the Kandrian Empire territorially, they still boldly sent Martial Artists deep into the Kandrian Empire's domain of influence.

A challenge.

Emperor Rael could almost hear the Prime Minister's voice.

"Join the Kandrian Empire if you dare."

"Tsk." A flash of displeasure and grudging respect appeared in Emperor Rael's eyes. It was a brutally simple yet also the best strategy that the Prime Minister could have used against the Kandrian Empire.

If for no other reason than evolutionary psychology.

Human beings possessed greater sensitivity to negative emotion than positivity. This was especially true for fear.

They feared the alliance more than they hoped for the Kandrian Empire.

And it had paid off.

It had been three months since the battle with the Sekigahara Confederate had ended, and the war for allies had begun, and one thing had become clear to all participants in the war.

The alliance had gained an edge in the war for allies.

They had secured more allies to their cause than the Kandrian Empire did over the same timeframe. This had worked against the Kandrian Empire as it partially reinforced the invincibility of the East Panamic Treaty Alliance.

Of course, it was far from the doom of the Kandrian Empire. From the very get-go, Emperor Rael had no intention of outcompeting his enemies, just doing well enough to the point that they couldn't defeat the Kandrian Empire without horrific and devastating losses.

His conditions for victory were much easier than those of Prime Minister Edward.

The latter was burdened with the herculean task of gathering enough net liquidated war potential that could be rapidly leveraged into a single frontal assault that would be enough to destroy the Kandrian Empire through and through.

The keyword being liquidated.

In absolute numbers, the alliance was already powerful enough to wipe the Kandrian Empire off the map; however, two of its constituents were essentially crippled by half by the ingenious political and military strategies of the Emperor of Harmony.

Still, Emperor Rael had no intention of letting the bad feedback loop continue. What he needed was a big win that could break the momentum of the enemy alliance and further reduce their chance of obtaining the power that they needed to destroy the Kandrian Empire. He needed to break the pattern before people became convinced that it was the norm and the inevitable outcome of the war. If people truly started believing that the Kandrian Empire was doomed in the war of allies, then it would become a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy and manifest itself as reality as no one would be willing to ally with the Kandrian Empire.

In order to ensure that that didn't happen, he needed to find a single massive victory.

His thoughts returned to the conversation that he was having with the Shionel Guildmaster.

"…When will he return?" he pondered aloud.

It had been two months since Rui entered the manifold, having spent about twenty-eight months in it in total.

He had initially gone in to create a foundation for his sect that could help the future members of his sect to learn and progress with Adaptive Evolution, but had, for some reason, spent an additional fourteen months in the manifold out of nowhere.

According to reports, Rui had gotten absorbed in the creation of a new technique concept and had embarked on a new technique project spontaneously.

"Typical." Emperor Rael snorted.

"…His future has become less easy to scry." Matriarch Nephi closed her eyes. "Much less easy."

Emperor Rael's eyes flashed with concern. "What does that mean for him exactly? Is that bad?"

Her eyes turned to him.

"The stronger a Martial Artist is, the harder it is to foresee their future."

His eyes lit up with realization.

"…Oh."

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