Is this really a Game?!

The following couple of days passed in relative harmony. The soldiers trained while keeping a lookout for any new enemies approaching, luckily there were none. The coalition had seemingly gained nothing from their previous attack, no survivors were left and they had no information about what the fortification might have to block them, of course, thanks to their spies they still uncovered some things.

The mana curtain, the three gates, and the canons were all things they didn't know of previously, thanks to the spies they now had knowledge of them all. The coalition also managed to learn more about Reign, thanks to the fight they now knew that his power is definitely on the same level as Lico which was bad news. They always paid a price whenever Lico or the other person joined the fight as no fighter of theirs was strong enough to go against them in the past. Thanks to their large numbers however they would always find a way to use it to their advantage and make the kingdom suffer losses, it didn't always end as such though as sometimes they were the ones that would lose their top combatants during a fight.

Knowing that Reign was as powerful as those two were made things a bit complicated. Even though the coalition had done their best to train their top combatants and were certain that they could more effectively contain the kingdom now, with a new wild card like Reign entering the play, things had changed.

Even though they were technically at the same level when it came to first evolution combatants, if Reign and the other two somehow managed to defeat their opponents and join the fight then they would be enough to tilt the flow of battle. Even though a first evolution combatant was immensely powerful, they would still face pressure when going against three top fighters beneath the first evolution.
This situation had forced the coalition to hold a meeting, they needed to change their plans a bit, they were however thankful that they had managed to learn of this so quickly, if not for Yufan and his mercenary troop, who knew how high the casualties would have been for the coalition. The four rulers met and discussed things, none of them wanted to sacrifice their own men in order to take down Reign or the other fighters of the kingdom, thanks to that the meeting was held multiple times in a span of days.

Of course, the rulers didn't physically meet, instead, they all had small devices given to them by the kingdom of Asuria. The small device was able to connect with other devices when placed on top of a table that was also crafted in Asuria. With the infusion of mana, the table would connect with other tables and devices before showing the phantoms of the others. Thanks to that the coalition was able to have meetings and form plans without ever traveling.

It took about 5 days before the coalition had finally managed to devise a new plan, some rulers however still felt a bit unsatisfied with things but they, unfortunately, knew that that was already the best plan they could come up with. If anyone was present they would be able to see that the kingdoms of Asuria and Irtil were the more dominant ones in the coalition, the other two kingdoms were slightly bigger and had more people and larger armies, but thanks to the arrays and devices of the two kingdoms they were actually more powerful than them.

It was also thanks to them that the coalition was able to not only fight but even win battles against the kingdom, their army might be larger, but the kingdom not only had soldiers that were of better quality, but since they were one army they were also in sync and commanding them was easier.

The coalition fought with their four armies together and even though they tried their best to make it simple and easy by making some of their top generals and commanders into the leaders of the different armies, the soldiers themselves were simply not trained the same. Not only would some of the troops not understand the orders of the foreign generals, but some would even interpret them differently and cause confusion later.

All of that caused some casualties for the coalition early in the war, right now however they had done their best in order to train their armies in a similar manner in an attempt to make leading them easier. It wasn't easy however, the new soldiers were relatively easy to train like that, but the ones that had been in the army for some time already had their previous training and way of thinking engraved in them. It was a hard task to make them forget all of that in a short period of time.

Back in the kingdom, the capital had received the news of Reign killing the two army leaders, upon hearing exactly how powerful the two were and how Reign had managed to do it, the upper echelon of the kingdom was very happy. With such a fighter with them, it would be easier for them to fight against the coalition's top combatants and they could perhaps even kill many of them.

The many nobles that had managed to talk with Reign during the banquet were patting themselves on the back for managing to recognize the value of the young man while those that hadn't done that were cursing their bad luck.

The king and his brother simply took a glance at each other and smiled, even though it would take more than this to win the war, they were on a good track for now. The princess simply glossed over the news with her mother, even though they both knew that this was good news for the kingdom it didn't pique their interest that much as there was nothing they could do anyway.

The prince however was sitting in his room. He was reading the information as his left hand was tapping rhythmically on the table, his expression was void of any emotions as he slowly put the letter down on the table and stared at the window. He didn't understand what he was feeling, he should be happy that someone that powerful had joined them, but he also felt a bit sad and angry.

'Is this jealousy?' The prince asked himself as he leaned back on his chair and stared at the ceiling.

'I have always been hailed as a genius, everything I did was always recognized and everybody praised me. Even the other talents in the kingdom fell a bit short when compared to me, well, except for that lazy sister of mine. Have I really become so arrogant to actually feel anger when seeing someone else who is more talented than me?'

'What a joke.' The prince sighed as he poured himself a drink. He felt strong competitiveness when seeing Reign for the first time, even though he had a feeling that the young man was above him he still thought that it wasn't a large divide between the two. Upon seeing the letter however he realized that it was big, he stood no chance if they fought.

He didn't of course feel the need to fight Reign, neither did he feel as if Reign was stealing his thunder or any childish emotion like that. He simply felt a bit of jealousy, he wanted to become powerful and help his kingdom out, learning that Reign was not only stronger but even younger than him simply didn't sit right with him.

'I need to train.' Without even finishing his drink the prince got up and left his room. As he did so a figure of a person came out of the shadows, it was Lios, to be more exact it was a clone of his. He stared at the closed door of the room before smiling, this was the first time his nephew was met with a setback, a person that was more talented than him, and seeing that it only worked to make him more motivated made Lios happy.

If the prince had any bad thoughts and tried to do anything to Reign, Lios would have to act. Even if it was his own nephew he would still capture him and lock him until Reign left, there was no need for internal division or fights during this time, both he and his brother knew that. That was however not needed as the prince had simply gotten pumped up to train and improve himself.

Back at the castle, Reign was training with Dain and Ilas. The two attacked Reign together, but none of them used any mana, this was only a training session and none of them wanted to truly hurt one another. Lieara observed their sparring session from a distance while Raigon did the same from his office. This was already the sixth time they had sparred, and during each time it was Reign who was victorious.

Dain and Ilas didn't mind, they knew that winning against Reign would be almost impossible even without using mana, what they wanted was exactly this, a powerful sparring partner that would force them to go all out.