The Rise of the Black Plain

Two days later...

Time passed, and several groups arrived in Dry City in the last 24 hours.

Not only had many of the Black Plain's soldiers, allies, and high-level subordinates returned from the battlefield after the previous operation, but so had Minos and his group.

They had traveled quickly from their previous locations to this city and were already preparing for the future actions of Dry City.

The war still had a lot to go on until its conclusion, and there was still the threat of assassins from the Flaming Empire lurking around this place.

Consequently, the people of the local forces could not relax at this moment when everything was finally moving towards victory and independence of the Black Plain.

At the same time, some of young Stuart's subordinates and allies who had participated in the previous peace negotiation attempt had also arrived in Dry City.

In fact, the group of Adam Snow and Lorelei Stone had just passed through one of the entrances to that city and were riding on their beasts toward the place where young Stuart was supposed to be.

As they did so, all the people with them were watching intently the Dry City, this place that was completely different from what they had learned or even thought about.

Even those descendants coming from the Flaming Empire were surprised at the sight of this place.

But not only that, when trying to check the power of the people in the surroundings, they had promptly had considerable surprises, as the population of this place did not look normal!

In fact, the average strength of the inhabitants of Dry City was so high that these people no longer saw this place as a city but as a massive headquarters!

But this was not surprising. After months of no significant population additions and time for those who were already there mature, the local average level had returned to level 40, which was unusually high for a place in this region. That was even more so considering that this was not a tiny place but a city with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants!

Thus, sensing the absurd amount of people above level 45 in that city, those people were impressed.

"There are already over 100 Spiritual Kings here!" Adam Snow commented to his group, impressed that so many regional experts were in Dry City, even when the war had not yet ended.

And indeed, the number of Spiritual Kings from the local forces was well past 100, but a portion of them was around the Black Plain for the sake of the war. Otherwise, almost 180 individuals at this stage would be found in this city!

Lorelei then nodded to that king, looking from one side of the avenue they were passing. "This place already looks better than some regional capitals."

"There are so many services. People seem to live so well here, even those who do common services..." She sincerely commented as she looked at the citizens, among them those patrolling the streets.

A Spiritual Emperor from that group then said. "Most importantly, the look on the faces of many of these people does not look like that of citizens of a city at war against the entire region."

"It seems that either they are very committed to independence, or the opportunities here are so good that war itself does not scare them from this place."

"Maybe it's both..." Adam said in a low voice, also observing the ordinary citizens of this city.

And while they were talking, they passed in front of the Bank of the Black Plain, from where dozens of people came and went, each of them smiling as they left that place. 

It was as if they had just done the best thing of their lives.

But that made no sense to those people.

"A back, huh?" Lorelei muttered to herself. "It seems that soon the banks of the Kingdom of the End will lose all their space in the region..."

"But I wonder why there is so much movement in that place... After all, most of the local citizens shouldn't need that service." So, Adam expressed to the people next to him.

"Who knows... Maybe there's something different about that bank." That woman commented in interest, looking at the beautiful giant golden tree that decorated the front of that building.

"Some of us should try to get to know the basics of this place."

"Yes, since we are allies or subordinates of Minos, there is no reason why we shouldn't learn a little about this city."

...

After a while, those people met Minos in this young man's office, where they told him what had happened in their pursuit.

At the same time, they offered the items collected from their dead enemies since it would not be good if they kept them for themselves without at least talking to him.

In the end, Minos had kept the spatial rings of the Spiritual Emperors killed by their groups, leaving the significant valuables left by the Spiritual Kings to be divided among them.

On the other hand, Minos wasted no time and soon gave his orders to Adam to use his troops in the Brown Kingdom to exterminate the Silva family.

The people of that family had already passed his limits, and now only death awaited them.

And as an individual who knew that he should not refuse Minos' orders, Adam silently accepted such a thing, mourning for the poor bastards who had stood in this ruler's way.

Finally, he received his last order concerning the return of the Snow Kingdom troops to that state once such a mission was done. 

Just as he had told the Carline family to stabilize the situation in their state, Minos told Adam to do this in the Snow Kingdom.

After giving his orders to that old man, Minos talked a bit with Lorelei about Stone Island's cooperation with the Black Plain.

But because of the unique situation of that allied state of his, young Stuart had not needed to ask Lorelei to deal with possible chaos on that island.

There was no such thing in that place!

Finally, trade relations between the regional kingdoms were about to start returning to normal, and in a few weeks, Minos was already expecting the previous sanctions to lose all their effect.

With this, he would finally be able to expand his business on Stone Island again!

After these most important conversations, the young Stuart invited those two to participate in the execution of Charles Walker, something that was to take place in the following weeks.

However, only Lorelei agreed to stay for such a thing, while King Snow used the excuse of solving problems in his state not to have to participate in that.

After this, they said their goodbyes, with those two people heading towards hotels in this city, intent on learning more about this place.

...

In the blink of an eye, a week had passed.

And while Minos remained in Dry City taking care of his business, the entire northern region of the Central Continent was shocked by the terrible news of the war on the Black Plain.

After more than two years of war against the rebels on the Black Plain, the Brown Kingdom had finally lost its king, who had been killed shortly after what the Northern News called the Red Slaughter.

At the same time, the Night News also published stories about the deaths of even Spiritual Emperors. Yet, the death of over 100,000 people on the Black Plain was named the Uprising of the Oppressed.

But regardless of who these periodicals were more favorable to, their news shocked the entire region since never before in history had such a brutal massacre happened in these areas.

Even powerful Spiritual Emperors, cultivators that most people of this region could only imagine in their dreams, had fallen on the Black Plain!

That was simply astonishing!

Many were already trembling with fear at the thought of Minos. Still, with this news, the entire regional population began to see the Black Plain closer to the Flaming Empire while distancing itself from the local kingdoms.

That was now a place that was soon to become the strongest state in the region, an area with a powerful and ruthless leader, just the way the weaker ones liked it.

Being ruthless might sound terrible, but the leaders who were most able to keep the lives of those with less prestige were just that. After all, weakness and inability to act were what usually brought down dynasties, not dominating power!

Hence, the northern region was half a step away from entering a new era of its history!

...