The Rise of the Black Plain

"If you had arrived here in Dry City a few days ago, you would have had a perfect opportunity to feel the power of Minos. That day he fought and defeated a group of 700 soldiers."

"Each of them was already at the 5th stage!" Viola said as she pulled Mendy by her arm so that they both entered the local hospital.

"700 cultivators at the 5th stage?" Mendy asked as her pupils were contracting rapidly. 'Not even my father could do that!'

'That is very strange... The things that sister Viola is saying don't make sense.'

'Is she under the influence of some hallucination technique?' She thought until she put that idea aside for a moment and said. "Even if that's true. Are you going to betray our family to be in Minos' forces? Does aunt Mirya agree with that?"

"Betraying the family? No! We are doing this for the good of the family!" Viola responded quickly. "Minos promised us that we can remain part of the Stokes family even if we are in his army."

"In fact, the rules here are the same as those of the Flaming Empire sects. So, there is no prohibition on that..."

What Viola was talking about was true, but Mendy couldn't help but be irritated by this after hearing these things. "What an absurd comparison. How does this army compare to the Flaming Empire sects? How many Spiritual Emperors are there in that place? How many Spiritual Saints? And the Black Plain?"

"Even if Minos is as strong as you say, he and the Black Plain are far away from the powers of those sects. Hence, no one from our family will accept this excuse!"

"The elders will certainly want to punish you both for this." Mendy finished, looking disappointedly at her friend.

Even though Minos was very promising and there were plenty of opportunities locally, from Mendy's point of view, that didn't make Viola's action any more acceptable. So, she was naturally irritated by this decision made by the mother-daughter pair.

"At the very least, you should have expected this place to have at least one Spiritual Emperor to act that way. What honor will the Stokes family have when your story gets out? We lost important members to an organization that was just born…" She complained.

Hearing all this, Viola said nothing to Mendy. After all, this young woman had her point and wouldn't change her mind until she knew this city and the army more deeply.

'Maybe I should show Mendy the fighting ability of local soldiers? Hmm, that should help her understand the differences between the local army and the thousands of Stokes family guards...'

After that, the two went directly to the floor where Mirya was hospitalized. Mendy was still a little upset by how the mother-daughter pair had decided on the previous issue. But when approaching that woman's room, this young woman was gradually leaving this subject aside.

Upon seeing the body of her former bodyguard, Mendy couldn't help putting her hands over her mouth and crying. The damage had been far worse than she'd expected, so her reaction had been quite excessive.

"Aunt Mirya?" She muttered for a moment before approaching that bed and crouching down. "This... Can this truly be treated?"

...

While Mendy and Viola were accompanying the doctors who were treating Mirya at the local hospital, a group of powerful individuals was meeting in what appeared to be a large palace in a Cromwell Kingdom town.

In that place, there were several pictures that portrayed the planting process of plants of the most varied types in the Spiritual World. But, on the other hand, several glass windows beautified the place with a privileged view of a vast agricultural region.

Even though some of those plantation areas were far from this palace, it still made a beautifully natural picture, a mosaic that people in this room would naturally admire.

Finally, around a large conference table in the middle of this room, six people talked there. Each of them had already reached the 6th stage of cultivation and seemed to be very experienced due to the age marks that each one had in their eyes.

"The events on Stone Island have affected both our families in the same way, Addison. I'm sure my Allen family is in a worse situation right now. But the supply of resources of high spiritual concentration has been steadily increasing in recent months."

"If this continues, I fear the day will come when the noble families of Farmland will completely lose their businesses on Stone Island!" One of those six people commented, looking at the man who was right in front of him.

Obviously, this man represented the Allen family, which had decided to follow this new path after suffering that previous 'defeat' in the branch of the Spiritual Church of Old Stone.

With that, this meeting between Spiritual Kings had been made possible due to the Allen family's lack of options and the fact that the Farmland families also had similar concerns.

After all, Farmland could only be on the opposite side of the Nash family, or they would have to endure bitter future defeats...

As such, this encounter was very interesting for the local powers of Farmland, who had already even placed Elen and her family as potential enemies!

"I understand that, Larry. When we agreed to make this meeting, we were already willing to agree with your side in this issue." That man, Addison, said this while he had a worried expression on his old face.

"But I'm afraid the Allen family's current strategy won't work in the long run. This trade war on Stone Island seems to be affecting your enemies less and less, while you must have already begun to feel the effects of such a thing. Right?"

Gulp!

Upon hearing such analysis, the representatives of the Allen family could not help but swallow their saliva.

In fact, the Allen family had already realized that the trade war was little by little harming them more than their enemies. That's why this power was already looking for alternatives to solve this!

As an example of what had happened before, with the Spiritual Church's attempt, they were now trying to appeal to Farmland's powers.

"And what do you suggest?" One of the Allen family members asked.

"Apparently, you don't want to risk attacking this naval base on the Black Plain, right? So we have to find some third side and use it as bait in that location. But this time, we have to send more Spiritual Kings!"

"If the enemy side can't handle it, we can break into that base and steal the information from this mysterious organization. With that, we can definitely stop, even temporarily, the Nash family business."

"And from then on, we'll have to deal with this Nash family. I find it very strange that all business in these products is done through such noble power. So I think something positive for us will happen if this variable is eliminated!"

Upon hearing this, the eyes of those Allen family members sparkled. One of them then asked. "With the help of the Farmland families, it won't be impossible for us to deal with the Nash family. But who will be this third side that we will use?"

"About that, let's do it this way…" They then continued to talk about it until all their next steps were decided.

...

Two days later.

A few dozen kilometers west of the Dry City, a group of carriages had been approaching at low speed.

Dozens of people were accompanying this group of carriages outside its, while the same noble symbol could be seen at various points on this convoy. From the armor of the escort guards, the carriage doors, to even flags, a symbol of a black star appeared.

That was the Gill family group, which was finally arriving in the Dry City!