The Rise of the Black Plain

"Lorelei..." Adam Snow muttered, feeling that such a woman was greatly exaggerating things.

However, he already knew that his family had surrendered to Minos, so there was no room for him to try to contradict that woman. No, he at most wanted to maintain order in that place as long as the current farce had to continue.

'That's true...' Jade looked at Lorelei and agreed with her, feeling that everything that was happening was indeed the fault of the Brown family.

'Minos doesn't look as bad as all those people made him look!' Jade persuaded herself, slowly becoming angrier that her family had been 'manipulated' into going to war against young Stuart.

'Those damned people!'

'Minos was just trying to earn his living in peace on the Black Plain, and they created this whole situation, harming tens of millions of people in our region!' She shouted internally, not saying those words out loud.

Jade knew she should not say things so favorable to Minos right now since no one there knew about what would happen in the next few days. Besides, as an 'enemy' of his, it was expected that she would at the very least not defend him.

She then said. "King Brown is being hasty here. I don't think the Stone family has all this responsibility, you proclaim."

"It certainly influenced the war, but one more power against the Black Plain wouldn't have made much difference."

"On the other hand, there's no sense in looking for a culprit for this now. The problem is already on our doorstep, and we are here to try to find a solution while there is still time left."

Hearing that, most of the people there nodded in agreement, understanding Jade's words as irrefutable.

But Thomas did not like seeing that woman stopping him from blaming someone else for his many recent problems.

"Tsk!"

"Anyway, why did your Stone family come to this meeting?" He asked Lorelei before finally looking at Blake. "I'm curious about your presence here too, kid."

"I thought you had already chickened out and hid somewhere in your state..." Thomas sneered.

Hearing that, Blake said nothing, only looking at that king as if he had seen a dead person talking, and then turned his attention to Lorelei.

She then said. "You don't have to worry about us here."

"This is a meeting to settle the war, so as allies of the Black Plain, I will attend this meeting."

After those words were said, silence filled that place, suddenly increasing the tension of those people, especially some of the reinforcements coming from the empire who felt that something could happen at any moment.

Everyone in this place was shocked by the development of the Black Plain forces.

They had only been a few decades or centuries away from this region, and then, boom, the Black Plain stopped being an irrelevant place and became one of the places with the most experts in the region!

It was pretty impressive!

And seeing one of the royal families of this region on the Black Plain side, some of those descendants felt betrayed, with anger rising in their hearts.

Realizing that the situation might get out of hand, one of the nearby Bishops rushed over and said. "Gentlemen, I hope you will remember that as long as this camp is here, this area belongs to the Spiritual Church..."

"Let's not cause unnecessary trouble." He said in a cautious tone, confident in his background but not overdoing it due to the number of people stronger than him there.

Finally, after a few seconds of tension and silence, some of the people there sighed and then went back to talking about what they could do to stop the war.

Many there wanted to reach a peace agreement that would benefit them. After all, they had enough power to cause significant damage to the Black Plain. So, it was in their interest to use that power to get a better deal with Minos.

However, not everyone wanted peace. The Brown and Cromwell families craved blood and were under the illusion that they could defeat Minos because of their reinforcements.

As such, rather than being there to find a way to stop the war, the members of these powers wanted to mess with the minds of those willing to give up to ensure the continuation of the war.

The Black Plain had increased in power considerably over the past few weeks. However, after this negotiation, these regional organizations could finally use their powerful descendants.

Because of this, they were eager for the war to continue!

...

Several hours had passed after the meeting between the great regional experts, and the day was already dawning on that area's horizon.

Nothing relevant had been decided at that meeting since not everyone in that place was against the Black Plain at the moment. But several conversations and important points had come up for those present at that event to think about before the negotiations with Minos began.

And while those people were trying to think about those possibilities raised at the meeting the night before, Minos' group slowly began to descend from the skies above that area.

Everyone there had traveled on powerful spiritual beasts, with the weakest of them being precisely Maida. But even this beast of Minos had great speed, able to make the journey from Dry City to this place in a few hours.

With this, none of them had tired of this brief trip, and when they landed in the vicinity of that camp, they had only expressions of interest or satisfaction on their faces.

Even the beautiful Gloria, who had some concern about how Minos would handle this, was calm at this point, knowing that today could be the beginning of the end of the current war.

"Minos, you and your group can rest in one of the tents while we finish preparations for negotiations," Gloria said to him as she walked toward the interior of that area.

"Oh? You don't have to do that. We can begin negotiations immediately."

"No." She shook her head in denial. "I have to settle a few things before that happens, so you'd better settle down for the time being."

"All right, then."

As Gloria talked to Minos and those three women accompanied them, some local Bishops were already there watching them thoughtfully.

'So, that's the demon Minos!'

'The wretch is truly young...'

'And why did he bring these beauties here? Is he trying to make us jealous?'

Various thoughts passed through the heads of those individuals who were anxious for the peace negotiations to begin finally.

Gloria looked at one of those old men and ordered. "You, take the Black Plain group to a proper tent."

'Meanwhile, I'll see what this person wants around here.' She thought about it in silence as she realized the presence of a representative of the imperial family in this camp.

After that, Minos, Abby, Ruth, and Maisie followed one of the Bishops from that camp, while Gloria went off in the direction of the strongest Spiritual Emperor who was in that place before their group arrived.

...

"Warner, what are you doing here?" Gloria asked the representative of the Edwardstone family, someone she already knew.

Gloria was the church representative for the northern region, and that man was part of the organization that led the sects that organized the Spiritual Tournament. Because of this, they had known each other for several years, and she was entirely able to identify him after probing his spiritual fluctuations in this place.

"Oh? Gloria, have you finally arrived?" That man with black hair and beard opened his eyes and came out of his meditative position, pleased that such a woman had arrived.

"I just arrived, and I noticed someone... Uh, no, some people who shouldn't be here." She commented in a low voice as she looked away in the direction of an aura she did not know.

"I see..." He said this as he realized who that woman was talking about. "In any case, I was ordered to come here to talk to the regional leaders."

"So, since I found out that you would already be meeting in this place, I simply decided to join this occasion and make my job easier."

"Do you see a problem with that?"

"No. You are here on account of the Spiritual Tournament, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, then I will let you have the floor at the beginning of the negotiations. But after that, I hope you won't interfere with anything else around here." She said thoughtfully, giving that man a warning look.

...