A Spiritual Sage was someone with abilities under space who could travel through wormholes and use their short-range spatial manipulation to 'catch' things through 'gaps' in space.
That was something that Minos' enemy had been using for ages to save Abe, but it could not be seen as him using his own powers against the local forces. At most, he was hindering Emperor Stuart's movements but not acting against this guy.
What would be considered a hostile attitude, let's say, would be him using this ability directly against Minos. Or something more obvious, attacking the local forces members in favor of Abe and his group.
So Minos wanted to force this man to use his abilities on a level beyond what he had done so far by using these high-level Spiritual Saints to attack him.
Through this, the Spiritual Sage would have to choose to receive the attacks from dangerous people or escape and risk losing sight of Abe.
When a Spiritual Sage moved under the 'gaps' in space, they would lose sight of the 'ordinary' side, where other beings, like Abe, would be. Minos knew this from the memories of Henricus Longus, and when he heard that the man would not fight them, he thought this might be his chance to beat him!
This second alternative would decrease that man's vigilance on Minos' main enemy, which could raise their chances of success.
He explained this to the strongest of his forces, making it clear that they would not have to take any significant risks. Instead, they would 'just' have to work hard to keep the enemy as long as possible unable to help Abe.
'That won't be easy...' One of them thought, considering the power difference between the parties and the speed of a Spiritual Sage, that was not small.
After all, someone at the 9th stage had an extra chance of having a more developed movement technique than someone at the 8th stage. That is, people with the same movement technique could have different stages of mastery in them because of their cultivation stage.
Thus, even if the difference in energy was not great, it was, there would still be a difference in prowess regarding comprehension and mastery of techniques that someone of a higher stage would have an advantage.
These old elders of the Gray Clouds Sect knew this and could not help but imagine the Herculean work they would soon have.
"What if we can't?" A level 77 man asked their leader.
Minos and all the other people there looked at that person, and the silence there lasted for a few seconds.
After some thought, this brown-haired fellow replied. "There are a few possibilities of what could happen if we fail. The first and least bad is that we would have to do it all over again, but in another area, the same thing we will do in this place between Vogel and Cromwell. On the other hand, the second and worse is that the Spiritual Sage will take Abe away, far out of our reach."
"But I believe that won't happen. The enemy wants Abe to fight in the area for as long as possible. Then he will only leave when forced to, and he won't save that worm's life."
There were other possibilities, but they were not as likely as these two, nor would they have such different consequences.
"In any case, no significant change should occur in favor of the enemy," Minos said after a brief moment in silence. "Even if we cannot defeat them on the first try, we will only have to focus on that conflict for a few more months."
"The enemy has nowhere to run, no remaining alternatives to save themselves!"
...
And Minos was not wrong!
Right now, between Vogel and Cromwell, Abe was stressing himself out once again, trying to find ways to regain his former position against Minos.
Even with advice from the Spiritual Sage of the Eastern Empire, Abe hadn't been able to change his plans much, and in the last few weeks, his situation had only gotten worse.
He had even improved the efficiency of his actions. Still, the enemy side had evolved so much more than him in this respect that he did not have good results, even though he improved.
Even the Spiritual Sage had seen this and given some more specific advice to this young heir of the Vogel family. But, surprisingly, for both of them, even the ideas of this old expert had been defeated by Minos.
The result was the situation this terrorist group was in, surrounded by enemies watching them while they feared for their survival.
The most worried of all was Abe, who remembered very well what the Spiritual Sage had told him weeks ago.
'I have less than three months until the deadline he gave for my probable death...'
Gulp!
He swallowed his saliva as he stood in silence with the mercenaries who had been left over since the last batch of reinforcements arrived from the Western Empire.
Currently, Abe's forces were hardly receiving any reinforcements. Moreover, even when they did, it was not fast enough for them to replace those lost.
Ten died, but only seven arrived. With such a ratio, the number of experts there had never been so low!
"Boss, what are we going to do? We could be attacked any minute by that damn person..." One of the strongest there, level 77, said in a tone laden with the fear he felt of Minos.
Minos was not only an abomination capable of fighting people of higher levels than his own. He had mass destruction weapons capable of annihilating all of them there!
And, in fact, Emperor Stuart had already used one of these weapons against this group of mercenaries!
After the situation in the Flaming Empire had calmed down with the end of the war between those sects, Minos left his Black Hole Bombs with the elders of the Gray Clouds Sect. After all, he could not teleport with those artifacts on his side.
But after months of that organization sending reinforcements to the Black Plain Empire, all of Minos' mass destruction weapons had been brought to Dry City.
Some of them were being used to enrich cultivation rooms, but one had already been used to try to eliminate Abe!
In that situation, Minos had tested whether he could affect the Spiritual Sage with something so powerful. But that individual's strength was not small, and he had managed to save Abe, even though he had gained a burn scar on one of his hands.
In any case, these men knew the terrifying power of a Black Hole Bomb, so they could not help but worry about being surrounded by Minos' men.
"Let's follow our new strategy..." Abe commented before trying to stimulate these men on with a little lie. "If everything goes wrong, the senior will help us. I'm sure of that!"
That way, soon, these people would return to their activities, a little more relieved but still tense about their situation.
