After the popularization of the news from the Black Plain, Minos, and the Dry City months ago, the Collins and Reid families and the rest of the region had learned valuable things from the editions of the Night News.
In particular, they had learned about the location of an enemy they had an interest in destroying.
Consequently, both families had tried to approach the royal family of the Brown Kingdom not long after that revealing publication, intent on allying themselves with this enemy organization of Minos.
And it had not even taken three months after the great battle of Dry City, and the troops of those two families had reached the territory of Minos.
After that, more than 50,000 Spiritual Generals and 25 Spiritual Kings who were enemies of Minos had joined the Counter-Revolutionary Army in the fight against him.
With that, in the months that had passed by then, the troops commanded by the Brown family had achieved considerable increases in power, which made possible the domination of those territories on the Black Plain.
And that bothered young Stuart!
But even though he had felt irritated all this time for having to accept these enemy aggressions, Minos understood that it was natural for his forces to suffer at this early point in the war.
He knew that parts of his territory could be lost temporarily.
After all, no matter how much more frequent his and his soldiers' advances were than the enemy's, the numbers of the Dry City forces were still too low.
An example of that, after that great battle and all the power additions in the Counter-Revolutionary Army, that force now had about 200,000 soldiers around the Black Plain!
Consequently, it was natural for Minos to lose some of his territories.
But this had all happened much more quickly than it would have been if it had not been for those two families from the Kingdom of the Waves!
And, naturally, Minos felt antipathy toward such families.
Young Stuart could understand why the Collins marched alongside some of his enemies into the Black Plain, as the losses of that family to actions by his forces were not small.
But the Reids' reaction was entirely outside his expectations!
Therefore, he had been surprised by the accession of more enemies than he had expected at this beginning of the war.
He had considered the possibility that members of the Collins family would take an interest in him because of that Night News story. And by the calculations of his people, it had still been worthwhile to make that show of power, considering the Collins reaction.
But the Reid family case was something they had not expected.
Minos had only had contact with members of this organization once before the current war. And even though he and Ruth had killed them, he had never considered it a justification for war!
Revenge was a common thing in the Spiritual World. But for an entire family to get into a war of independence just for the sake of it was absurd.
One person's revenge could not endanger an entire family!
That was simply madness!
But still, the Reids had entered into another's war, one that the rebels were not at all weak!
Thus, Minos could not understand the reason for the Reids' hatred toward him.
He remembered that he had killed someone with the surname Reid during his journey to the Cromwell Kingdom, at that time when he had traveled alongside Ruth to participate in the Spiritual Tournament.
But he honestly did not associate it with the current conflict since, in his opinion, it would be a ridiculous justification. And so, he wondered why the Reids hated him...
In any case, the Reid family had gotten involved in his affairs and helped the local royal forces put pressure on the Black Plain Army.
He would not forget that!
...
In the blink of an eye, a few hours had passed, and by now, Minos was already at his headquarters.
Upon arriving at such a place, this young man had headed towards the main office, where he usually dealt with army affairs.
Halfway there, many soldiers from headquarters stopped what they were doing to greet him, to admire their glorious leader who had literally brought peace to this city.
The war was there, and to say that the Black Plain was losing was not an exaggeration. But still, this city had never been attacked in the eight months that had passed!
And none of these soldiers had any doubt that this was directly related to the frightening power of their leader!
So, many who already knew him, and others who had only recently joined the army, could not help but nod or look respectfully at that person when they saw him.
As for Minos, he had grown accustomed to this and was barely bothered by the animation of his soldiers.
But after passing many new soldiers, newly selected for his organization, he arrived at his destination, where some essential people were already waiting for him.
Abby, Viola, Regina, Joey, Eda, and Dillian were there, part of them sitting on a sofa, others on armchairs or chairs scattered around that large office.
Of these people, Abby was at level 51, Viola at level 50, Regina at level 58, Eda at 53, Joey at 47. Finally, Dillian was still at level 54, but he should not take long to reach the next level.
Viola had been the first of the Elite Squad to reach the 6th stage of cultivation, which had given her a vital position in that group of the Black Plain Army.
As for Regina, although she had advanced, something challenging to do at her age, her journey to level 60 would not be easy at all.
After all, she had previously been at level 57 for quite some time, so she had reached level 58 relatively quickly. But Minos could not expect her to maintain the cultivation speed of young Spiritual Kings, as was the case with most of his Lieutenants.
In any case, he was looking forward to the day when that woman would become a low-level grade-3 poison master!
Minos then sat down next to Abby and began this meeting, which was already scheduled to happen after his recent departure. "Well, I believe we can notify our allies about that problem..."
"Oh?"
"So, the Miller family information led you to nothing again?"
"Exactly."
Dillian then sighed upon hearing that confirmation. "Well, if there are no more advantages to having an internal agent, then bringing them over to our side is what might give the army the most advantages."
"Hmm, I agree with butler Dillian," Joey said in a severe tone. "Recently, we have managed to recover the human losses from the war and even reached an unprecedented number in the army. But that is still a long way from what we need to win this war."
"Therefore, we must preserve our allied forces!"
Currently, the Black Plain Army already had almost 26,000 soldiers, of which 8,800 were Spiritual Generals, and 19 were Spiritual Kings.
These were great numbers for a place with only a few dozen guards about seven years ago. But that was far from enough from what they needed to deal with the current enemies and those that would come soon.
Consequently, Joey could not help but quote such a thing.
"Hmm, that's true."
"Even considering the Gill family, we don't even have 30,000 Spiritual Generals to fight the war..." Abby commented, feeling that members of the Parkinson, Austin, and Miller families were necessary to the army's plans.
The Gill family was not large enough to provide that many capable fighters for the Black Plain.
On the other hand, they had barely managed to maintain their numbers during this period when they had taken so many losses.
That is, the Gill family was recruiting people in Dry City, something that had been crucial for them to recover from some of the losses in this war.
But without their territory, the Gill family's economic power had diminished considerably, so they had not been able to grow any further in this period. Hence, if Minos wanted to win this war, he would need to use the Spiritual Generals of his allies.
And to do so, he would have to make decisions that could not be turned back!
...
