The Rise of the Black Plain

Hearing the tone filled with intense killing intent, that same person from before lowered his head and said sincerely. "Gentlemen, I don't know. That person was not talking sense to sense when he came in here a few minutes ago."

That was, in fact, the truth. When Urban had entered this establishment, he had seemed like a crazy person who could barely speak coherently, sometimes even talking to himself. He was disoriented and significantly injured, after all...

The person from before then continued his report. "From what little I understood, he demanded that we lend him a crow. After that, he wrote something on a piece of paper and made that raven recognize where it should fly to..."

"Miserable!" Some of the soldiers said this while looking at Urban's corpse.

Such an opponent had given a lot of work to the group of more than 60 soldiers who had pursued him. So much so that four people from this group had died at the hands of this deceased Spiritual King, and many others had suffered injuries of varying degrees!

"Tsk, let's take the corpse back with us. Maybe our comrades got lucky with the other enemies!" The group leader said in a regretful tone as he clasped his fists tightly in anger.

They still didn't know what had happened to the other three groups that left the Dry City. After all, in the past two days, these soldiers had only chased and fought this person.

But in addition to the concern over the origin of those people who had tried to flee from the Black Plain Army soldiers before, this problem had now worsened considerably. After all, they couldn't be sure what was in that letter Urban had sent before his death.

On the other hand, regardless of who the recipient was, that person or organization could only be another enemy of the Black Plain. That is, that group of Spiritual Kings had fought for their lives to get away from there, in which case, any request for help or warning sent out would not be a nice thing for these soldiers.

Because of all this, these individuals were already feeling extremely irritated with this failure, and some were even preparing for the worst!

'That's it. Peace is over for good... I thought we'd have some more time because of this plan for the Gill family, but now... I'm afraid there's not much time left for war!' One of those more experienced soldiers thought that as he watched Urban's body disappear from that spot.

After one of the soldiers collected the body and the spatial ring of that enemy, they promptly left that establishment, already starting their return to the Dry City.

...

After the soldiers left that establishment in that village, all the people who had seen everything that happened immediately left that place and began to look in the direction from which the soldiers had departed.

The owner of that establishment then swallowed his saliva in awe. 'Unbelievable! The world is truly vast... I never thought I would live to see the day when Spiritual Generals would chase down Spiritual Kings!'

This man was one of the few Spiritual Generals in this village, a level 40 ordinary cultivator. Because of that, he had understood how to behave in front of the soldiers, even though they had destroyed part of his property.

But while this man had his thoughts about what happened, one of the people who had seen it all said something. "Guys, we should notify the village leader about this incident, maybe..."

Pa!

As such a person was saying this, suddenly the establishment owner slapped such a person hard in the face. "Are you crazy? Do you know that that person who just died here was a level 52 Spiritual King? So you want to involve our village in this matter?"

"What?"

"It can not be! Did those people kill a Spiritual King?" Other people exclaimed in awe, realizing the gravity of the situation.

News of people above level 50 dying was scarce in this part of the continent, except for the great wars between noble families. But such things didn't happen that often and ordinary people would only know about these things if they lived close to these affected regions.

In fact, most of the news of deaths of Spiritual Kings that came to the attention of the ordinary people in this part of the continent were usually related to old age. Because of this, it was highly unusual for people of this level to die in battle!

But even so, these people had unknowingly witnessed the death of a powerful regional expert!

Fearful!

After hearing such a thing, they all trembled with fear and wished they had never seen it.

"The best we can do is forget about what happened here…" The man from before said aloud, shortly before heading back to his establishment.

'Ahhh, I hope this doesn't come back to us in the future...'

...

As the soldiers returned to the Dry City, many things had happened there in the past two days.

The groups that had successfully defeated their enemies had returned to Dry City on the same day that the chases had begun, bringing vital information for the future of this place.

One group identified the origin of those Spiritual Kings through the items in Scott's spatial ring. Even if such a person had the intelligence to destroy such things, as Oscar did, the Black Plain Army would still learn about the Silva family's relationship with them.

That's because the butler Dillian knew the identity of these two Spiritual Kings who had been taken to the Dry City. After all, these people were specialists from the Silva family, individuals who had already reached the 6th stage decades ago!

Dillian might not recognize young Spiritual Kings, but as a former subordinate of a Spiritual King, he knew most of the Brown Kingdom experts' faces, especially those from the past.

As such, he had realized Scott and Oscar's past the moment he had seen their faces.

Finally, all this information had been gathered and passed on to the army's command and the local sovereign. At first, they didn't want to make hasty decisions before the third group returned, but after more than a day with no news, they had concluded that they could expect the worst...

More time on the run meant more chances for information about the Dry City to leak out to some noble power, not just the Silva family. As such, the army command was already considering what to do with the worst-case scenario in mind, namely, the arrival of the Silva family alongside the royal troops in this city!

As a first measure, Minos ordered that the borders be closed to any cultivator above level 30. Below this level, there was a minimal possibility that such people would come from noble powers since such organizations wouldn't send their members or subordinates below this level on trips.

Hence, the army could considerably reduce the entry of enemies into the Dry City.

Minos had never done this before because, in addition to being extremely rare for people of that level to come here, his town desperately needed new residents as soon as possible. After all, at the end of the day, the soldiers he could get were just citizens before they became such a thing. And so, a larger population would mean more significant numbers of soldiers and also better individual quality.

Therefore, he could not limit people's entry into his city in such a way, or he would not even have the means to deal with future enemies!

Now, however, the danger of continuing to do so had increased significantly.

On the other hand, he was already on his way to take the Maritime City, a place where he could attract tens of thousands of people to Dry City without having to risk so much.

Hence, the migration plans of this city had changed, becoming more careful.

Apart from that first measure, there were a dozen decisions regarding the Independence Plan, things that had to be done ahead of schedule.

At the forefront was the construction of outposts around the Dry City and in some towns near the border with the Black Plain so that the army could more efficiently protect that town. Furthermore, Minos had ordered the plans for the Maritime City to be accelerated!

...

Anyway, one of those decisions that had been rushed was being discussed right now.

"It's time to visit your family...."