The Rise of the Black Plain

"General Doran?"

Upon entering that cultivation room, that royal guard from before opened his mouth in shock as he felt every hair on his body shiver.

At the moment, he was standing right at the entrance door of that place, in front of General Doran. However, contrary to what this guard had expected, he had not found this powerful subordinate of the Brown family preparing to go out and defend this fort.

No, unfortunately, this guard had seen this Spiritual King kneeling on the ground, unconscious and with many wounds all over his body.

Doran's face was severely swollen, with several bruises near his eyes and nose, drops of blood dripping from his ears and nose, while a trickle of blood oozed from his mouth. 

At the same time, a lot of cuts could be seen on the arms and legs of this level 52 Spiritual King, who at the moment was kneeling on top of a puddle of pee...

That's right. Such a person had been beaten to such a state that he had gone so far as to piss himself in fear for his own life!

It had all happened very quickly, and before this man had even left this cultivation room, Minos had found him. As a result, the battle between the two sides had not lasted long. Soon the young Stuart had overcome this opponent, oppressing Doran until this man had reached this current state.

Anyway, as the guard from before saw Doran, he could see the figure of a young man with brown hair there, dressed in a large black overcoat and holding a golden-bladed sword in his right hand.

'Who is this person? Why is General Doran like that?' The royal guard wondered in awe as he felt a chill run down his spine.

Gulp!

"That..." He was about to say something when suddenly his vision dimmed, and he slowly fell to the ground, hitting his nose hard on the part of the puddle of urine...

Following this, Abby appeared behind that royal guard, with her face somewhat sweaty, as if she had taken an intense run. But apart from this slight fatigue she had due to the constant use of her spiritual techniques, she was physically fine, without any injuries.

"You were that fast?" She asked in a sweet tone as she looked at Minos and smiled at him.

After finishing off the strongest opponents in this fort, those between levels 48 and 49, this young woman headed towards this place where the Spiritual King was supposed to be.

Such a thing was not difficult to do. After all, there was no other barrier produced by defensive arrays within this fort. Hence, anyone with the ability to sense spiritual fluctuations could find where this Spiritual King was.

That is, he was the strongest here, and like a nail that sticks out, it was effortless to find him!

Therefore, this young woman had not taken much longer than that royal guard from before.

Minos then smiled and said. "Well, this place was not prepared to deal with such a threat, so it was not difficult for me..."

Such a thing was indeed true. After all, only regional noble powers or large organizations could have the ability to invade a base like this. However, none of these powers would 'buy' a fight with a royal house by doing such a thing.

Therefore, it was not expected that people related to such regional powers would invade a base like this. So, in this case, it didn't make sense to invest heavily in a post like this one by building stronger defenses and allocating cultivators of higher levels.

Consequently, this place was not prepared to face a force similar to what Minos' group had.

But of course, this place still had its uses. It kept possible pirates and bandit groups away from the only port city of the Brown Kingdom, where many resources arrived, and business could be done.

Anyway, this post of the royal guard was not prepared to deal with mighty people, hot-blooded fanatics capable of doing the crazy thing of invading the property of one of the most outstanding organizations in the region...

Therefore, this place had fallen quickly before Minos.

The young Stuart then picked up those two unconscious individuals in that room and began to carry them out while talking to Abby. "Well, let's take a look at the results of this invasion. After that, you can assist the other soldiers in interrogating these stronger people."

"Hmmm." She agreed with him, already following him out of that area in which they were.

"With this, the Black Plain is totally under my control!" Minos muttered as he felt one less weight under his shoulders.

It was terrible to have a city of 300,000 people under enemy control that was, at most, three days of travel with 3rd stage beasts to the Dry City. 

Such a place could be used to put pressure on that young man's business, potentially hindering Dry City's crystal acquisition through Stone Island.

On the other hand, a city like this made possible faster actions, more stable offers of war resources, and an ideal place to rest. And all this would be bad for young Stuart. After all, it would be better for him if the enemy had a hard time, even if in situations that were not the most important.

For example, a camp in the middle of the dead area of the Black Plain could have many risks. Not only could beasts' attacks happen all of a sudden, but stronger bandit groups or even enemies could dare to make an attack.

Other than that, numerous variables made a fixed base ideal for any power.

For all that, by conquering the Maritime City, Minos had rid himself of a potential problem for the near future and even gained a card up his sleeve!

But, aside from being able to use this location to set traps for the royal family, Minos could finally enjoy having a population of tens of thousands of people who could easily be attracted to the Dry City!

The Maritime City had about 300,000 inhabitants, but a considerable portion of these citizens should be ordinary people, individuals with White talent who were not expected to hold important positions locally. 

And it was precisely this group of people that this young sovereign of the Black Plain wanted to bring to his city. These individuals would increase the financial capabilities of Dry City by increasing the plantation area of that place!

And this would generate a positive cycle that would make the young Stuart's city government able to increase the supply of services and the number of soldiers.

As for the rest of the population of this city, Minos was not very interested in attracting them to his side in the short term. After all, as valuable as they were to Dry City, they still needed to fulfill an essential role in this place.

That is, the role of keeping this place running so that no one would be suspicious of the current and future actions of the Black Plain Army!

Anyway, this was an excellent thing for the territory of Minos, and he was talking about it with his girlfriend as the two walked towards the central courtyard of this fort.

...

When they arrived there, several of the stronger soldiers from the group that came from the Dry City were already waiting for Minos and Abby, while some of the stronger enemies were unconscious.

Upon seeing that the two had arrived there, soon one of the level 46 Sergeants in that group approached the two and began to report. "Young master, we have finalized the invasion of this main fort of this city. We still have no information on how the other operations outside of here went. Still, in this place, we had no casualties."

"Oh? That's good."

"Other than that, we've already collected all the items from these people and gathered the strongest enemies in this place to be interrogated by Ms. Abby. As for the others, they are already being taken to the carriages that will transport them to the Dry City prison."

....