Rui's expression only grew more severe when Sage Sayfeel ntioned that the Hugging Hegemon had passed away. Unfortunately, he wasn't truly surprised.
There had been five Martial Sages up against ten.
It would be rather strange if no casualties had occurred in such a lopsided match-up.
Still, that didn't change the fact that the Kandrian Empire had lost a Martial Sage. Not just any Martial Sage, but one of the originals that founded the Martial Union and the Fire Sect.
Not to ntion, she was the grandmother of one of his childhood friends.
Each Martial Sage was a national treasure whose very presence produced countless benefits to the nation or organization that they settled in and fought for. And while the Kandrian Empire had many Sages, they needed every single one to win this war.
It was an absolute catastrophe without a shadow of a doubt.
"Damn…" He gritted his teeth. "Sage Lauren of the Shionel Confederation is gone too. Our ally has already paid the price for siding with us."
This was not good.
It was actually really bad.
Up until now, the Kandrian Empire managed to push back against the routine attacks on its allies by relying on the prophecy of the Silas Clan to foresee the attacks and adaptively evolve to them tactically.
The fact that the Kandrian Empire had such a, frankly speaking, stunning record of successfully protecting its allies was a great asset in compelling potential allies to form an alliance with it. The Empire's history reassured them that it would be able to protect it from the wrath of the alliance.
Now, however, there were cracks in that argunt.
In fact, as far as potential allies were concerned, that defense was dead. The plight of the Shionel Confederation would co to mind when making a deal with the Kandrian Empire. "Not all news is bad, Your Highness," Sage Sayfeel added. "Your actions to protect the Shionel Confederation have ensured that not a single Martial Master reached the Shionel mainland. While the Shionel Confederation has indeed suffered losses amounting to hundreds of billions of gold coins in travel, transport, and supply infrastructure, all of it is in extra-territorial assets. The citizens and territory of the Shionel Confederation have not suffered any harm."
"Good." Rui heaved a sigh of relief. "As bad as this is, it would have been ten tis worse if the Shionel territory had been hard. If we had failed to prevent that, then we would have suffered a much heavier blow in terms of how attractive our offers in the war for allies would be."
External infrastructure was much, much harder to protect than an actual national territory, after all. Nobody would necessarily fault the Kandrian Empire for not being able to protect every inch of it.
"Another positive outco is that the Devil has managed to defeat the peak Sage of the Republic of Gorteau, Sage Shaia the Baneblade, having lost an arm in the process. With one less peak Martial Sage than before, our enemies have suffered too much for them to parade this operation around as a victory."
Rui's eyes lit up with joy. "Brilliant. I'm not surprised. Sage Damian is truly a monster, especially after making use of not just the Divine Doctor's augnts but the manifold as well."
With those advantages, if the other peak Sages had been Sage Damian's equal before, they certainly were no longer his equals after those boosts. It was not an exaggeration to say that Kane's father was the most powerful Sage in all of East Panama.
This was also a point in favor of the Kandrian Empire and offsetted the nuric disparity to a certain extent.
The Kandrian Empire, in this battle and previous battles, had proved that its Martial Artists were the strongest no matter what the Sekigahara Confederate insisted. A single Master fought not only a peak Master to a stalemate but also incapacitated his squadron. As far as other nations were concerned, such feats were quite indicative of Martial superiority.
Rui had no intention of clearing any misunderstandings on their part.
"The fact that you are able to incapacitate such large numbers of Masters while simultaneously fighting a peak Master already increases your strategic power in this war more than any other Master out there," Sage Sayfeel remarked calmly. "It goes to show that the Kandrian Empire is absolutely secure when it cos to the Master-level strategic outlook."
The addition of Sage Sayfeel to the public roster of Martial Sages in turn boosted the Sage-level outlook.
Thus, it wasn't all bad. There were certainly tragedies that had co of this battle, but that didn't an that there were no optimistic upsides either. Both sides had won so and lost so.
"The Sage-level battle has already stabilized with the reinforcents of the Flickering Elder, the Sword Demon, the Master of the Inferno Fist, the Sloth Sage, the Drunk Da, and the Tempestuous Fortress, but I shall aid them nonetheless, considering that there are highly injured and exhausted parties. We would not want any further tragedies."
WHOOSH
Just like that, Sage Sayfeel was gone.
Rui heaved a sigh as he sat on the ground, taking stock of his environnt.
Of course, he highly doubted that Sage Sayfeel had failed to detect a threat and Rui was strong enough to survive most threats. The Martial Masters incapacitated by his Martial Mind were gone.
They must have escaped while Rui turned off the gamind technique or perhaps when the fight between the two peak Masters moved outside the range where he could incapacitate them. "Tsk, I should have killed them when I had the chance."
However, he didn't regret turning his full attention to the late Sage Stephen and observing his breakthrough carefully. Regardless, it was not sothing that he could undo now.
"Besides, I'll get other chances." Rui snorted. "That bastard is not going to stop this easily."
Every single ally of the Kandrian Empire had been subjected to attacks from the alliance since the dawn of the war for allies.
He highly doubted that Pri Minister Edward was kind enough to stop after all this ti.
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