Surrender Peacefully—or Get Beaten Out
Of course my reaction left the territory chatroom looking thoroughly confused in every direction…
But whether they were confused or not, as I said above, I had no reason to pull a stunt like that, and no benefit to gain from it either…
So while the other users went huhhh??? all over the place, I just shook my head in open disbelief.
And as you'd expect, I didn't even need to write anything on the gallery myself.
With more than a couple of wreckers camping that chatroom around the clock, not even five minutes after I posted the announcement and made my stance clear…
[Icarus hitting the chatroom to declare that every single suspicion so far has been total bullshit.jpg]
Yeah.
It's all been WWE this whole time.
[Posts vanishing every time you hit refresh.gif]
Forest friends mode: activated
Wrecker posts of every flavor flooded in like that, serving as loudspeakers that blasted my words in every direction.
I never said any of that, you absolute morons. (2)
On top of that, more news started filtering in my direction.
It was an utterly absurd story, but the whole "is he founding a clan or not" thing inside my territory had blown up into a gallery spectacle…
And after watching that hype, outside forces had apparently decided to stick their noses into my territory out of nowhere.
A massive wave of confusion hit me for a second, but…
"…Wait, outside forces?"
"Other clans, or nomads… no, those Yellow Turbans, perhaps?"
"Best to hear the whole thing out before thinking."
"That does sound wiser."
Jessica's calm voice beside me snapped my focus back into place, and I went back to concentrating on the chat.
And a short while later.
Once those two chiefs had laid out every fact for me…
…things like "Every user who looks like clan-leader material—us base chiefs included, plus the settlement village chiefs—got contacted by the Central Base Alliance!" and "They poked us asking if we felt like sitting pretty in our seats for a long, long time!" and the actual truth behind that territory-carving nonsense that had left me speechless when I first heard it…
I grasped the situation and immediately turned to issue orders to Jessica beside me.
"Jessica."
"Yes, Commander."
"Contact the defense fleets at Barracuda, Spiralis, and the two level-1 bases right now."
"What should I tell them?"
She wanted detailed instructions, so I took a moment to think it through carefully.
"No direct attacks—but lock them down so they can't run or pull anything else."
"Yes, Commander."
"And get in touch with Belial and Tiamat. Tell them to take the main force and the mercenary companies and sortie immediately."
"Understood."
I'd even lent them the seats, and they'd been cracking pumpkin seeds behind my back. Time to personally go crack some heads.
Obviously I had no intention of hiding any of this—and the scale was so big I couldn't have hidden it if I tried—so…
The moment the defense fleets of every base except Avalon and Arclight started moving, and my main force—including three Krakens—was spotted departing Tannhauser…
Public opinion inside the territory and the gallery both lit up with excited what the hell is going on energy.
And that energy only lasted a moment before…
Just as planned, I casually laid out the situation—not only for the "chiefs" of the remaining bases, namely Barracuda, Spiralis, and the level-1 bases, but also everything I'd pieced together from Venom and OdenTang's report.