Chapter 1024: 1024. Battles

Noah had left the Hive for a little less than one hundred and fifty years, but the situation on the surface had changed in ways that he couldn't predict in that period.

Generally speaking, peace after every significant battle would last for a long time. They could even stretch for millennia if the balance of power among the forces didn't change.

Noah had lived through one hundred years of peace before leaving, and a hundred more had to pass before the first sign of conflict appeared on the surface.

It all began with a simple scuffle among human cultivators. Both the Hive and the Council were suppressing the Elbas family's forces on their respective borders, and casualties happened from time to time during those small battles.

The central powers didn't care about them. Human cultivators' death rarely bothered the experts in the heroic ranks, and the forces deployed there didn't hold much value in the political environment.

However, a young member of the Elbas family happened to be among a big battle once. The conflict saw some sects of the Council fighting peripheral forces of the Royals over a new habitable land that had appeared on the eastern side of Divine Market city.

Those kinds of territories had begun to appear before Noah left. The presence of so many cultivators on the piece of Immortal Lands inevitably affected the density of "Breath", causing the creation of areas where even human cultivators could live without any protection.

The higher-ups of each major force didn't care about those lands, but they were a big deal for human assets. That was their chance to colonize the new continent without the help of their superiors.

The battle that happened that day involved many small forces and gave birth to quite a big battlefield in terms of human assets. The young member of the Royals had joined it to gain some merits, but he ended up dying in the middle of the fights.

The matter would have normally ended there. The best the Elbas family could ask for a human asset's death was a few hundreds of thousands of credits. Yet, the father of the young Royal was a heroic cultivator, and he reacted by slaughtering the sects involved in the death of his son.

That started a long series of conflicts that slowly involved even more powerful existences. No one wanted to turn the matter into an official war, but they didn't seem able to stop the hostilities.

Those battles became a matter of face, and the Hive had to join them to support the alliance. The battlefield's width increased and involved more territories, forcing the three organizations to deploy more assets.

Even rank 5 cultivators had to fight to defend the honor of their force. Those experts' battles affected entire regions, and it became impossible to ignore the obvious at that point. Another war had started.

Such a significant event happened due to the past grudges between the alliance and the Elbas family. They weren't fighting for any specific resource or territory. They were enemies, so they killed each other.

The first political act happened fifteen years after the beginning of the hostilities. The Hive and the Council had a sharp advantage over the Royals' forces, so they managed to kick them out of Divine Market city.

The alliance didn't waste that chance to cut the Elbas family off from one of the best training areas on the new continent. That city had even amassed some crucial resources through the years, so the Royals' losses weren't negligible.

However, they had even greater power over the forces of those Mortal Lands. After a few years of meetings and battles, the Dimensional Portal suddenly went silent and stopped absorbing "Breath" from the old continent.

The Royals shut down the connection with the other world, cutting the alliance off from the greatest source of materials and hybrids in that lower plane.

Everything became more severe at that point, and even the three powerhouses had to join the battles to make sure that nothing too valuable went lost forever. Their negotiations went poorly though, and those meetings often ended up with a series of exchanges that lasted for a few minutes.

Each of their exchanges gave birth to battles that involved the higher-ups of every force. Many famous experts had the chance to show the results of their training in them.

Many Elders of the Council had benefitted from the alliance. Faith was one of them, and she often joined the battles, showing her liquid stage cultivation level. Her figure appeared untouchable even when under torrents of attacks. It was as if the world itself wanted to protect her.

The Hive showed all its new assets, revealing even the hybrids that had joined its ranks. Some of the older experts made their appearance too, and Daniel led them most of the time due to his peak liquid stage level.

Nevertheless, the Elbas family's show of force was even above theirs. Countless new experts appeared in its ranks, and most of the old ones achieved battle merits thanks to the breakthroughs obtained in the past years.

The Council couldn't understand how the Royals had gained access to so many powerful assets, but the Hive knew about the Royal pool. It even seemed that the Elbas family had improved its success rate since Noah's report.

June made her appearance in the political scene too. Her cultivation level had reached the liquid stage, but there seemed to be something strange about her centers of power.

Her aura often experienced power surges that made her appear as a cultivator in the solid stage during her battles! Still, she managed to suppress those spikes almost immediately, even if she retreated as soon as she calmed herself.

Her energies' strange behavior didn't go unnoticed, but most higher-ups linked that to her individuality going out of control. That wasn't too unusual, especially when it came to violent existences.

Faith's decision to be her opponent was even stranger. The world saw the two of them as friends after the matters with Noah's training area. Yet, everyone witnessed how the two didn't hold back in the slightest when they fought.

None of the higher-ups could imagine that Faith was helping June venting off some of her energy. She was the only one in the entire world that knew how complicated her situation was.

"The Council struck first," King Elbas said as the three powerhouses floated in the sky above a peripheral region to hold their usual meeting. "It's only right that you restore my past domains and compensate my family."

King Elbas spoke with an uncaring tone. He had gone through those negotiations countless times already, and it had become apparent since the beginning that they would never reach an agreement.

"Your family messed up over an insignificant matter," Great Elder Diana said. "I admit that you are resourceful, but you can't fight both of us at the same time."

King Elbas laughed at her words and glanced toward Chasing Demon before replying. "You let that little demon escape too, didn't you?"