Rui's eyes widened. "What?"
"How did you miss the news?!"
"We just got back from training," Kane explained. "Are you serious?"
"Guardian Hrinil actually acquired a notice published by the Kaddar Treaty Alliance. It's all real!"
The man scurried away as Rui and Kane exchanged surprised expressions.
The nations of the Kaddar Region had never declared an open war on the Floating Sect, for reasons Rui had long realized. It could not afford to attack the island for fear of destabilizing the core esoteric ore that held the island together.
While there were skirmishes and the nations of the Kaddar Region had most certainly tried to make life harder for the Floating Sect, that was the limit that they could do.
Yet for some reason, that status quo had been abruptly upended.
Rui and Kane followed the crowd of guardians out to the open where a large notice had been pinned on a notice board.
[Ajanta Termination Act]
The title alone made absolutely no mistakes as to what it could be. Just glancing at it Rui realized that the situation was not being exaggerated.
[We, the constituents of the Kaddar Treaty Organization, invoke the fifth clause of the Kaddar Treaty to levy war against the Floating Sect, hereby referred to as the Sect, in the light of the existential threat of Ajanta Island to all life in the Kaddar Region.]
Several seals and stamps of various insignias and emblems stood by each other. These were the official proofs of authorization of the various constituent states that were members of the Kaddar Treaty Organization.
However, the notice wasn't done. It went on to announce the complete sealing of airspace around Ajanta Island!
Not a single person or thing would be allowed to enter or leave the island. This alone was big news, it meant that the Floating Sect would truly be cut off from the rest of human civilization. If it needed anything or came across any predicament, it could only rely on itself and not Martial Artists from outside the nation. In a war, this was a huge blow. Rui did not
However, that wasn't all.
The nations of the Kaddar Treaty Organization announced the founding of a joint task force speared by the most powerful Martial Seniors and the best Martial Squires that the Kaddar Treaty Organization could muster.
"What?" Rui's eyes widened.
That was not easy for Senior-level nations. Thousand Martial Squires were far more than what any of them could handle individually.
('Yet if they gathered them from outside of the Kaddar Region, then it is more feasible') Rui's eyes narrowed.
He did not believe that the Kaddar Treaty Organization was so incompetent that they did not realize that the Martial Squires of the Floating Sect were far above the average Martial Squire. The fact that they had prepared a whopping one thousand-strong Squire-level task force meant that they felt this task force was qualified to take on the Floating Sect.
('Something isn't adding up,') Rui's eyes narrowed. ('Why has the Kaddar Treaty Organization decided to declare an open war against the Floating Sect when it hadn't done so all this time in fear of destabilizing the island all this time?')
Unlike the other Martial Squires, he possessed a good understanding of statesmanship, geopolitics, and economics on top of his sharp intellect.
The deterrence of causing damage to Ajanta Island in a war, causing it to break and plummet was strong and one that should have still existed. Yet for some reason, the Kaddar Treaty Organization seemed remarkably bold and aggressive.
Rui's eyes widened as a possibility came to mind. ('The weapon that the Graheria Kingdom purchased from Frigga Industries!')
The Graheria Kingdom most certainly intended to attack the Floating Sect one way or another, however, he had expected them to employ some esoteric weapon that could bypass it, but he had not expected that they would partake in a head-on war.
However, he was sure that the package that they had purchased from Frigga Industries would be relevant somehow. It was likely even the reason that the Kaddar Treaty Organization was this aggressive against the Floating Sect because this solution was perhaps a way by which they could bypass the threats of the island collapsing under the rigors of war.
However, that wasn't the only issue that came to mind.
('There is no way a Senior-level nation possessed the kind of wealth to gather so many powerful Martial Squires on demand without bleeding. More broadly, there is no way that this was isn't making them bleed alive.')
War was an extremely taxing endeavor, while Ajanta Island was a hypothetical existential threat that could do immense damage, there was no strong reason to believe it would fall, while the war was an absolute certainty in the damage it would to do the economy and the markets.
('It can't just be that the island scares them,') Rui realized. ('There needs to be more concrete incentives or disincentives for waging war on top of the vague and undefined threat of it falling that can justify such high initial expenditures.')
Rui's mind swum through all possibilities as one very real one stuck out to him.
('Is the island an asset that can generate a lot of revenue or utility to the Kaddar Treaty Organization?') Rui's eyes widened. ('Could it be that their goal is not to bring down the island, but to take over it completely?')
If they used the island to either generate revenue or strengthen their military, then he could definitely see how the war expenditure of gaining control of Ajanta Island could be compensated by securing control over Ajanta Island in the long run. There were many ways that it could be an absolute blessing to the nations of the Kaddar Region if they did indeed find some way to quell their fears of it crashing.
After all, the island was the very reason why the war was being fought in the very first place. It would be nothing less of an international treasure!
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