The Martial Unity

The benefits of choosing the core territory at the edge of the Serevian Dungeon were clear. For one, the restocking and resupplying of necessary goods and supplies for the Serevian dungeon team became a lot more convenient for the Kandrian Empire. Otherwise, the routine supply shipments sent by Kandrian Empire would need to enter the Serevian Dungeon. Once it entered the Serevian Dungeon it was vulnerable to attack from hostile Martial Apprentices who had no qualms about attacking supply shipments in order to hind the Kandrian Empire.

Protecting the supply shipments heavily enough to deter the attacks from other competing nations would require an immense amount of Martial Art resources that would make the already expensive expenditure of the entire endeavor far greater than it already was.

However, making the core territory of the Kandrian Empire at the edge of the Serevian Dungeon meant that the supply shipments never needed to enter any hostile territory in the Serevian Dungeon. Furthermore, it restricted the area over which their territory could be attacked from. Doing so reduced the threat they would be subjected to, while also bolstering their defenses due to a much lesser area over which an attack could occur.

Part of the reason that choosing territory at the edge of the Serevian Dungeon was a wise choice was because of the fact that the twelve nations had agreed to never engage in combat in the Serevian Plateau outside the Serevian Dungeon. This was to prevent the escalation of the conflict of the Serevian Dungeon outside it into full-blown war.

The Serevian Dungeon’s limit of the Apprentice Realm functioned as a hard ceiling for the limit to the degree to which the conflict could escalate to; to never above the Apprentice Realm.

However, once the conflict moved outside the Serevian Dungeon, then Martial Artists of higher Realms would no longer be limited by the defense mechanism of the Serevian Dungeon. The conflict could freely escalate to the Squire and the Senior Realm rather quickly.

Once that happened, it wasn’t just about the featherblood mercury and nereneal flint stone. Martial Artists of the higher Realms were extremely valuable. The losses suffered by all participating sovereign nations in such a conflict would be tremendous and would likely even the net profit being made.

Thus, out of consideration for themselves and others. The twelve nations agreed to the terms and conditions in order to limit the losses suffered by the Serevian Dungeon wars.

Thus, choosing one’s core territory at the edge of the Serevian Dungeon effectively meant that their backs were covered. Of course, the Kandrian Empire still took defensive measures in case one of the twelve countries chose to violate the Serevian Pact. However, the probability of this occurring was quite low as the Pact specified that the violators of the Serevian Pact may have their territories infringed upon by all the other eleven states participating in the Serevian dungeon wars.

The work had begun immediately. The many non-combat carriages were soon unloaded and docked as the civil engineers began building quick accommodations for the entire team to be able to live in the Serevian Dungeon.

They began employing esoteric civil engineering technology to build small but efficiently spaced huts that were viable housing accommodations for the members of the dungeon team. The military began deploying the more sophisticated defensive and counter-offensive solutions that it had come prepared with, bolstering the defenses of its base.

These included multiple lines of fortification, and an army of live canons pointed in all directions that an invasion could come from.

What drew Rui’s attention the most was when the soldiers of the Royal Army finally got out of their military carriages.

What surprised Rui was the lacking of Martial Apprentices, even when considering the Kandrian Empire’s lacking Martial Artists. The remaining soldiers seemed like normal human beings. Yet many of them had strange contraptions on their arm and other gizmo that Rui had no idea what was.

He shrugged, before turning his back to the actual martial Apprentices.

They weren’t many, but they were quite strong. What interested Rui was that two of the Martial Apprentices actually wielded weapons. This was quite a rare coincidence. Rui studied the weapons of these Martial Apprentices carefully.

One of the wielded a gigantic sword, tied to his back. It was actually quite shocking to see such a ridiculously large blade on his back that was almost as tall as its owner! It was a longsword that hyper-emphasized power rather than speed and durability differences.

(‘Still, does he actually manage to successfully land hits on his opponent with something that unwieldy) Rui wondered with curiosity and intrigue.

He turned his attention to the other one. Her weapon was a trident, a three-pronged spear. This was not a weapon he had any familiarity with it. He had never seen the concept of such a weapon in his life. Yet he conducted a quick mental analysis on the object.

The lethality of the weapons had a lot going for it. It became far easier to land critical attacks with the extra piercing prongs. However, it didn’t mean there were no shortcomings at all. The pressure it exerted through each tip was reduced by one-third because of the amount of area through which the force was being exerted onto him.

Furthermore, it also likely reduced the flexibility of offense of the weapon. It was much more difficult to be able to attack with the triple-prong spear head which made it more difficult to actually land the damage it ought to have.

Of course, this was just the price to pay for being able to inflict the three wounds with a single attack that normal spears would be unable to do. At the end of the day, he would likely have still chosen the spear as the most superior weapon, but he wondered whether that would be the case for her. The existence of the Martial Path that created hyper affinities for certain forms of combat often meant that what was objectively the best did not matter.