As Leonel's actions seemed to garner a ton of attention due to the appearance of yet another rare Force, the situation on the night side continent was suffering its own sort of trial by fire. While Leonel had succeeded in unifying his continent, this was far from the case for the night side.
This was only to be expected. Not only were there large movements from First Nova, Third Nova, Fourth Nova and Sixth Nova, this continent also had the Omann family, the Spirituals Faith and half of the Constellation families.
While Leonel's continent was whole, the night side continent was divided into at least a dozen large scale territories that covered hundreds of kilometers in radius. The fight over resources was great and many had begun to realize that having access to the ocean's waters was of huge importance.
Even so, if there was one that had eked out a first place position in the hearts of those watching, it actually seemed to be Third Nova, Xavnik.
In the beginning, Xavnik had used a huge loophole to his advantage. Each family had only been allowed to send in a maximum of two Heirs, but there was no such limitation across families or alliances. This had helped the Constellation Bow Alliance form a huge coalition quite quickly before they were destroyed by Leonel, and it had likewise helped Xavnik.
Rather than having his people enter as his kill exchanges, he made a bet on himself and had them enter alone. Many realized that Xavnik may very well have had even more subordinates than it seemed, it was just that many of them had ended up on Leonel's continent instead of his own. But regardless, he had caused so many Heirs to defect to his side that he had started off with a hot streak that he had yet to allow anyone to close.
Despite the volatility of the night side continent, Xavnik alone had taken out two Constellation families, the Cornus and Cancer families.
From the Cancer family, he gained a large waterfront territory, securing a large coastal control as had become the meta of the night side continent. Much like the Pisc and Quarius families, the Cancer family had come with the intention of targeting the ocean. However, the Cancer family was a bit of an anomaly.
For lack of a better descriptor, the Cancer family were parasites. The type of Water Force they controlled was one they called Cancer Force. This Force was a fusion of Life Force, Water Force and Soul Force, and it had applications as odd as this fusion of Forces.
The Cancer family was able to use Water Force as a carrier of their Force. Once their Cancer Force was deployed, so long as the target had any Water Force in them, they would be cursed. This was a fate that humans couldn't dodge as far too much of their bodies were formed of this Force.
Depending on the path the Cancer family had taken, they could do quite a number of things with this control.From .
Some controlled humans, others controlled beasts, some were excellent at reconnaissance, but all were quite well known as… cancers.
The original plan of the Cancer family was to poison the ocean's waters with their Cancer Force and forcefully take hold of the creatures within its limits. The trouble with this plan is that it would take quite a long time. It was relatively easier since corrupting Water Force was what they did first, but the ocean was, obviously, impressively large.
The other problem with this plan is that it was quite useless to control oceanic beasts if they couldn't change the situation on land. The Cancer family hadn't been able to find an underwater territory in time so they had to settle for one on land for the time being, but that made them a target for Xavnik to crush.
In addition to this, Xavnik took control of the oceanic beasts that the Cancer family had managed to gather for himself, using them as the spearheads for his scouting.
The Cornus family was the only high level family of the Human Domain known purely for their hand to hand combat. However, they were also the fourth and final family with strong ties to Water Force, in fact the style of their close combat was entirely built on concepts of the tides and waves.
One might realize at this point that this was most definitely not a coincidence. For two of the families Xavnik had targeted to have such ties, it was clear that this was likely his plan from the beginning. He knew that he didn't have affinity with Water Force and as such relied on others who did to build the foundation he would need to take advantage of it.
While he gained oceanic beasts from the Cancer family, what he gained from the Cornus family was arguably even more valuable. They had a treasure designed to read and record the waves, almost like radar but with Water Force instead. They used their comprehension of tides and waves to form this sort of scouting device.
Like this, Xavnik had gained not just one, but two methods of exploring the ocean's waters.
He knew well that First Nova's partner was the Princess of the Quarius family. If he wanted to make sure he didn't lose his advantage, he had to push quite fiercely.
Though he thought this, this didn't stop him from marching on the night side continent. As for his target, it was none other than Fourth Nova, Sceio.
Fourth Nova was none other than the very same Nova who had tried to sign Aina to a contract. He seemed to have changed greatly since then, having vanished into thin air. Since then, Leonel hadn't seen or heard a peep out of him.
But now it seemed that there would be a clash between two brothers once again.
Xavnik looked forward with a confident expression while Sceio looked down from the city walls quite solemnly.
Xavnik's army had already grown to almost a million. It was likely that after this campaign, he would directly challenge the Gold-Grade upgrade trial.
After a moment, though, Fourth Nova's expression sharpened, the hum of a spear echoing from him.