Stas Ordyntsev had expended far too much energy and time to secure himself from the repercussions of his own actions to just flush all his efforts down the drain.
In other words, as much as he wanted to take a hard line, he simply couldn't do so.
The situation in the clan was too tense for drastic measures.
And here, an enterprising person could see an opportunity.
If, until this point, the excesses of both sides somehow balanced each other out - with the dissatisfied from one side going to the other and vice versa - after his arrival, Stas intended to do everything in his power to reduce the negative outflow and significantly increase the positive.
How?
Here, Stanislav planned to employ such an intriguing tactic as black PR.
This method has, in one way or another, consistently left its mark throughout human history. Sabotage one's competitor for the throne? With pleasure! Present one's enemy in a negative light to the monarch? Absolutely, why not!
Millions of times, humans have put those who displeased them in an awkward position, digging up dirty laundry and displaying it for everyone to see.
However, the true flourishing of this method coincided precisely with the information era, when a single article on some social network could explode with more force than a nuclear bomb.
Lies, deception, slander, and insults were forged into a new weapon, which politicians and the wealthy brandished with delight, harming each other and just everyone around them.
Why, as in the past, seek someone's dirty laundry if you can pour a bucket of filth and crap on someone, and at a much lower price!
Choose more intricate insults and graver accusations - your opponent will never be able to wash them off anyway.
Do not be shy in your lies, for the more dreadful the "truth," the higher the likelihood that people will believe it.
And even if they don't believe it, they will begin to discuss it. They will recall it over and over, mulling it in their heads until at some point, they become convinced of the veracity of this vile lie.
And if in the past you could try to ignore the newspapers badmouthing you or the talk at work, now there was no escape from one or another kind of "PR," be it black, white, pink, or gray-brown-raspberry.
The essence of the plan that Stas intended to implement was to unleash such a flood of filth on Izuna and his people that they simply wouldn't have time to spit it out and defend themselves.
Fortunately, Stas now had enough human resources for further work.
*****
Nurse Fumiko lovingly looked over the children playing in the sandbox. The hall where the little kids frolicked was deep within the Citadel, protected by many strong walls. But thanks to significant efforts, it seemed that instead of a hall in the center of the fortress, you were in a perfectly ordinary glade with bushes and grass growing on the sides. And special artifact plates on the ceiling mimicked daylight.
Fumiko frowned, her eyes flashing menacingly, though she quickly removed the ghastly expression from her face when one of the children decided to look at her.
The nurse made a funny face to the giggling child.
'What would my teammates say if they knew I was making faces at children?' Fumiko thought, a trace of sadness in her thoughts.
In fact, Fumiko was incredibly grateful to the head of her clan, who allowed her to leave active duty.
Years ago, after the death of her comrades, Fumiko thought of suicide. She had no strength to return to all that blood and filth.
The decision to appoint her as a nanny seemed like sheer madness, and only after a couple of years did she realize the genius of the clan leader's decision.
It was Goro-sama who somehow saw her love for children and appointed her to this nursery.
The thing is, not all warmasters have someone to leave their children with. The life of a warmaster is short. Children are a vulnerability, so neutral territories were required to address the issue.
Nowadays, numerous neutral minor families sent their children to such places because they couldn't guarantee their safety in their own homes.
To attack such a place would mean making too many enemies. Therefore, while security was present, they did not expect any surprises.
Fumiko thought everyone understood this.
Only she abruptly realized that she was wrong when she sensed someone's hidden presence to the side.
The reaction of the former veteran was lightning-fast.
Several earth techniques flew towards the indicated corner at bullet speed.
Fumiko struck hard but precisely, to avoid accidentally harming the children.
The quiet and cheerful nurse disappeared, replaced by a true terror of war.
The ambushing warmasters were forced to emerge from their hiding and attempted to retreat, but the enraged woman was not about to let them go.
One of her techniques nearly caught one of the attackers, tearing off his mask with a shard of stone.
Fumiko instantly recognized the dishonorable scoundrel, a man of the elder prince. He had become infamous for his misdeeds towards those warmasters who didn't have strong protectors.
The air was filled with the alarmed cries of children. Horrified, they observed the battling figures and the chaos that ensued.
Although the attackers and Fumiko tried to cast techniques away from the kids, even so, the hall quickly turned into a real battlefield.
The former charm of the place was gone.
Convinced that it was impossible to defeat Fumiko, the recognized Horuko demonstratively turned his hand towards the children, forcing the woman to grind her teeth in fury and rush to protect her charges, erecting numerous stone barriers.
The attackers used this to quickly leave, flooding the surroundings with prana to erase the traces, preventing any possible pursuit.
A few dozen seconds after the "guests" left, the guards burst in, but the attackers were long gone.
Attempts to follow the hot trail to the headquarters of Izuna's supporters yielded nothing. The elder prince's people vehemently denied all accusations.
Meanwhile, Kaede, having ensured that her illusions had worked as required, moved away with a couple of Io's people.
To increase the plausibility of the scene, the "attackers" were real people, but Horuko's torn-off mask and appearance were carefully crafted illusions.
At the exact moment, in various taverns around the Citadel, in the dining halls inside the fortress, and simply in public places, rumors were launched that the attack was conducted exclusively by personal directive from Izuna.
Within an hour, the news of the attack on one of the nurseries was known to everyone, raising substantial public outrage.
But Stas Ordyntsev wasn't going to stop at just one strike.
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*****
"How much longer will we tolerate this?" warmasters passing by the speaking supreme stopped, attentively listening to his words.
Arata, seeing how many people had gathered around him, began to talk even more fervently.
"Our wives and children are in greater danger than if they were at war! How can we go defend our home when our own people commit atrocities worse than the enemy!"
The warmasters silently nodded or shook their heads. Unlike peasants, they were much more restrained, but the words of the supreme slowly found their way into their hearts.
"My own family was nearly harmed by the lackeys of the elder prince. Some will say his people are to blame, but I say it is he himself. Now I serve Master Jishin, and only after joining him did I realize how terrible his brother, Izuna, is."
"What are you talking about?" a warmaster who had pushed his way forward asked, and judging by the surrounding whispers, he, too, was a supreme and belonged to the neutrals. "Jishin's people are the same as Izuna's! They do the same thing. Are you saying they are any better?"
"That's exactly what I wanted to say, people," Arata scanned the gathered crowd with a keen gaze. "Jishin-sama learned of the chaos here and sent his trusted person to put an end to the violence! He is pained to see what our home has become, so Shiro the Serpent has come here. He came straight from the front, where he participated in the defense of the Gaibatsu fortress! This man, being at advanced rank, killed a supreme, and he will deal with the injustice happening here!"
No sophist could have articulated the connection between killing a supreme and political acumen, but for warmasters living by war, it was a strong argument.
The last statements were Arata's personal decision. He considered that securing good recognition for the Serpent would be his way of showing gratitude for all that Shiro was doing.
Ironically, Stas himself didn't need this fame. He believed that the love of the crowd was fickle, and it was far more profitable to have power or good relations with a few influential individuals.
However, Arata wasn't finished.
"Shiro the Serpent, on behalf of Master Jishin, declared that the coercions are over, and he will fight against all who see their clanmates only as a resource and not as neighbors and friends!"
Similar speeches erupted in several other places. Of course, they were not as popular as the speech of a whole supreme warmaster, but they also gained popularity.
Considering that the warmasters indeed found confirmation that only Izuna's people continued the intimidation, legitimate questions began to emerge in the "electorate's" minds.
The classic scenario involving inept subordinates who misunderstood their superior's instructions and ruined everything also found its believers.
But that wasn't all the cunning mind of the earthling had prepared.
*****
"Did you hear the latest news?" the maids who had been mopping the floors a few minutes ago gathered in the utility room to discuss the recent rumors.
The speaking girl was practically bouncing with the information bursting inside her.
"Come on, don't tease us, Suri!" a woman with a flat face complained. "I'm curious."
"I heard," Suri paused to take a deeper breath. "That the elder prince has some problems... Well... In bed."
"Ah!" the maids looked at each other in shock.
"They say," Suri continued. "That he doesn't like girls."
"Yeah, it's all lies," another maid snorted. "You heard how he used to look at the girls before the war, and, they said, some of them even came to clean his room!"
"Maybe he was pretending, or they're deliberately hiding it," Suri found herself involuntarily defending the information.
"You're thinking about the wrong thing!" the third maid wagged her finger in front of her face. "How will the elder prince have an heir if he can't do it? In that case, what's happening now will repeat itself again."
The girls and women fell silent gloomily. The horrors of recent weeks even touched the servants because anyone could be hurt in random skirmishes.
"Maybe that's why Master Izuna is weaker than Master Jishin?" another maid asked quietly. "Although he's older, I heard that Jishin-sama is much stronger."
"That's true," the others couldn't help but agree. "The younger prince is much stronger than the elder."
*****
Dirty rumors, absolute untruth, and lies - everything was fair game. Io's people had bribed servants ready to spout any nonsense they were ordered.
Some might think that the chatter of servants means nothing, but that was not the case.
Very soon, the talks of the servants reached the warmasters themselves, raising legitimate questions.
As they say, there's no smoke without fire, so some of the rumors must be true. Where else would the servants have heard it?
'Yes, perhaps the talks about Izuna preferring boys are a lie,' the warmasters thought. 'But the fact that he is far weaker than Jishin is true.'
This raised questions.
Slipping a lie along with the truth is an incredibly effective tactic that Stas had perfected back on Earth.
He spent long hours ensuring that Io's people knew exactly what he wanted them to spread.
Every phrase, every rumor, or insult was calibrated and struck right in the heart with its poisoned "blades."
Such an approach required maximum effort and time from Stas, making him completely forget about sleep, and even then, he still couldn't accomplish everything he had planned.
But even what had already been done was impressive.
Perhaps that's why, after a day, Izuna's people, assessing the destructive effect of the Serpent's tactics, began to take steps to justify themselves and catch the cursed spreaders.
By doing so, they only further fueled hatred towards themselves, as Stas's people didn't hesitate to hide among ordinary warmasters, shifting the blame onto them.
In the end, attempting to capture innocent people, the elder prince's fighters faced organized resistance from enraged neighbors.
The pinnacle of his activities, or rather the cherry on top of the terrible cake he had created, Stas considered to be the so-called praise groups.
They were divided into two parts: the first extolled the exploits of Izuna, while the second focused on the actions of Jishin.
And someone might wonder, how could you harm someone by praising their actions?
It's all about comparison.
"Izuna's groups" incessantly proclaimed how the elder prince managed to defeat an ordinary advanced warmaster or barely win some battle. Yes, they were victories, but frankly lackluster ones.
The goal of these guys was to shout them out so loudly and grotesquely that those who understood the true state of affairs started to feel sick of the empty boasting.
When you're force-fed with someone's "feats, which aren't much of feats," you can't help but feel treated like an idiot.
In contrast, "Jishin's people" talked about how the prince killed a supreme warmaster in a fair fight or about his battle with another supreme during the war. His noteworthy victories were not overlooked either.
Nor were his personal qualities, his ability to deal with problems, his generosity, and his nobility. Overall, if everything said about Jishin were true, he could easily run for the most perfect person of all humanity.
In the end, if someone started comparing the brothers' achievements, they would quickly come to the conclusion Stas wanted.
The idea was born from Izuna's people's attempts to justify their leader. As soon as Stas learned about their actions, he immediately assembled his own groups, which blended among the enemy's "PR" people, sowing confusion in their ranks.
It was obvious that the warmasters, accustomed to solving their problems with force, were not ready for such a vile and ruthless battle.
And when Jishin finally arrived, three days late, Ordyntsev's plan had already reached its operational capacity, no longer requiring as much effort and oversight from him.
The only thing the man wanted now was to collapse and forget himself in a deep, uninterrupted sleep.
In the past four days, he had only slept a few times, no more than two or three hours a day. The shadows constantly had clarifying questions or demanded new orders.
Stas tried to shift some of the burdens onto the new commanders, but they didn't always understand what they were doing or what was expected of them.
Yawning, Ordyntsev went to meet Jishin. It was time to put everything in its place once and for all.
Now, it would become clear how exactly the prince felt about him.
Was he right in his suspicions, or was everything that happened just someone's political game?
Choosing a meeting place was easy, considering Ordyntsev's new resources.
Right now, Jishin, surrounded by his entourage, was walking through one of the broad central corridors of the fortress. He had only recently arrived, so he hadn't had time to visit anywhere.
Stas, who had just turned the corner, also had a small guard in the form of Mari, Kaede, and three more of Io's fighters.
Jishin was listening to something Kensei was telling him when the gazes of the earthling and the prince met.
The heir immediately slowed his pace and began to scrutinize Ordyntsev. The latter responded with the same.
The entourage, noticing Jishin's interest, also began to glance at the young man with cold serpentine eyes.
Everything froze.
"Shiro-kun," Jishin's lips stretched into a pleased smile. The prince nodded at Stas, who responded with a bow. The way the heir addressed him already showed a high degree of trust. Those around them began to exchange interested glances.
"What a pleasant surprise to meet you here. Though I thought you would arrive after me. But even better, you'll be able to attend my enthronement."
"Thank you for the honor, Jishin-sama," Stas bowed again. Being present at the upcoming ceremony was only possible for a few: heads of families or representatives of the Council of Supremes. The number of invited guests was limited.
"Allow me to tell you about what I have achieved in your absence. A lot of work has been done, and I must note, if not for the help of Io-sama, it would have been much more difficult."
For a moment, Jishin's brow raised in surprise, but in recent years he had clearly learned to control his face, managing his emotions.
"Of course, of course," the prince smiled warmly at Stas. It was clear that the heir was in a good mood. "I'm heading home now, so keep me company."
Stas silently positioned himself next to and slightly behind Jishin, standing not far from Kensei, who cast a quick glance at him. A little to the side was the ever-smiling Shin. Though now, for some reason, his smile seemed a bit strained.
Once they reached the house, almost all of the close associates were dismissed. Only the guard remained at the entrance.
Along with Jin, Kensei, Shin, and a huge, silent warmaster in his thirties with short, spiky chestnut hair entered. It was easy to notice the many scars on his face and his sleeveless arms. Like Kensei, he was armed with a long sword, though much broader and shorter in length.
Jishin immediately headed to the table, taking the seat at the head. Kensei, Shin, and the new warmaster promptly took all the seats closest to him, leaving only the farthest ones for Stas.
Ordyntsev also didn't miss that the newcomer was seated further than the other two.
"Alright," Jishin slapped his armored thigh and looked intently at Ordyntsev. "Start with what you did and why. Oh yes, and don't forget to explain how Io-san comes into all this. I swear by all the demons of hell, I don't understand a thing. I sent you a letter just a day ago and was certain you'd arrive much later. And I didn't ask you to do anything either. Though now I'm starting to doubt that," he added jokingly, yet no one laughed.
A tense silence fell over the room.