CHAPTER 2256 SHATTERED FACADE
A historic event had occurred within the Sekigahara Confederate.
For the first time in history, it had learned what it felt like to be a victim.
The Sekigahara Confederate possessed arrogance that matched that of the Britannian Empire, yet it possessed even more unbridled pride in its martial culture.
The fact that its lunacy was feared and was the reason that nobody messed with the Sekigahara Confederate was something that brought great pride and satisfaction to them. They were to be feared. Even by their alleged equals.
Nobody messed with the Sekigahara Confederate.
Until, of course, they picked a fight with an opponent beyond their league and got crushed. The loss of a hundred and nine Martial Masters in one go was perhaps the largest number of Martial Masters that had ever perished in a single battle in the entirety of the Age of Martial Art.
On top of that, they got beaten back on not just the Master-level front but also on both Sage-level fronts.
The Kandrian Empire demonstrated to the world the addition of seven new Martial Sages to its roster, proving to have a total of twenty-three Martial Sages on retainer, surpassing both the Sekigahara Confederate and the Britannian Empire.
Not only did they suffer defeat against Kandria, but they also paid the price for their unscrupulous aggression for the first time in their life when the absence of adequate Sages caused some harm to befall the Sekigahara Confederate due to the attack of Esocline Federation.
For the first time, the Sekigahara Confederate had experienced suffered a clear-cut crippling defeat that would scar the nation for centuries to come. In the Confederate Martial Council, sixteen Sages and merely forty remaining Masters were gathered around an enormous round table.
The atmosphere was dark. Belongs to (N)ôvel/Drama.Org.
A deathly silence had overtaken the air.
It was as though a thick, black miasma of shame, rage, and grief had infected the mood, refusing to allow even the slightest bit of positivity to seep through.
Their heads were lowered; not a single one of them could bring themselves to hold it high after what happened.
"Should we…" Sage Kai of the Oni Clan broke the silence as a flash of rage flooded his eyes. "…storm the Esocline Federation and raze it to the ground?"
No one was surprised at the fact that the Sage of the Oni Clan could not come up with any other idea. The Oni Clan was known to be among the most aggressive clans, even among the Sekigaharans.
"…Don't." Sage Shinken's voice was reduced to a whisper. "We've already transferred military authority to the clan leaders. This…isn't something that can be overcome with brute force."
His eyes were hollow.
The Shinken Clan had suffered unfathomable losses in the battle against the Kandrian Empire, having lost all their Masters in one fell swoop.
Now, they had only had Seniors and two Martial Sages. There was no in-between.
The shock was something that none of the fourteen clans of the Sekigahara Confederate had overcome.
Funnily enough, the Masters who didn't participate in the battle actually took a step closer to the Sage Realm.
After all, they learned something about themselves.
They weren't nearly as mad, maniacal, and lunatic as they perhaps fancied themselves. What was probably more true was that they weaponized their mania to inspire fear in their enemies. In other words, their insane warmongering culture was, at least in part, a facade of sorts.
It was more important that their enemies perceived them as lunatics. And they indeed acted like lunatics to reinforce their facade so that nobody dared to mess with them.
Normally, this was good enough.
Yet, they had recently come across a true madman in every sense of the word.
One who picked a fight with the three Sage-level powerhouses and sought to come away victorious. A truly brazen man with no limits who didn't need to project madness to get people to fear him.
Instead, he projected harmony.
Except when he no longer needed to.
Kandria was filled with madmen who put the Sekigahara Confederate to shame.
"Damian…" Sage Shinken's body quivered with rage as he remembered another such madman.
Just the thought of what the man's son had done to their Masters drove him almost insane. "I will kill him and his son, no matter what." He gritted his teeth.
Both father and son must die at his hand. He wouldn't rest until he killed both of them, which he was certain about. He was not one to forgive the death of so many Masters of his clan, having dedicated much to the glory and prestige of the Shinken Clan.
"…The son of the Devil may have been the one to kill our Masters, but it was the Void Prince who broke him through, allowing him to do that." Sage Senpu grew furious. "After we gain a copy of that technique that he used to break through, we kill him. There's no two ways about that."
Another Sage shook his head. "After the death of so many of our Masters, only one of us possesses the power to get him killed. He was much stronger than we could have ever anticipated. The Nindo Clan failed us in giving us a good estimate of his strength."
The Martial Artists in the Martial Council shifted their glares in the direction of the Martial Sage of the Nindo Clan, who sank under the weight of their recriminating glares.
The Nindo Clan had become the most hated clan of the Sekigahara Confederate within a single day. They had one job, which they had failed magnificently by every metric. From failing to evaluate Rui's combat power accurately to failing to detect so much as a whiff of the seven new Martial Sages of the Kandrian Empire. They also failed to grasp Rui's identity as someone involved with the breakthroughs of the Kandrian Empire.
On top of that, they had failed to detect the alliance of the Kandrian Empire with the Esocline Federation and the siege upon their home.
Perhaps the only reason that they hadn't been punished extensively for their failures was because the cause of their failures wasn't their incompetence nearly as much as it was the super competence of their enemy.
Regardless, the Sekigahara Confederate had experienced its first devastating defeat perhaps ever and was slow to recover from it.
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