CHAPTER 2305: STUCK IN A MUCK
Time passed in the manifold as Rui got to work, dedicating himself to securing the prosperity of the Water Sect while the war for allies slowly intensified.
Aggressive negotiations had broken out between the Sage-level and Master-level nations in East Panama, with the two sides fighting to earn their support and alliance. It put the nations in a position of privilege as well as a position of deep pressure.
If they chose to ally with the Kandrian Empire, then they were bound to suffer attacks from the East Panamic Treaty Alliance that had declared war on all Kandrian Allies in East Panama.
On top of that, they ran the risk of facing the wrath of the alliance after the war if the Kandrian Empire lost.
However, if they sided with the alliance, then they would forever forsake extremely juicy offers that only the Kandrian Empire could provide. Resources and breakthroughs were extremely difficult for anybody to resist, and Emperor Rael had promised even more after the Kandrian Empire won the war and overcame the Great Limit.
Normally, such promises meant nothing in the political sphere as promises could be and were often broken. However, the Emperor of Harmony had spent three centuries cultivating an image of reliability and trustworthiness as a man of his word.
If he promised something, he kept his word or compensated people so generously that they forgot about any grievances they ever had. Having done that over and over again with almost religious fervor paid off in the war as every nation took his promises extremely seriously.
The promise of highly generous benefits, rewards, and capital from a nation that was all but bound to become a Transcendent nation should it survive the war was something that they were unable to overlook under these circumstances.
Each and every one of them was put in between a rock and a hard place.
The alliance, led by Prime Minister Edward, utilized a brutal and ruthless strategy of focusing on the stick, while the Emperor of Harmony focused on using even more alluring carrots.
Never had there been a worse time to be the leader of a nation. The sheer amount of pressure that each and every one of them experienced was life-shortening. Each nation had received two diplomatic convoys upon the inception of the war for allies. One from the alliance and one from the Kandrian Empire.
Every day, each leader would be pressured by each of the diplomatic teams who urged them to take their offer.
One such man was the guildmaster of the Shionel Confederation.
This was the first time in his life that Guildmaster Bradt had experienced pressure on this scale. The Shionel Confederation had two Martial Sages on retainer, thus, it had experienced particularly high pressure from each side.This text is © NôvelDrama/.Org.
"Huff..." he heaved a sigh, resting his head in his hands.
Never before had he been faced with such a mind-bogglingly difficult choice in his entire life.
For him, in particular, this choice was impossible to make.
It was because of the circumstances of his business.
The Bradt Distribution Service was a delivery and transporter service of goods, services, and information. It was a highly efficient, effective, and robust company with reasonable prices and greater market permeation than any other company in the industry in East Panama, allowing it to develop an unshakeable oligopoly in the sector.
However, by the very nature of his sector, he needed to be connected.
He needed to be connected to the entire world.
The more enemies he had outside of the Shionel Confederation, the fewer places he could extend his services to and through. The less reliable his services would become, the smaller market share he would have.
If he joined the Kandrian Empire, he would be making an enemy of three Sage-level powerhouses and, consequently, their allies. This represented an immense portion of his market share that he would lose the second he allied with the Kandrian Empire.
It was a devastating loss that meant sacrificing most of his life's work.
Under this consideration, under ordinary circumstances, he would have sided with the alliance without a doubt. Ideally, he would love to be neutral as he normally would have been able to as a merchant, but this war was clearly very different from all those that came before. The stakes were astronomically higher and one side was trying to annihilate the other as a matter of its true goal. The alliance, in particular, would not tolerate neutrality.
In these circumstances, he still would have chosen the alliance bitterly. It was painful to lose access to the Kandrian domain of influence as a market, but it was less painful than losing the markets under the influence of the three other Sage-level powerhouses.
However, he found himself paralyzed when he thought about becoming the enemy of the Kandrian Empire. The tantalizing miracles they offered made even him pause, frozen in shock.
On top of that, he had an extremely high opinion of the strategic and tactical genius of the Emperor of Harmony and his son. Together, the two of them inspired a lot of confidence in others.
"However, their opponent is none other than Prime Minister Edward himself..." Guildmaster Bradt's tone was severe. "On top of that, he has managed to gain strategic control of the entire alliance by brilliantly leveraging their weaknesses and vulnerabilities that he had been waiting for."
He was not a man one picked a fight with.
Another variable that complicated his considerations even more was the fact that he still had
a favor to claim from Rui. Learning that Rui could trigger breakthroughs was the ultimate validation of his sharp instinct to not claim his favor from him too early. He could now leverage that favor to break some of his Seniors to the Master Realm.
However, if he became their enemy, he was not sure that he could do it, at the very least, he doubted that Rui would fulfill his promise when the time came.
Thus, he was stuck in a muck of considerations.
Something needed to change for him to finally make up his mind.