The procession started and in no time flat, the aerial tournament began with the naval and land tournaments soon underway. Unlike the Sun Alliance tournaments, groups were transported together to the same location. This meant that Lu Mu, Jaxon Long, Baron, Guan Yu, and Yue Fei were all together when they came to. This map had a lot fewer participants so the area for which the warfare would take place would naturally be a lot smaller. There were 6 months to prepare for anything and everything. So the 5 of them spent no time flat coming to a conclusion on which of them would be tasked with which task.

Lu Mu would be in charge of training soldiers and pilots since she had the best leadership qualities and she was able to have her armies be in constant high morale. This was definitely not an easy feat and certainly not something that Baron nor the other 3 were capable of doing in such a high level as Lu Mu. Jaxon Long was sent to go manufacture as many necessary planes and such as he could with the resources and time that he was given.

Meanwhile, Baron, Guan Yu, and Yue Fei were in charge of the other important aspects of preparation such as setting up a spy network, ensuring there weren’t any spies in their own ring, supply lines from many sources, recruiting men, and so much more. Even 6 months was not anywhere near enough time for them to get everything exactly as they had wanted. However, that was just part of the game.

Two months into the preparation phase, the spies under Baron revealed that there were a few groups planning a coalition. This was nothing unusual as Baron knew that there were always a few who wanted to team up with others so that they would be able to hold out for just a little bit longer. Most of the time these groups were the ones who had next to no chance of making it to the final 5 groups and they just wished to stay inside the tournament for a longer period of time.

Another month had passed and Baron started to get in more reports with talks of a coalition force that was quite large. Still, Baron did not sweat this detail as he was distracted by many other matters that he had to attend to that required his attention far more than news of a giant coalition. That is, until the end of the month when he realized something that really took him by surprise. If all of these reports are to be believed, then almost a quarter of the groups that had entered into this tournament would be in several small coalitions. A rare occurrence, but still nothing to get worked up about.

By the fourth month, Baron knew something was up with all of these groups. The number of groups that weren’t in a coalition dipped below the number of groups that were, and yet Baron had not heard of any other reports that should have been at his desk. Such as the ones that should tell him of what his enemies were planning on doing or where they planned to strike. This was seriously odd as this was not how these tournaments normally started out. The suspicion mounted and just before Baron was about to make a move, he was sent an envoy from Ding Lai Hang.

The envoy was no ordinary messenger, but rather, one of Ding Lai Hang’s strategists that were fairly powerful. This was certainly unusual but Baron knew that it would be foolhardy to refuse such an obvious act of intention. The envoy was invited into the capital base of Under 1 Banner.

(BM) “Envoy, may I know your name?” Baron asked the person that was seated directly across from him on his war table.

(GH) “Of course, Baron, I go by the name of general Han. I come bearing news from my leader, Ding Lai Hang.” General Han replied to Baron’s question. There was no one else in the room so he could be at ease.

(BM) “To what do I owe this pleasure of meeting you, general Han?”

(GH) “The news from Ding Lai Hang is more of a warning from him rather than news actually. No doubt you have heard of the immense number of groups getting into coalitions?”

(BM) “I have, yes. Is it something that concerns me?”

(GH) “Well yes. They are all gearing up to take you down first. Right when the first day of battle officially begins, a coalition of a suspected 40 groups will come to attack you. Now, if that were all Ding Lai Hang believes that you would have been able to weather such an attack. However, that is not all.”

(BM) “What do you mean?”

(GH) “That first group of 40 is nothing more than a distraction from the true force that is going to strike at the heart of your empire. Another suspected coalition of 80 groups is planning to strike behind you when you focus most of your already comparatively small force to defend from the first group.”

(BM) “Preposterous. Are you sure?”

(GH) “Indeed, I was there when an envoy from the leader of this huge coalition came to see Ding Lai Hang to coerce him into the plan as well. He refused, by the way, so you don’t need to worry about us attacking you. Otherwise, you might truly be in trouble.”

(BM) “Why? Why are all these groups doing this?”

(GH) “Have you seen the posters that the Vesper faction put out just before the start of the tournament?”

(BM) “I have.”

(GH) “There you go.”

(BM) “Why is Ding Lai Hang doing this, aren’t we enemies?”

(GH) “Truth be told, he would not have sent me if it was up to him. Rather, this was a direct order from his boss, Zhang Da Zhi, to aid you if he could. Now that gets us to the meat of why he sent me here. He proposes an alliance with you.”

(BM) “Does he not realize that both of our territories are almost on different sides of the map?”

(GH) “He does, he just means that if you are able to weather the coalition by yourself then he would be able to conquer his way all the way here.”

(BM) “Tell him we’ll see.”

(GH) “I’ll relay that message to him.”