80 Sly Roaches (1/2)

”Move out!” As soon as the orders were given, the Sovereign Army; The Smiling Immortals moved out once more. This was probably the most crucial and most sensitive operation they were about to embark on.

Harvesting resources was an easy task, but for a huge force to evade detection, meant that the Stealth teams were in full force. Any scout from Emil's Nation was killed on sight.

Luna himself was not slacking off either, he went and took on a mission that only himself, Sura, Maxene, and Elder Aran could do with a near 100% chance of success: Infiltrate Emil's Nation.

”If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. This man you call Sun Tzu is indeed quite knowledgeable. The Art of War is an excellent read!” Elder Aran thought out loud.

”Indeed he is. Anyone who wishes to lead, if they had to choose one book, they should definitely pick that one.” Luna agreed.

”Sounds good to me, Lord Luna. When shall we leave?”

”We'll go at night. If Lily's information holds true, then we'll have gained quite a bit.” Luna replied. Lily had heard of the Agimat that Emil was in possession of, but surprisingly, she had mentioned a possible second one.

This was their second objective.

Their main objective was to collect whatever information they could and find things to exploit. The weaker Emil looked to his citizens, the easier the takeover would be. In other words, they were softening this already soft persimmon even more.

***

The mutant beasts to the east were not slacking off either. Thanks to the Sovereign Nation's efforts, they made no progress in their attempts to invade, only succeeding in handing over precious EXP to the soldiers.

Eventually, the beasts began to adapt. It got to a point where even they were able to form their own Nations, albeit, they were unable to make use of the structures or challenging territories. Nonetheless, it brought its own advantages. The leaders of these Mutant Beast Nations became immune to any form of taming. The beasts could collectively share EXP, making it so their young would grow stronger much faster. Unfortunately for them, should any of their members be tamed, they would automatically leave the Nation and join their tamer's Nation instead.

They were finally intelligent enough to communicate with each other. The leaders of each Nation had their own summit and carved out territories for each other.

The Visayan Beast Nation who were stronger, but nowhere near as numerous as any of the others, ended up getting the short stick. They got Cebu, a place that was already ravaged prior to this deal.

The Visayan Rat Nation took control of Bohol, since they initially took the majority of the resources here.

The Visayan Roach Nation retreated to Leyte* island, farther east.

The Visayan Arachnid Nation took Samar* island, even farther east, beside Leyte.

In the end, the reason why the Beast Nation was could accept these conditions was simple. Due to the fact that despite agreeing on where they can set up their respective bases, there was no cease-fire agreement between all of them, and thus, they could invade each other at any time or kill each other if they meet while out on their hunts.

Suffice to say, the survivors at Leyte island had a huge majority of their defenders decimated and those who managed to escape joined the forces over at Samar. There, the survivors banded together.

It was fortunate that the people of Samar and Leyte had an agreement and had assigned members to station themselves in the other Nations. As soon as one received the news of the mutant beast horde's invasion, all of them were immediately alerted.

The people of Samar fought fiercely to the point where even the Arachnid Nation felt the pressure. It was all thanks to the Magic Attack Agimat the strongest Nation in the island had found. They had occupied the area near the Janbatas channel*, and with the walls situated there, it made it easy for the couple thousand of their Mages to defend. While it was a minuscule amount compared to the Sovereign Nation, it was enough.

The Roach Nation saw this as an opportunity and attacked them from behind.