The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 2077 Loose Alliances

All the talk of war was pulling in Immortals from their whole section of the arena, as the natural curiosity, some would say nosiness, of the group kicked in.

"Do you think that the battles are going to spread this far? The Almeixei Sect doesn't usually get involved in that sort of thing, and they're the plug separating the rest of this region from the main body of the continent.

I know that the Darklight Host has portals to many other cities further inland, so the hostilities might spread in this direction, but without being able to bypass the Almeixei Sect, they would have to attack them directly if they were going to drag New Home and the Darklight into their mess," a Peak Immortal warrior asked.

Karl shook his head. "I don't think that they're going to actually spread this far. The battles are largely regional, due to their alliances, so they'll likely stop before they get to the Yizimon Clan on the north side of the great lake. What I can see is them taking over the whole region between the lake and the fjord, since they're all competing factions of the same group.

Something like a civil war in their loose alliance.

Already some of them are fighting each other, I have seen the looks they're giving when they meet here in town.

If worst come to worst, we will ask that the Clans which have portals in the region close them. But I am not convinced that it's going to be an issue unless those Clans fall. They'll lock down their territories, and even with the portals set in public areas, outside their compounds, they shouldn't be an issue unless there is a siege."

The other Immortals considered his position, then decided that Karl was too naive.

The Darklight Host Branch Leader failed to understand what centuries or millennia of competition within the same faction did to people.

Even though they were nominally aligned, they were still competing for resources, they were still competing for members, and they still fought each other at tournaments. That sort of constant competition made them view every other faction and nearby Clan as part of the reason for their failures, both real and perceived.

Blaming their rivals for a poor recruitment season, for stealing prodigies, for finding opportunities first.

It all came naturally to excuse their own flaws.

It was also so much easier than admitting that perhaps someone else really was better than them, and might do a better job at managing the Clans. Especially among the Supreme Ranked Clan leaders, who had usually started out under one of the other Clan Leaders in the region.

They were determined to surpass their teacher, prove that they were the chosen one, and take over.

They just hadn't gotten there yet.

And now that there was a large scale regional war, they all had a reason to take out those grievances on each other. That was the part that the visitors to the Darklight Host were all thinking about, as it increased the chances that anyone who passed through the region might be attacked as a spy.

That was a deadly threat for everyone, not just the independents, who had already mostly fled the region.

If you were not going to ally yourself with a Clan, you had to be cognizant of both clan politics and the residents of the region because not all of them welcomed visitors even if they were not in conflict with anyone.

There were some of them here in the Darklight Village, as most of the visitors called it, with a hint of envy, but most of them had gone much further away, looking for new opportunities.

There was no need to be too close to trouble when you didn't have anything tying you down.

It was the dungeon that was keeping so many of them here.

Many Clans opened their dungeons to the public, but the one here was variable difficulty, so it was suitable for both the master and the apprentice if both could find groups. So, if a master and disciple pair came, they didn't have half the pair wasting time while the other fought for resources.

What they did have to fight for was sleeping space.

The Lycan's Den tavern and Inn were both packed at every hour of every day, and even the much more expensive Dollhouse Hotel was currently showing no vacancies.

That left new arrivals to either camp on the edge of town, or go to the Darklight Host and look into boarding houses. There were many of those in town, as the Blackwoods Pack had moved into family homes which had originally been made for the previous Clan's training teams.

So, unless they had ten members of their immediate family, there were a few spare rooms in every house, and Opal had graciously upgraded every occupied home when they first arrived.

Now, they were using that magic to alter the rooms to be more suitable, and putting bunk beds in, so they could offer a bed and breakfast style rooming house experience, and make some coins off the visitors.

If you didn't have a trade to go to all day long, that was an excellent choice, and even the Lycan children were not delicate innocents.

They could shift to their bipedal bestial form long before they had System Access, and they healed incredibly quickly, so even if there was a power surge from a guest making a mistake during training, they were unlikely to be seriously injured.

In Karl's eyes, that was just another way of spreading the wealth.

Sure, they might be bringing strangers into their homes, but they were paying strangers, not vagrants. And the city guards would be absolutely overjoyed to find out that they got to evict someone for nonpayment.

Which was a good enough reason for everyone to ensure that they paid promptly.

Two new contestants stepped into the ring, and the conversation around Karl went quiet for a moment, then the Black Dragon Priestess smiled as she leaned over to whisper to him.

"Those two are Clan Leaders from Dam Halara, north of Eryman's territory a few hundred kilometres. They've been at each other for years, and I hear they were both at the auction in Samron when the Blue Elves arrived with a shipment."