Tang Shaoyang was sitting behind a table with a cup of coffee in his hand. Three women sat across from him, Zhang Mengyao was in the middle, Rosalie was to his left, and Kang Xue was to his right. They stared at him sharply while he took a sip of his coffee.
The meeting was over twenty minutes ago when Tang Shaoyang walked out of the room after declaring the Tang Empire was out of the Earth Alliance. The news was soon spread out by his people, and the vassals immediately followed The Tang Empire.
That left the unaffiliated medium and small factions. They were torn about whether to follow the Tang Empire or stay within the alliance. The protection from the ten big alliances was so important for them if they wanted a safer exploration.
And after the meeting, Zhang Mengyao went through a breakdown. No one knew except for the people in this room. Even though Tang Shaoyang told her that he understood her decision and did not blame her, she still blamed herself for making such a blunder.
In the end, Tang Shaoyang told her that if she wanted to blame herself for that, she had to blame everyone around her. No one realized it despite it being too obvious because they heavily put Tang Shaoyang’s absence in making the decision.
“Girls, I would like you to make it quick because I want to explore the tower. I don’t have much time, and I think you already know why,” Li Shuang had told them about their picnic plan, and everyone agreed to it. That meant they should know that he did not have too much time to sit in silence by being stared resentfully.
“Don’t you miss us?” Kang Xue was sharp as ever.
“I did miss you all, but it seems like you decided to scold me instead of giving me a hug or a kiss,” Tang Shaoyang opened his arms, but no one jumped at him as the three girls rolled their eyes at him, “See. I am working so hard that I can return early, but what I receive is a cold treatment.”
“Before we talk about something more important, I want to talk about your etiquette. You are an Emperor, and you should act like one. Your action will reflect the empire’s reputation, and I don’t think you are doing it,” Rosalie was the only one with the etiquette education, and she was the strictest even compared to Ava who was also a former royalty.
Tang Shaoyang rolled his eyes, “I don’t have the mood to be nice with them anymore. We keep being nice to them, and they will keep taking advantage of us. Let’s not be nice anymore, let’s be blunt and make them know that we are not a charitable organization that they can take advantage of.”
Zhang Mengyao and Kang Xue raised their right eyebrow. They knew something happened and changed Tang Shaoyang. The Earth Alliance was his idea, and he was willing to give the other factions the protection they needed inside the tower. But something changed, and he must encounter something that changed him. The two women who had been with Tang Shaoyang the longest immediately knew their husbands had changed.
“What happened with your administrator’s mission? Do you mind sharing with us?” Zhang Mengyao asked.
Tang Shaoyang shrugged and told them what happened, from the Hurakan Legion’s people’s scheme to the fight against the Emperor. Of course, he did not tell them in detail as it would take him maybe an hour or maybe even more. That was not the reason he came to the tower, so he gave them the short version. Rosalie furrowed her brow while Kang Xue and Zhang Mengyao nodded understandingly after hearing the story.
Zhang Mengyao did not press it further for the details and changed the topic, “What are you going to do with the alliance? Are we really going to step away from the city alliance as well?”
“Tell me the details of how the alliance formed?” Tang Shaoyang wanted to know what happened and how they could agree on an equal share from the resource point.
The city alliance was an agreement between the four alliances from the four worlds. On the second day in the city, the three alliances from the three worlds invited them for a meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to reach a peace agreement that they would not attack each other and would help each other if the other cities attacked them.
The meeting was not just one today, but it continued for five days in a row. On the fifth day, The Valeur Empire, the only faction from Valeur proposed the split idea. It was immediately supported by the two alliances’ representatives from Etherna and Gondar.
“Why did the meeting take so long?” Tang Shaoyang recalled that his meeting with the Divine Church and the other factions in the first-dimensional tower was less than half an hour before he stormed out. Curious, he asked for the details about the previous four days’ meeting, wanting to know what they talked about.
Initially, they talked about the four worlds explored in four different directions to avoid conflict. It did not make sense because there was no need to do that to achieve peace. They only needed not to attack each other while exploring, a simple solution. If two alliances found a treasure at the same time, they could resolve with trial of combat. Whoever won got the treasure while the two alliances that were not in the conflict would become the judge.
Peaceful exploration and peaceful solution to avoid the bloodbath between two worlds. That was what they were supposed to talk about, and he knew the meeting was just nonsense when Zhang Mengyao told him the Gondar Alliance proposed to hold a God Rank Tournament.
Why would they want to hold a tournament, and for God Rank at that. He immediately found out that the first four-day meeting was just a probe from the three alliances. They wanted to find out how many God Ranks that Earth had.
“How many resource points have we found? I mean The Earth Alliance as a whole, how many?” Tang Shaoyang asked.
Zhang Mengyao and Kang Xue did not know why he asked, but Tang Shaoyang noticed Rosalie’s changed expression. From a frown into a realization.
“The Earth Alliance has found six mines, and four gardens,” Zhang Mengyao answered.
“How many of the other three have been found?”
It clicked in Zhang Mengyao’s head when she heard the question. His eyes widened slightly, blinking her eyes in disbelief, “Gondar only found one, Etherna found two, and Valeur found none…” Her voice trailed off as the realization started to sip in.
The three alliances were using them to look for the resources, and what they had been doing so far? They tried to find a way to climb the tower or maybe find the other treasures. On top of that, the agreement said that whoever found the resources, would use their own people to harvest the resources and share them after. It meant The Earth Alliance had their people harvesting ten resource points and sharing them with the three worlds for free. Meanwhile, the three alliances only had one or two resource points.
“And we don’t know if they are being truthful whether they only have one or two resource points,” Tang Shaoyang added.
The three worlds knew that Earth was a weaker side compared to them, and they used that to their advantage. Even when The Earth Alliance found out that they were being used, what could they do? Fight the three worlds?
The three worlds had shown the Earth Alliance how many God Ranks they had. Zhang Mengyao told him that the people who joined the meeting kept changing, not always the same people. However, they kept introducing themselves with their rank. That was for them to show how many God Ranks the three worlds had.
Zhang Mengyao slumped and covered her face in frustration. She did not know how she could miss the obvious. If she knew they were being exploited, she would never agree to such an alliance.
“Don’t blame yourself. I understand why you make such a decision. I know you chose the safe option because I am not here with you guys. You were overthinking and prioritizing the safety of our people. There’s no need to blame yourself for that. You are doing the right thing,” Tang Shaoyang consoled her wives.
The decision they made was based on the safety of the alliance. They were aware that the small and the medium factions would not be able to compete. That was why they agreed to their proposal as it looked “reasonable” on the surface. The surprise was that the three worlds had so much patience to not immediately kick them down just like what happened in the previous dimensional tower.
The three worlds did not kick the Earth Alliance after knowing how many God Ranks they had, and they decided to play it “nicely” and exploited them instead. Tang Shaoyang was glad that Commander Edson tried to scam him, or else, he might stay in the frontier for another year, and his people would be bullied in the tower longer.
“What should we do now?” Zhang Mengyao asked in a tired voice.
“We can continue the alliance but we will remove the resource split.”
“They will not agree, and they will resort to the vote, and we will lose the vote. Three against one,” Rosalie shook her head. She felt like it was impossible to continue the alliance without continuing the resource split.
“Then tell them to fuck off! We survive the first-dimensional tower even though we are alone! Not just we survive, we thrive. Why are we afraid of them now?” Tang Shaoyang shrugged.
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