The Martial Unity

Life in the G'ak'arkan Tribe was quite simple.

One ate, slept, and fought.

This was their daily cycle and everything else in their lives revolved around it. Each day they would prepare the entire day to engage in some physical conflict with another Martial Tribe that also occupied Vilun Island, or they themselves would find themselves to be the target of some attack or assault of another Martial Tribe.

The G'ak'arkan Tribe were mountain folk, although the Vilun mountain was not too large, it was the sole mountain on the island and the G'ak'arkan Tribe occupied it. The mountain gave them a natural advantage as they could leverage their long-range specialty the best with the natural inclination that the terrain gave them.

The conflicts between the Martial Tribes of the island were straightforward and head-on. They did not ever seem to engage in asymmetric warfare and covert operations that could turn the tables in their favor, for some reason. The outcomes of conflicts were largely contingent on the quantity and quality of warriors involved. An overwhelming proportion of the conflicts that occurred on the island were limited to human-level and Apprentice-level spats.

A smaller proportion of conflicts involved the Martial Squires that fought independently, for their destructive power was too strong to be fighting between humans. None of the Martial Tribes of Vilun Island wanted their own Martial Squires accidentally massacring their own people inadvertently in the middle of fighting against Martial Squires. This was a universally undesirable outcome, thus across time, an unwritten agreement had naturally formed between all of the Martial tribes of the island.

Conflicts need to be segregated by Realm.

Every day, human-level clashes would spark between different Martial Tribes, and Martial Apprentices would frequently also get into fights with the Martial Apprentices of other tribes.

The deployment of Martial Squires was much more special and was reserved for targeted moments. These conflicts were much more destructive and every Martial tribe needed to be careful with where and when these Martial Artists fought.

However, the most destructive fights in Vilun Island were between the leaders of each of the Martial Tribes; the Martial Seniors.

These exalted beings were so far above everybody else, that the rest may as well have been no different from insects. These warriors did not pick fights frivolously, even if there was an opportunity for a Martial Senior to wipe out hapless Martial Apprentices or Martial Squires of enemy tribes, they would not bother lifting a hand themselves to destroy the lessers. It was beneath them, no different from an adult bullying little children.

The few times they did fight against Martial Seniors, the entire island would sit tight and grit its teeth.

Such was the power of the most powerful warriors of the island, even separating one's self from the battlefield of these mighty warriors to the other side of the island did not guarantee safety. Their power was too oppressive.

The few times that they did fight would leave scars on the island that sometimes never faded away!

It was the pinnacle of physical conflict

Such was the life of the Martial tribes of Vilun Island.

A static monotony of head-on and straightforward physical conflict that all participating tribes had grown not only intimately familiar with but also comfortable with. It was all they had known, and all they would know; eternal conflict on this chunk of land that was surrounded by infinite seas.

Or so they thought.

The arrival of aliens to the island was one of the most shocking events to have ever happened on the island.

They arrived on a strange, large vessel that lumbered aboard water towards the island. Not a single Martial tribe on the island had missed the arrival of the original ship of the Kandrian Empire and the Martial Union that first discovered Vilun Island. Their innate fears had largely been dispelled when they saw that even the Martial Apprentices and Martial Squires of their tribes were able to obtain a dominant victory against the outsiders who had boarded onto the island and had begun exploring and even extracting resources aggressively the moment they arrived.

A single attack sent the hapless aliens packing where they came from, but not before a lot of them, died because they weren't strong enough.

They weren't much of a threat, it seemed.

Yet despite getting beaten black and blue and running away entirely in a shameful display of cowardice, the aliens returned. This time, they smiled, offered gifts that the Martial tribes appreciated, and even attempted to hold dialogue, as difficult as that was initially. They went all out in pleasing the Martial tribes and making friends with them despite their fellow aliens being killed by their people.

In the eyes of the Martial tribe, this was a sign of weakness and cowardice.

What kind of tribe befriended the murderers of their own tribesmen?

It became clear to the tribe folks that the alien tribes were probably weak and cowardly, and not worth paying much attention to. They strongly rejected the strange contraptions and objects that they brought along, disdaining them as a pathetic means to cover up for their weakness.

They scoffed when the aliens sent mere ordinary humans as representatives of their entire tribe, or their 'union' as they insisted on calling it. Only the strongest of the tribe could represent the entire tribe.

Yet the aliens sent a bunch of ordinary humans to represent their entire tribe?

What a joke.

Furthermore, these humans were not even Martial Artists, but they had no combat ability whatsoever. Even the children of the Martial tribes were strong enough to beat them up.

What the Martial tribes found to be most humorous was that despite being so weak and cowardly, the alien tribe had the gall to offer a trade to obtain their techniques.

The sacred techniques that they had inherited from their powerful and glorious ancestors?

The diplomats were laughed away.

Yet their laughter froze when the aliens seemed to regain basic common sense and sent a Martial Artist to represent them for the first time.