The Rise of the Black Plain

While Minos was solving some problems in the empire, Gloria was with the leaders of the Spiritual Church for the northern region.

With her were only people native to that region who had joined the Church after the development initiated by Minos and her in creating their faction. Hence, there were no high-level Spiritual Saints among these people.

However, there were low-level Spiritual Saints, and the strongest of them was already at level 72, something extraordinary for a native of the northern region.

Besides Minos and Abby, the strongest natives of the region were in the Black Plain Army, between levels 71 and 73. These were the cases of Elen Nash, Barbara, Peter Freeman, Dillian, and Eduard, people who had accompanied Emperor Stuart for a long period.

As such, having people at levels 70, 71, and 72 on her side was impressive for Gloria, and the Church forces for the northern region currently were by no means weak.

In addition to these domains, she had faction members in the Vogel area, the kingdoms of Albano, Rosser, Blackrock, and the Flaming Empire. Counting these territories, her faction had dozens of mid-level Spiritual Saints and more than a dozen high-level Spiritual Saints cultivators.

That was quite impressive for a faction created only a few decades ago!

Precisely because of the age of this faction, the current pressures generated by three of the four major factions of the Church competing for the position of Supreme Pontiff were substantial.

Gloria was meeting right now with the Church leaders in the northern region to address these issues!

In the meeting hall of this post, the representatives of Snow, Waves, End, Stone Island, Brown, and Cromwell were seated around a large table, where Gloria was in one corner.

Currently, the Spiritual Church had Matriarchs and Patriarchs in each of these territories, with them being led directly by the Church headquarters since there were no Cardinals in either the Black Plain Empire or the Flaming Empire.

But these people reported to Gloria because of her position as head of the faction and wife of Emperor Stuart.

She then began this meeting. "Very well. I hope everyone is receiving their resources regularly and progressing as we hope."

"Yes, His Majesty's men have never failed to deliver resources at my post." The Stone Island representative said.

"The same for End's post. And even though I spend most of my time in that place, I have been making rapid advances... I've managed to level up once in the last six years." A woman, level 71, said with a smile on her face.

For people who didn't have access to the Spatial Kingdom, the same techniques that those closest to Minos had, or the option to train with him, cultivation was much more complicated and slower...

But advancing once every six years in the early part of the 8th stage was not bad. But, the opposite of that, that person could be considered talented!

Gloria heard from each of them that deliveries were regular and they were progressing within what she and Minos expected.

By joining their faction, a person would be constantly evaluated. If one-day such people failed to deliver results beyond the minimum acceptable, they would decrease the support that person could receive.

So, after hearing the good news, she went straight to the recent problem that her state and family had been suffering. "Melanie, Mirabella, how are your domains? I know the situation in Snow is bad, but how problematic are things being over there?"

Mirabella saw Gloria looking at her and spoke first. "Matriarch Frost, the situation in Snow is really complicated. Due to the movement of Spiritual Sages in that area, the increasing number of people from this stage, and the 8th stage stopping in the city, Cardinals constantly show up there.

Because of this, in several situations where my group was about to help Snow's Assembly with matters with these foreign experts, we were stopped by low-level Cardinals."

The Church had rules about the presence of its experts in the domains where they were present.

This organization didn't want to appear to the world and in fact had no interest in being a sovereign power over territories, in becoming an imperial house. So it avoided making it appear to the leaders of its domains that it was interested in replacing them.

Because of this, one would rarely see a Church person stronger than the emperor or king of a given land.

A Church rule regulated this, saying that specialists stronger than these sovereigns could only stay temporarily in their territory.

But this rule also said that in case large amounts of specialists stronger than these sovereigns started to appear in their domains, the Church would send people of equivalent strength to keep an eye on the situation.

The Church depended on its domains to maintain its power, so it wouldn't let any part of its territory be thrown into chaos by the weakness of the sovereigns in those areas.

With this, Cardinals were currently appearing weekly on the coast of the old Snow Kingdom.

Minos and Gloria knew these people could not be easily removed and were not just there to 'keep the peace' regionally. Their goal was clearly to make their presence felt in the northern region, slowly weaken the faction of the two, and pressure the two to join one of them.

With these Cardinals in the region, it was becoming more difficult for the Minos and Gloria faction members to remain so loyal to them.

With what these groups from the Evergreen Empire had to offer, it was tough to compete for supporters!

Even those people in that hall next to Gloria were tempted to accept becoming members of other factions!

They just didn't do it because they feared Minos more than Spiritual Sages!

They had seen what Minos was like several times over the past decades. The Stuart Emperor was vengeful, spiteful, someone who would brutalize an enemy's corpse after killing them. He was someone who would kill unarmed people and eliminate organizations that had already raised the white flag.

As for these Spiritual Sages, they were strong, it was true. But nobody knew if they would be as terrible as Minos...

Not only that, Minos' cultivation speed was not slowing down. So the day might come when he would become a Spiritual Sage.

That's why these people remained loyal to them, even though they were tempted to change sides!

Melanie, leader of the End post, said. "Various groups outside the region have also occupied the area further to the southeast of the former Kingdom of the End. In addition, several kingdoms and empires on the mainland have been creating fortifications in the area, from where I believe they will have support posts for their groups in the empire."

Going to Elves Island from this area was impossible because of natural barriers. But this territory was close to the area of the old Snow Kingdom from where specialists were going to that island.

So it was interesting for outside powers intent on having outposts in the Black Plain Empire.

Since it was in the interest of Gloria's group not to have such strong people locally, their presence was a problem!

...