The Rise of the Black Plain

While the Elves Island and some of the first envoys from the Divine Continent could not enter the North Sea, the situation in Dry City was somewhat tense.

The local government had been one of the first to notice signs of the detonation of Minos' Black Hole Bomb weeks ago. Hence, the government and the Stuart family knew their leader had recently fought.

Minos' soul signal was still active, but no one knew what his situation was. He could be from fine, investigating his enemies and the core of the North Sea, to be held hostage by his enemies or seriously injured.

There was no way of knowing his situation, but it was a fact that he was alive, along with Ruth, while several of his party had died.

Before leaving for the North Sea, Minos' companions had left items with his vital signs so that the imperial government would have an idea of what was going on.

Several deaths had occurred on the day of the explosion, so the group in Dry City knew something big had happened. But whether or not their people had succeeded was a question no one could answer.

But after the elves had contacted them a few days ago about the situation on the North Sea border, local concern had risen a few notches.

From the looks of things, the North Sea was completely inaccessible, which might indicate the enemy had sensed trouble and was taking cover. Such a sign was awful because it meant that there was a high probability that the enemy had won the battle against Minos' group!

So Minos' wives, Gloria and Abby, had been under a lot of stress in the last few days, while the part of the family that wasn't in the Spatial Kingdom had had almost daily conversations about what might have happened and how they should act.

At this very moment, another such meeting was taking place in the imperial palace!

...

"All we can do is wait," Gloria commented as she looked at several of Ruth's family members, Abby and herself, in the hall, along with key members of the army and local government. "I know that some fear that Minos has been taken by the enemies, but don't forget the means of escape he has at his disposal.

There is a strong possibility that he and his group have lost and fled to the Spatial Kingdom. If that's the case, he could go months or years without communicating with us. So we have to stay calm." 

Abby agreed. "Gloria is right. I know everyone is worried. She and I are the ones who have the most reason to be. But we can't stay like this. If he's in the Spatial Kingdom, he's preparing to act against the enemies and return home. Let's trust Minos and wait for his return."

Dillian nodded and said. "In the meantime, we must continue with His Majesty's plans. As much as we have to worry about the North Sea, we can't interfere.

We've already communicated with the elves and shared everything we know with the Pantheon of Honor. We're also trying to communicate with the Dragon and Phoenix tribes, so we should let them deal with the North Sea.

They are the ones who have the power to intervene in the situation. In the meantime, let's focus on fulfilling His Majesty's expectations to carry out the many agreements we've made in recent years."

The people there continued to worry but agreed that there really wasn't much they could do. The North Sea was inaccessible even to high-level cultivators at the 10th stage, so they should leave it to the experts.

In the meantime, all they could do was pray for their families and comrades while doing their best to develop the Black Plain Empire!

...

While the powers outside the North Sea were in the dark about the recent events in those vast areas of the Spiritual World's North Pole, Minos' group was still on the island that had previously been the headquarters of the world invaders.

After weeks there, their group had largely recovered from the previous battle. Some of those who had lost body parts were still not doing so well, as they needed specialized doctors to recover fully. 

But even they were no longer in danger of dying, while the others had fully recovered, with Minos having returned to his peak the day before.

But while they were slowly recovering in that relatively quiet place in the North Sea, the group had been exploring the gigantic enemy installation.

The place was huge. Despite being built inside a volcano, it was anything but simple and could easily contain a city of 10,000 inhabitants.

However, many of the rooms in this place were not human dwellings but laboratories, assembly lines, and training areas.

From what the group had discovered, the enemies were producing new robots here, as well as special warships, spaceships, and much more.

They could develop much of their technology with the minerals in the Spiritual World, which is why they wanted this world so badly.

Yes, they wanted this world for its minerals, which Minos' group had recently discovered after analyzing what was left behind.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much information about the enemy, such as their reinforcements, where they came from, how to get there, and so on. There wasn't that kind of information because Iktun had predicted his group's possible defeat and had skillfully erased the essentials.

But he didn't destroy everything because if his group had won, they would have needed information and methods to produce and repair their weapons and robots because all their specialists were not available after entering the cryogenic chambers.

Because of this, Minos' group found some blueprints and important information on how to repair the armor they had taken from their enemies' bodies!

That was very important to them!

Therefore, Minos had brought some of his experts from the Spatial Kingdom to this place to take care of the education of their young children.

Given the situation, he saw no problem in revealing the truth about his Spatial Kingdom to his allies. Then, he brought people with skills to study and learn how to manipulate the enemy's technology.

However, not all good things had happened to them while studying the enemy's headquarters!

A few days ago, Minos had ordered some of the group's sea creatures to vascularize the depths of the North Sea to understand better the area they were in.

That led them to discover many underwater mines where the enemy's resources came from, but it also made them realize the current situation of a large part of the North Sea!