It was fine for them to attack Lu Yang together. What they feared was attacking openly while someone secretly cooperated with Lu Yang. Then everyone else would be the ones out of luck. Being able to unite for defense was already pretty good.
The situation on the New Continent was delicate. Lu Yang held the largest territory, followed by Radvijev and Jerz, then Tom and Stephen, with Roland, Sanyou Weimen, and Anatoly at the bottom.
The eight central guilds had originally been equals, but one war had shattered that balance. Those who gained less territory harbored resentment, while those who gained more feared that the others had ulterior motives. With Olma eliminated, the remaining seven were no longer on the kind of terms where they could cooperate to attack Tiger's Maw.
Tom had not expected no one to agree with his proposal. He sighed and said, "Fine. Then let's just wait here until he wipes us out one by one."
His words were not baseless. Given the Iron Blood Brotherhood's current strength, it controlled the former Piao Renyi Region, Tianlong Region, Nine Stars Alliance Region, Bu Dengtian Region, his own region, Black Gauze's region, Spain Region, Eight Nation Alliance Region, and Olma's region.
That made nine major regions. Under normal circumstances, they should have been able to field twenty-seven million core players. Every one of those players was on par with Tom's core players. Including support players, Lu Yang alone should have been able to mobilize around fifty million people.
Yet Lu Yang had not done so. He still maintained only twelve million core players, while handing the vacancies for the other fifteen million core players over to affiliated guilds. They paid and contributed manpower themselves, while he saved the salaries for nine million players—the military budget—and used it to