Not every guild could be like the Iron Blood Brotherhood, with a president who did not care about making money and kept pouring his own money into it.
Jerz wanted to make money from this, so aside from the high operating costs during wars, most of the guild's earnings went elsewhere, while players received very low wages during peacetime.
This was especially true for Pons and the second-tier legions under him. Nominally, Pons was the First Vice President, but in reality, he ranked first only because he had so many subordinates, most of whom were second-tier players.
When there was no war, the salaries of these Legion Commanders could barely keep them fed and clothed. They would rather follow Pons and launch wars against outsiders.
Poland and America had a five-hour time difference. In other words, when Poland entered the dead of night, America had only just reached evening.
For the past three days, Tom had been leaving the game early every day to make it up to Artemis. He called it work, but in truth, he was staying in Artemis's hotel room. All guild matters had been handed over to Christina's subordinates and his own men.
Therefore, when Pons led 800,000 players in a surprise attack on Tom's fortresses, Tom knew nothing about it. Tom and Jerz had originally been allies. Although they had some minor friction in the Claudio Region, it had ultimately been friction between brothers. No one truly believed they would go to war.
Yet Pons had shattered the stable friendship between the two. By the time Tom was called online, Pons had already captured six of Tom's fortresses in the Claudio Region, including a pass fortress. That meant that unless they broke through that pass, they could not reclaim a single one of the six