Today's first update: Chapter 3169! 1/4!
Inside the Huang Race camp, negotiations were nearing their end. Outside, however—especially within the Black Tortoise Race and the Crocodile Race—everyone waited in anxious unrest, their eyes fixed on the final outcome of Erh and Xuan Shiba's trip.
On the Black Tortoise Race's side, the core circle of power led by the Seven Great Princes, who had pushed Erh into office, did not truly care about the lives of those eighteen Tribe- trấn Turtle Kings, nor did they care about the safety of the hundreds of millions of ordinary Black Tortoise Race soldiers still struggling desperately on the Mongoose Race battlefield.
To these dignitaries, who had long placed their own factional interests above the race's overall interests, those lost troops had, in the end, been the direct loyalists of the former Tortoise Lord, Eight Wise Kings. Their destruction, from a certain perspective, even helped weaken the remnants of the old lord's influence and made the coming reshuffle of power and redistribution of resources easier.
What truly worried them now—and even made them regretful—was whether Erh himself could return safely.
Before leaving, Erh had publicly instructed the Seventh Prince that if he unfortunately failed to return, the Seventh Prince would temporarily assume the position of Tortoise Lord.
Yet that seemingly secure "final order" would have absolutely no chance of being carried out if that moment truly came!
The Seven Great Princes had always harbored their own schemes, their interests tangled together in complex ways. Without Erh—the legitimate "buffer" and "spokesman" they had jointly pushed to the forefront—the Black Tortoise Race's internal struggle would instantly reach a fever pitch, plunging into total chaos without a leader, with everyone fighting for themselves.
At that point, forget dealing with the external threat of the Huang Race; the