Has he lost his mind?
That was practically Li Wei's first thought upon hearing this explosive news.
Luskan's coveting of Moonshadow Island had been plain for all to see in recent years, yet few believed Luskan would immediately launch a war against it.
The reason was simple: economically and militarily alike, Luskan was not yet prepared.
Even Aklam, the Guild Leader of the Arcane Brotherhood, should have understood that if it remained merely "pirate raiding" like before, everyone could still turn a blind eye. After all, Luskan's deep-diving warships were indeed formidable at sea. Any single city-state force, even if it went to great lengths and dispatched warships to suppress them, would likely find the effort exhausting and unrewarding.
But once he truly started this war, what Luskan would face would be far more than a single Moonshadow Island. It would be the united pressure of the port city-states and nations across the entire Sword Coast waters, perhaps even direct military intervention.
This concerned the fundamental interests of nearly every power along the Sword Coast.
And interests were not to be violated!
Touch my plate, and I'll draw a knife on you!
Precisely because this was a conclusion any sane person could reach, Luskan's abnormally brazen declaration of war seemed all the stranger.
Could it really be that Luskan believes the secret of its ghost ships has been exposed? To prevent the other city-states from targeting them afterward, they had no choice but to launch this war of aggression early—swallowing Moonshadow Island before the others found a way to counter them?
Li Wei vaguely felt that the truth might well have a great deal to do with that.
Once the "technical" secret of those ghost ships was cracked, their fatal weakness was laid bare.
It was just one giant squid.