Lei Chan's Resolve

This was a day that drew the eyes of all. The peace talks among the three great empires were finally held as scheduled in the Shadow Empire.

In the earlier battle at Warlock Fortress, the Fallen Angel Empire and the Blood Fiend Empire had remained locked in a stalemate. Only after the Shadow Empire joined in did the three nations enter truce negotiations. Yet during those negotiations, the three emperors were unexpectedly attacked by the dark force known as "Blood Annihilation," resulting in the death of Teres, the Blood Fiend Empire's young prince, while internal turmoil erupted across all three nations. The three emperors suspended the peace talks and focused all their efforts on quelling the unrest. Now that stability had returned to the three empires, the negotiations had finally resumed. Much like the previous "round-table conference" at Black Cloud Town, talks centered around the three emperors began in the conference hall of the Shadow Imperial Palace.

By rights, these negotiations should have gone far more smoothly than the last. At Black Cloud Town, the three sides had already reached a consensus on many conditions. Yet unexpectedly, a disagreement arose over the most crucial issue.

That issue was this: a truce agreement, or a peace covenant?

In negotiations such as these, the two could never be equated. A truce agreement meant that once the period of rest and recuperation ended, war would likely begin anew; a peace covenant, on the other hand, meant a true laying down of arms. Just like the covenant the three empires had signed three hundred years ago, it would forbid all warfare, and any nation that started a war would face the joint attack of the other two.

The heart of the disagreement lay with Lei Chan. He would agree only to a truce agreement,