News from Shrek City, unsurprisingly, sent shock waves across the entire Douluo Continent.
Shrek City had clashed with the Federation, been struck by a twelfth-level Fixed Soul-Guided Artillery Shell, and Shrek Academy had fallen. The news needed no one to spread it; it swept across the Douluo Continent at explosive speed.
Cities close enough could see the terrifying mushroom cloud rising through the atmosphere and into space with the naked eye.
The Douluo Federation Parliament received word immediately.
Inside the Federation Speaker's office.
His secretary had just reported on the battle. Now the Federation Speaker sat there alone.
At that moment, his feelings about Shrek Academy were deeply conflicted.
Since the Federation's founding, Shrek Academy had been the deepest thorn in the side of its most powerful figures.
In an age when the continent had long since been unified, Shrek Academy was nominally "highly autonomous" and not directly subject to Federation law.
In truth, it was a state within a state—and one with enough terrifying military might to overturn the balance of power across the continent.
Nearly every top faction on the continent had powerful figures who had come from Shrek Academy.
In their hearts, Shrek had often left a deeper mark than the factions they served.
Nowhere was that influence more deeply entrenched than within the Douluo Federation itself.
The Federation's recent investigation had found that at least a substantial minority of parliamentarians had direct or indirect ties to Shrek.
The findings had caused an uproar throughout the Federation, and further investigation had revealed even more. Many former Federation Speakers had belonged to the Shrek faction, whose connections ran deep throughout Parliament.
Ironically, whether a newly elected Federation Speaker had ties to Shrek or not, every one of them had been hostile toward it.
To those who held supreme