On May 6, 3782 of the Continent Calendar, a piece of news rocked the entire Sains Continent.
The Candel Empire announced that investigations had revealed the Xinfei Merchant Guild's involvement in various illegal activities within its borders, including covert support for organizations rebelling against its royal family. It therefore declared the Xinfei Merchant Guild an illegal merchant guild and imposed a complete ban on its operations within the empire.
At the same time, to hold the Xinfei Merchant Guild accountable for its crimes and safeguard the Candel Empire, the empire declared the guild a hostile entity, severed all cooperation with it, and issued an official statement to the Stantin Duchy demanding that it likewise ban and shut down all Xinfei Merchant Guild activities within its borders.
At the end of the statement, the Candel Empire made it perfectly clear that if the Stantin Duchy failed to comply with its demands, the empire would take direct action against the Xinfei Merchant Guild itself.
The moment this statement came out, the entire Sains Continent was shocked.
The Xinfei Merchant Guild was currently the most prominent merchant guild on the Sains Continent. It possessed magic machinery technology coveted by countless nations and organizations, as well as powerful military magic machinery that many countries deeply feared. It had already become the continent's strongest merchant guild in terms of overall strength.
The Candel Empire, meanwhile, was one of the Sains Continent's two great empires-arguably even the most powerful nation on the continent.
The two had clearly been cooperating well before this. Why had they suddenly turned against each other?
Some people immediately thought of the bloody clash that had taken place at the Nam Co Mine in the northwestern Dero Kingdom the previous month.
The Candel Empire's insistence on involving itself in that incident had