After Liu Qing's battle with Xun Chaoze, the Tide Family had secretly begun cooperating with the Namikaze Family, establishing a foothold in Unova through covert means while the clothing industry served as their public front!
As the economic warfare continued, the smaller players in the clothing industry who had hoped to pick up scraps behind the major powers were the first to buckle under their losses. Businesses went bankrupt in droves, swallowed by Qiao Ya or bought up by other major powers seizing the opportunity. That wave of collapse swept through the medium-sized businesses as well. Only those that recognized the danger and withdrew in time escaped, though even they suffered heavy losses; the rest were consolidated and absorbed by larger companies. Meanwhile, the financial storm that had begun in the clothing industry spread into other sectors. Even without the involvement of Wave Wind and Bourgeois, many small and medium-sized businesses could no longer hold out and had no choice but to accept buyouts from larger companies. Where there had once been too many competitors chasing too little profit, there were now fewer competitors and far more to go around. The major companies all had lucrative acquisitions to integrate, leaving them little spare energy or reason to compete with Qiao Ya during this period. Thus, while the major powers consolidated their acquisitions, Liu Qing and the other Pokémon Trainers finally enjoyed a quiet spell after several months of intense battles.
After a week's rest, Liu Qing gathered all the Namikaze Family's Pokémon Trainers together. After so much fighting, their numbers had inevitably fallen from over a hundred to fewer than a hundred. Yet the ordeal had weeded out the weaker members, and those who remained had undergone tremendous changes in their strength, practical combat ability, and morale.
"Everyone, our first