Chapter 1154 War Erupts
The consequences of stopping the broadcast would have been grim.
The show must go on– the kingdom of Edinburgh kept this philosophy alive while it was trying to suppress the negative impact of the infiltrators on the graduation event.
The compromised faction of the moderators as well as the infiltrators did not stop the live feed completely. At first, they showed the battles between genuine compet.i.tors.
However, Adam took over the broadcasting tower and started filtering out almost all the battles that had infiltrators" involvement in any form. As a result, live feed only covered battles that were genuine and did not have a foreign hand.
Of course, Adam was only supposed to do this until he ensured that the broadcasting wouldn"t be completely stopped by the kingdom of Edinburgh. He was supposed to focus on the infiltrators" victory over the partic.i.p.ants later on after the initial die had been cast.
Eren knew that most of his fights with the partic.i.p.ants were not broadcasted because of the infiltrators" arrangement. He only made a rare few appearances on the live feed when he was fighting with genuine partic.i.p.ants.
The butcher had performed optimally in the footage and allowed the genuine partic.i.p.ants to get saved by the defense mechanism. He only killed the infiltrators whose ident.i.ties were clearly compromised, which prevented Adam from showing such fights on screen.
After all, Adam wasn"t stupid to make the enemy side seem stronger. He preferred showing the battles in which the infiltrators managed to defeat and kill other rankers.
As a result, Eren made a little name for himself while steering clear of any form of trouble. He also started getting recognized by the big leagues of the kingdom. Some authorities had decided that they would try to pull Eren to the kingdom"s side by offering him various benefits.
The White Raven city started showing Eren"s battles in a loop when it did not receive sufficient footage of his new fights. Still, the city of White Raven remained as energetic as it could be.
People in the Edninica Arena"s audience like Altair, Altas.h.i.+a, Marla, Almera, Nina, Levine, and Jiana were looking forward to seeing more of Eren. But they started realizing that Eren"s on-screen time had gotten more edited out than the rest of the partic.i.p.ants. It was as if he was actively seeking conflict with the infiltrators so that the kingdom of Layos itself would be forced to keep his deeds offline.
The kingdom of Edinburgh was unable to decipher the infiltrators from partic.i.p.ants at first because it wasn"t aware of the eleven masks. Plus, the infiltrators did their best to maintain their forged ident.i.ties despite the obvious doubts one might have to see them perform on screen. This was so that they would be able to exit from the capital city if and when they got kicked out of Sansara World.
Ivor Osan was one such infiltrator. He followed Eren"s suggestion to a T, not pus.h.i.+ng his luck to get more benefits out of his daring act. He said no to the emergency aid provided to every ranker who had gotten outside the Sansara World.
Ivor exited from the city of Edin using his altered ident.i.ty. He then headed straight to the city of Lancelot to join Layla.
The dead bodies of the partic.i.p.ants, if they hadn"t been destroyed, would eventually disappear and be sent to a special morgue. They would be well preserved there and could be claimed by the partic.i.p.ants" families or friends after the event"s completion.
However, the claiming of dead bodies was only applicable to bodies that had been retrieved by Sansara World"s defense mechanisms. The rankers whose bodies were completely destroyed by their opponents or some external factors were added to the list of exceptions.
Ads by PubFuture Of course, rankers like Ken, Becky, and Gondel were also added to the list of exceptions. After all, they had been given a unique burial survive by the butcher.
Roth Riverine had come to realize that something bad must have happened with Ken. However, since Ken"s body did not come out of the Sansara World, he tried to remain hopeful– an endeavor he himself knew was only going to fail in the end.
Jason"s fight with Ivor was only half broadcast by Adam because he came to know that the Duke"s son had died in the conflict. The elf from Layos knew that hearing about his son"s death might influence Arthur to take extreme measures against them– something that he wanted to avoid for as long as he could.
Therefore, Adam edited out the last moments of Jason"s last-ever battle. And when Arthur enquired, he a.s.sumed his ident.i.ty as Jaime and told the duke that Jason was using his demonic powers. As a result, he had to edit Jason from the live feed.
Adam had decided to keep giving Arthur the same excuse for as long as it keeps working on him. The Duke was busy with other matters related to the event. So he didn"t find anything weird with Adam"s words.
After all, "Jaime" Had been serving Arthur for as long as he could remember. Also, the Duke of Edinburgh knew that Jason also wanted to test his demonic powers against stronger opponents. And the graduation event was supposed to give him just what he had been asking for.
Due to all this, the event kept on proceeding for the major part of the month without seeing any large activity outside the Sansara World. It was as if rankers from both the kingdom"s sides had come to a tacit understanding to let their younger generation settle the matter their own way.
The main players behind the scenes were going to get involved after the completion of the event.
Rather… that"s how it was supposed to be.
However, the news of newly erected Grim Pillars inside the Grim Pillar town started making rounds in the kingdom of Edinburgh. And when the image of the new Grim Pillars was shared, it forced the infiltrators from Layos to come out of their woodwork.
***
Last day of the graduation event.
Eren and the rest of the final partic.i.p.ants were teleported out of the Sansara World at last. They came to realize that they had found themselves in the middle of the potential battleground meant for Sages.
The war between the two kingdoms had finally erupted out in the open.