At that moment, the internal forums for foreign players exploded into a white-hot debate.

The war hawks were fired up, calling for the integration of all Lord Players worldwide to form a multinational coalition. They wanted to focus their firepower on Hua Country and Qin Feng, vowing to strangle this "Cheating Level" player faction in its cradle and avoid being picked off one by one.

The peace faction, on the other hand, was more conservative. They advocated for making overtures of goodwill, trying to curry favor with Qin Feng by offering rare resources, signing vassal agreements, and other such methods.

Their core demand was simple: they hoped that after Tier Four of Qin Feng’s world began, he wouldn’t lead the Hua Country Lord Players to attack their own national realms during the large-scale, country-level Plane Wars.

White Tiger Sword: "Curry favor? That’s just wishful thinking! Tingfeng’s Divine Chosen Legion is already absurdly strong. If we don’t team up to take him down now, we won’t even get a chance to beg for mercy once he’s finished consolidating all the Lord Players in Hua Country!"

Wrath of the Ganges: "Team up? With what? He has at least 100,000 Divine Gift Ancient Giant Dragons, plus Divine Gift Royal Dragon Cavalry with an 80% Dodge rate! A head-on fight is just suicide! And after that, we’ll be targeted by Tingfeng and the other Hua Country players! We’re better off making peace! We can just bide our time until Tingfeng ascends to the fifth-stage Divine Domain!"

Seoul Warrior: "Cowards! Compromising now is just a slow death! Today he can steamroll the elite players of the Eagle Country Realm; tomorrow he can flatten the realms of our other countries! Only by gathering the world’s forces for a fight to the death do we have a sliver of hope!"

Krieger88: "A sliver of hope? Have you seen a Divine Gift Ancient Giant Dragon with 200,000 HP and percentage-based Healing? Even if all the players in the world team up, as long as we can’t form a super-massive player legion, we’ll just be feeding them kills! We might as well develop peacefully together! Going slow is better than getting beaten up every day!"

SamuraiBlade: "Develop? Qin Feng’s power will only grow stronger! If we don’t stop him now, by the time he unlocks more Divine Gift legions, we won’t even have a chance to develop if he gets even a little ambitious! We have to act now!"

Wrath of the Ganges: "We can only act if we have a chance of winning! Right now, we don’t even have a way to break the Divine Gift Ancient Dragons’ defense or kill those Royal Dragon Cavalry! Teaming up is just a pointless sacrifice! We’re better off currying favor with him first! Call a truce with Hua Country and secretly look for a way to deal with him later!"

White Tiger Sword: "Secretly look for a way to deal with him? By the time you find one, we’ll all be crushed by him! Hua Country players are already united! Add Tingfeng’s Cheating Level combat power to the mix, and they’ll rally to his call instantly! If we don’t crush him now, we’ll never get another chance!"

Amazon Falcon: "Hilarious! We Lord Players from all over the world are not on the same page! Can you guarantee no one will secretly make a deal with Qin Feng? Forcing an alliance will just lead to internal strife! In the end, we’ll still be picked off one by one! That’s why making overtures of goodwill is the safest choice!"

Unfortunately, no matter how heated the arguments among the pleb Lord Players on the forums became, they couldn’t influence the final decisions their respective national realms made about "Tingfeng" and "Hua Country."

This was because the ones who truly held their destinies in their hands were never these casual players who could only talk big.

Instead, it was the massive, top-tier Player Alliances with their deep-rooted and intricate networks of power within each national realm.

These massive Player Alliances held vast resources and controlled the strongest core players.

Therefore, the strategic direction of each country would ultimately be decided by them.

...

「Real World. An unnamed island hidden deep in a western ocean.」

The sea breeze, thick with the damp smell of salt, battered the window frames. The atmosphere in the conference room was as heavy as iron.

The general representative, jointly elected by the major Player Alliances of the Eagle Country Realm, sat at the head of the table. His gaze swept over the representatives from the other countries’ Player Alliances as he began to speak in a low voice:

"Here’s the situation."

"We have fully disclosed all the intelligence we have on Tingfeng."

"If any of you still have doubts, feel free to ask the spies you have planted in the Eagle Country Realm—they all personally witnessed the annihilation of the Eagle Country’s elite Player Alliance. The information is completely genuine."

The moment the Eagle Country representative finished speaking, the silence in the conference room was broken by a series of small movements.

Someone’s fingertips suddenly clenched the edge of the table, their knuckles turning white from the force. Their eyes were fixed on the intelligence files spread across the table, their Adam’s apple bobbing unconsciously.

Another person raised a hand to stroke their chin, the pads of their fingers rubbing repeatedly over their stubble. Their brows were knitted into a deep furrow, their eyes filled with calculation and gravity.

Someone else picked up a cold glass of water but forgot to drink, merely turning it over and over in their palm, oblivious as the condensation on its side dampened their fingertips.

A representative from another country, sitting diagonally opposite, leaned forward slightly. With his elbows on the table, he pressed his interlocked hands to his forehead, as if struggling to digest the shocking news.

A few other national representatives exchanged a glance. Their lips moved as if to speak, but they held back in the end, simply shaking their heads slightly. Disbelief and a flicker of barely perceptible panic churned in their eyes.

Just then, the roar of the wind-whipped waves crashed against the alloy bulkheads, and the dull echo lingered in the conference room for a long time.

At either end of the long, redwood conference table, the cold white light from the overhead fixtures sharply outlined the figures of the national representatives. Their fingers unconsciously stroked cool metal water glasses, condensation sliding down the sides to leave damp spots on the dark tablecloth.

The rich aroma of cigars mingled with the salty tang of the sea, creating an air thick with tension.