All the necessary preparations were made, and the plan was implemented immediately, and smoothly. Of course, the initial part of the plan was rather straightforward and easy, and low-risk. All they had to do was stage low-risk conflicts, before slowly turning up the heat and increasing the numbers that they dispatched each time.
They breached the hunting territory of the K'ulnen Tribe, infringing on the game, and water sources among other things, ensuring that they got into scuffles, and ensuring that they won.
It was nothing special and drew no large attention from any martial tribe, including even the K'ulnen Tribe.
Vilun Island was a relatively large island, especially when compared to the actual amount of land that was inhabited by humans. The Martial tribes were suspected to not attempt building empires by expanding their territory and population due to wanting to ensure that there remained enough of a separation between their territories and that of their enemies and rivals.
What that meant was that ordinarily, it wasn't easy to actually run into the groups belonging to the other Martial tribes.
Yet, it happened all too frequently on Vilun Island.
A good distance away from the Martial Union settlement, a large group of soldiers of the Martial Union was working together.
Today's operation was particularly important. Amongst the human soldiers were actually two Martial Apprentices of the intelligence team that had hidden and disguised themselves as ordinary humans. Their goal was to intercept any Martial Apprentice that the K'ulnen Tribe dispatched when conflicts broke out.
According to the data that they had at hand, they had managed to correctly identify the scale of human-level conflict at which the K'ulnen Tribe tended to escalate by deploying a Martial Apprentice.
The Martial Union had hit that stage very recently, and Rui had deployed two shadow-class Martial Artists and ensure that when that did happen, their forces were more than adequate to catch the Martial Apprentice off-guard.
Once that happened, hostilities would officially be broken with the first Martial Artist clash between the Martial Union and the K'ulnen Tribe.
Rui had even posted some Martial Apprentices some distance away further behind in case the K'ulnen Tribe deployed more than one. Rui didn't want the first Martial Art conflict between the Martial Union and the K'ulnen Tribe to go poorly. That would reflect very poorly on the Martial Artists of the Martial Union, even if it was only a superficial understanding of what happened.
"The A-team is about to make contact with a hostile group," An intelligence officer reported.
Rui and Captain Cravis stood together in the intelligence facility.
There was a team of analysts and intelligence agents that were coordinating with the large group of infantry personnel that had already been deployed to cross the K'ulnen Tribe's hunting territory.
Rui leaned forward as he glanced at the screens on the terminals resembling something one would see in the ancient spy thriller movies that were made in the twentieth century. The screen showed the approximate positions of the Martial Union infantry team, and the interception team that was deployed by the K'ulnen Tribe was only a minute away from clashing with the infantry of a Martial tribe that took itself too seriously.
"The teams have made contact, so says our surveilling scout at the sight," An intelligence officer cited.
Far away from the intelligence facility in the settlement, two large groups of infantry had already clashed with each other.
"Get off our turf!"
"Fuck off outsiders!"
"Alien bastards!"
Perhaps it was due to the fact that they were especially frustrated and wound up due to the many conflicts that they were involved with, at the moment. They launched themselves at their opponents without any hesitation. Rushing forward with primitive weapons in their hands.
"Bring it on!"
The Martial Union's infantry may pale drastically compared to its Martial forces, however, even the infantry was very well trained and honed. They were highly professional, and these kinds of missions and operations were the one place where their prowess had any meaning and bearing at all in this respect.
That section of the forest had so much noise coming from it that it drove away any of the animals away at the first century.
Suddenly, a strange noise drew their attention from all of the fighters on the battlefield.
Everybody turned just in time to witness a single small projectile elevate into the sky quickly before;
POP!
A large amount of smoke was the first thing that they all saw. For a moment, everybody stopped fighting for a second.
"They've deployed a signal," Captain Cravis announced to the teams. "Seems like the prediction was accurate after all."
Everybody exchanged glances. "Martial Apprentice. One."
"Let's go with plan B then," Rui nodded, sighing. He hadn't expected that two Martial Apprentices would be deployed from the very start.
"Understood, sir."
The two Martial Apprentices raced forward at a great speed, it hadn't taken them very much longer to reach their destination.
Yet just as their two Apprentice-level auras were about to completely overwhelm the human forces, three more rose up. Yet before the surprised K'ulnen Martial Artists could reply.
POW POW POW
The two Martial Apprentices guarded as they barely managed to block three wind projectiles, halting them in their paths.
"Targets' approach to our team has been halted," Captain Cravis smiled mildly at that news.
Rui on the other hand, was much more cautious, despite feeling happy himself.
"All that training and prep has paid off nicely, it seems," Rui nodded.
It wasn't just enough to have really good techniques, that's why the Martial Artists had been tested and trained enough to coordinate their attacks to make sure that the impact is also very high. Stopping two Martial Apprentices simultaneously would certainly look very optimal for the G'ak'arkan Tribe that was no doubt watching the fight, they probably developed a much greater impression of their techniques that has just grown much bigger. This was just the first step out of many.
