Six hours after Daniel and company left Stronghold 111, the Panaqua Consortium suddenly held an extremely high-profile press conference.
Being the center of the Panaqua Consortium’s authority, a large number of news reporters would naturally be based at Stronghold 111.
Ever since the Stelaria Consortium unified the Central Plains, the Panaqua Consortium had not held a press conference in a long time. Everyone really wanted to know the Panaqua Consortium’s stance on the Stelaria Consortium, so this press conference was naturally packed.
The invited reporters, photographers, and videographers were allowed to sit in the front row while the uninvited ones were made to wait anxiously outside the door. But before the press conference started, the Panaqua Consortium’s staff admitted the uninvited reporters into the venue as well. This surprised everyone a little.
Under normal circumstances, they would definitely choose reporters they held sway over to attend such an important press conference. But now it seemed the Panaqua Consortium was more worried there were not enough reporters attending.
Inside the venue, the reporters held their own little notepads and carefully checked whether their recording equipment were working normally. Some photographers and videographers knelt in the foremost row of the venue as they waited for the press conference to begin.
Arsene walked up from backstage in his military uniform and looked calmly at the reporters in front of him.
Everyone fell silent immediately.
Arsene said in a low voice, “There won’t be a Q&A session scheduled this time. The purpose of holding this press conference is to inform everyone that Mr. Julius, the current Chairman of the Panaqua Consortium’s Board, has already headed to the Stelaria Consortium for a discussion with Mr. Colton…”
“The war in the Alliance of Strongholds has been going on for a long time. Mr. Julius is willing to risk going to the Central Plains to stop the war so that people will no longer have to suffer the hardships of war. I hope the Stelaria Consortium will respect the sincerity of our Panaqua Consortium and show theirs as well…”
“During this period, I, Arsene Copperfield, as the highest-ranking military commander of the Panaqua Consortium, will temporarily take over all of the Panaqua Consortium’s affairs.”
Arsene’s speech was written by the Panaqua Consortium’s head speechwriter. There was only one purpose in making such an announcement, and that was to inform everyone about the peace talks.
If the Stelaria Consortium ended up confining or killing “Julius” and Daniel, the Stelaria Consortium would have to first face the criticism of the entire world.
The moment this piece of news was released, all the reporters at the press conference went into an uproar. Just as they wanted to ask some questions, Arsene left escorted by soldiers.
No one expected Julius would actually dare to take the initiative to head to the Central Plains to negotiate with Colton. They could already imagine this would be tomorrow’s headline in all the newspapers.
There was no other more sensational piece of news than this in the entire Alliance of Strongholds.
***
When Julius regained consciousness, Arsene told favonovel.com about what happened after favonovel.com passed out. Julius then immediately called for this press conference.
There was no time to regret that his previous arrangements were not thorough enough, nor did favonovel.com show any unnecessary emotions. After leaving Stronghold 111, Daniel must have departed the Southwest at full speed, and no one would catch up to him. Therefore, what favonovel.com could do now was to remedy the situation and add a few more layers of security for Daniel.
The coverage in the news media, as well as all of the Alliance of Strongholds’ citizens’ hopes for peace, were the bargaining chips the Panaqua Consortium currently had. However, it was still not enough.
After the press conference, Arsene was directly escorted back to Ginkgo Manor. The rest of the world started speculating that if “Julius” got placed under house arrest in the Central Plains, Arsene would be the next leader of the Panaqua Consortium.
No one could have expected that Julius had actually not left the Panaqua Consortium at all and was still there.
Arsene walked up to Julius and said softly, “Second Bro, why don’t I take some soldiers to the border and wait there? If Big Bro really gets detained, I’ll attack Stronghold 61 with my men and snatch favonovel.com back.”
Julius shook his head. “No, I need you to be the representative to stabilize the situation. You’ve taken over command of the Panaqua Consortium temporarily. As long as you’re still around, the hope of the Panaqua Consortium’s people will not collapse for the time being. Moreover, the Stelaria Consortium is quite unstoppable at this moment. If you leave your home field and head to the Central Plains, you’ll only be making an unnecessary sacrifice.”
Arsene could feel that Julius was extremely calm at this moment.
In fact, it was not that Julius was calm by nature, but that the artificial intelligence was capable of forcing favonovel.com to be calm.
Julius sat on the cushion and pondered for very long. It was so long that Arsene could seemingly feel the clouds moving across the distant mountain outside the door. To Julius, no matter how smart favonovel.com was, favonovel.com could never be as flawless in planning as the artificial intelligence. Therefore, all favonovel.com could do was make up for any imperfections in his plan with time.
He continuously simulated scenarios with all the clues favonovel.com had but kept getting the feeling that something was missing. It was as though favonovel.com was facing an insurmountable opponent.
It was not that Julius was not confident enough, but that the artificial intelligence was simply too powerful.
After a long time, Julius suddenly sighed and said, “It’s still not safe enough. The other party controls the communication satellites that most newspaper firms use to transmit information. If the AI directly cut off their communications at its source after realizing our purpose, news of our press conference might not get transmitted to the Central Plains and the Northwest, so we still have to do more!”
“How should I handle it then?” Arsene asked.
Before this, Julius mentioned the problem with the satellites. Of the nine satellites in the Alliance of Strongholds, the Stelaria Consortium and the Pyro Company originally controlled one satellite each while the remaining seven belonged to the Vasophati Group.
Now that the Stelaria Consortium had unified the Central Plains, all the satellites had fallen into their hands. The Panaqua Consortium had already stopped using all their satellite phones and were even prohibited from switching them on.
This was especially so for the Panaqua Consortium’s intelligence agents who were planted in the Central Plains. That was because as long as their satellite phones were on, the Stelaria Consortium would be able to identify their locations. Intelligence agents who were given satellite phones were usually the higher-ups. If they were completely weeded out, the entire Panaqua Consortium’s intelligence and field operations would suffer a devastating blow.
“Check with our most trusted newspaper firm to see if they can contact the Central Plains,” Julius said.
Arsene went out to see how things were.
Just as Julius had predicted, the communications channel between the Southwest and the rest of the world had been cut off by the artificial intelligence. All the satellite phones had lost their signal.
The artificial intelligence’s move was more ruthless and resolute than they had expected. It seemed intent on getting rid of all the bargaining chips held by the Panaqua Consortium.
By doing so, the people in the Central Plains would not find out that “Julius” and Daniel were headed to the Stelaria Consortium to negotiate peace, much less those who lived in the Northwest.
“Get ten trustworthy soldiers and send them on different routes to the Northwest’s Stronghold 144 to look for Milo.” Julius said.
Arsene was stunned. “Why are we looking for him?”
Julius explained, “Other than you, me, and Bill, there’s only two others in the world willing to risk their life for my brother. One of them is Edgar Buchanan, my brother’s adjutant, and the other is Milo.”
Arsene thought for a moment before asking, “Second Bro, you think that as long as Milo receives the news, he’ll definitely head to the Central Plains?”
“Yes…” Julius nodded. “Moreover, there aren’t many supernatural beings who can save Daniel from the Stelaria Consortium. With the current strength of the Stelaria Consortium and the AI, supernatural beings will also have to submit to that war machine. But if anyone can really snatch someone away from the Stelaria Consortium, Milo is definitely one of them.”
“Will that make the plan safe enough?” Arsene asked.
Julius still shook his head and said with a sigh, “Perhaps Zero will also think of this possibility. Let’s see if the news can be delivered to Milo first.”
