The capital base would definitely be the most heavily guarded as it was the most important base in any territory. However, to someone of Lian Po’s skill, this was not as daunting a task as it would be for some others. This was a part of the reason why he sent nearly a quarter of his forces to go take out the other bases of less importance. In tournaments as grand as those held by the Sun Alliance, the factions that survived until the end would surely have some super sturdy barricades for their likely large bases that were more like small cities with defenses.

Lian Po had just 8 days to take care of this base and move along to the next target that he had set in his mind, it would surely not be an easy task, but doable at least. He did not even his army set up camp and immediately sent half of his remaining army to attack the base with some of their more superior weaponry and vehicles of war. The other half remained and started to set up camp as per Lian Po’s orders. Though this may not be an unusual tactic, it was certainly only meant to be usable if the two sides were roughly equal in terms of firepower, but Lian Po had no idea which side was more powerful at the moment. For that, he would have to test out his opponents a bit more.

There was just a bit over ten hours of daylight left, he had to make it all count. His army was pushed ragged from the time that they started fighting all the way until the end of the day. This one day of fighting was all that Lian Po needed to gauge his enemy. Though they were able to muster up an army of 10 million to fight him on the plains in the previous battle, they put up most of their forces into that defending army and now they were seriously lacking in terms of power. After the dark, he told half of the army that stayed and set up camp to prepare for battle.

The plan that Lian Po thought was best in this situation was to have his men continue pouring on to the walls nearly non stop. He would rotate his army so that one half would be resting during the day and fighting in the night. While the other army would be resting during the night and fighting during the day. This maneuver was one that his army constantly did, so this was no surprise. However, what was a surprise was the fact that Lian Po was able to switch between the two armies in just 30 minutes time. For a multi-million man army, this was an insane time.

As expected, the enemies’ defense gradually weakened and weakened as the days rolled by. By the 5th day, Lian Po had managed to finally break through the defenses and took over the capital base. He left a sizable army there to defend his new territory as well as some of his most trusted strategists to deal with all of the matters that he could not be bothered to deal with such as dealing with the remaining enemy strategists, the enemy army, the bureaucracy, and all of those types of stuff. Xuan Feng and the other all-stars were able to complete the takeover of the bases that they had been assigned and followed along with their master to the next target of theirs.

This was not only happening with the other leaders of the Yellow Wang faction, but also all of the other major factions that were still left within the competition. The reason for such a mass scale invasion of their neighbors, unlike before where they were just watching, was that the Bair fighters were also starting to make their move. What this meant was that they would need to grow a lot stronger if they wished to compete with the seemingly unbeatable Bair fighters.

Of course, most if not all of the top factions realized that to them, the Bair fighters may as well be unbeatable as they had shown they were capable of during the aerial tournament. However, the top brass of the top factions was too prideful to ever admit to such a thing. That was why they were all in a mad dash to get the most resources possible which would make them more powerful than anyone else and that they would need to continue at such a frantic pace if they wished to catch up to or surpass the Bair fighters.

Every single of every day, there was a battle that was being waged with the number of factions coming to an ever-smaller number. This insane amount of bloodshed continued on for months. Finally, there emerged a couple of factions that would be able to claim that they were in the final lap of the tournament. The faction that dominated the East was none other than the Yellow Wang faction. Next up was the Sun Alliance that controlled the entire West regions.

Followed by the Middle Kingdom faction that had a semi-tight grip of the northern parts of the map. There was an alliance of 15 or so different large and mid-sized factions that merged together so that they would be able to compete with the others, they resided in the southern regions. Finally, the Bair fighters that had the most land and resources of them all had a complete grip of the central regions, being bordered by the other 4 simultaneously.

Of course, there were still a few other lucky factions that were sprinkled around, but they were so insignificant in terms of power that the remaining large factions didn’t even bother with them. Either that or the smaller factions willingly joined one of the larger factions. At this point in the competition, there were 5 main contenders for the top ranks, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t team up to take down a common army.