The meeting between the elders and leaders of the Forever Pirates faction soon concluded with everyone only thinking about one matter, just who was able to toy with so many elders. They have unanimously agreed that it was unlikely to be Zheng He since his style of warfare was drastically different from those of the tendencies shown by the one who they had fought against earlier. Since this was the case, they had to assume the worst and believe that there was now one more troublesome foe at the Vesper faction that they now had to deal with.
There was no doubt that this strategist must have an incredible talent if Vesper was willing to go to such great lengths to hide their identity. This would normally not be an issue if they were aware of who this person was, but they didn't know that type of basic intel. Meaning that they would have to be all the more careful of their next few moves until they have found out who it was.
Right now, the Vesper faction controlled the most amount of land, slightly more than the Forever Pirates since the elders essentially abandoned the land that they had previously conquered. The next group that held the largest amount of land was, of course, the Forever Pirates. After them would be a group that resided in the southeastern part of the map. This group went by the name of Combined Dragon Coalition.
They were only able to become so powerful was due to the fact that neither of the big 2 players was in their immediate vicinity, that would eventually change soon. It did not seem like the Vesper faction wanted this new group to be any more successful so they sent many fleets to subdue them, even going so far as to pay off and go through many other territories to fight the Combined Dragon Coalition.
Though they may have some players that were noteworthy, they were absolutely crushed in a record-breaking 6 days of warfare. This excursion from the Vesper faction highlights just how far they were willing to go to get their point across. The Forever Pirates were not idle during this time either as they also launched a few offensives into smaller territories that bordered them.
Even if these two main players of naval warfare were not directly attacking each other, they were competing in various other ways. One of which was to see who could capture the most land. No one was able to stand in their way, so they just steamrolled past all of the other less powerful naval powers.
It wasn't as if the two main players didn't have any trouble dealing with the smaller factions, it was just that the overwhelming amount of firepower that they brought along with them to every battle was just not something that any one group could deal with alone. After a month of this, the few remaining small fries took it upon themselves to band together and try to survive for as long as possible.
However small they were, a coalition was no laughing matter if they had enough power to change the tides of war, but they weren't even powerful enough to withstand a week or so's time of conquests from both of the major factions. Anyone who wasn't involved in that coalition was pretty much goners since after they were gone, no one even remotely stood a chance against the superpowers.
Within two months of this type of behavior, there only remained the Vesper faction and the Forever Pirates faction left to duke it out. The territories of each group were not that far off from each other, but that didn't matter much now as both sides were planning on how to launch offensives and defend their own lands. This could be said to have been a relatively quick tournament in the sense that it usually would have taken at least twice as long before there were only two factions left to fight it out for the number 1 spot.
There existed a small feature within high-level tournaments that would seek to balance the amount of land that every group left had to have to agree with in order to be used. This was essentially a way to decrease the amount of land that all the remaining territories at an equal pace, it was basically a way to shrink the map down so that the forces could be more concentrated and not spread out making them less effective. This was always used between the forces of Vesper and those of the Forever Pirates whenever they were the last two sides left standing. It has almost become a tradition of sorts.
The feature was used and almost immediately, the map shrunk to half of its original size with both sides losing the same amount of landmass. Now that this was done, it was easier for either side to focus more of their fleets to certain points and they also had to defend less area so it was a win-win for all sides involved.
Since the two sides had been at odds with each other for as long as they have, they had an unspoken agreement that there would be one month of preparation before either side would make their move against each other. This would allow each to build up their defenses, explore their territory better, train their troops a bit more, and a variety of other benefits that both sides would be able to reap if they respected the temporary peace.
Before you know it, the one month passed as fast as waters can turn bad. The two remaining factions knew that it would be a hard-fought battle no matter who ended up winning. There was only one thing left for the Forever Pirates to worry about now, how to figure out who in the Vesper's camp was capable enough to deal with so many elders in tow, especially with such precision that not even Madam Zheng would be able to achieve.