Once the Glass Shard region was completely under Baron's control, he left some of his soldiers and a few strategists there to run it and left with the rest to do a bit more conquering. Of course, they had to stop and restock on supplies, soldiers, and repairs, but after that, everyone around the region did not pose much of a threat to Baron's life as Huan Yi and his group did. Speaking of which, everyone in the Glass Shard faction had been killed as per Baron's orders, no exceptions.
Similarly, the other two groups had little to no difficulty conquering their respective regions for the time being. It would now become quite a race to see which one of the remaining groups would be able to swallow each other whole.
This type of warfare went on for the next year which resulted in 100 main groups that had some chance of taking the title, and about a thousand more that were still waiting to be swallowed as they held no chance of winning anymore. That is, of course, with the exception of the Bair fighters once again.
Their influence from being the most powerful group in this tournament was an extraordinary one. Not only has no one still not had the guts to take them down, but most everyone was still running away from them even with their inactivity. It did not seem like they were planning to do anything for a little while yet, so everyone could take it easy for a little while longer. In everyone's hearts' they knew that once the Bair fighters got serious, there was nothing that most of them could do but delay the inevitable.
Right now, the map was split up into 5 different regions that were nearly the same area as each other. These were divided up into North, South, East, West, and central areas. Baron and Zhang Da Zhi's groups were both in the central regions, which most would argue would be the place that would be worst as you would be surrounded by enemies at all times. For the other regions, this wasn't too bad as long as you could conquer your way to the edge of the map, or be lucky enough to be placed there from the beginning.
Of the major factions, the Sun Alliance faction, and what few Middle Kingdom faction members were inside the West area. As it stood now, these two powerhouses were the furthest away from Baron's current position. The Yellow Wang faction was inside the East area and that was why Baron's team alongside Zhang Da Zhi's alliance did not dare to conquer the East regions. The North and South areas were also filled with many, many talented individuals and powerful factions, but they could not hold a candle to the top 3 factions of the Chinese community.
Anyone within each of the 5 different territories was not limited to their own and they could go past the borders. These were really for identifying where all of the major players of each tournament were situated at. With the progression of the tournament, each surviving alliance that wasn't part of a faction would need to be much stronger than they would have been before if they wished to keep it that way.
As a general rule of thumb, the top three factions agreed that they would not really do much for the first little while and allow those of lesser standing than them to get a chance to prove their worth. However, this really only applied to elders and leaders of each faction and they all bent the rules a little bit. They chose to do this as a way to test the new talent that they had recruited over the years and see just where they stood in terms of skill and whatnot. These young fellows were allowed to do anything they could in order to achieve the most amount of land.
This sort of tradition has become a type of entertainment that the 3 factions enjoyed. However, with the Middle Kingdom not even recruiting anyone, only the Yellow Wang faction and the Sun Alliance faction were still really doing it. They would send out dozens to see which among them would be the most worthy of respect. The 4 leaders of the Yellow Wang and the inner circle of the Sun Alliance started to bet over which side would have better performance, and slowly the amount climbed from 1 million silver coins to 5 to now 25 million. To such large factions, this was pocket change, but this amount would make any strategist drool.
One of the most popular young talents this time around for the Yellow Wang faction was a person by the name of Xuan Feng. Selected by Lian Po of the 4 leaders himself. He was a purely strategic tactician who never participated in battles himself but did not usually need to as he was able to outmaneuver and outthink many of his opponents. He was quite a capable and competent leader whose eyes were rarely ever wrong. At the moment, he was approaching the base of Baron to test him out. The reason that he chose Baron was that he had overheard about the whole aerial tournament incident with them and Bai Qi.
He figured that if they were able to take out Bai Qi, no matter how careless Bai Qi was, they were no ordinary people. He was a part of a much larger group but figured that he himself would be able to have some fun with these newcomers. Xuan Feng was actually rampaging along with some of the 4 leaders of the Yellow Wang faction back on Earth, but for some reason, he came to Planet 4 about 1,500 years after them. What was interesting was that he died a few decades before them. Had he managed to reach here before them, who knows how much he would have been able to trump their skills? Who knows.