Chapter 1342 - 20%
"Why are you looking at me like that?!" Gwenu raged again less than a split second later. "Where’s the surprise!? The rage?!"
Sylas wasn’t surprised because he knew this would happen the moment he couldn’t defeat Magnus. Of course, defeating Magnus wouldn’t make things go their way with 100% certainty, but what it would do is make them second-guess their approach.
If he defeated Magnus, it would give them about a 30% chance of going another route entirely and giving up their attempted integration. That still left 70% odds that they’d try to find another way in, but about a third of a chance was better than no chance.
The reason for that is exactly because of what Gwenu mentioned about reallocation.
When there was a new Sanctum, territories had to be split, a new moon had to be prepared, and resources had to be redistributed.
Normally, a new Sanctum would be quite weak. If they were leaving their former Sanctum, there was probably a reason for that. Either the Sanctum had been destroyed, they had irreconcilable differences with one or multiple other Lineages in their former Sanctum, or they had been beaten down and kicked out.
In almost all situations, they would be down on their luck and too weak. As such, they would just take a small piece of the pie after a new Sanctum voted them in.
However, the Sanctum was an organization that followed the Path of Beasts. Everything was done by meritocracy and the survival of the fittest. Meaning... even if one was "voted" in through "peaceful" means, there was a very unpeaceful way one could go about securing resources, one where Sylas wouldn’t be able to command as much control at all.
And that was once again a Challenge Rite. It was just that this time, the Challenge Rite wouldn’t be one-on-one battles, it would be a sanctioned war.
Of course, this wouldn’t be the same as a Sanctum War. This time, there would be rules about casualties and such, and if the death rate was over a certain limit, then the Rite would either be voided, or the challenger—in this case—would be rewarded with the resources they were deserving of.