The Martial Unity

Rui had to admit that Prince Raul's critiques were more than just valid; they were sound. As a Martial Senior, Rui could commit murder and get away with it pretty easily. In fact, the Martial Union essentially used the crimes to justify squeezing out free labor from Martial Artists as a punishment

Martial Artists were not straightforwardly imprisoned for many years or decades. They were sentenced to Martial labor, as dictated by the Martial Union, which would squeeze them of all the value they could during this time until they served their sentence and were free.

On top of that, the sentences for assault and battery were crimes that were treated with a slap on the wrist, with sentences of labor that lasted months at most.

Essentially, the Martial Union used this as a way to gain free Martial labor. The Kandrian government used this as a way to delegate what would be an expensive judiciary process for imprisoning powerful Martial Artists under the standard penal code.

It was not pretty.

However, Martial Artists were a precious and vital resource.

They could not be locked up; it would weaken the Empire twice, once for losing the power that the Martial Artist had to offer and another for having to dedicate the same amount of power needed to ensure that the Martial Artist was actually locked up and didn't escape with force.

Even if the Kandrian Empire could successfully implement this, it would dramatically weaken the nation, which was highly undesirable considering how many enemies the Kandrian Empire had inadvertently made.

This was the dilemma of the Age of Martial Art.

It was one that Prince Raul did not like.

"That is why I wish to abolish the Kandrian Martial Covenant; I will either abolish it or amend it so that Martial Artists will face real, genuine consequences for hurting people. Power does not make the death of a hundred and fifty thousand innocent Kandrian citizens acceptable, not at all, as far as I am concerned."

was clear

difficult for Rui to

the plight of the people most vulnerable to assault from Martial Artists. Yet

same time, he didn't think highly about Prince Raul's goal of

provoking civil war. And even if you win that, you'll weaken the Kandrian Empire by shackling our Martial Artists and make us more vulnerable to external pressure," Rui shook his head. "It is the height of irrationality to believe that you can fix this problem

a human heart, do they not?" Prince

if not for the fact that you don't have a privileged background, I would assume you have had the privilege of growing up around extremely good and kind people," Rui raised an

head. "People have a greater capacity for kindness than you could ever imagine, Rui Quarrier. Why do you think the Kandrian Ruffians have grown to such an extent? It is not

an eyebrow as he stared at Prince Raul with

of the Kandrian Ruffians surprised Rui.

believe that just asking kindly will

will bear my heart,"

you fail?" Rui

be forced to choose the lesser of two evils," Prince Raul replied with a sorrowful tone. "I don't know what the lesser of two evils is, but I have very clever people who can show me what available path brings the least

a little bit of hope. He could at least conceive of his own failure,

was just

all the issues

least suffering is a civil war?"

do everything in my power to ensure not a single person suffers. We Kandrian Ruffians will protect, feed, and house every person who needs it," Prince Raul

prevent the flames of war from