"You can leave us for now," George instructed his secretary to leave after she relayed what Emanuel's spokesperson had reported about their hypothesis of Eden having bought the pilots, resulting in Esparia's loss of the aircrafts to Eden. If these assumptions were proven to be true, Eden would get these aircrafts at little to no cost at all.

Aubrey, George's father, chimed in, "Is there any possibility that this might indeed be true?"

He wanted to seek more insight into whether his son had done his due diligence while the companies were hiring and coercing the pilots to resign from the military in order to start working for them.

"We conducted thorough due diligence, Father. I can assure you we took every precaution to prevent such a sort of scenario from happening. While hiring, we coerced the best that the militaries could approve for resignations," George responded, his tone didn't show any sign of agitation by his father's question. He knew that this question of his father wasn't coming due to his lack of trust, rather it stemmed from a desire for getting more clarity on the situation before he reacted to it.

"Then, does this mean that the pilots of Eden are better than we had anticipated?" Aubrey pressed again as he questioned.

"While I don't exactly know how it happened, it also can't be equated to be a result of our pilots being bought, we have a large leverage against them to prevent such things from happening," George replied and although he didn't mention the leverage to his father intentionally, Aubrey clearly already knew what the leverage was of their Family and Financial Influence.

Satisfied with his son's response, Aubrey delved into another concern, "If you are so sure that this isn't a case of purchased pilots, how do you plan to deal with the disrespect they have shown?"

"My plan is to give him a simple warning, to make sure that he does not do such disrespect in the future. At the same time, I will reduce his agreed-upon compensation by half once this conflict comes to a conclusion, that should act as a stern enough warning for him to not come up with such disrespectful provocations on us and just focus on continuing the fight," George explained, planning to direct the anger which was rising in his heart after thinking that a few words of some fucking president of a fucking small country had forced his father to ask him questions which hinted slight distrust on his abilities and competence, albeit him knowing it wasn't that way, he was still hurt and had just the right victim to be vented to.

...

Over the next two hours after the war declaration, there was relatively no activity in terms of fighting, but that didn't mean that everything was calm. The intense military movements in Eden were unbelievably organized, especially for a country that had war declared upon them just a few hours ago.

Videos and photos of military vehicles arriving in different cities started to surface on the internet, slightly satiating the thirst of curiosity the netizens had. The scale of operations they saw was pretty astonishing for a military of what could be said to be an underdeveloped nation.

The soldiers in those videos showcased a remarkable level of experience and professionalism. Unlike all of the typical videos where the soldiers might be seen laughing, in any of these videos, every single soldier was maintaining a serious demeanor. But this serious expression was not born of fear of war but it seemed to be stemming from their experience and that they were aware of the weight such situations carry.

The discipline displayed by the soldiers was so remarkable that it made people wonder once again whether they really were soldiers of an underdeveloped nation, merely based on their discipline. What was even more intriguing was the fact that all of the soldiers in these videos appeared to be in their twenties, which greatly heightened the weirdness of the experienced expressions they had on their faces.

Meanwhile, videos started appearing from Esparia too, indicating what was going on there as well but there were too few which clearly hinted at the divergent approach of the two countries as to how they were operating. One seemed to be preparing for a defensive fight while the other seemed to be sure that nothing was going to happen to their country and were solely focusing on the prospect of invading Eden.

As these developments unfolded, many people started believing that this conflict was going to last for a very long time. With both sides gearing up themselves for it in their unique ways, indicating a protracted battle ahead. This caused a sense of anticipation to grow in the people, as they prepared to witness the unfolding of a significant and prolonged struggle.

However, all of that took a turn when an article with the heading [The Best For Russian Fighter Jets: A Spectacular Showcase of the SU-35's Dominance during the First Face-off in Eden & Esparia War!] appeared on the internet.

In a mere ten minutes, the article started trending across all social media platforms. The video that was attached to the article was also being shared and was reposted by almost anyone who had their attention on the ongoing conflict between the two nations.

The article delved into details about where the confrontation had taken place, when it had taken place, revealing everything else related to it. This article informed the world that what they assumed to be a period of army preparations was nothing but just some background activities.

In fact, a real battle had already been fought and a winner of their first face-off had already been decided in just a matter of few minutes right after the declaration of war. This turn of events was a massive middle finger to Esparia, who had boldly declared the war and had their aircrafts being shot down minutes after their famous declaration, providing a good material for the meme culture that had been quite active and even flourished since the declaration of war.

Although the internet was slightly sated with the release of numerous videos that were uploaded and showcased the military movement, this video and the article were the cuisine that no one had expected to have as it had everything they didn't even know that they deserved to see. It was the face-off between the two countries' air forces and for those who watched it, it definitely didn't disappoint them at all.

What further helped increase the crazy reaction was that no one watching had to feel guilty for feeling excited while watching the video. Unlike any typical war footage documenting any ongoing war most of the time, there will be loss of life, however, no life had been taken in the entirety of this new video, allowing them to publicly express how the video was making them feel, which wouldn't have been quite possible if it was any death on the video.

Yet, the only distasteful thing that left the people questioning was the question of the condition of the ejected pilots since the video had been stopped a few moments after the last plane was shot and the Edeninan pilot had left the airspace while the parachutes of the ejected pilots could still be seen in the sky.

This meant that at this moment only the reporters were aware of the existence of the new-looking helicopter and boat, keeping that part of the video hidden for a future article, poised to benefit from the following that would be generated by the current article.

The impact of this article's release was massive and among them was also a group of people aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Fleet.

Using the onboard military computers to access the internet and communicate with families, one of the members heard about the video which prompted him to watch it before he soon called for his fellow colleagues to watch it since he was too flabbergasted by what he had seen to even react by himself.

With that, the group started watching the video too and if someone looked at them closely, they would realize that all of them were the pilots of the squadron that had gone to retrieve their drone that had "accidentally lost signal" and veered to Eden.

"I recognize those markings from one of the planes that had come to intercept us," said Enrico as they watched the video, coming to the realization who the pilot on the SU-35 that was doing some ridiculously awe-inspiring maneuvers was.

"Oh my god!" gasped one of them after seeing how the Eden pilot in one of maneuvers took the air-to-air missiles that were coming for him out of the equation while at the same time putting himself behind one of the F-16's chasing him, which he promptly shot down, followed closely by the ejection of the pilot.

When the video came to an end, they replayed it again and again with every single one of their faces having the same expression: Disbelief.