As soon as he insisted that the attack must happen, someone groaned and said, "Why must the attack happen? We don’t need to attack them at all."
Someone else scoffed and said, "If I didn’t know any better, I would think that you were on the side of the Martial Body Sect because of the way you want us to attack all the time. This is because it is the job of the Martial Body Sect to always attack, while it is our job to defend."
In response, Greg said, "I already said that you should keep quiet if you don’t have something useful to say. How is the dribble that just came out of your mouth useful to the conversation?"
Someone replied, saying, "With due respect, are you suicidal, boss? I am asking because it seems you thrive on riling the people of the Martial Body Sect up. If we do what you want and keep destroying their cities, they will concentrate all of their forces on us and try to kill us first during the next shock campaign."
A disgruntled voice said, "Forget the next shock campaign. Didn’t you say that you were ambushed in the air by the giants? If that really happened, it can only be because of their immense hatred for you and us."
"If their hatred has reached such a level that giants are now taking to the air, things can only go downhill from here. So I don’t think it is strategically smart to keep giving them reasons to eliminate us at all costs."
They made some good points, but Greg refused to back down. He said with a voice full of confidence, "I know that you are all weak and have no confidence in your strength. But you shouldn’t let your insignificant self-worth determine my capabilities."
"I already said that I killed their captain in the air. If I can do that with a mere 9 recruits, I am sure that I can handle anything they can throw at me. You may be nearly useless and hopeless, but all you have to do is count on me."
Someone immediately snorted and said, "I will rather count the sands on a beach than to..."
They didn’t complete their message, but Loki and Greg were able to get his point.
Loki laughed while Greg shouted at the person, saying, "How dare you? Don’t let me catch you in an area with sand, or I will make you spend the rest of your short life counting it."
"I will make you count sand and kill you once you stop counting it. I can also kill you when I get bored, so if those days ever come, you will beg me to count sand."
The group continued to argue much to Loki’s amusement. As he watched them insult each other, he said to himself, "Greg might be a good soldier, but he is a terrible leader."
This wouldn’t be a problem if Greg were a normal soldier. But it is a problem since Greg is their leader and captain. The fact that Greg is a terrible leader is why he has to argue with them right now.
Of course, Greg’s initial plan couldn’t be to argue with them. Loki is sure that Greg’s initial plan was to convince them to go with him to attack the Martial Body Sect.
Greg has to convince them to follow him because no one has faith in him, and he can’t force them to follow him. He can issue an order, but if they are hell-bent on prioritizing their life over his, they refuse to go and simply pay a fine.
The worst part is that the sect might not approve of this order because, like his subordinates are saying, it is not their job to attack the people of the Martial Body Sect.
To top things off, his credibility with the sect has taken a dive because of all the subordinates that he is killing left and right. So the sect is likely not to support his order since the sect itself suspects that this order to attack might be an excuse for Greg to lure some soldiers away to kill them.
These are all reasons why Greg has to convince his subordinates of the value of the attack. If he were a trustworthy leader, he wouldn’t have to do it. But even though he needs their support, he is not speaking as if he does.
As a bystander, Loki felt that the words that were coming out of Greg’s mouth made it seem like he was trying to provoke them and discourage them from actually following him for the attack. He thought it was funny.
But after being amused for a while, he said to himself, "Maybe it is time to earn some merit points and get a Dao Status."
He has raised the strength of his body to level 4, his cultivation has reached the peak of rank 3, and his Life Ability has reached its limit, so the only things he can do now to raise his strength are to advance to rank 4 or earn a Dao Status.
He wants to do both of them as soon as possible. Unfortunately, he can’t advance to rank 4 for another 8 years because that’s how long it will take him to fuse his energy threads.
This leaves the only thing he can do to raise his strength in the meantime to be to acquire Dao Status. The fact that he might be able to take his Dao Status with him when he reverses time, while he definitely won’t be able to take the progress of the fusion of his energy threads, also makes the acquisition of Dao Status more of a priority.
Since he had just finished a set of energy threads and it would take a week before he could make any progress in that aspect, he decided to do something more productive in the short term.
So he sent a message to the communication channel saying, "I will join the attack."