Chapter 203: Eden's Response II
Right now there was a complete silence in the press conference that was held by Eden as the reporters stared at the huge screen before them with some fear and shock, many of them also seem to have been deeply taken aback as their faces looked pale.
In a matter of a few seconds, the fleet went from being seen from afar to the footage suddenly cutting out. The screen now started displaying a new angle of the war theater as it was captured on a helicopter camera, recording what happened.
The massive waterspout mushroom which was displayed was accompanied by the high-speed shockwave that disrupted the water as it continued to spread. The camera that was recording the situation started shaking before stabilizing itself for a short moment, silencing the entire room despite having seen the same images that were released by the American Government and they could imagine the size of that devastating explosion and whatnot.
However, this time they were seeing it happen frame by frame, observing a few ships that were raised fifty meters high before breaking in two as they fell down, disappearing deep into the water that slapped the other surviving ships, turning them upside down and all the horror one could imagine about the ocean fury, happened all at once.
When they thought that there were people who were alive inside those ships, they felt goosebumps all over their bodies, both the reporters and the people who were watching the video on the other side of the screen.
As the footage came to a conclusion, the screen returned to its default black while Alexander continued his speech, "Among many evidences that we could bring to refute Esparia's claims, there was also something that every citizen of our country suffered, Esparia started by cyber attacks four days before they even made their moves past the border. Our citizens can bear witness to it since most of the people had their internet slowed down to almost a halt while we had most of our government websites shut down from their DDOS attacks. Which now, thanks to them for revealing the weaknesses on our side, we have now reached an agreement with CONNECT to revamp the entire country's internet infrastructure along with the government systems which would start immediately from next week." He paused for a moment as the expression on his face got a little darker before he continued with his speech.
"Despite all of these evidences, the other side has the audacity to accuse us of being the ones who started the fight, portraying us as the bad guys and even sending subtle threats of declaring war on us." His way of speech changed very quickly, going from his calm demeanor to an obvious anger as he emphasized on his ending sentence while gritting his teeth.
"BAM!"
He startled the reporters by hitting the podium where papers would usually be placed, however, at the moment, there were none of them. His hand indicated that he was angered by the situation as he said, "Did they think that such petty threats will make us return their captured soldiers without taking compensation for the damage they inflicted on our infrastructures, just because they threaten us with a declaration of war."
"If that is what they are relying on, they can continue dreaming. Thank you for your time," he said, immediately leaving the podium and the room as he rubbed the sweat that had accumulated in his hands due to his anger.
His place was immediately taken by John, who immediately commenced his speech as that was what he was advised to do by Athena, who was the mastermind behind all of the things that happened during the press conference.
John's speech was a little bit tame, carrying with it the confidence and dignity of a general compared to what the people now thought as an emotional president who loved his country, giving its people more assurance on his capability of keeping the country safe.
His speech had nothing to do about more threats or similar things, but he was just talking about the conditions of the prisoners, informing them that they were safe and were being treated according to the international treaties, facing no torture or such things, assuring their family members in the other country.
At the same time, he followed by giving the conditions for the release of the captured soldiers to Esparia, starting the first round of negotiation publicly by stating their demands which were not too outreaching, except for one which they wanted the whole island that they shared the land border with Esparia to be handed off to them, effectively turning Eden and Esparia into nations having only water borders with each other. Many people saw this as an extreme overreach.
Some people believed that these were just the initial conditions Eden was open to negotiations, however, John's last statement threw all of such notions out of the window as he firmly stated, "All the conditions stated above are non-negotiable and must be accepted by Esparia before we move forward with the prisoners of war returning to their families. This is what is deemed as enough compensation for their abrupt action of conspiring to attack a nation without any reasoning behind it."
Following by saying a few more words, John also left the press conference, leaving the task of concluding the press conference into the hands of the spokespersons who had observed as the two people before them broke every public speech rule for government officials in existence as if they were mere suggestions. This now left them with the task of not antagonizing Esparia and the rest of the world any more than what they already had.
However, the bullet had already left the chamber and the reaction to the press conference was massive as the explosion footage and the radio communication continued circulating in social media, scaring the shit out of some people and incurring the curiosity of others who wondered which bomb in existence could carry such a heavy punch and could even be delivered with a booster and was on sale for Eden to buy, dismissing the idea that it was custom made completely away from their minds.