Chapter 179

Chapter 179: Chaotic Situation

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: imperfectluck

“A True God has died; the Forest Guardian Clareladin has died. The SemiGod Prescott has also died in battle!”

The Guardian God of the northern Elf Kingdom was the Forest God. This True God’s death made all the elves feel as if the sky was falling down on them.

“This is impossible! Gods are indestructible, how could they possibly die! How could the victim be the mighty Forest Guardian Clareladin!”

This was the feeling that all the northern elves had right after the news spread to everyone. For the past thousand years, the True God of Elves had been protecting them, causing them to become distant from the main events of the Northlands – the cruel competition for survival.

The warm environment and peace that was the stark opposite of the battlefield caused them to get accustomed to life under the protection of a God. They viewed it as a maxim similar to how the sun rose from the east. Now that the sun was no longer rising, it was only natural that they would panic to the extreme.

“We’re finished, the northern Elf Kingdoms are all finished.”

Those that lost all sense of reason and spread rumors out of fear were directly suppressed by the Elf Warriors, but fear and unrest were already spreading throughout the entire Elf population in the north. While rumors could be denied, some things were indisputable.

Due to the Forest Guardian God’s death, the utopia-like Elf Kingdom was now re-entering reality after no longer having its God’s protection. After returning to the circle of life, nature started showing off its cruelty that treated everyone equally!

Currently, the streams in the forest were beginning to freeze over, and large amounts of trees began wilting. The forests that didn’t belong in the Northlands were heading for death, and the outermost protective forest transformed in just a few minutes in a process that would normally take decades, losing all their leaves almost instantly. The anti-decaying protection from the True God had expired, leaving nothing but wilting death for the trees.

Without the Forest Guardian’s forest barrier to protect them, the Elf Kingdom’s average temperature was now a stark contrast with the Northlands’ average temperature, causing nature’s natural balancing to forcefully recoil against it.

According to the Elves’ poetic description of what happened, the explosive northern words transformed itself into a brutal Seasonal God, and crushed the isolated Elven paradise into a place resembling the rest of the cruel Northlands with just a single turn of its body.

When frigid winds injected themselves into the Elven lands that used to be spring in all four seasons, the shivering Elves finally learned that it was finally winter. The brutal winter especially made for the Elves by the ferocious forces of nature was particularly unpleasant.

Just as the Elves were sinking deeper into panic, their “relatives” were in the midst of a mysterious frenzy. Becoming fiercer after each battle wasn’t an adequate description of their fervor anymore. In the midst of their major blood festival, the newly born Dark Elf Poison God had added a green poisonous snake emblem next to the Spider Goddess’s spider emblem. The Dark Elf Gods were no longer Lorci all by herself, and the ambitious Lorci was already considering the ranking of newly born Dark Elf Gods in the future.

The Dark Elf armies were gathering under the flag of the black eight-clawed spider. The Elven armies defending their homeland had lost most of their main forces and were no match for the Dark Elves at all. All the Elves could do was watch as the invaders constructed endless bases and siege weapons in the Elven territory. The Dark Elves weren’t even trying to conceal the fact that they intended to be here for a long time.

The Tassel Kingdom’s mausoleum had been completely dug up, with all the passages leading to the Underground Kingdoms completely opened. Every day, countless eager Dark Elves would arrive from the Underground world, as if they were bloodthirsty sharks that had detected the delicious scent of fresh blood from their tasty prey.

The Dark Elves that had generations of grudges against their Elven cousins didn’t begin a racial slaughter as quickly as people expected, but their casually apparent preparations for all-out war and that arrogant attitude that treated the Elves as lambs for the slaughter caused even the Elves that still believed in the possibility of victory to begin despairing.

“They’re waiting, they’re waiting for our campaigning armies to return. They have the assurance of definite victory, they have the protection of Lorci, and our armies have zero chance of victory without another Elf God’s protection. Just what is the venerable Anslo thinking? Why did he allow the Forest Guardian to be killed off by the vicious and evil Spider Goddess! Why aren’t our prayers being answered?”

The Elf Gods had no time to respond to the northern Elves’ prayers, as the Human Gods had already detected their betrayal, making things difficult for them to even survive as it was.

From a certain viewpoint, it could be said that the Elves lacked someone with leadership abilities who could organize them and take charge. Compared to the major Human Kingdoms that were treating their Guardian Gods more and more like lucky mascots, the Elves relied far too much on their Gods and even viewed the Gods’ protection as the most important factor in battle.

“No, they’re also waiting for their own reinforcements. The Dark Elves are increasing in number every day, damn it! Just how many of those Dark Elf bitches are there?”

Just how many Dark Elves were there in total in the dark Underground world? Lorci herself likely didn’t know either. She used her own power to help the Dark Elves possess fertility far beyond that of regular Elves, but Lorci was called depraved for this action and exiled to the Underground world.

“Damned Anslo! You’re calling me depraved? Fine, I’ll show you what depravity is, I shall allow you to witness true evil!”

It could be said that Lorci’s self-destructive actions caused the entire Dark Elf tribe to fall into true depravity and darkness. Killing each other, betrayals, and scams became the entire lifestyle of this whole tribe, and even the Underground demons wouldn’t dare say that they were better at scamming others in comparison with the Dark Elves. But at the very least, it was indisputable that these fallen Dark Elves were incredibly strong. After they broke free from the curse of low fertility, their true potential was far stronger than what everyone expected.

There was no race in existence that was evil from birth, as each individual’s sense of good or evil was determined by his or her own experiences. Lorci’s tainted dark waters didn’t stain the entire tribe. The Gray Elves protected by the Moon God and the Dark Elf Rangers that lived in isolation publicly disobeyed the Underground lords summoned by Lorci. Even the Dark Elves had countless different beliefs and ways of thinking within themselves; Lorci had long lost control over the entire Dark Elf tribe.

But take a look at the current Dark Elf battle camps, the largest continuous campground indeed belonged to Lorci’s flag. Symbols of the moonlight, the blood sword, the icy twin swords, and various others were scattered among as well, with all these numerous scattered camps representing the countless number of traitors to Dark Elf society. Adding them all together, they far outnumbered Lorci’s forces, which was one type of evidence that this tribe contained a huge number of inner factions.

However, all of these Dark Elves that resented and killed each other while Underground had gathered here for the sake of a unified purpose.

“There’s no justice in this judgement against our ancestors! Even if our ancestors were in the wrong, us descendants have the right to live under the blue sky, under the sun, together with the living! We have the freedom to roam in the comfortable open lands! We will prove that us Dark Elves are the strongest among all Elf tribes, that we’re the upper-class Elves that deserve to rule!”

Under Lorci’s flag, the Dark Elves that had severe differences temporarily banded together. With Lorci spending great amounts of Godly power to summon a magical dark mist, they were able to avoid being burned by the sun. The Dark Elves patiently sharpened their knives in the darkness, waiting for the fated brutal slaughter that was about to occur with their close cousins.

Since the Dark Elves had invaded earlier than the others, it was only natural that they began separating out from the other Underground forces. Their only target now was to carve out a piece of the blue sky for themselves.

“This part of the Northlands is enough for now, there’s the Elven Spring here, and forests, we can rebuild a kingdom that belongs to us here; there’s everything we want!”

Looking at it another way, as long as the wardrums of the Holy War sounded again, the Dark Elves and Lorci who were grinding their poisonous teeth were certain to return to the surface. Roland and Ayer’s invitation letter was what ended up giving Lorci the best excuse and time to take action.

Currently, countless tents had been erected outside the Elven cities, and the Dark Elves were anticipating the joy of revenge and bloody victory. The Dark Elves whose greatest characteristic was betrayal actually managed to come together for this one goal.

As for the northern Elves that had lived here for so long, this was naturally a nightmare to them.

The Elf King Adrian that just returned to his capital city stared blankly at the scenery of despair in front of him. Was this what he had sacrificed his own daughter for? Was this the Elven strength to rule the ages that the Elven Gods had promised?

‘I should have expected that the first to stand up in the Holy War would definitely become nothing but cannon fodder.’

At this time, he couldn’t help but remember that person’s assessment of him in his regret.

“You care too much about gains and losses, and calculate too much. You’re actually only seeing small benefits, but you miss the big picture. Always calculating gains and losses every day, you’ll eventually lose yourself in it as well.”

“I’m not wrong! I’m definitely not wrong!”

But the current combat situation didn’t permit for his wallowing in self-regret. The other three allied countries’ armies had already complained so much to him, and there were plenty that wanted to dissolve the allied armies and take their own troops back to guard their home countries.

“Foolish, you’re even more shortsighted than the useless humans. You think that those Dark Elf bitches will be satisfied with conquering only the Tassel Kingdom, that they won’t go to the other countries? My Tassel Kingdom will hardly satisfy them, they want the entire Northlands Elf Kingdom!”

After returning, the devastation wrought upon the Tassel Kingdom had the opposite effect of making the other Elf armies want to separate from the allied armies even more. If they continued being unable to come together in unison, the Elves were quickly about to lose the war without even fighting.

“Invite two generals and Prince Kazlo to a meeting, just tell them that I have something private to tell them… Have Alwin take the Moonblade Elites and get ready for my orders.”

The king clenched his teeth and made a gesture of slicing his hand across his throat to his shocked trusted retainer. The king had resolved himself to sacrifice everything in order to protect his own kingdom.

Nobody could have expected that this winter would involve so many factions at war. The Elves’ battle, the Maple defense line, and the Elemental battle formed the most eye-catching opening acts of this Holy War.

All three battles affected and tangled with each other. At this point, any tilting towards one side or the other for any battle could cause a snowball effect, eventually ending in an avalanche.

The “Traitors’ Battle” was the name later given to this war by history, but for those involved in the current era, the future generations’ evaluations were unimportant. This frustrating situation where it was difficult to tell enemy from ally was the biggest headache for everyone.

There was so much betrayal between the two major sides of this conflict, to the point where even fooling your own tribe became a daily occurrence. Enemy today, friend tomorrow. Yesterday an ally, tomorrow a mortal enemy.

This type of fluctuation didn’t even spare the venerated True Gods. When the Holy War restarted, those who tried remaining ambiguous were forced to stop sitting on the fence by the respective elder Gods of each faction and had to make their choices clearly for which side to stand on.

In a way, this was the critical time and point that allowed Ayer’s letter, coming from one of the foremost Order Gods, to have such convincing power to Lorci for her to reselect the side she stood on.

Also, as one of the biggest losers in the previous Holy War, the Beastmen that didn’t have any Gods to protect them were aiming to recover all their previous losses in this war. Their earlier ambushes were indeed outstanding, but they had now met with some small problems.

“Our spies have been completely eliminated? How is this possible, I remember there were 2376 different groups, with seventy percent of them being human mixed bloods that are impossible to determine from physical appearance, nor do they even know each other, how is it possible for all of them to be discovered? Some of our deeply embedded spies have been planted within the enemy for one or two hundred years over several generations, that we never activated, why were they discovered?

As the side with the advantage of being proactive on the attack, the current Beastman Chieftain Amon.Bloodaxe was currently dealing with a huge headache. From the start of war to now, the lack of a complete information network had always been one of the biggest obstacles for the Beastmen.

The most important thing in war was information. Thanks to Sleuweir Kingdom’s policy of “peaceful trading,” the past one hundred-plus years of interaction were more than enough for the ambitious Beastmen tribes to fill this kingdom with spies like a worm-infested apple.

But when the war truly began, not a single one of their planted “seeds” ended up sprouting.

The Tortoise Tribe Beastman making the report was sweating all over. He was the main leader of the information network, as well as a tribe leader himself, but he was currently fearing for his life instead of this group of major Beastmen leaders.

It couldn’t be helped that all the leaders were so angry, as they had raised these soldiers so long to be used when the day came, with war being the most active time period for spies to be used. This was the time for spies to show their stuff, but the Tortoise Tribe Beastman basically handed in nothing but a blank test paper.

“There should be thirteen groups in Red Maple Castle, but… they were all discovered, they’re the ones hanging on the eastern castle door. And, I…”

“You told us that the western castle door’s female commander was nothing more than a flower vase, so we concentrated our battle power to attack the western door, and we ended up taking heavy losses. The aerial cavalry that we lost were accumulated over so many years, and you’re actually telling us that you didn’t know about those magic swordsmen and war machines? You’re telling us that you didn’t see anything as huge as a floating battleship? You’re all so useless, why are we even paying for your upkeep!”

The raging Beastman King lifted up his battle axe while shouting angrily at hearing the information network’s mistaken and inaccurate information yet again at this critical juncture. He intended to personally cut off these useless Beastmen’s heads.

“Wait a moment, how did our spies get discovered? Setting aside those that were obviously Beastmen, as they were just decoys, how did the human spies we bribed and the mixed bloods get exposed, that’s illogical, unless…”

Compared to the raging Eagle King, the Bearman Londe seemed far more composed. But judging from the jade he accidentally crushed in his hands, he wasn’t as composed as he appeared on the surface. The loss of a behemoth was something irreplaceable that had already given him many sleepless nights of sorrow.

At this moment, when he spoke his final word “unless,” he looked around him suspiciously at each tribe leader.

It was quite obvious what he meant between the lines. For such a deeply hidden information network to be completely discovered, the only possibility was that there was a spy, an incredibly high level one.

“…No, it’s not a spy.”

Even though the axe was already on top of his head and he was scared witless, the information network leader still needed to say what he should say.

“It’s nothing to do with a spy, it’s actually due to a problem with our logistics that caused all our spies to get revealed.”

“Hm?”

What logistical problem could possibly expose all the spies at once? The tribe leaders present all had looks of disbelief.

“If we look at the root cause, I have to talk about thirty years ago. Since we have simple lifestyles, us Beastmen have difficulty making livings in the human world. For the spies that weren’t adept at business to be suddenly sent to a foreign country, many spies were cheated out of their money in a short three months, and were forced back to the highlands by starvation.”

Everyone nodded at this. It was public knowledge that Beastmen weren’t adept at business. Not only these spies that didn’t know a single written word, there were quite a few “wise” witch doctors and shaman that had the experience of losing everything through being cheated by human society.

For the Beastmen that still had the traditional bartering system in place, the human world was far too complex. Even if they didn’t meet a scammer, most Beastmen would quickly use up all their traveling funds and helplessly return to their homes.

“We never knew when the day to counterattack would come. If we kept continuously sending out new spies, this would become a bottomless investment. Our tribe isn’t wealthy, so we can’t afford it. Finally, a coincidence helped us to obtain a legendary treasure.”

“Treasure?”

“Yep, it came about out of a lucky witch doctor experiment. A witch doctor from my tribe accidentally mixed his cooking spices with his prophecy herbs, which was how he managed to coincidentally create the famous legend – Orion fried demon meat!”

All the tribe leaders swallowed their saliva in unison upon hearing this. They’d all tasted this red and delicious fried meat before as well. It was indeed savory to the point of tantalizing.

“Everyone here surely knows about it already. With that as the foundation, we opened up a series of fried meat shops using the Orion brand selling fried meat and hamburgers, causing the Orion name to become famous. Hmph, those damned humans that deserve to die actually stole our formula, and created some McD hamburger restaurant chain, competing with us everywhere, shameless to the extreme!”

“What does this have to do with our spies being discovered?” Amon was rather shocked at this sudden change of topic. Wasn’t this supposed to be about the information network? How did competition between fast food restaurants have anything to do with this?

“As you know, our spies aren’t skilled at business, while the Orion fast food restaurant is one of our only profitable businesses, resulting in… the result was that all the spies opened up Orion fast food restaurants! After one spy was discovered, every single spy was revealed!”

Ok, fine, since the Orion fast food restaurant was too profitable, there were even Beastmen that voluntarily became spies in order to open up restaurants in the humans’ fancy world to enjoy their lives.

“Fuck! Isn’t that just looking for death!”

“Foolish to such an extent! Who gave such an order! Which idiot did such a moronic thing? I’m going to hang him to death on the flagpole!”

The Beastman King Amon’s angry roar reverberated through the tent, and his sharp voice caused the guards outside to shiver in fear.

The information network leader sweated even more profusely at seeing how angry Amon was.

“It was you…”

His reply was in a soft voice, but there were no ordinary people present that could not hear him. The tribe leaders were momentarily stunned at this, then the tent fell eerily silent, with Amon being the only person to clumsily continue speaking.

“What?”

“It was you. My Blackrock tribe was originally a subordinate tribe to your Bloodaxe tribe. Since information and scouting had always been the realm of the Eagle tribe that excelled in flying, and you’re the master of all Eaglemen, and I’ve always been your loyal retainer. When you first succeeded your position, you said ‘who knows when those useless spies will finally be useful, it’s impossible for it to be my generation, so we might as well take the chance to earn some more money, and let our tribesmen participate in the most profitable business! We’re going to fill the entire world with Orion fast food restaurants! We’re going to become the fast food kings!”

Amon did his best to remember. He seemed to vaguely recall that thirty or forty years ago, when he first inherited his position, he had indeed said something similar, and even had it recorded in the tribe records as a wise saying.

As the Bloodaxe tribe chieftain, what he was most proud of wasn’t his martial arts ability or prowess in combat strategy, but rather his ability to help his tribe get rich. It was precisely because of the flourishment of the Bloodaxe tribe that they were chosen as the representatives to cooperate with the Earth Elemental God.

“This can’t be blamed on you, humans are just too devious. You see, we just found out that those McD hamburger restaurants were actually spies sent out by San Antonio. Our captured spies were all reported by those clowns wearing red wigs!”

That Tortoise tribe Beastman was all teary-faced as he talked about this painful memory.

“Those, those mascots that were singing blue blue road! They even hit us with their ingredients, and tossed those disgusting red wigs at us. They were underhanded to the point of putting rocks in their hamburgers, our fellow Beastmen were so pitiful. Our mascot the white-bearded old Beastman was completely unable to defeat them with the demon bone staff. The scene was unbearable to witness.”

“White-bearded old Beastman? Mascot? Isn’t this just looking to die?”

Some tribe leader finally pointed out another obvious flaw. This time, it was a certain Bearman tribe leader’s turn to sweat profusely, as he also recalled the foolish decision he made twenty years ago when he inherited his position.

The information network leader saw this out of the corner of his eyes, but he figured that if he didn’t say anything, he was certain to die. Saying it out loud might still give him a chance at living, so he ground his teeth and continued speaking.

“A certain person wanted to have a remembrance of his grandfather that passed away, and made this extra request… The white beard would represent wisdom, and the staff represented the willingness to never give up, and the white clothes and white apron represented the progress of shamanic culture. He said that it was necessary to make humans understand the beauty of the rough Beastman culture!”

Okay then. The information network leader kept staring at a certain Bearman while saying all this. His intention was obvious: let’s not blame anyone here.

“Cough, I recommend, something else. We can actually fight on even without information.” The Bearman tribe leader Londe pretended to remain composed as he spoke.

“Yep, I agree. We Beastmen are number one in the world at combat ability; there’s no need for us to imitate the weakling humans and use spies or whatever.” The Beastman King Amon relaxed slightly as he said so.

With the two strongest leaders agreeing with each other, what else could the other tribe leaders say, they could only nod.

“Notify all Beastmen, from today on, McD Hamburgers are our mortal enemies! Orion fast food is our pride! From today on, you’re no longer our information network leader, we shall give you the new job of fried meat business consultant, and manage the economy of fried meat for all Beastmen!”

The information network leader was overjoyed beyond his wildest dreams at hearing this.

“Wonderful, this is my dream job! I’m the Chairman of the Board for the Orion Fried Meat Association, as well as an executive-ranked chef, this will be no problem for me. It’s so much better than this annoying information network job. You’re the best at picking the right person for the job!”

Apart from Chief Amon who was smiling delightedly from being sucked up to, all the other tribal leaders had strange looks on their faces.

‘Something seems wrong here from the very start, this job was given to the wrong person to begin with! You’re making a chef into the spymaster, so of course there would be problems! We’re currently at war, is there any necessity to make some chain fast food restaurants? Didn’t you make a mistake from the very beginning? Forget about using a spy as a chef, don’t use chefs anymore as spies!”