Chapter 187
Chapter 187: The Feast of Traitors
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav
It was currently night. Everything was blanketed with heavy snowfall, making this frozen area even more difficult to withstand.
Even the strongest warrior would be unable to do anything without the sense of sight. Yet that wasn’t the most critical negative aspect of this battlefield.
“It’s so cold! How many can even live through such a night?”
Even the Bear Tribe Leader Londe, who seemed like an immovable ice mountain to his tribe members, was not as emotionless and made of iron as he appeared. After all, in the frigid winter of the Northlands, nighttime was more than ten degrees colder than the already chilly weather, and it was now reaching the point where one’s breath would freeze immediately.
Even if the beastmen on the battlefield all had strong bodies, they were nevertheless living creatures. They still had to pay attention to the cold during the fierce battling, and it was so dark that they needed their battle horns and flags to lead them. The most difficult of all was the alleyway battles, where, in the darkness, some would treat the enemy knife-wielding assassins as their friends while slicing off their comrades’ heads with their own axes…
In such a situation, according to the unwritten rules of combat in the north, both sides should have rested and come to a temporary truce to prevent the most unacceptable outcome of all—the outcome where one side won but there was nobody left to celebrate.
Now, however, time was of the essence. Time equaled life itself; with each minute of hesitation, countless lives perished. Don’t even mention a temporary truce; right now, both sides wanted to hurl every last possible weapon at their enemy. Only the utter and complete destruction of the enemy would allow the existence of more survivors.
Londe could already imagine the scene—a beastman warrior would defeat an enemy with great difficulty, but his blood, pouring from his injuries, would freeze into ice. He would lose large amounts of blood as his steps would grow slower and slower before he finally froze to death beside the desolate corpse of his human opponent.
To Londe, these dark alleyways resembled the vicious beasts from the abyss with their mouths wide open, as they grinned maniacally while they waited for food to deliver themselves into their mouths.
Londe suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. He had an ominous premonition. Perhaps he wouldn’t live to see the next day’s rising sun.
This, however, wasn’t baseless at all. Londe’s sharp sixth sense had helped him overcome numerous life-and-death situations, but this time, he decided not to listen to his instinct’s warning.
“Don’t let the other tribes look down on our tribe’s sharp claw! Everyone, press forward! We definitely can’t fall behind the others. Conquer this castle, and the honor of having destroyed the northern humans’ pride will be ours! The War God is protecting us! His heroic spirit shall keep spots aside for our warriors, and if we’re destined to die here, then let us meet each other again while feasting in the Hall of Valhalla!”
He said something he knew was impossible. Yet his warriors still answered his summons.
They silently drank some rich alcohol to help them defend against the cold, before resolutely stepping into the pitch-black battlefield, into the maw of the abyss from which there would be no return.
There was no hesitation and no cowardice. This war had no justice; there was nothing divine, nothing evil. Everyone was fighting for their own species, fighting for resources and land. They were fighting so that their own species wouldn’t have to fight in this cruel Holy War.
The castle wall was now meaningless. Every moment, at every place, warriors could be seen bleeding and fighting to the death. Human lives were now worthless. Humans were all flesh-and-blood mortals, after all; even a high-ranked battlefield commander may be killed at any moment from an ordinary shovel making its way through the crack of a house.
“We’ve lost contact with Kazlo’s tribe. Twenty minutes ago, we also lost contact with Kagra. The air cavalry is requesting to go to battle; this is their letter signed in blood!”
“Londe is requesting reinforcements; he lost contact with two squads under his command, and he’s met with an obstacle. Many of his warriors have gone missing. He needs more warriors to be able to surround the enemy.”
“The Wolf King has been successful in advancing to the designated location as scheduled, but he’s already lost forty percent of his warriors, and he still refuses to retreat.”
Each fresh dose of bad news caused Amon’s eyes to twitch. Humanity’s stubbornness had far surpassed their expectations, and the damned snow created an even worse meat grinder for the cruel battlefield.
“Tell the air cavalry to not stir up any trouble for me right now. If they go out now, they’ll fall right back down immediately without even a hint of what hit them. Even if they die, they need to die a worthy death. Reinforcements? Let the newly created tribe go support Londe…”
The messenger hesitated for a moment and was about to question Amon when he ended up swallowing his words.
Newly created tribe? That was the tribe consisting of the tribes that had lost almost all their tribe members; all those beastmen were injured losers. They had lost their tribe leaders, their tribe names, and totems, which was why they had banded together and formed a new tribe.
Perhaps they weren’t strong enough, but they were still the seeds of the future. But when even the seeds had to participate in battle, that was evidence of the dire straits the beastmen were in.
However, going against orders would be insubordination, and everybody understood that this was no time for hesitation and that the decisive would be victorious. Whoever gritted their teeth and stayed in this until the end would become the new ruler of this land, and now was the time to compete in who was willing to sacrifice more and had the stronger will.
The beastmen were enduring tremendous sacrifices, but for the humans, this war was even more difficult.
This chaotic battle with no rules was an all-around test of people’s abilities. After the defending human army lost the advantage of the castle walls’ defense, their losses were magnified many times, to double, triple, and even ten times their original rates.
“We have nowhere to retreat! Other than us, there are only the weaponless citizens! If we lose Red Maple Castle, there’s no difference from losing the entire Northlands, and we’ll become the most vilified humans in all of human history! All our ancestors will be shamed!”
The humans were unwilling to retreat even more than the beastmen. This defensive battle for them wouldn’t allow them to withdraw one bit; they were guarding their homes!
The snow would eventually stop, and the sky would eventually get lighter. But at that time, who knew just how many humans could survive. The side that ended up with more survivors would definitely be the victor.
But this night wouldn’t pass quickly. The Frigid Nightmares were all riled up to move in the darkness.
“Ahhh!”
In a small alleyway, a beastman soldier only gave a shout of surprise before disappearing without a single trace.
In an adjacent alleyway, the exact same thing happened to his companions. With their shouts of surprise, they were also dragged into hell by the dark hands that suddenly reached out from below the ground.
“Ahhh!”
“Shamans, destroy this entire area for me!”
Londe was no longer able to watch his subordinates disappearing in succession. Under his command, the beastmen elemental shamans no longer tried conserving their already low mana, and they communicated with the elements to summon mighty thunderbolts and waves of earthquakes to flatten all the buildings in this entire area.
Of course, this helped reveal the true identity behind the beastmen soldiers’ disappearance.
“Flowers?”
Right before them was a flower; in fact, it was an incredibly rare and valuable flower in the Northlands. Luckily, Londe had learned about such a flower in the south before. The flower stem and colorful petals matched the ones in his memory, but…
“Isn’t this too huge!”
That’s right, a flower garden could be seen before them. It was only that the flowers within it were rather abnormal. The magic spells that even destroyed all the buildings had zero effect on them, and the most common flowers among them were sunflowers that were growing larger and larger. They were at least the height of two humans, and these otherwise ordinary-seeming flowers were already more than three times taller than they should have been.
Even though these flowers before them were so beautiful, Londe, who had experienced hundreds of battles, sucked in a breath of cold air. The incredibly strange sight caused his sixth sense feel an indescribable amount of danger; it was to the point where he felt needles pricking his back. All he wanted was to run away.
“Hey, isn’t that the missing soldier Katar? Those flowers are currently eating him!”
The moment these words were spoken, all the flowers suddenly turned around in unison. Those flowers actually had huge mouths growing on them, and they were currently chewing on the beastmen’s missing soldiers as their fertilizer.
Each flower only had one huge mouth filled with teeth, and even though these flowers had no eyes, the beastmen quickly realized that the flowers had locked their targets—them. That was the instinct of prey that had met its predator.
“I’ll be the rear vanguard!”
The incredibly abnormal scene sent chills through everyone’s hearts, and Londe instantly gave his order.
But right at the next moment, his beastmen companions began wailing in agony. The vines on the ground had transformed into snakelike creatures as they hung the beastmen upside-down. The sunflowers opened their mouths wide and began devouring the unfortunate beastmen.
“King’s Heavy Assault!”
The angrily roaring Bear Tribe Leader used his full force attack, with his two thick arms slamming into the ground with enough force to crush boulders. The wind from his attack ripped through the vines, helping create a gap in the plants’ attacks as his God-rank ultimate attack destroyed everything before him. Even after his ultimate attack, though, he could discern nothing but his companions’ deaths and heard only their cries of death.
“It’s alright. Hurry up, this place is far too abnormal. We need to leave here quickly.” He was kneeling halfway to the ground and was recovering from the usage of his ultimate attack when he noticed the strong hints of despair on the faces of his tribe members. When he turned around to see what they were looking at, he finally realized the reason for his instincts to have been continuously screaming at him that something was wrong.
A small mountain, which was not that far away from them, was rapidly closing in, while the place he was standing on was sinking. When he took a closer look, he realized that that wasn’t a small mountain at all! It was obviously a frighteningly large mouth!
“We had been standing in this monster’s mouth all this time?”
His final sigh was now meaningless. The sky was still dark when the Piranha Plant King finally closed its mouth. With a loud “crunch,” the Bear King Londe, who was only one rank below the Beastman King, perished just like that.
“Humble of the Seven Virtues! Perhaps I should call it by another name—Blood-Filled Piranha Plant Garden might be a bit more appropriate.”
Since the worst possible situation had already come to pass, and the time previously agreed upon had come, the black cat, which was destined to bring misfortune, had also woken up from its deep slumber.
“Ha, what a bunch of lovely children. They just need so much blood to wake up, though. If it weren’t for the availability of so much delicious blood, they definitely wouldn’t have grown up this well.”
Humble? Seven Virtues? The most unbelievable thing of all was that this witch, who gave everyone such a headache, could really create such a positive, auspicious object.
Humble wasn’t a single plant; it was the name of an entire flower garden that consisted of uncountable piranha plants as its foundation. Its only trait, perhaps, was its incredibly high attack rating.
From the very beginning of this war, Amelia had planted a single seed under Red Maple Castle. As for how well this seed would mature depended on the amount of blood and souls it could feed on.
Roland’s Pride Omar Mist was doubtlessly the strongest combat unit—he functioned at the level of an entire squad by himself. Amelia had wanted to target Omar’s capabilities and had hence designed this piranha plant garden, which was also on the level of an entire squad. She had even given it a name that directly opposed that of the Seven Deadly Sins.
These piranha plants had special digestive chemicals that could easily melt through bones, and the garden also possessed Soul Grass, which could consume souls and render the undead mages’ soul summoning spells useless. The amount of nutrition gained from the war would determine the final rank of the Piranha Plant King, and the humongous devourer wasn’t supposed to be ready until after the end of the war.
Even without an endless amount of battles occurring, this war, without a doubt, gave Amelia’s “Humble” far too much nutrition. Several humongous devourers were already activated, and the dangerous flower garden had awakened itself and was waiting for new prey to deliver itself to its doorstep. The Bear King Londe’s death was just one among many.
“Oh my, it seems that after all this, you’re going to go up in the Calamity Rankings.”
“Hmph. No matter how high up I go, I won’t surpass Roland. I’m still far from being as crazed, inhumane, and maniacal as he is.”
Harloys really wanted to comment on why Amelia was filled with a regretful expression—it was as if she was sad that she couldn’t surpass him in the Calamity Rankings. Did Amelia and Roland really want to compete in who was more inhumane between the two of them?
“You really like to compete with him in everything; do you like him that much?”
“Who! Who did you say likes him? I hate him to death! Just wait until I receive information on his technology; I’m going to turn him into my fertilizer!”
The moment that Roland was brought up, the sly Amelia would become just like an elementary school student that had never even talked about romance before. Harloys still wanted to tease her a bit more when Amelia, who had been angrily jumping up and down, suddenly stopped and smiled as she gazed out the window.
“What is it?”
“How unexpected! It actually caught a big fish… but that berserk behemoth is still a bit of a problem. I’m going to deploy two small devourers there. Yep, let’s not kill that behemoth off; it should be an incredibly rare undead material. Roland will definitely be delighted. Perhaps he’ll even invite me to dissect it while it’s living together with him. Ah, I’m really getting nostalgic about the past.”
Okay, now that she was imagining things, Amelia smiled rather shyly, and Harloys didn’t even know where to vent her comments.
Suddenly, however, Amelia’s expression changed as she made an exclamation of shock.
“Devourers Number Two and Number Four were instantly killed! This feeling is from… the withering magic of nature magic, from those elves!”
Traitors could never be trusted—this was a maxim of the battlefield. If you could betray someone once, it was highly possible that you would betray another a second time if you were paid with even greater benefits.
No matter in whichever world’s history, there would always be traitors who received high positions of power in the end, even if they could never gain true trust from the eventual victor.
The present from Karwenz?
It was just another letter, just like the one to Roland. However, the letter, which was personally sent by the Abyssal Prince Karwenz, was addressed to Lorci.
Okay then, there is no need to go into the details of the letter; it was basically just something like “We already know about the ideas you’re having; didn’t Roland simply promise that you could be the Main God of the Elves? We can give you a better deal. Since you anyways haven’t openly betrayed us, if you return to the Chaos side, we won’t care about your past transgressions, and we can even make the Elven Gods your subordinates.” Well, it was something like that.
Of course, there was a threat at the end as well, reminding Lorci that her domain was in the Chaos Abyss and that she should be careful of the demon nobles organizing themselves and paying her a little visit. Something along those lines.
Lorci was, of course, the founder of the dark elves, but she was also the one they all imitated. In the dark elves’ language, “foolishness” and “loyalty” were the same word; it is easy to imagine Lorci’s personality from this itself.
And so Lorci, who had betrayed the Chaos side once already, unhesitatingly betrayed the Order side now that she was promised an even greater prize.
Of course, this was only part of the reason. On a deeper level, Lorci wasn’t satisfied with receiving the title of the Guardian God of the Northlands’ Elves. She wanted to be the Guardian God of the entire Northlands, which was the title that Wumianzhe had just received.
In that case, unless she forced the humans out of the Northlands, she would be unable to become its real ruler. And so, right after achieving victory in internal conflict between the elves and the dark elves, she unhesitatingly gave the beastmen a gift when they needed it most.
Perhaps it should be said that since she already reached her goal in allying with us in the first place, and now that there was something she coveted even more right in front of her, she decided to turn on us and directly fight against us for what she wanted. Karwenz’s letter was only an excuse to help her firm her resolve to betray once again.
Currently, Lorci’s new pet who had her favor, the high-level nature mage who had just wiped out the two humongous devourers, was standing beside Amon, sighing, as he gazed at everything before him.
“I never expected that we would end back here again after going around.”
“Hah, it’s just that the last time you were my ally, you still looked presentable. Now you’re my ally’s pet dog; you can only lick the bones she throws to you.”
Amon Bloodaxe didn’t hold back at all as he taunted the elf mage in front of him. Amon truly looked down on this untrustworthy and dishonorable elf, especially since this person had even betrayed his own species, despite the fact that he was once a king.
Yep, this long-eared elf mage was indeed once King Adrian of Tassel Kingdom, but now, his skin color had become a grayish black, and he was no longer a regal moon elf. Instead, he belonged to a new species that dedicated themselves to Lorci—the fallen elves.
He used to look down on the beastmen in the past, but Adrian was now faced with Amon’s jeers. He could only turn around with a steely expression.
“I wasn’t wrong, I wasn’t wrong, this is all for the continuation of my species! I wasn’t wrong! I wasn’t wrong!”
It’s just that his fingernails had already begun to imperceptibly overtake his hands. He didn’t even notice the blood.