In the Name of Empress

Chapter 674 381: The Enemy's Descendants

There were truly too many Yehus.

Continuing southward, all Roland saw were these hairy barbarians.

Thinking of how the pioneers of the Sussex Empire had to deal with these uncivilized barbarians while establishing colonies overseas, he momentarily didn't know what to say.

But that era has already ended.

After reaching an agreement with the Dark Race, the major countries of Rodinia would orderly withdraw from the South Continent.

The indigenous people of the South Continent thought the colonizers were bloody and savage, didn't they? Then let them deal with the truly bloody Dark Race.

If we want to be strict about it, the Dark Race are the real natives of the South Continent, whether hairy Yehus or foreign colonizers are all later arrivals.

Thinking about the scene of the Dark Race's iron-blood rule over the Yehus, Roland momentarily didn't know whom to pity.

He didn't consider himself a good person, nor did he want to confront the Dark Race head-on to save the Yehus. At this time, the rule of the Dark Race had not yet fully descended, so it was a good opportunity to travel across the South Continent and see this beautiful yet absurd world.

Just when Roland was about to prematurely judge the South Continent as a land full of barbaric, stupid, and uncivilized apes, he unexpectedly discovered a magical human subspecies.

This human subspecies lived inland, heavily surrounded by the territories of Yehu chiefs.

Their appearance was very close to that of Rodinian humans, with skin tones more akin to Caucasians and Asians, standing out among the brown-black-skinned Yehus around them.

What surprised Roland even more was that the language these people used was a variant of the Earth Spirit language from the Third Era.

Although their beliefs were completely different, and their way of life had drastically changed since the Third Era, Roland was very sure these people were descendants of Earth Spirits.

After all, being former arch-enemies, they knew each other too well.

The Earth Spirits also recognized the damned elf aura on Roland, and they received him distantly yet politely, exchanging goods with him but firmly refusing Roland's request to visit and lecture.

Their reason was simple: the sons of Titans did not wish to engage with the descendants of elves.

Though unwilling to have in-depth exchanges, Roland was, after all, a rare customer in recent years who was both generous and polite, and they maintained at least basic respect for Roland.

Faced with these polite and courteous yet distant and cold individuals, Roland didn't mind much, as Earth Spirits were inherently a proud race.

Though they were on average shorter than humans, they insisted on considering themselves as descendants of Titans.

They were handsome and beautiful, different from the stocky and solid Dwarfs, more like proportionally smaller humans.

Earth Spirits were naturally capable of using special skills of the Earth Element and could build magnificent cities underground, having a way of life completely different from humans.

As the last Great Sage of the Elf Race in the world, Roland represented the elves, and the Earth Spirit Race and the Elf Race were mortal enemies. However, as time has passed and they've both fallen to this state, tangling in matters from countless years ago held no significance.

The reasons for the enmity between Earth Spirits and Elves were somewhat absurd.

Elves revered nature; they enjoyed planting trees, especially super ancient trees, ranging from War Ancient Trees, Wisdom Ancient Trees to Golden Ginkgo Trees capable of creating seas of flowers—they loved these huge towering ancient trees.

Everything about ancient trees was good, except that their roots reached particularly deep, and they absorbed nutrients even from hundreds or thousands of meters underground, to say nothing of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium two meters below.

However, Earth Spirits loved living underground, and their constructed Underground Palaces detested these pervasive-rooted giant trees.

The roots of these giant trees would destroy their meticulously built structures and affect their primary food, Earth Heart Worms, and underground wheat.

Originally, there was a chance for reconciliation, after all, the number of ancient trees was limited. As long as effective communication took place, compromises could be made when planting trees and building houses, avoiding each other's core zones.

But both were proud races. Why would they make peace with despicable tree planters or filthy tree destroyers?

They didn't believe they would lose to their shameless enemies.

War erupted.

During the war, the wise men of both sides proposed reconciliation to the ruling authority of their tribes more than once. But the war had already claimed too many lives of their tribesmen, hatred had already escalated and couldn't be eliminated.

They spared no effort to cause trouble for each other and destroy each other's living environment.

As long as they detected Earth Spirits building cities underground, the Elves would unhesitatingly plant trees with the most developed root systems above.

Elves even cultivated a kind of red eucalyptus tree with loose wood, non-fruit-bearing, with extremely fast-growing roots and a huge destructive impact on the soil.

The sole purpose of this tree's existence was to find trouble for the Earth Spirits.

A forest of red eucalyptus trees could turn an Earth Spirit city from a livable urban area into a place with a terrible living environment.

Earth Spirits, naturally unwilling to concede, bravely emerged from the underground to form logging assault teams to carry out destructive attacks on the meticulously cultivated ancient trees of the Elf Race.

Moreover, they prepared special alchemy potions to systematically destroy the underground root systems.

As long as they could disgust the other party, they were willing to do anything.

The strength of the Earth Spirits and Elves was close, their reproductive abilities weren't considered very strong, and their military standards were also similar, so neither could completely annihilate the other.

Should one side produce an extraordinary military genius, they could gain the upper hand temporarily, and then the other side would also produce a super talent to regain the disadvantage.

Both parties tangled until the Divine Punishment Legion descended.

They both failed.

The potential and strength of the Magic Empire were not necessarily stronger than that of the peak eras of the Elves and Earth Spirits, but they excelled at unity, could integrate various forces internally, and externally could reach alliances with Transcendents, which is why they were able to defeat the Divine Punishment Legion head-on.