novelraw #276 - Section 276
#276 - Section 276
Constantly managing and expanding the Second Fleet, and also establishing many organizations like the Tianming Army to serve as production and supply bases, Roger now appears to be a warlord detached from the Qing Teng Empire. In the eyes of many who understand the true strength of his forces, the Duke already has the capital to be independent.
However, his personal initial intention was not to engage in armed separatism, but to have more bargaining chips in the decisive battle with Taibella, and to coordinate with the Eternal Night Empress in battle. At least he could see her then, right?
In these three years, the Eternal Night Empress has also been truly ruthless, using every possible reason to avoid occasions where he might appear.
Roger concocted ten thousand reasons to request an audience, but all of them sank without a trace, with no effect whatsoever.
So, is this a 'chasing wife in a crematorium' scenario?
"Be good, be good, it'll be quick. Taibella's little temper won't last long," Shana said with certainty.
Just then, Windsor initiated an emergency communication, her expression panicked:
"Lord Roger, the main body of the Goddess of War has descended, and the royal capital has fallen..."
The Dark Elves' "New Year Offensive" has begun without warning.
Chapter 253: Taibella's War-Mage-Cleric Three-Avatar Strategy
The Eternal Night World, the Elven Empire's royal capital, Yassil's Leaf.
The flames representing war, slaughter, and destruction burn in this beautiful city, interrupting the celebration taking place on New Year's Eve.
Those real and powerful divine spells are incomparably brilliant, but they are not fireworks, but rather the death knell reaping lives.
The Elven Empire was caught completely off guard. The date was special, and they had been constantly wary of the Dark Elves, so even the most resilient nerves were inevitably somewhat relaxed.
Although in the past few years, the Qing Teng Empire's Eternal Night had several times loomed over Yassil's Leaf, making many elves feel that war seemed imminent.
But the Empire's artillery fire ultimately did not fall, and the elves became allies of the Empire, receiving support in many areas.
At the same time, after expelling the Church of the God of Nature, the Elven Empress gradually retreated behind the scenes, and the affairs of the Elven Empire began to be directly managed by Princess Windsor.
She has not officially succeeded to the throne, but everyone with eyes knows that it is only a matter of time, and there is no reason not to execute her orders.
Even though the Dark Elves' war against the Elven Empire has never ended, and will inevitably occupy considerable national strength and manpower, the Elven Empire internally, after removing the church, a parasite that reaps the surplus value of the people's labor without producing anything, has rebalanced the interests of all parties.
Princess Windsor also emulated the Qing Teng Empire and the Terra Kingdom in carrying out reforms, absorbing many beneficial policies. The treatment of non-pureblood elves has been greatly improved, and the Elysium Illusion is also slowly reducing its toxicity with the help of the Empire, beginning the transition to the Fearless Space.
So in essence, the overall national strength of the Elven Empire has been constantly improving in these three years. In addition, with the support of the Qing Teng Empire, the flames of war with the Dark Elves have always stopped outside the border fortresses. Most ordinary elves have often forgotten the war that is in progress:
Without personal pain, people always forget quickly. Before the scars have completely healed, they can't help but want to go outside and let themselves go.
The upper echelons of the Empire are also downplaying the war with the Dark Elves. Anyway, the situation is very stable. They don't want to seize the territory of the Underdark, and those stupid Dark Elves can't break in either.
Maintaining this situation allows for high-speed domestic development. If the quality of life of the lower-level people improves by one point, the big shots can correspondingly improve by ninety-nine points. There are also Dark Elves helping to train troops and providing a sense of security, which seems quite appealing?
The Qing Teng Empire is also happy to see this. It only needs to pay a small price, and the elves will obediently help them contain Taibella's attention, which is also very much in line with the Empire's strategic layout.
In this way, the Elven Empire, from top to bottom, is in a state of external tension and internal relaxation. When New Year came, they even prepared a grand celebration to encourage the people to continue creating more surplus value in the coming year, so that they could exploit it.
Although Windsor very much wants to emulate the Qing Teng Empire and get rid of these elven nobles, she does not have the Eternal Night Empress's martial power, nor has she officially succeeded to the throne. The core power of the Moonwalker family is still in the hands of the current Elven Empress, Gladys. Princess Windsor's current accumulation is not enough to confront those nobles.
Clearly seeing that these nobles are already a backward force, carrying out all kinds of constraints when she promotes new policies, and taking away most of the dividends brought about by national development, she is powerless and can only be secretly anxious, without any immediate solution.
High-speed development can cover up many problems, and the Elven Empire is no exception. Windsor can feel the many hidden dangers lurking on the surface of the sea, but what's the use?
In such a terrible state, the Dark Elves secretly prepared, received direct support from Taibella, and teleported the Holy Spirits and Petitioners of Conqueror's Canyon. Those macho men who have been fighting for tens of thousands of years rushed out of the kingdom of God, and even the weakest have legendary-level combat power in the main plane.
Although in the battlefields now dominated by the Qing Teng Empire, the influence of individual martial power below the level of gods is getting smaller and smaller, the Elven Empire has not yet developed to that intensity.
After three years of continuous battles, Ya Wenshali has not broken through the Elven Empire's borders, but she is very familiar with the elves' combat methods, and even knows the most popular virtual magic god card decks by heart.
So she received new martial support, directly knowing how to maximize its use, using absolute superior strength as the vanguard, and cooperating with the entire army to launch a wave of attacks, successfully taking down the fortress that had been defended and maintained for three years.
Then came the slaughter of the city, the sacrifice, and the gathering of faith to invite Taibella's avatar to descend.
The blood of the elves stained the ancient tree of war red. Of course, the Dark Elves and the slaves they drove also paid a huge price.
But Ya Wenshali had been blocked outside the city for three years. Her original ambition has now been worn away, and she only wants to please the Dark Goddess. So no matter how great the price is, as long as this time is successful, she feels it is very worthwhile.
In this way, the Dark Elves achieved the most important victory on New Year's Eve, and the Dark Goddess's avatar successfully descended.
Taibella also hated the Qing Teng Empire very much, and at the same time knew that the power of this world was relatively low. The Eternal Night Empress had already touched the ceiling of combat power a few years ago.
Relying on only one avatar might lead to a mishap, so she also invested heavily, releasing three avatars in one go, each with a biased skill module, forming a war-mage-cleric iron triangle.
Taibella can be a trump card combat squad by herself. Each avatar has been tested in countless battles and is an extremely terrifying killing machine.
When combined, they can achieve an effect far greater than three.
After Taibella successfully descended, the three avatars directly cooperated to cast large-scale teleportation spells, leading the main force of the Dark Elves straight to Yassil's Leaf.
A city like this that has been maintained for tens of thousands of years must have means to prevent enemies from teleporting in to steal the base.
But this time it was Taibella who took action, a powerful god who has accumulated countless years of power.
Even though this is just an avatar with greatly limited abilities, Taibella's level of spell identification is sufficient. After all, the experience accumulated by the strong in Conqueror's Canyon fighting each other will be synchronized with her. The skill levels required for various battles have naturally been brushed to a terrifying level that ordinary people cannot imagine.
Therefore, the teleportation blockade, which is very limited for mortal wars, cannot be stopped even by the Qing Teng Empire, let alone the Goddess of War?
So a scene that has not happened for who knows how many years appeared. The beautiful city of Yassil's Leaf, built on the World Tree, was directly blasted through its defenses by the Goddess of War's divine spells, and then the Dark Elves launched a crazy attack on the core city of their own family.
"Do you surface fools know how painful it is to live in that dark and sunless underground?"
Ya Wenshali looked at the beautiful and light elven palace, which was as beautiful as recorded in the ancestral books, making her yearn for it.
But this also represents that in the long past, the elves have not made much progress in technology and national strength, and even compared to their peak state, there has been a considerable degree of decline.
Compared to the Dark Elves' difficult survival in the Underdark, from foreign races to defeating the native races and becoming one of the masters of the underground, and finally unifying the Underdark under the instructions of the Dark Goddess, Ya Wenshali believes that her growth is far greater than that of these stubborn surface relatives.
The revenge she represents inspires the fighting spirit of the Dark Elves. Seeing the homeland they were once forced to leave, this inspirational effect is particularly good, greatly enhancing their combat power and making the attack smoother.
In the past three years, Ya Wenshali has also been absorbing the power of faith, and is about to touch the ceiling of weak divine power.
But today's successful revenge, the bloody battlefield, and the high fighting spirit are all inspiring her divine power, which has been stagnant for a long time, to grow again, breaking through the original ceiling and entering the category of intermediate divine power.
Such a growth rate is also commendable among the gods in the past. This shows why the gods pretend to be hostile to each other and then wage war:
Because they need mortals to contribute more and better power of faith. Compared to robbing more believers from other gods, managing the limited believers here obediently and castrating the mortals' resistance consciousness as much as possible to maximize the efficiency of exploitation—
Then producing and praying to contribute the power of faith on weekdays, and finally sending them to the battlefield to consume and become additional power of faith, has become the norm for the gods.
Especially Ya Wenshali also has the help of the Goddess of War, which allows her to take many fewer detours, and her strength has improved at an astonishing speed.
Soon the entire Yassil's Leaf fell into a sea of fire, and countless big shots fled in a hurry, or directly surrendered to the Dark Elves.
Unfortunately, the Dark Elves do not accept surrender. All the elves, whether resisting or fleeing, are killed by the Dark Elves without exception, releasing their long-suppressed violence to their heart's content.
This is both a way to reward the soldiers and a means for the Goddess of War to make up for the needs of her descent—the wool comes from the sheep, and it is a special operation aimed at the Qing Teng Empire. Since she has invested heavily, she must strive for the greatest benefit!
The power of faith contributed by a lamb is also closely related to his strength, wisdom, and emotional richness.
In the past, those ignorant people were pious, but because of their brain cells, the upper limit of faith they could provide was also very low, and they had to win by quantity.
But now these elves in front of them, because of the long-term use of Elysium Illusion, although many people have become half-crippled, their thinking activity, vision, and knowledge, as netizens of this world, are definitely several orders of magnitude stronger than those farmers who face the loess and their backs to the sky.
So the income from the massacre +300%, Taibella was so happy, she did not stop this brutal behavior at all, but instead opened the competition mode—
Now until dawn tomorrow, the soldier who cuts off the most heads will receive the Dark Goddess's personal award!
The other top ten and top one hundred will also have rewards and promotions.
The Dark Elves' faith is not necessarily truly pious, but they take what they need from the gods. Especially in recent years, Taibella has been generous enough to these guys because of the Qing Teng Empire's problems, and everyone immediately boiled over.
What's more, they are originally of the evil alignment, most of them are existences without any moral bottom line, and are accustomed to conspiracy and betrayal, so they have no scruples about attacking civilians.
Taibella looked at the soaring power of faith, and after calculating, she found that this trip to the Eternal Night World, before she had even truly arrived at the Qing Teng Empire, she had made a big profit!
"My Lord, will we camp in Yassil's Leaf tonight, and then continue to advance towards the border of the Qing Teng Empire tomorrow?" Ya Wenshali came in to ask for instructions.
"Pursue overnight and directly pierce through the Qing Teng Empire!" Taibella issued her highest instruction.
Now that she has taken action, she must strike while the iron is hot and not give the enemy any chance to breathe. This is the experience she has summed up from countless wars.
Hesitation and talkativeness will definitely lead to very bad results.
"As you command, may my Lord be victorious!"
Ya Wenshali immediately ordered the execution.
Although the bulk of the power of faith was eaten by Taibella, as a subordinate god, she was also able to share enough benefits, and naturally supported the battle.
Next time there may not be such a good thing as the Goddess of War personally leveling up, so she must quickly hug her thighs and get through as many levels as possible during this invincible time that she enjoys!
So a part of the army was separated to continue burning, killing, and looting in Yassil's Leaf, and the main force of the Dark Elves, led by Taibella and Ya Wenshali, continued to pursue in the direction of the Qing Teng Empire.
……
……
A train is dragging overloaded carriages and is running at full speed, followed by a large number of airships, covering the sky like dark clouds, all heading towards the direction of the Empire.
The Qing Teng Empire has developed strategic fortresses, and anti-gravity technology is very mature. Integrating the magical skills that the elves are good at, they have created various means of transportation.
From magic crystal-powered trains to cargo ships flying in the sky, there are everything, and a large number of privately owned small airships are also evacuating Yassil's Leaf at the speed of light.
At the same time, the evacuation of more surrounding cities has also been launched.
After the fortress was broken, Windsor launched the retreat at the first time, and also requested assistance from the Empire. Unfortunately, Taibella directly teleported beyond the specifications, interrupting the just-launched evacuation program.
The other party chose to act on New Year's Day, coupled with the Elven Empire's lax defense, and it really achieved the greatest effect.
The Yassil's Leaf City Defense Force also launched a desperate defense of the complete retreat. Although it cannot resist the combat power of the Goddess of War's personal descent, it can always slow down the Dark Elves' pace of dispersing and slaughtering civilians.
Thanks to the New Arcane Movement, the magical civilization development and national strength of the Eternal Night World have been improved, and the mobility of the means of transportation that ordinary people can access is also rising in a straight line.
Now, among the high-end transportation favored by the nobles of the Eternal Night World, elven products are the most popular, with customized performance and ' an expression that means forcing style or compelling grade', ensuring extremely high standards.
These small spaceships have become the main force for evacuation, covering the sky as they retreat towards the Green Vine Empire.
However, Taibella was also very decisive, leading the main force of the dark elves to teleport once again to the front of the retreating main force, beginning an interception.
In a luxurious carriage on the train, the Elven Queen gazed through the window at the light shining in front, and looked back at her daughter.
She was still immersed in the shock and grief of the sudden defeat and the countless elven deaths and injuries.
She took off a ring shimmering with moonlight from her little finger, placed it in Windsor's palm, and gently patted her face:
"Calm down, you are the Queen now, you must be strong to support them in going further."
"Mother, you?"
"I will demonstrate to you what a Queen should do."
The Elven Queen changed into military attire and walked towards the rear carriage:
"Royal Guard, all members, follow me to show our strength and buy time for the civilians to evacuate!"
"As you command!"
The elves in bright armor stood tall, facing the enemy forces guarded by gods.
Even if the road ahead is death, passing on the hope of life to more people is enough to make them fearless of this death.
Chapter 254: A Different War
The light of the teleportation array ended, revealing 100,000 elite dark elves and 500,000 slave legions of other underground races.
This was still the result of Yas's Leaf dividing its forces once; in order to complete the city's massacre and disintegrate the elves' last resistance, Yavin Sally left behind more than 100,000 troops of various types.
This was the accumulation of thousands of years of essence in the dark region. In order to fulfill the goddess's oracle, Yavin Sally directly enforced tyranny, emptying the underground world and piecing together such a large army.
This paranoid goddess of revenge did not leave herself a way out, exhausting her resources to the extreme.
If this battle is lost and she cannot plunder enough resources and population from the surface to maintain her country's rule, then the underground hegemony built by her personal powerful divine power will directly become unsustainable and fall apart.
However, Yavin Sally didn't care. After becoming a god, she had actually escaped the limitations of this world, raised a divine kingdom in the astral realm, and whether the secular regime existed was not what she really cared about.
God gathers all power in one body, and the power's strength leads to an increasing difference in the perspective of thinking from mortals.
Dark elves are inherently emotionally indifferent. Apart from revenge, factors such as relatives and homelands, which are difficult for ordinary intelligent races to give up, are all things that can be easily sold for the sake of profit.
So Yavin Sally adapted more quickly to the perspective and rules of a god. Mortals are nothing special, just lambs.
This lamb is a little fatter, that lamb is disobedient, a slight difference, there is no need to pay special attention to any lamb.
The goddess of war also promised her that solving the trouble of the Green Vine Empire would reward her efforts and return ten times more believers than the dark region, helping her grow more quickly.
One's own strength is the most important thing, strength can resist the erosion of time and seek the path of eternal immortality.
The mortal kingdom, like fireworks, is brilliant but fleeting, just a tool to carry out the will of the gods!