"Elder Gwendolyn, stop wasting more time since you're already late! Hurry up and sit in your seat..."
Elara pointed to an empty spot next to her.
"Also, a report has already been distributed to your seat, so read it carefully."
"Oh alright...I'm coming!"
Seeing this, Elder Gwendolyn quickly strode to the chair. But because she was too short, she couldn't reach the tabletop.
"This table is too high. Can I get a taller chair?"
"Juliet... Go to my room and bring some seat cushions!"
Sighing, Elara called out with an exasperated look.
"Yes, Lady Elara."
The door that was already ajar was silently pushed open. Juliet and Gwen standing at the door responded.
The seat cushions arrived shortly. Gwendolyn barely climbed onto two stacked cushions and looked down, couldn't help commenting.
"It still feels a bit unstable..."
"Elder Gwendolyn!"
The good-tempered Elara was almost angered.
"I'm reading it now, reading it now!"
Seeing this, Gwendolyn didn't dare say anything more. She sat up straight on the cushions and hurriedly started reading the report.
"This monster invasion caused 70% of houses in Edenmere City to be damaged. 335 light elves died, 158 angels died, low-ranking angels with four wings or less accounted for about 80% of the total... "
Her face grew heavier as she read, finally looking a bit like an Elder. Then she turned to the second page.
"The unidentified giant explosion outside the city destroyed more than half of the northern forests. 5 eight-winged angels were injured, 8 six-winged angels went missing, 15 angels with six wings or less went missing, two light elf tribes were destroyed, one of which was annihilated with over three hundred dead, the exact number is unknown..."
"While the monster invasion is one thing, what exactly happened with the explosion in the northern forests?"
Gwendolyn put down the report and asked solemnly.
"This..."
I looked at Cyra, and saw that she also looked uneasy. It seemed neither of us had expected the hydrogen bomb's damage to be so severe.
"I know the cause of this explosion..."
Elara also glanced in our direction. After hesitating for a few seconds, she finally chose to tell everyone the truth.
"Michelle's strength far exceeded my imagination. If left unchecked, the consequences would be unimaginable. But no one in Edenmere could defeat her with a head-on fight. So I lured her to the maze in the northern forests, together with Cyra and Feliciana..."
After hearing Elara's account, all attendees except us four reacted differently - some were shocked, some rather calm.
"If this Michelle is so hard to deal with, then this bit of sacrifice is acceptable..."
Gwendolyn muttered while flipping through the report, hand on her cheek. Suddenly finding something interesting, her interest was piqued.
"Oh? She has twelve red wings on her back, how interesting!"
"The mass destructive weapon thrown out by Cyra was made by Reed?"
This question came from Shirley, who seemed unwilling to believe a palm-sized sphere could cause such massive damage. She even turned back to glance at us, mainly at Reed.
"If we equip this weapon in the angel legions and use it in the right place, wouldn't fighting the monsters be much easier?"
This is nuclear proliferation! How familiar!
"Unfortunately, there is no way to mass produce using my method of making this weapon!"
Hearing this, Reed raised his head and poured cold water on her.
"The current method of gathering materials can only be done with Nicola's assistance, and requires absorbing a huge amount of light elements. All this can only happen in Edenmere. But with Edenmere's light element reserves, at most ten more can be produced. In other words, the environmental impact on Edenmere would be huge."
"So you're saying making these weapons may cause Edenmere's light elements to become sparse?"
Gwendolyn asked thoughtfully after listening.
"Of course. Although it's recoverable, the concentration definitely won't return to its original levels in a short time. Do you think you can accept such consequences?"
Seeing his warning was effective, Reed pushed further.
"And that's not even the most important - according to Elara's account, the one who ultimately detonated the weapon was Michelle's special flames. This fire has extremely high temperatures, even those trees with extreme heat resistance can be ignited. This step cannot be replicated. So defeating Michelle was only possible under various coincidences."
"If we cooperate with human sages and add smelting techniques, replicating such high-temperature flames may not be that difficult. The biggest trouble is still the light element consumption..."
Elara lowered her head in thought, seemingly hesitant about the impact on her homeland's environment. After all, she had personally resolved the near depletion of Edenmere's light element before.
"Is the magic circle you used to compress air only able to absorb light elements?"
Cyra suddenly turned and whispered to Reed.
"Do you want this world full of nuclear deterrence too?"
Reed glanced at her and whispered back.
"Umm..."
At a loss for words, Cyra could only turn her head back embarrassingly.
Don't be fooled by us seemingly just relying on Michelle's ultra-high temperature flames to detonate the nuclear bomb. That alone wouldn't have worked. Detonating a nuclear bomb requires extremely harsh conditions, it's not that simple! Reed's long-term compression of hydrogen gas through the magic circle beforehand was essential.
"The meeting time is limited, let's postpone the decision for now..."
Unable to decide, Elara could only shelve the issue of mass-producing nuclear bombs for the time being. She then admonished all present:
"However, due to the gravity of this matter, the weapons of mass destruction are classified as confidential. I hope everyone will keep it secret after the meeting, and not divulge it casually."
"I object!"
Councilor Meg, who had been quiet, suddenly stood up.
"Previously it was expanding the legion, expeditions, etc. But if these horrific weapons are equipped in the angel legions, it won't just be defence. Who knows, it may flatten the entire Dark Continent, leading to elemental imbalance!"
"Elemental imbalance?"
It immediately stirred up a flurry of discussions among the other angels. As for us four new angels, we weren't too clear about this concept of elemental imbalance.