Year 296, Day 38
After nearly 250 years, I finally managed to break through into the realm of the divine sea.
I never relaxed in my cultivation, but it seems that destiny was against me.
I spent almost two hundred and fifty years breaking through the limit of a great realm.
I seem to have drawn the short straw among celestial spirit roots. If only I had one of the best celestial spirit roots, I would have had much less difficulty.
As I progress, my cultivation speed becomes slower and each breakthrough more difficult than the last.
One could say that I am gradually approaching the limit of my potential, but I haven't reached it yet.
Nevertheless, I still have a lifespan close to 10,000 years. One could say that I am in the prime of life.
In any case, I plan to go into isolation until I am definitively blocked by my spirit root before coming out.
I will also take this time to improve my sword techniques and combat skills.
After all, I have no chance of obtaining an ascension peach with my current strength.
...
Half an hour earlier.
"I want a detailed report on the situation!" roared the monkey captain to the other staff members.
All were bustling around him and soon, one of them returned with a digital tablet.
"Reporting, captain. With the range of our radars, we have detected an enemy encirclement about 200km from our position. Despite the interference, we have detected five enemy camps. Each housing approximately 40,000 men and about thirty rank C mutants, ranging from C4 to C1."
"The northernmost camp, which we assume to be the main camp, contains directly near a hundred rank C mutants and even two rank B1 mutants."
The monkey holding the tablet spoke clearly, while the others gulped.
"Continue!" said the captain loudly, frowning.
The monkey nodded and pointed to the large screen at the back of the room.
With a slight beep, the screen lit up and showed a short video.
"We launched reconnaissance drones over the camps and identified five main racial groups: another race of nagas, tree monsters, large green types, pale humanoids with white hair and purple horns and tails, and humanoids with blue and black scales."
On the screen, the camp approached. The drone kept a considerable distance and used zoom to scrutinize the camp, showing the organized quarters and the serious atmosphere of the camp.
"Judging by their outfits, they seem to consist of three different armies, while the other races form mixed groups, but one thing is sure, they are not from this world. Even if we are not heavily involved with this world, we would have already detected groups as large and powerful as these."
The monkeys nodded, seeing the different uniforms of Alandal, Wylrach, and Yvengoth.
"Which brings us to the next point," said the monkey presenting the video.
At that moment, the screen went blurry as the video turned black.
"Some of them have very sharp senses capable of detecting us from kilometers away, so we placed the drones at more than 20km altitude."
The captain frowned at the black screen and the room fell silent.
"I want to —"
"CAPTAIN, URGENT MATTER!" An officer monkey burst into the room yelling while holding a tablet.
The captain's gaze sharpened as the urge to tear out the man's mouth rose within him, but he merely gave him a murderous look.
"Speak!" he growled.
The man shuddered but finally took a resolute air as he brought the terrible news.
"Rank C mutants, thirty of them are rushing toward our position in groups of three in all directions, and the main camp has released a detachment of nearly 10,000 men with twenty rank C mutants and one of the rank B1 mutants!"
...
Back to the present.
The aftershocks of the explosions had barely subsided, but the atmosphere in the command room was even more tense than usual.
Everyone was gathered around a holographic map of the area showing different yellow points, some light, some dark, as well as two orange points.
"This! This is impossible!" said one of the lieutenants, drawing the desperate looks of the other monkeys.
However, even the captain said nothing and looked at the map with a dark and serious expression.
"I want to see the drone videos during the explosions!" he ordered.
No monkey replied, and one of them just clicked on his tablet and projected the videos on the main screen, too shocked to care about this slight lack of respect.
For the next few minutes, they watched the various videos in silence.
They saw two gigantic wyverns getting injured while the last one dodged and defended itself, they saw several novarians, valyrs, and nagas getting killed or dodging the bombs, they saw the magical barrier of the camps defending against all the bombs, and finally, they saw a great naga raising its hands to the sky as a gigantic dome covered the detachment, protecting them from a huge explosion.
Even after the video stopped, silence reigned for a long time in the room before the captain spoke.
"This operation... is a failure!" he said in a trembling voice.
He seemed to have aged ten years as his usually straight back hunched.
One of the lieutenants saw an opportunity and tried to take advantage of the captain's weakness to get into his good books and protested.
"But captain, we still managed to kill seven rank C mutants and injure nine, two of which seem to be at death's door! That still represents a —"
Paff
"Stop talking nonsense and shut up." roared the captain, slapping him hard enough to dislocate his jaw. "We used six thermobaric bombs on each mutant group, ten bombs on each camp. That's a hundred fucking bombs in total. We even used two 100MT nuclear bombs and you tell me it's a success?! That's 20% of our stock, damn it! AND FOR WHAT? SEVEN DEAD?! THAT'S NOTHING COMPARED TO THEIR ARMY!"
The lieutenant didn't dare reply or complain, suffering in silence.
Meanwhile, the more the captain spoke, the more he felt anger replacing his astonishment. It wasn't just directed at his idiot subordinate, but also at... Absolutely everything. The interference, the communication cuts with the satellite and the external army, the lack of reinforcements and equipment, this mysterious army appearing out of nowhere, the mission's failure, and finally, his own helplessness.
...
Two hundred kilometers north, the atmosphere wasn't great either.
In the ten minutes following the last explosion, bad news came one after another.
All the tactical groups had at least one injured, while some dead didn't even have bodies to bury.
The only ones not too affected were Sylvera's detachment and those who stayed in the camps.
What had perhaps the most impact was when an elder ice wyvern brought back the now lifeless body of a young fire wyvern, who unfortunately didn't survive the return trip.
When his parents learned of it, Isabella had to intervene and stop them as they were about to recklessly charge towards the center of the plane.
The provisional tally was eight rank 4s deceased, as well as a few thousand mortals, while about fifty thousand people had become deaf, blind, or both, even though the three main armies were not too affected by this and at worst had a few cases.
Fortunately, Liam was quick to organize a massive blessing session, spending nearly a million faith points to heal all the injured, including the rank 4s, garnering a great wave of faith as many soldiers became true or fervent believers. There were even a number of fanatics.
It was just a drop in the ocean for him and he still had 200 million faith points after condensing his third divine rune. He was still far from the four billion of the fourth rune.
However, even if he could, he didn't bring the dead back to life and just stored the souls of the Alandal deceased in a magical tool his grandfather had given him.
Even though all the armies suffered losses, Alandal lost the most.
Yet, he didn't complain and simply sighed.
"This chain of easy victories had made them arrogant and overconfident. Pride is one thing, but arrogance and ego are another. Even if I would have liked it to go differently, it's better to instill caution in their hearts now than to wait and suffer a huge loss later."
Above Alandal, Liam sighed and refocused on his meditation.
...
While everyone ran around the camp, Sylvera took the lead and urgently convened a war council meeting about an hour after the last explosion.
At the same time, a gust of sound descended from the sky and a gust of wind swept through the camp.
As the dust settled, a middle-aged Valyr entered the command center calmly.
With his entrance, everyone in the room stood up and looked at him with gratitude.
"Good to see you, old man," said Isabella, swinging negligently on her chair, feet propped up on the table.
Ilbert simply nodded at her and took the seat to the right of Sylvera, the left being occupied by the beautiful drake in humanoid form.
After a few greetings, Sylvera stood up and a serious silence fell over the group of nearly forty people, signaling the start of the crisis meeting.
"First of all, I want to extend my condolences to everyone who lost a loved one in this attack. For that, I can only offer my apologies because we attacked without being prepared and honestly, I never would have imagined a weapon without spiritual energy could cause such damage."
The silence in the room grew even heavier as sadness filled the eyes of the various war chiefs.
However, no one blamed the naga. After all, the distress and terrifying roars of the two wyverns earlier were enough for them to understand they had suffered even more losses than all of them combined.
"Now, I'll be clear with you. I'm going to ask all the war chiefs except the Wylrach killers and Yvengoth troops to withdraw their troops far from the front lines!"
Again, silence fell in the room, but this time, there was a hint of tension in the air.
After several moments of silence where the tension became palpable, a clear, soft voice sounded.
"The dwarves of Sephilys will withdraw!"
All eyes turned to the incarnation of Lucie Wenhamar.
"But —"
"No buts," roared Lucie. "Even with the newly added members, we have less than a hundred men left, and none have even reached rank 3. Tell me, do you seriously think you can be of any help here? Especially with these weapons that can kill even intermediate existences? The answer is no! We would just be an extremely weak burden that would get swept away at the slightest opportunity."
Her tone was uncompromising, leaving no room for negotiation.
At the same time, her speech seemed to open the eyes of the other war chiefs, who gradually agreed to withdraw.
"It's not as if we're sending you back either," said Sylvera. "In fact, we're asking you to return to the spiritual veins and extract them for when the war is over. At the same time, you can also continue to pillage the rest of this world's resources. Apart from the spiritual stones, you can keep everything you find."
Upon hearing this, the war chiefs' dejected expressions disappeared even faster than they came.
After all, even though they had pillaged a lot, they were far from stripping the entire plane. There were still many hidden resources to discover and pillage, while most threats had already been dealt with.
A few minutes later, the war chiefs and divine envoys left one by one, smiles on their faces as they imagined the resources they would soon accumulate.
In the room, only eight people remained: Sylvera, Isabella, Ilbert, the treant chief, the orc chief, and the incarnations of the three students, although the latter three were more like spectators than anything else.
"Good. Now, it's time to start the real meeting!" said Sylvera in a serious tone.