City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

Breaking The Silent Forest

The Silent Forest was quickly awakened by a fierce battle call, the light breeze sending the bugle horns to every corner of the woods. Elven warriors stepped out for a moment upon hearing the call before heading back into their homes, donning their armour, sheathing their swords, and placing their longbows across their backs before bidding farewell to their families and rushing to the World Tree. Prince Syon was calling for his warriors to fight a powerful enemy.

Tens of thousands of high elven warriors gathered from all around, each level 10 or greater. An enormous flock of horned eagles was already flying in the sky, ready to transport the Prince’s warriors to the shoreline. Syon himself had worn a gorgeous suit of armour that almost looked like coloured glass, placing his famous two-handed sword on his back before getting on a white peacock with long tail feathers. This was his personal mount, one of the ten most powerful beasts in the empire.

Under the leadership of the white peacock, a large group of eagles circled around the World Tree one last time before flying to the east.

……

Perillum Island was the second largest harbour on the east coast of Lithgalen, the base of the third fleet of the current empire. The city itself had 100,000 residents, with most of the economy catering to the fleet that protected the entire northeast of the continent. The island itself was only a few kilometres from the mainland, close to the beautiful Whitesand City that was named so for its beaches.

This port was normally quite idyllic, but the appearance of seven giant warships had broken that peace quite easily. The guards of the port had been easily defeated, and all the warships were either captured or shunk. On the giant warships were powerful archers that could fire tracking arrows up to nearly a kilometre away; even saints were turned into pincushions if they approached.

Richard spent an hour occupying Perillum, and even less taking down the unguarded Whitesand City. The local revolts were quickly suppressed, leaving the high elves silent as they watched the enemy soldiers occupying all the vantage points nearby. Many were surprised by the silent night elf forces; each one was level 16 at minimum, which was strong enough to become an elite officer in the royal army. The well-equipped night elves were even more powerful than the guards of the empire; even Prince Syon’s core soldiers were the same level. However, the Prince only had a few dozen guards, maybe a hundred at most; Richard had thousands.

With everything taken care of, Richard, Greyhawk, Mina, and the others spent some time independently touring the port. The buildings here were in typical elven style, the buildings all slender and tall while the city was full of ancient trees and flowerbeds. The spiral houses were covered in turquoise and deep blue tiles, while the borders were made of gold or a combination of gold and silver. The motif of gold, silver, and blue was the main aesthetic of the elven empire.

The high elves here were taller and stronger than their distant relatives still in Norland like the wind elves and prairie elves. The men were close two two metres tall, about Richard’s own height, while the women were closer to 1.8. Alongside their natural magic affinity, it allowed the entire race to be fairly talented at a number of things. Their shamans toed the line between magic and the divine, giving their soldiers powerful boosts to strength and recovery.

Once he was done with a tour of the port, Richard returned to his battleship and met with the rest.

“What did you find?” Greyhawk asked.

“Do you know what kind of shop is most common here?” Richard responded with another question of his own.

“Hmm… bookstores, and there were also a lot of shops selling art and related materials.”

“Mm, there are a lot of so-called weapon processing shops too, but most of them are for decoration, not lethality. They have stuff that costs as much as magic weapons without a single enchantment. Take a look,” Richard threw over a random longsword he had picked up, one of the most common weapons of the elves. It was long and sharp, the workmanship clearly quite good, but the most intriguing parts came from the text engraved on the ridge and the beautiful hilt that was shaped to look like a bird’s wings. The text was a verse from a poem, and the hilt proved no purpose other than to make it look better.

“A full two-thirds of the making cost was used on things that have nothing to do with the effectiveness. This is very telling; Lithgalen isn’t nearly as strong as they want you to think,” Richard said as Greyhawk examined the blade. He was one of the biggest names in all of Norland when it came to the weapon trade, and his knowledge of value in that department was unparalleled.

Examining the sword in his hand, Greyhawk couldn’t help a sigh. This was a common longsword that almost every adult elf knew how to wield, not just a symbol of identity but also a practical weapon. Adult high elves were good warriors who stood somewhere about level 12 on average, forming the basis of the empire that had once ruled over all of Norland. The Millennial Empire still had some weapons from back then, but they were nothing like this. While still beautiful and elegant, those weapons were all enchanted and practical. Here, it was clear that actual enchanters and craftsmen were quite scarce.

A short while later, Richard ordered the fleet into battle position. Some guards assembled in fortifications at Whitesand and Perillum, keeping a strict eye on the populace. He then turned to Greyhawk, “The elven reinforcements are coming, we’ll likely see a prince. A letter went out from the port recently, telling the imperial palace that the third fleet was killed.”

“Are we not even going to try negotiations?” Greyhawk asked.

“Not yet, this time we fight,” Richard answered without hesitation.

“Why?” the older man frowned. As someone from the Millennial Empire, he held a certain amount of respect for the elves. It took him a moment to recall the fact that the youth in front of him had thick elven blood as well.

Richard smiled, “They need to know we’re strong enough to crush them, or they’ll keep up with this attitude. To them, modesty is cowardice.”

Greyhawk wanted to try and persuade Richard, but he suddenly sensed a tyrannical aura in the distance and looked to the west. A huge flock of eagles was zooming towards them, headed by an eye-catching white peacock. His heart sank as he felt the sheer killing intent, knowing that there would be no peaceful resolution to this.

……

Three days later, shocking news arrived at the imperial palace. Syon, one of the ten most powerful elves in Lithgalen, had fallen to a human called Richard in battle. The human had then led a 5,000-man force to capture the Silent Forest, and was currently marching all the way to the imperial palace.

It was only after Syon’s death that Richard’s original message was released from the east. It stated that he carried a branch from the Golden World Tree, and wished for a trade with the empire. The specifics of this trade offer were unknown.

The imperial palace was located deep in Lithgalen, but it stood upon a white peak and not on a world tree itself. To the elves, the palace could only be placed upon a golden world tree; the regular ones that governed Lithgalen were nothing and could only provide shade.

A naturally planted golden world tree would have grown into a sky tree by now, but the ones in Lithgalen were stuck at their limit after millennia of growth. Only a small number of people in the Empire knew just what a branch of a golden world tree meant; absorbing it would allow their current ruling world tree to become a true sky tree; even if this didn’t turn it into a golden world tree, it was better than the current situation. A small step forward would spell huge growth for the Empire. This was a secret Prince Syon was not qualified to know.