City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

Decisive Conclusion

Watching the battle up above, Greyhawk suddenly sighed, “Richard is challenging Casir at his best skill. We can only wait and see if he makes a mistake.”

The Millennial Empire had always paid attention to the situation in Lithgalen, and they had a decent amount of intelligence on the four epic beings of the elven empire. Price Casir’s biggest strength came by his speed and skill; once he gained control of the rhythm of the battle, he would eviscerate his opponents in a storm of blades. A single mistake in the face of this relentless offensive meant death.

Although Mina wasn’t particularly high-level, she was still someone with knowledge befitting her status. A puzzled expression crawled up her face; Richard wasn’t a warrior, and he had a number of powerful spells on hand. Why was he throwing that away for a melee battle? Would he really make no mistakes?

It didn’t take long for the question to be answered. A scream suddenly rang through the forest as crimson blood rained down from above, Casir finally slowing down enough to be seen for just a moment. He immediately flashed away, but his left leg was missing and a stream of blood marked the trajectory of his escape. Richard just sighed and shook his head, flying back to his army.

“How?” Greyhawk asked the moment he landed.

“How what?”

“How did it end so fast?” A battle between epic beings normally lasted days, maybe even weeks. Greyhawk could understand if things ended in a few hours, but it hadn’t been ten minutes and Casir fled. From what the former Scholar understood, the difference between the two wasn’t that significant.

Richard smiled, “I don’t make mistakes, and he can’t. He’s someone who dances on the edge of the blade, it’s inevitable that he’ll be put under pressure. He succumbed to it and gave me an opening.”

Greyhawk nodded with some understanding, but he felt like Richard wasn’t telling him everything. That notion was true. Even a small difference in skill could barrel into a huge disadvantage when one was at the peak of their field. Richard’s oppression had forced Casir to go all out from start to end, quickly draining the elf’s physical and mental faculties. This battle was quite similar to the one with Apeiron, but Casir was markedly worse and thus succumbed much faster.

In truth, Richard himself was a little surprised by the ease of the victory. He had expected a quick collapse, but it had still happened far earlier than his predictions. The only conclusion was that the prince’s will was significantly weaker than Apeiron’s, but when he thought about it this made sense. Few people could have her resilience, especially if they grew up living comfortably like the elves.

He looked at a hand-painted map that he had taken from the palace, “Let’s go, we can make it out of the forest and reach the Flowering Plains today. There’s a city we can stay in overnight.”

He was talking about the Flower Trail, a medium-sized city supported by a tree of life. It was a quiet town that focused on beauty, making it the choice residence of many artists. Even the royal bard Eversong had a villa over there.

As Richard marched along the Flowering Plains, the imperial palace exploded once more. Casir, who hadn’t lost in centuries, was soundly defeated in a battle against the human invaders. The Emperor ensured that the news would be suppressed as long as possible before gathering everyone to discuss things once more.

The prince in charge of the military was the first to speak up, “We have sent a total of 80,000 soldiers to confront Richard, but they were routed immediately. 20,000 are dead or maimed, and half of the rest will need to be blessed by the Moon Shrine to be able to return to the battlefield.”

Another Prince formed a projection of Richard’s march, “He has two powerful legends at his side, and his army is extremely powerful. It will take great effort to defeat them.”

The druid spoke up, “We cannot let him return to the sea. His fleet still resides at Perillum, and they managed to destroy the third fleet without taking any losses. If he returns to his ships, he will be able to blockade us completely from the water.”

Several of the princes looked at each other, with one eventually speaking up, “A blockade… would not be too frightening. We do not need to communicate with Norland at all. Lithgalen contains all the resources we need.”

Most of the elves present nodded softly. Given their low fertility, their numbers had grown very slowly since they migrated. The population had tripled in the thousand years they had spent here, but that was still less than half of the peak. To them, the resources on Lithgalen were virtually inexhaustible, which was why they had made no attempt to trade with the other empires. In their eyes, such things as trade and planar war were meant for the lowly humans, orcs, and dwarves. They were above such greed, not needing to engage on paths of blood.

“If Richard blocks the sea, we can evacuate the coasts quite easily. A few empty cities will be nothing,” a prince chipped in.

“How can you say that?” the druid raged.

However, the Emperor closed his eyes and nodded, “That is a solution. Outside of our symbolic communication with the Millennial Empire, we do not communicate with the mongrels anyway. Richard will run out of supplies soon enough, and he will have to return.”

“But we still have two more fleets! Are we going to let the humans take control of our gates?”

“Many of our battleships come from the imperial age. If they end up like the third fleet… I fear we cannot make so many ships,” the Grand Shaman said slowly, every word stabbing into those present. When the elven empire had been destroyed, the elves had lost many things in the process of their flight. Amongst those losses were the blueprints and manufacturing process for the magic warships. In the centuries since, those of Lithgalen had never managed to engineer these ships once more. Without the divine magic of old, it was impossible for them to create the cores that drove these ships, and the replacements they came up with still only had two-thirds of the power. Every one of these flagships lost was one they would never have again.

After a long discussion, the council eventually concluded that if Richard blocked the sea, the first and second fleet would be transferred to the west coast. They would effectively hide their ships to avoid losses, hoping he wouldn’t find them. It was a huge blow to their pride, but the motion passed.

However, this decision was not a decision at all. Before things even came to that point, they had to solve the original problem; how would they stop Richard’s march?

“We have to fight!” the war prince shouted in frustration.

The druid nodded, “Think of ways to cut off Richard’s army, and then hold down the two legends around him. I will work with His Majesty to take care of Richard.”

But how were they to stop that army of powerful elves? The council discussed this for a while, but the war prince eventually grunted with resolution, “Mobilise the entire frozen cavalry, I’ll pick up my blade and lead them myself.”

The faces of the other elves immediately changed. They thought about things for a while before slowly starting to nod. Just like their magical warships, the frozen cavalry was a legacy of the elven empire. They were amongst the strongest land units, surpassing even the orc behemoths slightly and capable of going toe to toe with demonic legions. However, the technology behind them was another thing Lithgalen had lost, and having lost some of the armour sets in the past they only had 12,000 men left. This was the last pride of the elven empire, the one troop that allowed them to still assume they were superior to Norland and Klandor.

However, outside of this troop, the high elves realised that they didn’t really have any cards to play. The combined army of the empire came out to about 300,000 strong, but 80,000 of them had been defeated halfway to the palace. Even if they somehow managed to gather all the scattered troops in time, they would all be destroyed in battle.

The Emperor finally nodded as well, “Alright, send out the frozen cavalry. Lyren, destroy these heathens!”