Chapter 1244: Changes in the Blessed Land
With the territory stable and the new army taking shape, the werewolves were being armed in the tens of thousands at a time. Everything was going according to plan. The only problem was for Qianye to pick a new direction to attack.
In one direction was a series of small human nations led by w.a.n.g Renyang, better known as the Greensea King. The forces of several dozen small nations added together was just about equal to the werewolves of the Jade Sea, and w.a.n.g Renyang himself was only as strong as the previous King of Zheng. Reportedly, he possessed a powerful evasion secret art.
In the other direction was the werewolves of Darkland. They were made up of countless large tribes and occupied a good chunk of territory on the mainland. This was a lot bigger than the maple leaf corner that was Qianye’s current domain.
From an expansion perspective, it was natural to pick the human nations. Greensea King w.a.n.g Ren was fairly mediocre in combat strength and not likely to be Qianye’s match. With Qianye and Caroline working together, victory was more or less certain. The Storm Duke, on the other hand, was much stronger than the Whitebone Duke. The Jade Sea was a barren place compared to the vast Darkland and its rich black stone mines. That was why the Storm Duke never found any interest in it, only focusing his a.s.sault further inland.
The central territory connected to Darkland also belonged to one of the strongest experts on Fort Continent, a werewolf duke known as Soulfire.
The Storm Duke and Soulfire Duke were arch-enemies who had been fighting for dozens of years without a clear winner. This was also one reason why the Storm Duke had no time for other territories.
Taking down Darkland was not an easy matter. Qianye and Caroline might be able to push back the Storm Duke, but it would be extremely difficult for him to defeat or kill him. Also, the Soulfire Duke might not stand by and watch during the battle. He would likely take advantage of the situation to seek a decisive victory against his enemy. Qianye had no intention of giving up his hard-fought territory to someone else.
Qianye would often gaze at the map of Fort Continent and contemplate the pros and cons when he had nothing else to do.
The best course of action was to start with the humans. After subduing w.a.n.g Renyang and gaining his support, Qianye would have great confidence in defeating the Storm Duke. With the Storm Duke dead, the destruction of the Darkland army would follow sooner or later.
Yet it was not yet time to launch the a.s.sault. The werewolves of the Jade Sea did not have enough grains in storage. He would need to wait for a new harvest of grains and slaughter the domestic stock before setting out. Most of Zheng’s industrial territories were in Qianye’s hands, but their agricultural zones were still within their grasp. The supplies offered by the aristocracy hadn’t arrived yet. It would take at least half a month for them to gather such an amount.
Declaring war wasn’t something that could be done overnight, and there was really no rush since Qianye wasn’t hungry for accomplishments. He would take his time organizing his territory, power structure, and manpower.
Less than two days of peace had gone by when a werewolf chief rushed into Qianye’s office, even forgetting to knock. “Sire, there’s been a change in the blessed land!”
Qianye raised his brows. “What has happened, speak slowly!”
The anxious werewolf chief couldn’t even speak clearly. “It’s just like that, really strange. I don’t know how to explain, you should go and see for yourself.”
He didn’t seem like he was lying, and Qianye wasn’t afraid of traps at his current strength. “Prepare the airs.h.i.+p, let’s go over and see.”
When the airs.h.i.+p was in place and Qianye walked out of the office, he saw many anxious werewolves whispering among themselves. It would seem something had happened at the blessed land.
The output from the blessed land served to support most of the Jade Sea werewolves and the main reason why this giant city came to be. Otherwise, a city even one-tenth of this size would be a stretch, considering their primitive hunting and plantation methods.
Qianye boarded a corvette and made straight for the objective.
Even from a distance, Qianye could see pillars of mist rising up from the ground to form a wall around the blessed land. Moreover, it was extending outward into the depths of the mountain range.
As the airs.h.i.+p drove on, they could see the once-bountiful crops withering at a visible rate. No wonder the werewolves were so worried.
Some of the werewolves on the ground were charging into the mist, hoping to save whatever they could. They knew very well that the loss of these crops would cause a wave of famine during the cold winter. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of werewolves would die from the chill and starvation.
“Sire, what is happening?”
A dozen or so werewolf chiefs looked to Qianye with worry. Even the shamans had no idea what was happening.
The human mercenaries were puzzled, but they also realized the gravity of the situation after seeing the withering plants below.
The knowledgeable people from Ningyuan looked rather solemn and Song Hui was frowning deeply.
Most werewolf tribes didn’t have extra grain. Their lives were bitter, and there would always be deaths in winter. Smaller tribes had it even worse. When there was no grain left to tide through the winter, most of the werewolves would choose to take desperate risks and die in battle.
During the Whitebone Duke’s era, he would push the disobedient tribes toward the Great Corridor and have them attack Zheng. This made more s.p.a.ce for more population and territory. Qianye, of course, wouldn’t do this, but how was he to fill in for such a large gap in harvest?
He looked at Song Hui, who shook her head, saying, “Buying grains from the Empire is not practical, how much do you think the s.h.i.+pping alone would cost? Our budget won’t allow for it.”
Qianye also knew that bringing in food from the Empire was an utterly inadequate measure. It might be enough to support his troops, but it was far from enough to feed the hundreds of thousands of werewolves in Cerulean Wave City.
Qianye watched with narrowed eyes. “When did this begin?”
The great shaman replied, “The mist began this morning, and the farms started to fail at noon. We had to report it to you since we simply cannot find the reason.”
“Can it be a certain tribe’s doing?”
“No ordinary tribe has this ability. It might be the Greensea King or the Storm Duke!”
“Makes sense.”
While the group was whispering among themselves, Qianye stared fixedly at the expanding white mist. The scenery behind the mist had become so blurry that the farms were no longer visible. The werewolves running about in the fields had also disappeared, their voices distant and soft.
Before long, everything around them was silent.
One of the chiefs cried out, “Where are those people?”
Everyone was startled. Only then did they realize that they couldn’t see through the mist no matter how hard they tried. The cries, curses, and shouts from just now had disappeared, almost as though there were never any werewolves in the depths of the mist.
Be it the shaman, chiefs, or soldiers, they could not see far into the mist no matter how hard they tried. Even those with visual advantage didn’t fare any better. Perception would fail swiftly within the mist and disperse completely after a short distance.
The mist was an entirely different scene in Qianye’s eyes.
The origin power within the mist was extremely intense. Its attribute was also special and unstable, right in the middle between daybreak and evernight.
The density would increase deeper inside the mist, almost turning into a fog condensed from void origin power. It was only natural that the perception of ordinary experts wouldn’t last very long.
Qianye became increasingly surprised as his Eye of Control stretched deeper and deeper into the mist. There was a certain attribute inside that he had never encountered or heard of. It was exceptionally strong, grey, and heavy, with a certain restlessness beneath the calm surface. If one had to describe it, it could be compared to mercury.
The depths of the mist was an entirely different world where ordinary people would not be able to survive. it was even worse than some of the most notorious danger zones in the neutral lands.
“You guys wait here.” With that, Qianye flew out of the airs.h.i.+p and shot into the mist.
Once inside, Qianye sensed something cold and smooth against his skin, almost as though there was a snake slithering across his body. After sensing it carefully, there seemed to be a kind of origin power eroding his body. Qianye stood still for a moment to study this strange origin power.
This new origin power was a bit similar to mercury but also somewhat different. It would attempt to corrode and enter the body after coming into contact, but it could do nothing against Qianye’s divine champion physique and Venus Dawn.
He made a bold move by releasing his defensive s.h.i.+eld and allowing the energy to invade his body. This allowed him to discern its main characteristics after a while.
The erosion wasn’t too strong and the process was long, so ordinary experts might be able to move about for a while inside the mist. It wasn’t as lethal as void tempests. The origin power would release a strange poison inside the body; the toxin wasn’t powerful, but it was lethal after sufficient acc.u.mulation.
After understanding what was going on, Qianye slowed down to observe the situation around him.
The plants and weeds in the farms had all withered away. The leaves were especially crisp, almost as though they had been toasted. These dried plants looked fairly peculiar considering how humid the air in the mist was.
Several werewolves could be seen collapsed in the fields.
Qianye flew over and pulled one of them up, but immediately sensed that their bodies were as dry and stiff as a piece of wood. Frowning, he turned them over, only to find that they were dried corpses!
The moisture in their bodies had vanished entirely, and the dried muscles clung tightly to their bones. They were almost like skeletons.
Qianye went on to check the other remains and they were the same.