Chapter 702: Prologue — The Country of Darkness
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
The night sky was limitless.
The scarlet, round moon hung silently on the night sky above this nation of eternal night with no sunrises. Its reddish radiance emanated in the endless night of darkness.
Garcia stood on the platform and gazed at the scenery below him. The dark, mesmerizing cities—Drekoen, Eternal Night City, and Death Capital. They were the last palaces of all the dark and undead races. Unlike Casabianca of the Country of Light, Drekoen was constructed in the shape of a square, which had obviously set apart four regions that represented four families and the four largest races in the Country of Darkness. The four regions served the gigantic, pitch-black castle in the center—and its owner.
At this moment, this city was sleeping under the gentle moonlight. The corners of Garcia’s lips twitched. This ma.s.sive city could never be treated as luxurious. Even though there were also business negotiations and communications in this city, they couldn’t be as lively as the human countries. To put it bluntly, judging by Garcia’s views on this city as a Human, he saw this place as an exquisite, lifeless graveyard with countless tombstones and graves exuding a faint blue aura.
What a foolish and meaningless thought.
Garcia shook his head slightly and caressed his beard. At this moment, a voice sounded behind him.
“All ready, Sir.”
“Got it.”
Garcia instantly put up a stern expression. He turned around and entered the s.p.a.cious room with large strides. Even though there were exquisite decorations set up in every corner of this well-decorated room, there wasn’t a single piece of furniture. In the center of the s.p.a.cious room, there was a mysterious, yet complicated ritual emanating with faint radiance. The ritual was laid out in the shape of a cross with empty circles at all four corners. Garcia stepped onto one of the four circles. Then, the entire ritual cross emanated a faint radiance and shortly after, three other indistinct, illusory silhouettes emerged above the other three circles. Even though Garcia couldn’t see their facial features, he knew that it was the same for how others viewed him — This was the communication method for the four legendary generals. Unless they received orders, they would never gather at a single place. They had never appeared before anyone and always controlled everything in secret.
It’s almost time…
Garcia let out a snort as he gazed at the three fuzzy figures. The war against the Light Mainland had begun, but the four legendary generals didn’t launch all their attacks. Instead, as per usual, ‘The Spirit Chaser’ Balende and ‘The Angel of Sorrow’ Charlie were responsible for leading the battles, while ‘The Blood Countess’ Ashvril and ‘The Conqueror’ Garcia remained in the nation. According to plan, they should have overcome a large portion of the Light Mainland’s territories and searched for further breakthroughs. However, Garcia knew that the situation wasn’t that simple.
“Our operations have faced some problems.”
‘The Spirit Chaser’ Balende said coldly. As usual, he decisively discarded the red tapes and got straight into the main topic.
Our operations in the Munn Kingdom have faced resistance, which caused the slowing of our progress. It seems that they are well-prepared for our raids. Our first wave of raid has almost failed completely. We need to regroup our troops and revise our strategies.”
“How surprising.”
A flirtatious, melodious voice sounded. Even without the need to look at her appearance, almost every man would fall into a delusion that they couldn’t extricate themselves from. However, Garcia remained silent and gazed at the slender magical silhouette with narrowed eyes.
“We have predicted that the Munn Kingdom’s defenses would be impressive. But, all the battle lines have crumpled? General Balende, you must be joking, right?”
Garcia shook his head slightly. As the only human race among the four legendary generals, he was much more capable than the other three in extracting intelligence from the human society. In fact, Garcia was sure that Balende wasn’t exaggerating in his words. There would be a risk of losing all their troops if they didn’t retreat immediately. Even though they had broken through the defenses in Sygram and Dragon Canyon, they failed to dominate the territories they had expected. Besides, their enemies had also smartly withdrawn from battle, which made it difficult for the Undead Army to kill the Humans and replenish their manpower on the spot. The situation in Silent Field was still acceptable. However, Garcia was clear that the Undead Army there had become a lonely army with Silent Field’s geographical location. If they didn’t come up with any solutions, they would surely be eliminated by the Battle Angel Army.
The situation in Paphield-Grenbell was even worse. According to the report that Garcia had received, not only did the enemies defeat Balende’s first wave of army, but they had also destroyed the ‘Sinister Death’. Even though the ‘Sinister Death’ was a Necromancer family with intermediate forces and wasn’t regarded highly by the four legendary generals, they were considered powerful to the humans. It was unbelievable that this Necromancer family had been utterly destroyed.
“Everything is normal in the Country of Light.”
Charlie was as reticent as ever as though speaking a few more words would kill him. But, the other three present understood what he meant.
Their attack on the Country of Light couldn’t get anymore normal.
Initially, the Country of Light dispatched their troops to the border to put up a strong stance and disregarded the Country of Darkness entirely. The day before Charlie launched his attack, the Country of Light was still focusing their attention on dealing with the Light Dragon Soul and winning the trust from their people. This gave Charlie the chance to overwhelm the borders and invade all the way through. Not only that, but they had also accomplished their mission earlier than expected. However, due to the resistance from the Munn Kingdom, Charlie couldn’t advance farther.
If the Country of Light was a wine bottle while the Country of Darkness’ attack was like forcing water into the wine bottle opening, then Munn Kingdom would be the cork. Logically speaking, the water would gush into the wine bottle in the shortest time possible as soon as the cork was removed. But, if they were to find an opening in the bottleneck and pour water through, no one knew how much time it would take to fill the wine bottle.
Of course, another way was to break the bottleneck and pour all the water in. But, this way, Country of Darkness would inevitably enrage the Twin Dragons of Country of Law, which would be extremely dangerous. Not to mention that Elves and Dwarves were far more troublesome to handle compared to Humans and Angels, the Country of Law also had two Creator Dragon Souls. Back then, they had the number advantage during the Creation War. Now that the Country of Darkness had started a war with the Country of Light, they naturally would want to avoid stirring trouble with the Country of Law.
The Judgment & Ruling Twin Dragons were the ones who had emerged and ended the Creation War. Even though the Country of Darkness had the Dark Dragon’s protection, the Judgment & Ruling Twin Dragons represented the final rules and judgment of Order. And, on this entire continent, order was everything.
“What does His Majesty think about it?”
Garcia shook his head and said.
“His Majesty didn’t have any views on this. This is an issue that we, four legendary generals, should resolve.”
Ashvril let out a crisp chuckle. However, Garcia didn’t take it to heart as he knew that Ashvril was just an annoying troublemaker. Back then, this raid plan had been approved by the Dark Dragon. Now that the progress wasn’t going well, the Dark Dragon would definitely pay attention to it. However, Garcia had to admit that Ashvril was right. This was a problem between the four legendary generals. If they couldn’t even handle such a problem, wouldn’t the tempted clowns who were eyeing their positions from below be jumping for joy?
“We should retreat and reevaluate the situation.”
Garcia ignored Ashvril’s words and suggested his own.
“General Charlie’s army have reached their target and we can act according to plan. No matter what, His Majesty’s prestige can protect our troops. Judging from the reactions of the Light Dragon, perhaps she can’t do anything to resist His Majesty. The Dragon Soul protection naturally has its inertia, but the Light Dragon’s current status is apparently not enough for her to recover lost ground. I suggest that we go steady and strike hard. Consolidate our battle lines first before launching another attack.”
Garcia gazed to the figure at the side.
“Silent Field isn’t a good choice for us. If it is possible, hand it over to others to defend.”
“Oh.”
Charlie responded, but no one knew if he had agreed to this suggestion.
“But this isn’t our focus, General Charlie.”
At this moment, the flirtatious voice let out some crisp chuckles as it spoke.
“Indeed. We recognize the strength of the Munn Kingdom. But this time, they actually performed so well against our raids. Shouldn’t we consider the possibilities of internal personnel leaking our information? This is a serious problem. According to our intelligence report, no matter which territories on Munn Kingdom’s battle lines, they are more or less prepared against our raids. General Garcia should be clearer in this than me. If we can’t resolve this problem, how should we go about discussing about others?”
Garcia sulked slightly.
Indeed. This was their biggest problem to a certain extent.