Chapter 625: Beginning of the End
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
The Moonwheel Capital. This was the capital city of the San Hein Empire, as well as the birthplace of Elven Empress Afina the First.
Since this place was chosen as the elves’ capital to reestablish the Elven Empire, it was only natural that this place had great natural advantages. The Moonwheel Capital was located in the center of the magical Starfall Forest. Thanks to many years of cultivation, this forest possessed large numbers of magical traps and mana batteries.
Forests were quite special to the elves who were the children of nature.
Dense forests would forever be the elves’ best allies. The elves’ subordinate species like centaurs, forest dwarves, and other nature creatures would all live within the forest. Not only that, moon spirits, an incredibly rare species, also lived in the Starfall Forest.
Moon spirits were elves, but also not elves. Only the strongest warriors and mages amongst the elves would be capable of leaving their souls behind in this forest after death. This entire forest was a special realm of its own. Pure souls would be covered in starlight here and transform into undying warriors of starlight.
Well, according to undead mages’ explanation, this would be a type of undead. However, the elves believed this to be another type of existence method for their ancestors’ heroic spirits. But if I had to say… weren’t heroic spirits also just a type of undead?
The moon spirits would often appear during the night while patrolling the Starfall Forest’s borders, punis.h.i.+ng all invaders and poachers. Their starlight forms had incredible power under the moonlight.
Yet, this was only the border guard portion of the Starfall Forest’s power…
Typically, this forest had always been guarded silently, but now the silence was gone as busy scenes could be seen everywhere.
The forest which was always asleep at night had now woken up from its moonlight and insect chirps. Elven guards were escorting white-robed priests and druids. The moon spirits watched with hostility as they selected a large tree with a long history.
An ancient oath and song could be heard. There was a mystical white light as the earth shook. Countless amounts of mud and stones were transformed into dust as the tree stood up as a treant. The roots transformed into tremendous feet as the crown transformed into the head. This forest was now filled with war treants moving about everywhere.
The entire forest came alive as gigantic treants stood up one by one. They didn’t need any directions as they slowly proceeded forward with heavy footsteps. However, their footsteps and sighs were filled with sorrow.
“…Even if we survive this upcoming calamity, the Starfall Forest will be finished.”
Esar, a young white-robed Druid, had tears stream down his cheeks as he looked at all the powerful “giants” whose footsteps were strong enough to cause earthquakes.
Any tree capable of transforming into a treant had finished the evolution from a plant into an intelligent creature. Even with the druids’ a.s.sistance, this could only be done to ancient trees that had lived for thousands of years.
Even though the Starfall Forest had a long history dating back to the Elven Empire, when considering the elves’ losses in so many wars, the number of such ancient trees was limited. Yet, the druids and nature priests were now summoning a major army consisting of about ten thousand treants. This meant that not only were mere hundred-year-old trees being summoned, even trees only a few decades old were being used.
Treants of such a young age would not only be lacking in intelligence, but it would be impossible for them to become complete treants. Without the providence of the earth, these treants would soon die. Not only that, such a loss would be impossible to make up for.
Large amounts of forest were withering to death. Draining the power of nature to forcefully create treants went against all teachings of the Nature Faction. This was forcing the ancient forest to a premature doom. Many druids and nature priests were crying. Even if these druids and priests survived the upcoming demon wave, they would never rest easy again with what they had done here. It was certain that their power levels would all drop. It was also likely that many of them would commit suicide out of guilt.
This was the result of being the moon elves’ forest. If this place was held instead by the wood elves who lived for the sake of the forest, it was likely that the wood elves would rather all face their death than force the forest to its demise… But from another standpoint, any wood elf forest would have far more nature creatures and ancient trees, and if the wood elves met with life-threatening danger, the forest itself would voluntarily fight for the wood elves. It wouldn’t have been necessary to forcefully summon treants in the first place.
Both weaker treants and war treants were incredibly important to the elves’ large-scale warfare strategies. The elves were skilled at producing mages and archers. Even the elves’ famous Silvermoon Rangers were mostly more skilled at combat tactics relying on their outstanding Dexterity stats. The elves would be at great disadvantage in a melee.
The elves lacked meat s.h.i.+elds… or, in other words, they lacked powerful cannon fodder. This was the elves’ most obvious combat weakness from ancient times to present. While such a weakness wouldn’t be so apparent in smaller-scale battles, it would forever be an Achilles heel in large-scale battles. No matter if it was human cavalry with powerful charges or b.l.o.o.d.y battles against beastmen berserkers, enemy warriors had always been mysteriously able to penetrate through the elves’ battle formations. The elves could only mourn at losing their battles.
If all the frontline warriors collapsed, even the most powerful archers and mages in the backline would become nothing more than easy pickings.
The elves’ typical fighting style was to use summoned creatures, subordinate species, and treants as their meats.h.i.+elds. However, the combat strength and will of such cannon fodder was quite worrisome. Only the treants and war treants would be slightly more reliable, yet those would require large amounts of resources and time to raise. Losing even one was a permanent, irreplaceable loss. Not to mention, treants had the critical weakness of extremely low movement speed.
In past battles, many elven enemies would either change battlefields or go around the treants’ defense line, easily ignoring the powerful defensive capabilities of war treants. However, this battle would be a defensive battle to protect the Moonwheel Capital, so it was certain that the war treants would become highly useful.
However, the moon elves’ method of forcefully summoning even young treants meant that they had killed off the treants’ combat potential for centuries to come. But of course, if the moon elves didn’t go all out here, it was likely that there would be no future for them whatsoever.
It was also worth mentioning that due to the moon elves’ typical behavior, other species were quite unwelcome in their territory. Even though forest dwarves were a traditional subordinate tribe to the elves, there were very few forest dwarves in the Starfall Forest. There were even fewer centaurs capable of melee or ranged combat. In the end, the moon elves could only rely on themselves.
The moon elves never would have committed such a “crime” destined to antagonize all druids and wood elves if it weren’t for the fact that they were in such a crisis.
Suddenly, a mountain began to shake as gray mud fell like raindrops. The next instant, the pitch-black mountain transformed into a black treant covered in mud.
This treant was several hundred meters tall. The moment that he appeared, his personal domain caused the entire sky to be covered in clouds that brought a torrential rainstorm.
Endless rain nourished his withered tree bark and washed away the mud on his body. New dark green sprouts swiftly started spreading on him at a visible pace. His eyes opened, revealing a sad silver light.
“…Isn’t he ‘Wall Who Blocks All Despair’? Wasn’t he critically injured in the battle against Yongye more than one hundred years ago? ‘Dragonsteel Guardian’, ‘Ain’s Anchor’, and so on have all awakened as well? Don’t any of them intend to live any longer?”
The elder treants all sighed pitifully as these legendary treants awoke from their slumber to meet their doom.
The druid Esar looked on in disbelief. These elder treants hadn’t been forcefully awakened. They were elders who had been seriously injured in past wars. Even the most outstanding nature priests would be unable to heal their injuries. The elder treants could only use hibernation to temporarily lengthen their lifespan and wait for a miracle to descend one day. However, now the elder treants had all awakened by themselves. It was likely that they had also realized that no miracle was coming, and that the final moment was upon them.
“The Starfall Forest is completely finished…”
Hundreds of druids and nature priests surrounded the elder treants, and green and white light representing healing magic flashed everywhere on the elder treants’ bodies. However, this would do nothing more than slightly extend the elder treants’ lives which were already nearing their end.
“No, wait! The elder treants won’t be able to move around for very long. Since they’ve awakened at this time, does this mean that the demon wave is about to arrive already?”
The druid Esar looked in disbelief at the sky. The dark night had been shattered, and the moonlight guiding the moon elves was now covered by dark clouds. Countless dimensional cracks appeared in the sky. These cracks constantly expanded, bringing along the destructive aura of Chaos from within.
A wild wolf came into contact with the aura of Chaos. The wolf instantly distorted, transforming into an inferno wolf covered in warts and corruption. The wolf immediately pounced on its former pack. Even more aura of Chaos started spreading everywhere as large numbers of wild beasts transformed into dangerous demonized creatures.
“The information was real! The Holy War is starting…”