Game of the World Tree

On scenarios wherein the upper-ranked experts are absent and those mid-to-low-rank experts are evenly matched, conflicts like wars, especially in the world underground, tend to drag on extensively.

Perhaps before the elves came in as reinforcements, the possibility of the Hermetic Alliance successfully defending Blade City remained uncertain.

However, after the players joined the war, the war’s balance which was initially leaning towards the Dark Alliance, quickly evened out with neither of the two sides gaining a significant advantage over the other.

Of course, the players’ involvement alone is insufficient enough to completely turn the situation in favor of the Hermetic Alliance since their overall strength isn’t particularly high, and currently there’s still no individual on their side with silver-ranked strength participating in this battle.

Nevertheless, despite the mana within Seigües recovering at an exponential rate, most forces from various racial faction still remained at the Iron-rank. Therefore, even though the players strength are still at the bottom rank, they are more than capable enough to withstand the pressure of the undead army.

—At least… for now.

As such, a long slew of back-and-forth battles ensued upon the stone walls of Blade City.

The Dark Alliance, whom have been amassing undead soldiers for an unknown number of years, repeatedly rushed towards Blade City like a tide, aiming to slowly whittle down their opponent’s strength, bit by bit.

They mostly engaged in close combat, with each undead skeleton displaying formidable strength and relentless mechanical-like aggression.

Furthermore, observing the battlefield from an aerial perspective revealed an astonishing panorama…

The undead army by this point had already completely surrounded Blade City as the defensive barrier of the city shimmered incessantly.

At the same time, countless skeleton soldiers under the command of Death Knights, relentlessly charged towards the magnificent stone walls in a neat orderly fashion.

Each skeletal soldiers immediately upon reaching the base of the wall will climbed up using the leftover ladders, resembling a swarm of ants in their approach, as they clashed with the defending forces stationed above.

Meanwhile, atop the walls, two distinct groups confronted each other:

The undead soldiers that managed to scale up the ladders, and an unusual coalition of elves, dark-dwarves, and subterranean gnomes.

Currently, a fierce confrontation ensued between the two opposing groups as the war grew more intense with each passing moment.

As swords gleamed and arrows whizzed through the air, a cacophony of anger, laughter, and screams mingled amidst the sounds of shattering bones, forming a chaotic symphony that reverberated all across the battlefield…

Yet despite the ferocity of the conflict, a strange balance was maintained, with neither side managing to fully overpower the other from their positions, resulting in a stalemate.

From time to time, undead skeletons would be dislodged from the walls, just as defending soldiers would occasionally fall off from their positions….

But, upon closer look, it became apparent that the majority of those falling from the walls were elves.

These warriors from the world above who initially came as reinforcements had completely replaced the city’s defending soldiers and had become Hermetic Alliance’s main army in this battle.

Although their numbers were not as plentiful as the defending dark dwarves and gnomes, they often were the first to rush into the frontlines…

As a result, they also incurred the highest casualty rate.

By this point, the vicinity atop the walls was already strewn with numerous bones, which were remnants of the vanquished undead soldiers.

These scattered bones had already long lost their lifeforce after being absorbed by a certain great being through the hidden ability of the elves, hence they’re mostly being disregarded and ignored by everyone.

However some few elves for unknown reasons, have decided to collect quite a few of these bones, whilst muttering about them being excellent materials for something…

But regardless of their weird and quirky behavior, the admiration of the defending soldiers of the Hermetic Alliance for these elves grew stronger as the war waged on.

It can’t be helped since they, as inhabitants of the chaotic world underground have always respected the strong due to their life of constant struggle and survival.

Perhaps individually, these elves are not particularly strong , but collectively, their fearlessness and bravery, along with their willingness to sacrifice their very lives just to eliminate the enemy…all of these factors will inevitably greatly impress any local residents of the underground!

After observing the erratic, mad-like behavior of these elves, the city’s defenders all unanimously thought that it would be wise not to provoke them easily and that it would be more preferable to cultivate friendship rather than enmity with them in the future.

However, what surprised the city defenders the most, moving from surprise to shock, from shock to horror, and finally from horror to numbness, was that no matter how many of these elves died, newer ones would quickly appear shortly thereafter to fill in the spot of their fallen comrades.

These mysterious reinforcements from the surface seemed to be entirely inexhaustible, much like rodents and cockroaches…

Not only that, but as time goes by, rather than declining, their numbers seem to continuously increase instead…

However, one noticeable difference was that this newer batch of elves appeared to be weaker than the previous ones.

It was well obvious that they lacked any sort of practical combat experience and appeared to be mere novices.

But even so, they still charged into the battlefield with fervor akin to their fallen predecessors, while also shouting excitedly and howling, just like them.

Of course, their death rate was even higher.

Under such strange circumstances, the soldiers of the Hermetic Alliance gradually found themselves relegated to the edge of the battlefield.

Besides offering assistance to the elves, they had almost become mere spectators of their own war…

By now, the battle has been raging on for three days and three nights.

And Brein, the chieftain of Blade City who had earlier promised the elves bountiful rewards, was feeling a mixed feelings of pain and joy as the war continued on.

He was happy because with the support of the elves, the City of Blades could clearly resist the siege of the Dark Alliance.

But the painful thing was that Brein found that he seemed to have bitten off more than he could chew and was now paying the price for his earlier promise to the elves.

“…Tuck, have you compiled the statistics?”

Brein stood by the teleportation array with an impassive expression as he talked with the gnome in charge of calculating the reward payments.

Tuck, whilst holding a thick stack of documents, wiped the sweat off his forehead and replied:

“Chief, the statistics are in. After distributing the armors and weapons from our inventory, there are still many elves who have joined the war and asked to be paid with equipment. In the past three days, we have owed them a total of 13,184 sets of Iron equipment…”

Brein: “…”

Hearing this exaggerated number, the chief of Blade City felt his vision blur and almost felt dizzy…

He took a deep breath, calmed his mood a bit, and asked with a trembling voice:

“Then… what about in gold coins?”

Tuck swallowed hard.

After hesitating for a moment, he said with much difficulty:

“A-A set of fine iron equipment can be replaced with 300 gold coins, and over the past three days… we have paid a total of 18,580,000 gold coins…”

Brein: “…”

Upon hearing this absurdly large amount, the young chieftain felt an iron-like taste in his throat, before almost spitting out a mouthful of blood.

Although he had personally witnessed the elves emerging out from the array like an endless tide over the past few days to the point that he had gradually become numb to it, hearing this sheer ridiculous number still caused a pang of pain in his heart.

E-Eighteen million gold coins!

That’s eighteen freaking million gold coins!

The annual fiscal revenue of Blade City is only three million gold coins!

All of a sudden, their six years’ worth of savings went down the drain in just these three days alone!

Of course, for this number to accumulate to such a ridiculous degree, signifies that the elves have also sacrificed a terrifying chunk of their population…

If calculated, including the initial eight thousand sets of equipment at the beginning, the elves had actually mobilized nearly eighty thousand of their people in total!

And now, the number of elves currently fighting on the battlefield is roughly around fifteen thousand, which means that about sixty-five thousand of them have actually perished within the past three days.

They didn’t even leave behind any dead bodies as these elves immediately turned to ashes right after dying…

Brein was filled with doubts.

Just where did all these reckless suicidal elves come from?

Even if they searched the entire realm of Seigües, he was sure that they wouldn’t find so many elves, would they?

Alas… all of this was real.

At this moment, Brein simply wanted to travel back three days ago and beat his past self who made that damn promise so easily…

Regret…

He regretted it so much!

Such a large sum of wealth, even for the prosperous city of blades, would strain its resources just to pay those amount back.

— 361 —

【 BREIN’S REGRET 】

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