Chapter 695: Goods News and Bad News

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

“Wood spirits Northlands immigration plan? Wasn’t this plan rejected back in the day?”

I paused in surprise when I saw the government document that Reyne handed to me. I really couldn’t understand what was going on.

Back in the day, I had done my very best to try and convince Amelia to at least allow some wood spirits to immigrate and come live in the Northlands. That would greatly improve the Northlands’ environment and food supply.

But in the end, no matter how many alluring conditions I promised her, Amelia had always responded with “The conditions in the Northlands are unsuitable for the wood spirits.”

“Why did Amelia change her mind?”

“Take a look for yourself.”

There were many additional conditions listed on the document. Among them, a report on the possibilities of wood spirit immigration attracted my attention. “Report on the potential of planting the Forest of Dreams in an active volcano environment.”

The report was quite simple. It just listed the general ideas. Basically, as long as the local environment was adequately warm enough, seeds from the Forest of Dreams would be about to flower and sprout here. Then, as long as the environment’s warmth could be maintained until the Forest of Dreams spread to a certain extent, the local section of the Forest of Dreams here would be able to achieve internal temperature regulation, and a brand-new part of the Forest of Dreams would finally be able to stand in the Northlands.

“This is wonderful news! If this succeeds, this will reduce our food importing necessities by more than half! We’ll even have a strong nature power ally here. This will benefit the entire Mist Alliance… Reyne, why do you look so unhappy? Is there a problem with what I said?”

“…There’s no problem. Please continue. I don’t care about what you do.”

It was quite obvious that she was angry at me for some reason. But based on my many years of experience, young women would always be frustrated over mysterious things. At such a time, asking the reason why would only bring more trouble upon myself. So at this time, as I was a mature gentleman, I should…

“Does your stomach hurt? Ahem, I understand it must be that time of the month. Here, I have some pain medication that I obtained from the elves…”

Alright, she actually glared at me and then walked off without even saying goodbye. So rude! Just who taught her to be like that?

“Weren’t you her primary teacher…”

Ahem ahem, let’s not worry about such unimportant details. At the very least, having some wood spirits immigrate to the Northlands would be excellent news for the entire Mist Alliance.

The devils had worked so hard to start a volcanic eruption here. The end result was that not only did the Northlands now have a perfect excuse to not get involved in the chaos in mainland Eich, we were even now able to receive support from the wood spirits. And due to the elemental war, the Ice Elemental Plane was also able to speedily develop and solidify its alliance with the Mist Alliance. When weighing pros and cons, it kept feeling more and more like we had gained far more than we lost. Could it be that the devils were actually trying to give us a present?

“…It’s not that easy. Take a closer look at the requirements listed in the documents.”

Indeed, previously I had also helped to expand the Forest of Dreams. The Forest of Dreams had really high requirements of the environment. And in order to form more sections of the Forest of Dreams, everything originally in the space would need to be cut down. It was obvious that this would receive backlash from the current native residents of that environment. And once the trees of the Forest of Dreams started spreading, the fire elemental creatures would start attacking it.

“They’re going to absorb heat through the ground…”

This was obviously a way of stealing energy from the fire element of the volcano. It was quite evident how the fire elemental creatures would react. But when considering the potential benefits, getting attacked more fiercely by the fire element creatures was quite acceptable. And once the Forest of Dreams completed itself here, that would mean that the fire element creatures were blockaded by both the wood spirits as well as ice element creatures. It would be quite difficult then for the fire element creatures to do anything. Maybe the fire element creatures would even become an excellent thermostat for improving the temperature in the entire Northlands… I kept feeling more and more like the devils and Fire Elemental Lords had come all the way over here just to give us such a great present.

And since the entire situation in the Northlands was stabilized now, with everything going well, I was feeling like it was about time for me to leave… No, I definitely wasn’t trying to run away before Amelia arrived in the Northlands! I would never do something as devious as that!

Of course, there were still some affairs that I needed to take care of quickly, such as the construction of the new Northlands Elven Empire, the “revival ceremony” for Suana, and to completely kill off all the remaining devils here who were hiding like rats.

Right now, the fires of war were spreading everywhere in Eich. However, most wars were maintaining a delicate balance. The place that caught my attention the most was the former Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire’s land in the southwestern mountains.

There, a black torrent had already gone completely out of control. Countless demonic creatures were crawling out of the Dimensional Door there. Under the lead of powerful Chaos Main God Donatis, the Chaos Abyss’s destructive tidal wave was unstoppable.

Including the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire, three mid-sized and eleven small countries had already been destroyed by the first demon wave. The number of dead and missing now exceeded 2,000,000. Meanwhile, the human mega empires of the land were still keeping strangely silent.

The mega empires were waiting. They were waiting for the crazed period of the demon wave to end. They were waiting for the short-lived Chaos Abyss war slaves to use up their lifespans in their fervor. The Order Gods were also waiting. They were waiting for the demon wave to start receding. Only then would they band together to attack the fatigued Chaos War God and go for the glory of beating him back down to the Chaos Abyss.

After the first demon wave’s end, various Demon Lords would start arriving from the Dimensional Door. That would be the true conquering army of the Chaos Abyss. That would start a battle of attrition that would determine the fate of the world.

Due to the will of the Chaos Abyss’s personal involvement, the first demon wave would be impossible to defend against. This was experience that everyone had learned from countless Holy Wars. The fate of the Moonwheel Capital Elven Empire had once again proved the truth of this maxim.

It wasn’t really the fault of the human mega empire observers for being cold-blooded. Since it was destined that someone needed to be the sacrifice to the first demon wave, they would naturally choose to watch other countries be sacrificed instead of their own.

Every day, tens, or even hundreds of thousands of warriors and commoners would die. Hungry demons wouldn’t care if you were someone fighting them or just an ordinary commoner. And every day, refugees would appear in ten times the number of casualties. Farmers would run away from their fields, and militia troops would run away from their villages. Nobody would blame them, because even the typically venerated domain lords had also run away from their own lands.

It was said that there had even been several thousand casualties so far among the military observers that various countries sent out. The military observers watched the battles from distant locations that they believed to be safe. Maybe they were watching from a fortress in the distance, but didn’t expect to meet with Deepcliff Demons that were experts at tunneling. Maybe they were watching from tall mountains, but didn’t expect to meet with demon dragons. Maybe they were gathering information from a buffer zone country with several countries between them and the warring area, but didn’t expect that those several countries would simultaneously be destroyed with a single swing of Chaos War God Donatis’s sword.

It was natural for any tide to have a high tide and low tide. The demon wave wouldn’t be able to keep up its high tide fervor forever. Everyone was waiting for the moment of the low tide to appear. Only then would a counterattack against the demon wave actually be effective.

It was precisely having wars everywhere, especially the descent of the demon wave, that made every country be prepared for war. All the countries started expanding their militaries, and militarizing their national industries. However, there were two calamities that arrived earlier than expected.

“Famine for the living and plague of the dead. It’s as if the four knights of the apocalypse have arrived…”

The famine that we had been expecting arrived sooner than expected. All countries were now trying to buy food for their military rations, which made it impossible to find any more food in the international marketplace. On top of that, the arrival of countless refugees and the large loss of human territory increased the rate at which famine spread. The only part worth being happy about was that this year’s fall harvest had already been gathered. If the demon wave had occurred just three or four months earlier, it would have been impossible to obtain this year’s fall harvest, and all the countries would have far lower stockpiles of food. The famine would have been far scarier in such a case.

Meanwhile, the plague of the dead was a new and strange type of plague. This plague was different from Undead Calamity, as it wouldn’t produce very many high-level undead. Nor would any undead leaders appear from this plague. This plague simply transformed humanoid creatures into low-level zombie-like creatures who drooled and showed eye whites while attacking any living around them with everything they had.

As for why I said they were zombie-like creatures, rather than zombies? That was because they were actually still living. In fact, it was even possible to use pure Holy Light to undo their transformations and restore them back to their living selves.

In this world where forbidden spells could be found everywhere, this plague’s destructive ability wasn’t that scary. However, since this plague was highly infectious, unless the source was swiftly cut off, an entire town would swiftly become a dead town, and those “zombies” would also die of hunger within approximately ten days. It was common for the “zombies” to not even be able to walk far enough to reach the next town, so the overall destructive force of this plague couldn’t compare at all to the classic Undead Calamity.

Regardless, no matter how the Undead Emperors tried to explain (fine, they didn’t even try to offer an explanation), the blame for this obviously controlled plague was placed squarely upon the Undead Emperors.

The arrival of another piece of news signaled that my vacation here had now completely ended.

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