Chapter 1338: Chapter 1337: No Retreat

In Cecil Castle’s study, covered with a blue velvet carpet, Amber delivered the newly-arrived intelligence report to Gawain: "This is a new clue found in the areas once occupied by aberrations from the Western Expedition Army. I’ve organized it; take a look."

Gawain returned to his senses from his ongoing work, looked up at Amber, who was half-emerging from a shadow rift while holding a document, and casually asked, "What is it about?"

Amber handed over the document, steadied herself on the table, and jumped out of the shadow rift: "The ground action team of the Outpost Research Ship discovered some artificial remnants in the ruins of the aberration camp in the Wolf Spine Mountain. Preliminary analysis shows that this thing has some similarity to the cubes that the sea demons ’fished’ from the Deep Blue Vein Flow, but it’s seriously damaged, with many structures unable to be restored — the sample is now being transported here on a transporter.

"On the other hand, King Wickliff, one of the Five Kings of Augari, provided a clue to the expeditionary army. He said that during the aberrations’ attack on the Falm Fortress, they exhibited puzzling actions. They launched a frenzied attack on the highlands where the north tower of the fortress is located, disregarding their losses, and lingered there for a long time. Afterward, the Technical Priests of the Holy Dusk Combat Group searched the ruins of the north tower based on this clue and found an incompletely destroyed rune matrix and a mana crystal underneath it. According to the residual energy fluctuations on-site, the technicians suspect that those aberrations or their commanders might have conducted some ritual with significant energy fluctuations there."

Gawain was flipping through the organized file in his hands when he suddenly paused, raised his eyes to look at Amber: "A ritual with significant energy fluctuations?"

"Like opening a space rift leading to the Deep Blue Vein," Amber shrugged, "that’s what the technical experts are saying."

Gawain’s gaze returned to the document in his hand. After a prolonged stare and contemplation, he finally tossed the document onto the table and leaned back in his chair with a long breath.

The elation of clues rising to the surface and the oppressive urgency of knowing a conspiracy simultaneously appeared in his heart. These mixed feelings made his thoughts clearer and sharper than ever.

"This matter..." Amber cautiously observed Gawain’s reaction and, after holding back for a few seconds, couldn’t help but ask, "What do you think? These aberrations..."

"Yesterday, around this time, there was also a communication from Aldernon. Rosetta mentioned that their frontline commanders noticed some abnormal movements among those monsters and suspected that there was a bigger conspiracy behind their actions. Now we have found further substantial evidence... which coincides with the clues previously discovered by the sea demons," Gawain sat up straight again, speaking solemnly with a serious expression, "Amber, I believe this is what those monsters truly intend to do — their operations of deploying Rune Stones in the Deep Blue Webway are still ongoing, and the importance of this action far exceeds other operations, even..."

He paused for a few seconds here, seemingly weighing something repeatedly, but finally, he expressed his bold guess.

"Even their massive assault on the civilized world this time might merely be one of the means to achieve this — behind their military actions, placing those ’cubes’ in specific locations is their real target."

Listening to Gawain’s statement, Amber couldn’t help but widen her eyes: "You mean, their grand-scale war isn’t really to occupy any place or to destroy any country, but rather many of their actions are just a facade, merely to throw those ’stones’ into the Deep Blue Webway?!"

"Deploying cubes in the Deep Blue Webway and ’creating destruction’ might not be contradictory," Gawain raised his eyes to the Shadow Assault Goose in front of him, "The only thing we missed before was connecting the ’cubes’ deployed by the enemy in the wasteland to their war efforts this time — previously, we considered these as separate actions, but now it appears that these two matters are united."

Amber blinked and quickly pieced together the information she had in her mind, gradually forming a new thread. Moments later, she broke the silence contemplatively: "So we can at least confirm two points: First, simply deploying ’cubes’ in the wasteland isn’t enough for those monsters. If there is some ’quota’ for this operation, then part of this ’quota’ lies within the civilized world, so they must wage this war and take costly actions at certain places.

"Second, their ’deployment plan’ is not yet complete. Regardless of how much is left, as long as the scheduled ’deployment target’ hasn’t been achieved, they must continue their actions..."

"In a sense, these two points are actually good news," Gawain nodded, "Our initial biggest concern was that the sentinel-related conspiracy against the Deep Blue Webway was already in its final stage, and the mortal world wouldn’t have time to respond, but now we found that those monsters are still trying to find places to deploy those cubes, which indicates that our enemy’s operations haven’t been very smooth either... perhaps there are very strict restrictions on the ’system’ that sentinel attempts to establish, or perhaps the unintentional ’fishing’ activities by the sea demons disrupted the enemy’s plans... regardless, this is positive news."

Gawain’s words made Amber feel some relief, but soon, she became aware of the hidden pressures behind these optimistic judgments: "But this means our current strategy of ’ensuring local advantages, utilizing strategic depth, and gradually weakening the enemy’s forces’..."

"Indeed, we probably have to make some adjustments," Gawain nodded slowly, his expression serious, "The sentinel is still continuously deploying cubes in the Deep Blue Webway, but we can’t determine its ’deployment standards’; we cannot identify where the next ’deployment point’ will be, nor how many more cubes the enemy intends to deploy... so at this stage, the only thing we can do is to not retreat a single step on all fronts, and not allow any new fallback zone to appear because any breach might mean the advancement of sentinel’s plan, and even if we can reclaim those territories afterward, those monsters might have already deployed the cubes..."

"But this makes our counterattack plans unfeasible," Amber scratched her head intensely, although she wasn’t an expert in military affairs, having spent so many years with Gawain, she could figure out some simple logic, "The front surrounding the Gondor wasteland is an extensive line, and the forces of the Alliance aren’t that ample to begin with, now we have to hold every position to the very last, maintaining local advantages on the north and east fronts, a struggle already, let alone planning a counterattack on the wasteland, building a ’barrier wall’ across the entire wasteland in Gondor’s polluted region... where do we get enough troops?"

"...Talronde has already sent three waves of expeditionary forces, now stationed at the vanguard across Augari, Typhon, and Cecil’s lines, the Sacred Dragon Kingdom, Northern City-States Union, and even the Dwarf Kingdom have dispatched their elite reserves, the situation in the southern continent is unclear, and the Violet Kingdom is a bunch of reclusive hermits, completely unreliable..." Gawain said slowly, his face appearing slightly somber, "Nevertheless, unless we can accurately determine the sentinel’s next cube deployment point, our only action is to hold all defensive lines; this isn’t a multiple-choice question..."

In thought, his gaze gradually fell on the map hanging not far on the wall — on that precisely-scaled map of the entire Loren Continent, red and blue arrows and annotations indicated nearly the entire continent’s situation. Apart from less information in the southern areas, the entire wasteland defense line was dotted with intricate markers, showing the Allied Forces from various countries, the massive assaults from the aberration Legion, interlocking fallback and contest areas, and disjointed great wall barriers... The vast civilized world’s center appeared like a dark, shattered abyss, and the filth oozing from that abyss spread like a toxic mud into everything surrounding it.

Gawain gazed at the map, but more of his focus had already begun to concentrate on the deep connection within his mind, his "vision" gradually elevated in his senses, and the satellite’s bird’s-eye view from outer space emerged in his mind.

Between clouds and mist, he saw the war-torn Loren Continent; sunlight was slanting onto this land from the top of the atmosphere. The dark wasteland at the continent’s center was striking like an ugly scar, while the layer of glowing great walls that once surrounded Gondor was now in a fragmented state with many small and large breaches, displaying glaring traces of dark purple blended with dark red. These traces "flowed" out from the wasteland, etched on the ground of once green mountains and waters like scars after corrosion, and around each such scar one could either see rising smoke, continuous flashes, or ruins.

The aging satellite monitoring system couldn’t provide all the details on the ground, especially in areas with the most concentrated wasteland aura, where penetration was difficult. However, even so, the bird’s-eye view from space still allowed Gawain to roughly understand the situation of Loren Continent—the information was not comprehensive, but in the most thrilling moments when communications in various battle zones broke, and the frontline of allied forces collapsed one after another, it was precisely these limited informations that allowed Gawain to roughly grasp the situation and prevent everything from spiraling out of control.

Even now, this bird’s-eye perspective still plays a role.

Gawain’s "gaze" focused on the southern part of the continent, which is currently the last area on the entire frontline with severe communication issues with the north—the communication problems are secondary because now at least Amon can act as a messenger between the north and south of the continent. The biggest problem on the Southern Front Battlefield is the lack of support.

Typhon’s Mage Corps and National Knights are strong, but after the Winter Castle battle, they no longer have the underlying strength that once towered over other kingdoms. Currently, only the northern parts of Typhon can maintain a local advantageous position, but it’s challenging to offer any support to the south. Augari has just caught its breath from the brink of national crisis, naturally having no reserves, as for Cecil...

Too far, the Imperial Navy lead by the Winter is still repairing the communication network along the western continental route, the Dawn of the mortal world and the army led by Duke Baldwin are also insufficient to support the south all the way.

And even without this distant distance, it’s impossible. The Cecil Empire’s military strength has limits, under the pressure of the Wasteland Legion from the northern parts coming back in full force, Gawain cannot indefinitely allocate his troops elsewhere.

But even so, the Allied Army of Highmountain Kingdom and Silver Empire still must hold the entire Southern Front Battlefield.

...

In the sunshine of the Eastern Holy Spirit Plain, the towering Sorin Giant Tree covers the ground, stretching her vast branches in the sunlight and breeze, while a deep, pleasant sound echoes inside some chambers deep within the crown of this "miraculous tree," like the song of the wind, or the murmurs of a dream.

In one of the larger chambers wrapped with wooden structures and layers of green leaves, a gentle glow illuminated the vast space, the fluorescence on the surface of the vines gradually flowing, and at the center of the chamber, deep within a "nursery" woven from overlapping vines and roots, a cluster of flower vines suddenly quivered and unfolded, revealing Beltira’s figure among the blossoms, slowly opening her eyes.

"...The poisonous spores failed, the advance halted..." The former dark priest murmured softly to herself, her face lacking much expression, "Heh, they are indeed my former ’companions,’ putting up quite stubborn resistance..."

She could feel the warm winter sunlight shining on the crown of Sorin Giant Tree, but at the same time, she could also sense the darkness and chill coming from far south—her distant limbs extending towards the wasteland, deep in the soil and rocks, at the edges of Gondor wasteland, the roots and vines of Sorin Giant Tree and the root system of the dark priests of the wasteland are engaged in a war beyond mortal understanding.

Poisonous spores, combat fracture organisms, antagonistic pheromones, and the most direct strangulation and neural parasitism — every minute, Beltira uses her methods to harm the "Immune Barrier" protecting the wasteland’s root network, attempting to extend her power into the wasteland, and every minute, that root network controlled by her former companions resisted and counterattacked tenaciously.

This tug-of-war has continued since the war began, even starting to have visible effects on the ecological environment near the northern frontlines—the Black Forest is growing lush green vegetation, and thorn bushes and corrupted vines begin to emerge on the darkened and corrupted land, various normal or abnormal plants spread along the civilization’s boundary, making it difficult to win.

At this moment, a part of Beltira’s consciousness temporarily retreated from the prolonged confrontation at the distant front, she rested briefly, contemplating new formulas for neural toxins and pheromones, while earnestly enjoying the sunlight over the Plains of the Holy Spirits.

This sunlight is her favorite pastime on ordinary days.

Just then, a slight rustling suddenly came from the depths of the chamber, interrupting Beltira’s thoughts. She looked up towards the direction of the sound, seeing the "door" formed by leaves opening sideways, and a petite figure in a plain gray-white coat cautiously peeking out from inside.

"Sister Beltira... it’s you ’returning’? I heard some sounds here..."

Beltira looked surprised at the petite elf standing before her: "Belna? How did you get here?"

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