Green Monster Epic

Chapter 364: That Peculiar Phenomenon

On the southern edge of the wilderness, a vast convoy was slowly heading south. This was the supplies that the Mansa Alliance had gathered for the southern expedition, along with another batch of reinforcements from various tribes.

The larger the convoy, the more trivial matters arose. Therefore, the distance they could travel each day always fell short of expectations. This was a major headache for Lieber, the Gnoll commander of the Norsha tribe, who was temporarily serving as the quartermaster.

Lieber had hoped to participate in the battles to the south, so he volunteered to lead a new batch of Norsha tribe warriors to support and reinforce the allied forces. However, he never expected that the task of escorting supplies would also be dumped on him by the city lord.

Was it just because the Norsha tribe was the backbone of the balanced faction, making him, Lieber, more trustworthy? Or was it because the current Mansa city lord, Holian, was also from the Norsha tribe, meaning his clansmen had to shoulder heavier burdens?

"Argh!!!"

Lieber shook his head violently. Every day, all sorts of trivial matters were reported to him. For a Gnoll who preferred fighting and battles, it was truly a tormenting experience.

"Listen up, everyone! We're approaching the Tartar Valley. After passing through the valley, we'll set up camp and rest. So, when crossing the valley, pick up the pace! And don't cause me any trouble, understand?!"

Ahead, a range of hills blocked the way. The passage was a valley road that cut through the hills. The surrounding terrain was steep and dangerous. Although the wilderness had gradually calmed down, Lieber, as the commanding officer, had to take the geographical environment seriously and consider the worst-case scenario.

As members of the Wilderness Alliance, the Norsha tribe's foundation was naturally unmatched by those small and medium-sized tribes. Although their tribe's cultivation of military strategy hadn't been popularized to the lower levels, any clansman who could go out as a commander would definitely not be a military idiot.

"Understood!!"

The commanders under his command, from several other tribes, gave firm responses. The years of wilderness turmoil had created an opportunity for various tribes to train military talents.

In any case, the invasion of demons had become a reality, so the leaders of the large tribes could only see if they could gain more in addition to damage control.

Therefore, in the later stages, the scattered demon soldiers in various parts of the wilderness were not completely wiped out by the large tribes. Some demon squads were deliberately left behind for their clansmen to train and practice. As long as these demon squads did not pose a threat to the tribe, their encroachment on more small and medium-sized tribes in the wilderness would instead be conducive to suppressing the surrounding vassal forces, exploiting their interests, and cultivating the military qualities of the tribe's warriors.

After several years of training, the military talents and combat talents of the major tribes had indeed improved significantly. Moreover, because small and medium-sized tribes were more vulnerable to demon attacks, the large tribes took the opportunity to annex many tribes to strengthen themselves and absorb more talents.

The valley was dark and gloomy, and the sounds of monkeys and startled birds could be heard from time to time, merging with the rustling sounds of the large convoy moving forward in the valley.

Hearing the movements of these animals, Lieber's heart calmed down instead. The traces of activity of these original inhabitants of the valley at least indicated that the surrounding steep mountain walls were relatively safe.

However, not long after the sense of stability arose in Lieber's heart, a burst of clamor came from the road ahead.

"Commander, there's a landslide ahead in the valley! A large number of rocks and broken wood are blocking the way!!"

"What are you waiting for? Quickly arrange for people to clear the valley road and clear the road as soon as possible!!!"

A trace of gloom appeared in Lieber's heart. The Tartar Valley road stretched for dozens of miles. Their supply convoy had already traveled two-thirds of the way, and it was too late to retreat. They would probably have to settle down in the valley tonight.

Everything else was fine. The valley was not without its advantages. As long as some soldiers were arranged to climb to the top of the mountain to guard and watch, it would be easy to detect danger in advance and ensure the safety of the convoy. It was just that, for some reason, Lieber felt that the sudden landslide in the valley did not seem to be a natural event, but rather that some force was secretly watching and plotting against them.

"Molly, take some people up to the top of the mountain to patrol. If you find any abnormalities, send us a warning signal immediately!!"

Molly was a half-elf female rogue with outstanding strength, and now she was the leader of Lieber's scout team.

"Leave it to me!!"

With a sonorous and forceful answer, accompanied by those heroic eyes, no one dared to be dissatisfied with Molly's female identity. Those who were dissatisfied with Molly had already been teased by Molly's strength along the way, and had become much more honest.

More than 20 agile figures, divided into two teams, quickly climbed the slopes on both sides of the valley, at a speed comparable to those monkeys and gorillas living in the valley.

In the valley, countless wilderness warriors were also not idle. Under the scolding and command of the team leaders, they worked diligently, clearing the broken stones and mud from the landslide section to both sides, freeing up a road for the pack carts to pass through.

"Woo woo woo!!!"

What was feared came to pass. When the gloom in Lieber's heart came with the sudden and urgent warning horn from the top of the mountain, he was not so anxious and uneasy.

"Everyone, pick up the weapons in your hands! Prepare for battle!!!"

Although it was not clear who was ambushing their team of more than 10,000 people, when the spiked hammer was held in Lieber's pair of sharp claws, he was already fearless.

"Unload the supplies from the carts, and have the empty carts dragged to the rear of the team to build a fence and construct a position!!"

"Fedor, Pengpeng, each of you lead 2,000 warriors to the mountain tops on the left and right to build a defense line. Absolutely do not let the enemy occupy the high ground!!"

"Even if you die, you must die on the top of the mountain, understand?!"

The orders were distributed in an orderly manner by Lieber to the other leaders in the team. Each order was the most appropriate arrangement at the moment, until the scout sent by Molly from the top of the mountain informed them of the enemy they were facing.

"Commander, we found a demon squad on the other side of the mountain. The number should exceed a thousand, but then they were discovered by the Flo魔 and Quemo flying troops, so we had to send you a warning signal in advance!!"

The one who came back was a troll ranger, with a hint of panic on his face, but without the slightest wavering.

"Demons?? This is troublesome!!"

Lieber frowned. The sudden appearance of this demon squad was definitely not a chance encounter.

In the past few years, almost all demon armies with more than a thousand people had been wiped out by the wilderness tribes. There were probably still demon squads of a hundred or so people left, but absolutely no one would dare to wander near the prosperous trade route of the Mansa Corridor, otherwise they would have been discovered and wiped out long ago.

"Commander Lieber, demon squads have also been found on the west side of the mountain, with at least 2,000!"

The leader of the scout team sent to patrol on the other side rushed to Lieber's face, pale and panicked, and reported to Lieber.

"……"

"Set fire to the supplies and send up the smoke signal!!! Everyone else, all who can fight, raise your weapons and charge with me!!!"

Libel resolutely made his decision and issued his order again.

Seeing the supplies behind him begin to ignite in patches of flames, then covered with a special material, thick plumes of smoke rose into the sky, unwavering even in the face of the gentle breeze aloft, Libel led over a thousand brave warriors of his Nosha tribe and began their charge towards the mountaintop to the east.

With the smoke signal sent, Libel had done all he could and should do. The next step was to see if the surrounding tribes would notice the smoke and send reinforcements. Or perhaps, he could lead this force of nearly ten thousand wilderness warriors to withstand the demon assault and await reinforcements from the rear.

The sounds of gunfire and the roars of the wilderness warriors filled the sky. Libel's blood was pumping; this was the battlefield he had dreamed of, and it would be his final destination.

Far to the south, the Wilderness Allied Forces were advancing at a rapid pace, covering a hundred miles a day. If it weren't for the supplies lagging behind, the vanguard of this army would have already reached the territory of Mingxi City.

However, the main force, including Besselmer and his group, had already traveled most of the distance, only about eight hundred miles away from the royal capital of Mingxi City in the Spring Country. With the power of a Legendary-level expert, it would only take half a day to reach Mingxi City. However, as they approached Mingxi City, the obstacles faced by the Wilderness Allied Forces gradually intensified.

The demon attacks had gradually disappeared, replaced by teams of more combat-capable devil armies. Whenever the Wilderness Allied Forces' scouting parties encountered devil armies with higher troop quality and better coordination, they always paid a heavy price, even being completely wiped out, leaving no one alive. In the end, the Allied Forces simply stopped sending out small-scale vanguard and scouting parties, instead advancing with teams of several thousand people, which avoided many unnecessary losses.

The frontline soldiers were overjoyed, their faces filled with confidence and pride, but the expressions of the dozen or so Legendary figures sitting silently in the central command tent were somewhat troubled and grave.

"Your Majesty, the supply convoy that was supposed to arrive three days ago has gone missing less than five hundred miles from our rear. Our troops sent scouts to search and found signs of fighting in the Tartar Valley, as well as signs of many supplies being burned!"

"Then, we learned from the mouths of routed wilderness soldiers that the attackers of their supply convoy were a demon army exceeding five thousand in number!"

"At the valley site, we found no corpses of fallen wilderness soldiers, and that was a large force of over ten thousand! As for that demon army, our scouts and thieves scoured hundreds of miles around, but could not find their traces. We still don't know where they are hiding!"

"If the demon army still has a flesh altar, with the manpower we've lost, they could probably summon at least three thousand more demons. If their strength increases again, the threat to our external logistics will be even greater!"

The centaur general Akhmad calmly reported the intelligence. Although he did not explicitly state his own thoughts, the content of his report was enough to explain many things.

"Your Majesty, in that case, should we temporarily halt our advance and eliminate the threat behind us first?"

Kajiso, another beastman powerhouse from the Kadiron tribe, also spoke in a timely manner, expressing his thoughts.

Since the Oak Trading Company's bird-wing crossbow incident, the Kadiron tribe had been having a difficult time. As beastmen who were not native to the Wilderness, they were already unpopular. Later, they switched from the radical camp to a pro-human camp, further offending many of their original allies.

This time, they had to send Kajiso as a representative, both to salvage the tribe's interests in Mansa City and to make timely decisions on the ever-changing front lines, so as not to lose too many of their tribesmen.

After all, the number of beastmen in the Wilderness was not large. Most beastman tribes were located in the southern border near the Hillan Continent. The Kadiron tribe's ability to develop to its current state was the result of decades of hard work.

The reason for the change in their small group was because the Kadiron tribe's higher-ups sensed some unusual situations. To avoid unnecessary wars, they hoped to curb the expansion of the crisis and avoid the expansion of the war.

But in the end, no one expected that demons would invade the Wilderness instead of a large-scale invasion by human armies.

Even now, with the expedition thousands of miles away, Kajiso still preferred to cease hostilities and recuperate, rather than attacking the fallen lands of the Spring Country.

"…Is that what you all think too?"

Besselmer, in his treant form, scanned the surrounding tribal representatives with his pair of emerald eyes on his wooden trunk, asking for their opinions.

"……"

The faces of the Legendary figures all showed hesitation to varying degrees. The invasion of demons and devils was, in fact, related to their wilderness. It had already come to an end when they defeated the demon army in the Jiangren Horse Prairie. Now, everyone was still sending out hundreds of thousands of troops to follow Besselmer and the Natural Temple he represented to conquer the human territory to the south, simply out of consideration for the Natural Temple's attitude.

Everyone knew that even if they occupied this richer land of the Spring Country, they would not be able to establish themselves here, because none of their tribes had the strength to stalemate against the human army for tens of thousands of years without falling behind, like the three centaur royal families.

Perhaps, given the current situation, the wilderness tribes could temporarily live and operate on this land, but sooner or later, when humans regained their strength, the greedy humans would gradually erode this territory and regain control of it.

"Hmm???"

Just as Besselmer was about to speak, to cheer up the surrounding tribal representatives and persuade them, he seemed to sense something in his mind. He directly stretched out a pair of large hands formed by intertwined branches towards the tent above his head, and the entire tent was uprooted by him, revealing the gray sky.

Everyone looked up. At some point, the boundless sky, which had previously shown a bit of azure, was now covered by layers of dark clouds. The dense clouds seemed very low to the ground, as if they could be grasped with a single reach. Further south, the dark clouds were even denser, occasionally stirring up bursts of tumbling, as if they had a life of their own.

"Father, Lord Farann's divine power senses that a powerful extraplanar being is beginning his journey, with the target being the Feyman World!"

Merica's message suddenly came from her divine kingdom into Besselmer's mental world. After hearing this message, and then looking up, Besselmer had a rough idea of where the sudden anomaly in front of him originated from.

“Now it seems that I don't need to persuade you anymore!!”

Bessermeyer's eyes revealed a firm attitude as he pointed to the dark clouds in the sky and said.

“Another powerful devil grand duke is about to cross the Gate of Hell in the Spring Country. If we can't destroy the Gate of Hell before He completely crosses over to the Fayman World, then the Fayman World will usher in two hellish powerhouses who sit alongside the gods.”

“If we continue to allow the devilish powerhouses and their legions to cross over from the Gate of Hell, the wilderness will become a battlefield in the future.”

“Do you have the confidence, like humans, to resist the attacks of the devils??”

More than a dozen Legendaries looked up at the sky. The dense dark clouds were like a large stone pressing down on them. No one could guarantee this. Compared to the human kingdoms, the wilderness tribes seemed to have no natural advantage. In terms of population, they were inferior to the other side. In terms of military foundation, they were even more far behind. If even humans couldn't stop the devils' footsteps, then the fall of the wilderness might just be a matter of time.

“Therefore, only by completely destroying the Gate of Hell in Mingxi City can we be qualified to watch the show from the sidelines, letting the humans, orcs, demons, and devils fight among themselves.”

“Now, everyone, perk up your spirits!!”

“All of you go to the army, take your teams, and tell the wilderness warriors that the marching speed must be accelerated, and they must reach the royal city of Mingxi within 4 days!!”

“Yes, Your Excellency!!”

A group of Legendary powerhouses walked out of the yurt without a roof, and then flew into the sky, each flying in different directions. Before long, the cheers of the wilderness coalition army rose and fell, and the speed of the army's advance suddenly increased by several levels.

The Lionheart Kingdom had already lost most of its territory. The originally safest royal capital, Lionheart City, had now become a battlefield. Thanks to the royal family's management of the royal city for thousands of years, Lionheart City was able to stand firm despite the devil legion's several fierce attacks.

Below the city, there were corpses that had no chance to be collected, devil soldiers and human soldiers mixed together, densely covered with carrion insects and animals. A breeze blew, and a nauseating stench came.

The city had already begun to be plagued by the seepage of corpse water into the underground water table. Fortunately, the priests and clerics in the city were still sufficient, so the plague did not spread. But if they were besieged like this, it would only be a matter of time before Lionheart City became a plague-ridden land.

In the distant eastern sky, the phenomenon of dark clouds stretching for thousands of miles, like a storm about to strike, had long been imprinted in the eyes of the city's defenders. Everyone was deeply thinking and guessing what might happen.

The royal family had already abandoned the city. After all, Lionheart City had become a front-line battlefield. If the royal family stayed in the city, it would not only be of no help, but it might also restrict the hands and feet of the defending generals, and they would have to spare a part of their forces to take care of the royal family when the battle situation was dangerous.

However, although the Lionheart royal family had left, the kingdom's Earl, the Light Knight Rufus Edson, as the Grand Marshal of the Lionheart Kingdom's army, had taken up residence in the royal palace and presided over the defense of Lionheart City.

“Your Excellency, the devil legion outside the city has recently weakened its offensive. Is it related to the phenomenon in the east at this time?”

The Legendary Holy Knight Nasu Booth, as Rufus's assistant, was responsible for the deployment of the front-line battlefield. Only a Legendary figure like him could not be afraid of assassins and calmly deploy troops to respond on the spot.

“Who knows? Perhaps, the weakening of their attack intensity is also related to the dispatch of troops by those barbarians in the north?”

Rufus's eyes flickered, leaning against his chair, without any proper sitting posture, causing Nasu, who was standing opposite him, to frown slightly.

The dispatch of troops by the wilderness coalition army was already expected by the human coalition army, but they did not expect the other side's speed to be so fast. The Spring Country's royal capital could have persisted for a long time. When they could no longer hold on, it might be when the wilderness coalition army dispatched troops.

However, what surprised everyone was that the Spring Country's royal family actually cooperated with the devils at the last moment, using all their resources to build the Gate of Hell, and at the same time sacrificing the last remnants of their kingdom to summon the devil's legion.

As a result, the human coalition army was forced to change the enemies they had to face. At the same time, before the wilderness side had time to dispatch troops, the Spring Country was completely destroyed.

However, the appearance of the devil legion in the Fayman World made the wilderness's sluggish military operations completely change in an instant. Finally, in a short period of time, hundreds of thousands of troops gathered to the south, not only defeating the demon legion that had been confronting the Centaur Grassland for many years, but also continuing to advance without stopping. Judging from their movements, they seemed to be heading straight for the Gate of Hell, an important stronghold of the devil legion.

This undoubtedly helped the human coalition army. In the short period of more than half a year, the human coalition army had repeatedly suffered defeats in its battles with the devil legion. Although there were also several major victories, compared to the losses that the devil legion had brought to the human coalition army, the results they had achieved were far from satisfactory.

More than a million human soldiers and civilians were buried under the swords and guns of the devil legion. Although humans also eliminated hundreds of thousands of devil soldiers, the devil legion's war-based war tactics allowed them to obtain countless corpses and souls in every major battle. In addition, after the Lionheart Kingdom's stronghold was breached, the people left in the villages and fields that Nasir had no time to clear were also used as nourishment for the devils to summon their army.

“Your Excellency, I think it is necessary to take this opportunity to organize a counterattack to test the reality of the devil legion in front of us.”

“You think so too??”

“Then let's discuss it…”

In the endless starry sky, in the star system formed by the gathering of the gods of the Temple of Nature, more than a dozen Nature Gods gathered in the Temple of Gods. The figures shrouded in clusters of light, each face looked very solemn. Several existences in the image of spellcasters were concentrating on working together to complete a prophecy.

“…The Lord of Hell is spying on the Fayman World, His big hand is already…”

“Not good!!!!!”

Several gods shed tears of blood from their pupils, and their eyes exploded into hollows. Then, under the operation of their respective divine powers, eyeballs were reborn in the hollow eye sockets. The several gods who regained their clarity looked at each other, and then solemnly spoke of the scene they had obtained from their prophecy to the other eternal existences.

“The one who is about to descend upon the Fayman World is Asmodeus, the Lord of the Nine Hells!!”

“We must tell Lord Sylvanas and ask Him to prevent Asmodeus's arrival!!”