Elden: Ring of Calamity

Chapter 442 The Furnace
At the former site of the Perum Fortress, now the camp of the Kalia Army, all the high-ranking officials from both the Dragon and Moon sides gathered here to discuss the next strategic plan.

"The military situation is urgent. Given the relationship between our two countries, there is no need to express gratitude," Queen Reinara said succinctly. "Let me first talk about the most important thing, Priest Ful - perhaps you have already sensed the abnormal energy fluctuations coming from the north. We recently confirmed through intelligence that the Giant King's Court used some unknown means to seal the entire northern border and used an energy barrier to successfully block all physical and spiritual connections between the two sides."

"In other words, Lucia and the 30,000 Northern Expeditionary Army have all been trapped in the northern border. Before we find a way to break the spell, they will be isolated and helpless."

Fulsanx's face was as gloomy as water, his heroic brows knitted together, and he exhaled heavily, "I really underestimated those alien species that appeared out of nowhere. Even the old royal court before the destruction of the country could not do this, right?"

"The essence of an energy barrier is nothing more than a large number of runes with just the right amount of spell guidance. This is the same for both magic barriers and divine barriers. A barrier that can cover the entire Arctic ice field certainly does not rely on Kaleris's personal divine power. Even if it is Marika, it is far from enough." Lenara deduced.

Among all the people present, the Full Moon Queen was undoubtedly the highest authority in the academic field. Her knowledge was far more than just magic. After hearing her statement, everyone's already doubtful expressions became even more serious.

The 12th Sicarian Knight "Ice Moon" Lucy speculated: "That is to say, the Giant King's Court has mastered some kind of inexhaustible source of runes. Judging from the energy output efficiency, this unknown energy source is even more direct than the transformation of the golden tree, right?"

"There's a huge difference." Lailana, who had been leaning on her sword in deep thought, suddenly shook her head. "Right now, if we only talk about the speed of transformation, the Golden Tree is not even worthy of being compared to the Giant King's Court."

"The Golden Tree's rune circulation system directly reflects the death and rebirth of the population. Do you remember the statistics of the population returning to the tree and the number of newborns in the Golden Dynasty every year?"

"I just finished reading the statistics for the past twenty years. From the 30th to the 36th year of the Golden Calendar, although we were still in the Unification War, the omnipresent 'favor' of the Golden Tree had begun to take effect. In these six years, the average net population growth rate of the Golden Dynasty reached per thousand. Since the War of the Gods, this is the first time that the border area has reversed the trend of population decline on such a large scale. Even if we deduct the new population they brought in by conquering cities and destroying countries, this is still an extremely astonishing number."

"In the past ten years, this number has even increased to 62 per thousand, and the total population of the Golden Dynasty has reached an unprecedented 120 million since the Star-Moon Era. Regardless of the price behind this 'favor', Marika was not lying about one thing. This is indeed an unprecedented prosperity in the new era."

"But this growth rate is nothing compared to the nearly one million giants that appeared out of nowhere overnight in the North. If we calculate the amount of runes contained in a single organism, the gap between the two is even greater."

"Before the emergence of this 'New Royal Court', have you ever seen a race that could have heroic strength within three generations without any training or growth, and whose numbers easily numbered in the hundreds or even thousands? Priest Ful, you have the most say on this. Can the Ancient Dragon Clan do this?"

"No," Fulsanx shook his head affirmatively, "Not just ordinary ancient dragons, even the royal family can't do that. If you really count, in the entire history of Fam Azra, there are only those twenty original flying dragons who were born with great power in their respective fields, but there has only been one such case in ten thousand years."

Having said that, Full was slightly stunned. At that moment, he seemed to have caught something in the depths of his mind, but when he thought about it carefully, he had no clue and had to put it aside for the time being.

After getting the confirmation, Laila continued, "So my conclusion is - the ones currently active in the North are not giants at all. No matter if they were mountain goblins or humans before, they are now a group of monsters wearing giant skins, a kind of monster that has never appeared in the border area!"

"What the princess means is that the current Giant King's Court relies on this unknown rune source to mass-produce its own kind, and also uses it to build the seal that isolates the North?" The third Sikarian Knight, "Pyroxene Dragon" Moret hesitated. "The Arctic Ice Field has been a barren and barren land since ancient times. If there is a rune source that is more unreasonable than the golden tree, why would these remnants of a fallen nation discover it now?"

"The Golden Tree itself does not produce runes," said Queen Reinara. "It has only partially replaced the Life Forge and the Realm of the God of Death, becoming the path of reincarnation between the birth and death of life."

She looked around at everyone present, her dark blue eyes flashing with a wise yet dangerous light, and she whispered, "There has always been only one Rune source that can support the birth of most of the creatures in the border area - that is the furnace tree that now serves as the foundation of the golden tree. Do you understand?"

After analyzing it to this point, everyone could no longer fail to understand, but this answer far exceeded the limits of what they could accept.

Even someone as experienced as Folshanks had to admit at this moment that his analysis of the "new giants" had always been too superficial.

Most people only focus on their horrific methods of transforming other races into giants in batches, but ignore that the essence of life is Runes - the more powerful the creature, the larger the population, the more Runes are needed!

Just as why the ancient dragon clan has become increasingly rare and withered since the Star-Moon Era, even if they cannot explain it out loud, everyone understands that it is because the Dragon God disappeared and the original ring collapsed.

Although the Dragon King took out the "Nest of Ten Thousand Dragons" where the dragon race was born from the furnace tree one step ahead of time, ever since the golden giant tree stood on the earth, the race that lost control of the magic circle would never be able to gain the favor of the world and become the protagonist of the border area.

The essence of the Golden Dynasty's prosperity today is that they control the Elden Ring, which allows them to obtain the most direct and largest runes from the Golden Tree. That's why they have the long-lived, wise and strong Golden People, and they have endless generations of Golden Heroes.

Those skin-covered giants were able to become the Giant King's Court today. They must have seized the power of the Furnace of Life through some means, and they did not even go through the "filter" under the control of the supreme will of the Golden Tree, which is why they have such terrifying performance in output efficiency.

The so-called infinite grace of the golden tree, after all, is actually because the runes contained in the furnace are infinite, otherwise it would not have attracted the covetousness of so many gods.

Scarlet Corruption and Mother of Truth have been chased like dogs crossing the street by everyone in the border area for so many years, but they are still unwilling to give up. Isn't it because the temptation of the power of the furnace is really irresistible?
"In that case, it's impossible to break the seal from the outside." Laelana said solemnly, "As long as we don't find a way for the giants to steal the power of the furnace, they can maintain that barrier forever until they completely consume the North."

There was one thing she didn’t say: what happens after digesting the North?
If that group of giants were allowed to use the 30,000-mile Arctic ice field as their base and apply the method of mass transformation of their own kind to hundreds of millions of creatures in the border areas, it would probably be a real disaster for all civilizations.

(End of this chapter)