Gou is a dark elf in Warhammer

As Dakotas and Finnubars pulled down the red ribbon together, a statue stood prominently in the center of the small square.

applaud!

A thunderous applause instantly engulfed the entire square. After the prolonged cheers subsided slightly, the two prominent curtain pullers stepped back side by side, officially handing the stage over to Karendir, who had been waiting nearby.

At this time, only one week, or eight days, had passed since the Battle of Lorthorn, which rewrote the fate of the elves.

Although eight days is but a fleeting moment in the grand scheme of history, for Karendir it was nothing short of a long and transformative ordeal. The trials of these past few days had spurred his progress so rapidly that, as he stood before the microphone, he didn't hesitate for a moment to look down at his prepared remarks.

He spoke entirely without notes, his words flowing fluently. What's even more remarkable is that his words shed the bureaucratic jargon often used by politicians, and the emotions overflowing between the lines deeply resonated with every listener.

The speech began with a somber tribute.

Karundir uses Cahill's heroic deeds as a starting point, expanding from the sacrifice to gradually unfold the compassion and grandeur, ultimately sublimating into a profound vision for the future of the entire city.

The top of the statue depicts Cahill stepping forward and leading the Asur volunteers back into the neighborhood, while the base is composed of the figures of the Asur volunteers.

To forever commemorate this courage and kindness, the square, along with the neighborhood previously under Cahill's jurisdiction, was officially named "Cahill Square" and "Cahill Avenue".

As Karendil finished his impassioned speech, the commemorative ceremony, initiated spontaneously by the citizens of Lorthern and carried out from the bottom up, gradually came to an end.

As the saying goes, "An army marches on its stomach."

Although it sounds a bit awkward in this context, the logic is sound.

Before the grand blueprint was officially launched, the tedious and arduous preparatory work had already been fully underway. At this time, the residents whose houses had been reduced to ruins were still temporarily staying in the homes of their neighbors, and the much-anticipated redevelopment project of the working-class area was still in the intensive planning stage.

There's no way around it; this is not something that can be accomplished overnight, but rather an extremely complex and systematic project.

From the initial meticulous surveying and overall planning to the detailed architectural design down to every brick and tile, every step has to go through a process. Even after the design plan is finalized, construction cannot begin immediately; it must first be made public for review and voting by the citizens.

After all, these communities are tailor-made for the citizens, and public opinion is the highest design principle.

The next crucial step is the "three connections and one leveling," namely, providing access to roads, water, and electricity, as well as leveling the land and laying gas pipelines.

These details are the most troublesome problems for planners, especially electricity and gas pipelines, which are currently stuck in the process of establishing industry standards.

Although Duruch had already implemented small-scale electricity applications, these were largely confined to the clandestine military sector and never truly penetrated the civilian market. Determining voltage standards, establishing security frameworks, and setting pressure targets for gas delivery all needed to be built from scratch.

If these infrastructures are not laid out underground first, it is unacceptable to wait until the exquisite buildings on the ground are completed before digging up the road surface to lay pipelines.

Such wasteful secondary projects not only cause trouble but are also a huge waste of resources.

After all, money doesn't grow on trees.

Thus, the spellcasters gathered in Lorthorn were precisely divided into several echelons according to their specialties by Darkus, like intricate gears starting to drive the giant wheel of reconstruction.

Led by Colonia, she took on the most tedious yet crucial task: establishing civilian electricity standards and a gas distribution framework. This meant taming Trucchi's wild, war-oriented energy technology into a gentle stream of warmth and light that could flow into every household.

Another massive wave of projects is quietly unfolding in the spiritual and cultural spheres.

Led by Drusala, Belanar, and Torandil, they are fully engaged in the cultural iteration task entrusted by Darkus: optimizing the Elsalin language.

In Darkus's profound blueprint, the Elsalin language, the cornerstone of Elven civilization, has reached a point where a systematic reshaping is imperative.

Alsari is undoubtedly one of the most elegant and oldest languages ​​in the world. Every syllable of it contains a resonance of energy. However, the superiority of this high-dimensional language has become a cold threshold in the face of social governance.

Excessive redundancy and excessive precision: There are thousands of words in El Salin to describe changes in light and shadow or subtle fluctuations in emotion, but they are pale and inefficient when describing industrial standardization, large-scale logistics or basic administrative orders.

Class divide: Complex grammatical structures and profound vocabulary became a natural barrier between nobles and commoners, scholars and artisans.

High cost of popularization: Even when basic education was popularized in Nagarus, the complexity of the language was the biggest obstacle. It took an ordinary elf decades to fully master the subtle inflections and rhetoric, which greatly slowed down the flow of knowledge among the lower classes.

The optimization demanded by Dakous is essentially a de-idolization movement at the linguistic level. He requires Drusala and others to perform surgery in three dimensions.

The 'skeletonization' of grammatical structure: He demanded the elimination of those ornate and complex formats that only exist in classical poetry. Sentence structure should be moved closer to 'instructional' form, reducing the interference of subjective emotional vocabulary on the statement of facts.

It's like taking a beautifully decorated but heavy carriage, dismantling it, and reassembling it into a powerful and compact war machine.

The "modern reconstruction" of the vocabulary: Drusala was responsible for introducing the refined terminology summarized by Duruci, while Berlanal was responsible for extracting logically rigorous scientific roots from the vast collection of texts at the White Tower. This resulted in the creation of a completely new vocabulary specifically for describing terms such as electricity, gas, standardized contracts, and urban planning—terms that have already emerged or are about to appear.

For example, instead of describing a color value as "the melancholy reflected in the ripples of the sunset," a set of digital color reference codes is used to define it.

Standardization of punctuation and runes: The Elsalin script often possesses a highly artistic and free-flowing style, which is a disaster when signing large-scale administrative documents. Fortunately, in Nagarus, Torandil and Drusara spearheaded the development of a more standardized and easier-to-write and typeset official document style.

Berlanar was deeply concerned about this, fearing that such efficiency-driven modifications would strip away the divinity and beauty of the Elven language. But Darkus's answer was, as always, pragmatic:
"If our civilization collapses because we can't communicate smoothly about how to lay a sewer pipe, then even the most beautiful poetry is just a lament on the ruins. We need to bring Elsalin down from its pedestal and into factories, into ledgers, and into the daily lives of every elf."

Meanwhile, Darkus's patriarch, Belorda, and a group of red dragons undertook the most solemn task of the entire war—battlefield salvage.

The dragon carcasses that fell in the Battle of Lor'then could not be left exposed in the wilderness. They carefully retrieved and moved the dragon carcasses, and solemnly placed them together.

As for the final fate of these magnificent creatures, that remains to be seen between the Kingdom of Kaledo and the dragons...

Alisa led a team to conduct a large-scale survey and demarcation of Lorthen and its surrounding lands. She needed to prepare for the upcoming major construction project and ensure that Aisha and Kunos's sacred ownership was truly realized. Darkus had originally planned to spare some people to discuss philosophical propositions and the Law of Yeon with him, but he ultimately shelved this idea. He decided to wait until the new version of Elsalin was completed. After all, discussing these cosmic truths with the old vocabulary before the lexicon was updated would only lead to more confusion.

Of course, there is also a more practical reason.

He hadn't yet developed a concrete framework for certain cross-civilizational philosophies. He had previously tentatively approached outstanding representatives from various industries to ask them how they understood the concept of "heaven and earth being born together with me, and all things being one with me."

The result... well, let's not even go into the details.

As for the situation outside of Lorthorn...

Gilead's troops landed forcefully at the mouth of the Irwin River two days ago.

The Avon River, originating from the crater, once flowed through the fertile Flower Plains before emptying into the vast ocean. Although the cataclysmic event sank the Flower Plains into the icy seabed, the remaining sections of the Avon River still stubbornly flow across the land of the Kingdom of Terenlock.

Following the river upstream, a tributary flows through the Glass Valley before disappearing underground. To the north of the Glass Valley lies the famous Eagle Wing Road.

The Eagle Wing Path is a circular mountain path connecting Tyronlock and the Kingdom of Elion. Following the path into the circular mountain will eventually lead you into the territory of the Kingdom of Elion, but before you can officially enter, you must cross the gate—the Eagle Gate.

Tarrendan chose to land at the mouth of the Aven River because of its central geographical location in the middle of Terenlock, which made it convenient for the Terenlock nobles scattered throughout the north and south to gather.

There have been no further battle reports yet. After all, the nobles of Asur need time to react, argue, and weigh their options before slowly gathering and advancing.

Whether the two sides will engage in battle or sit down for negotiations after they formally meet remains to be seen.

This is the situation west of Ausuan.

According to news that came back from the east yesterday, Malekith and Estrel appeared together in Tal Achar, the capital of the Kingdom of Charis.

Yes, the tenth Eternal Queen, Estrel, is no longer as unmoved as before, following the end of the War of Lorthene. In Darkus's words, she has stepped forward and begun to clean up the mess.

Lief's mission to the Kingdom of Avalon to save Estrel was not planned, but rather a coincidence; the real plan was to reach an agreement with the Eternal Queen.

In Ulthuan, Aisha was not only the mother of life but also the embodiment of the earth's bounty. Therefore, Daculus established an absolute legal basis: the ultimate ownership of every inch of Ulthuan's soil belonged to Aisha and Cunus.

This move was not merely a restructuring of the land system, but a devastating blow disguised as divine authority and driven by administrative power. Darkus astutely grasped the underlying logic of elven society: in this world where gods truly existed, only by tightly binding secular interests with faith could the most thorough reforms be implemented.

This "sacred ownership," in the secular sense, means that all the land is nominally taken over by the Eternal Queen. This move is extremely ruthless, elevating what was originally a complex land dispute to the level of religious sanctity.

Nominal authority (divine right): bestowed upon the Eternal Queen, establishing her supreme position as the guardian of nature.

Management authority (secular): This is the responsibility of the Phoenix King and his associated administrative bureaucracy, ensuring that land planning and development align with the overall strategy.

Usage rights (people's livelihood): Regardless of whether they are nobles or commoners, they enjoy the right to use the property as trustees or lessees.

The greatest advantage of this design is that it completely severs the legal logic of land annexation.

Any act of illegally expanding territory is defined as "stealing divine property" under the new legal framework.

The Avalon Handmaid, representing the will of the Eternal Queen, has stepped forward. Are we still going to play this game? Do we still care about our reputation? Will our family legacy still be passed down?

This dual constraint of morality and religion forced ancient families who valued reputation and heritage above all else to act with extreme caution. If they were branded as blasphemers or embezzlers of the goddess's property, their political life in Ulthuan would be effectively over.

Operating like the Little Days Farmers' Cooperative, do they really think Aisha is a benevolent goddess?

As for the idea that all nobles were corrupt, that's impossible. Nobles had conflicting and divergent interests regarding land, which involved specific geographical factors and so on.

Furthermore, with the reconstruction and industrialization of Ausuan, more and more nobles will turn their attention to commerce and factories. For them, holding onto a few acres of farmland is not as tangible as acquiring shares.

This division of interests isolated the conservatives who attempted to resist. They found themselves powerless when trying to defend their ancestral lands…

The existence of the Eternal Queen is significant far beyond its nominal political title.

Ausuan was able to maintain a social structure of gender equality largely because of its almost deified female leader who stood firm like a pillar of strength.

This is not merely a balance of power, but also a bulwark of the mind. Like the wall of rules in Assati, this deeply rooted tradition effectively filters out any room for intrigue, depriving the elven society of the power plays of people like Tzeentch who manipulate hearts and minds and incite conflict.

As for that tradition that has lasted for thousands of years, that the Phoenix King must be united with the Eternal Queen...

What seemed like an insurmountable chasm to others was, in Dakota's eyes, incredibly simple. His mind was brimming with ingenious schemes, especially since the key to his plan—Estrel himself—had already given his approval.

The fact that Malekith also appeared in Tal Achar suggests that Aris either died or that Aris did not choose to kill Malekith, otherwise how could Malekith appear in Tal Achar?
It can't be a shapeshifter, can it?

As for what exactly happened during that fateful meeting deep in the forest, that will only be revealed when Daculus sees Malekith again.

After a brief exchange of views, Finnubar departed first. Unlike Darkus, who could act arbitrarily and only concern himself with macro-level planning, he had to devote himself to extremely heavy practical administrative work. Especially with the return of the large fleet, Lorthene once again played the role of a transit point, with various material allocations, resettlement compensation, and post-war liquidation filling his schedule to the brim.

Darkus, accompanied by Genevieve and surrounded by several shadowy Shadow Hunters, headed towards the entrance to the shelter on one side of the plaza. The rescue work below was still going on day and night; he had to go check on it.

However, he had just entered the shelter… (End of Chapter)