Elven cultivators

A city of ten thousand trees, a palace atop the clouds.

In the side hall, afternoon sunlight streamed through the rattan window lattice, spreading a soft and bright light throughout the room, making even the dust motes floating in the air clearly visible.

Alicia sat behind the long table by the window, intently working on her documents.

Since Anton single-handedly forced Bloodhowl Fortress to retreat, Alvin's faction has been suppressed.

Her faction gained immense influence as a result, which in turn led to a rapid rise in her status at the royal court, granting her more power.

But this also made them busier.

Although she disliked this kind of thing, Alicia was not the kind of person who would shirk responsibility.

Moreover, the undead army is now rampaging everywhere, with war raging across the land, and even the central border of the Emerald Court is beginning to be attacked, making the situation increasingly critical.

At this time, as a member of the royal court, she also had to shoulder her responsibilities.

As a leader of the younger generation, Alicia bears responsibilities no less heavy than those of the elders.

Logistics scheduling, a list of supplies for border troops, and discussions with the Freedom Alliance about forming an alliance are all necessary.

Every day, a huge pile of official documents would arrive on her desk, and she would have to sign and review each one, keeping her extremely busy.

For a moment, she suddenly missed the days when she only needed to manage the logistics of the Meteor Dragon Society.

Shaking her head, Alicia gathered her thoughts, picked up a file from the table, and began to read it carefully.

This is a summary of the latest situation in northern China, updated every two days.

Because it underestimated the strength of the undead army at the beginning, Bloodhowl Fortress did not immediately mobilize its main force to blockade Windhowl Canyon. Instead, it only drew garrisons and a small number of local troops from more than twenty nearby towns to serve as the encirclement force. As a result, it was overwhelmed by the surging undead army, which swept through the surrounding area and caused several towns to fall.

After suffering heavy losses, Bloodhowl Fortress finally took the matter seriously and mobilized its main force to rebuild its defenses along the Red Leaf Plains, barely managing to halt the advance of the undead army.

At this time, however, nearly one-fifth of Bloodhowl Fortress's territory had been conquered by the undead army, and a large number of intelligent beings had been transformed into undead, which in turn increased the size of the undead army.

The Bloodhowl Fortress army is currently pinned down on the Red Leaf Plains, forced to defend desperately and unable to mount a counterattack.

The situation on the other side of the mountains is equally dire.

It's already a struggle to hold off the undead army's offensive; there's no way to expect them to counterattack anytime soon.

Apart from the two major powers, other forces, even first-rate ones, were simply unable to stop the advance of the undead army.

News of towns falling to the undead army arrives daily.

Following this trend, it's only a matter of time before the northern part of the continent, except for Bloodhowl Fortress and the territory of Heart of the Mountains, falls to the enemy.

By then, the undead army will have ravaged the entire north, and its strength will have further expanded, making it even more difficult to wipe them out.

Alicia frowned at the thought of that situation.

She took a deep breath, closed the file and set it aside, then opened the second file.

This file contains intelligence about the undead army.

It is worth mentioning that most of this intelligence came from the Silvermoon Clan.

It is said that the Silvermoon Clan compiled a booklet specifically listing information about the undead and distributed it to soldiers of all participating forces in the eastern part of the continent.

The booklet clearly details the composition of the undead army, its strength levels, combat methods, and even its weaknesses.

It's so detailed it's outrageous.

If it weren't for the unique nature of the undead army, Alicia would have almost suspected that the Silvermoon Clan had sent spies into the undead army.

I don't know how they obtained the information.

Alicia lowered her gaze and scanned the contents of the dossier again.

The first part is an introduction to the undead army's unit types.

The basic unit types are mainly skeleton beasts, skeleton warriors, corpse soldiers, and bone cavalry.

Apart from the Bone Cavalry, which is a Black Iron tier unit, the rest are either unranked or white rank, roughly equivalent to the level of a regular town's garrison.

The next level up consists of elite units, including Pale Knights, Rock Beasts, and Bone Giants.

These units generally possess silver-tier combat power, and if they appear in organized units, they would be a nightmare for most local garrisons.

There are also higher-tier units above that.

Including but not limited to Stonefall Titans, Dark Dragons, Frost Giants...

These units generally possess gold-tier combat power; each one is a mobile calamity capable of single-handedly wiping out a thousand-strong squad.

In general, all the undead units that have appeared in the undead army so far can be found here.

Thanks to this intelligence, the major factions are no longer completely in the dark when facing the undead and can take targeted countermeasures.

Otherwise, if we were facing a group of unknown enemies, the casualties would probably be much heavier than they are now.

In addition to the types of troops, the intelligence also mentioned the composition of the undead army's high-ranking members.

There are very few descriptions of the Black Emperor, the Lord of the Underworld, only mentioning that his origins are unknown and his strength is extremely high.

It makes sense, really. Someone who has mastered the laws of death and can awaken millions of corpses in the Abyss is terrifying beyond words.

Just thinking about it sends chills down my spine.

Below the Black Emperor are six great lords.

Darkwing, the Dark Dragon King; Grax, the Stonefall Titan; Igni, the Frostbone King; Charon, the Pale Hand; Celine, the Howling Banshee; and Morok, the Abyssal Whale.

All six lords were powerful beings at the demigod level.

Although none of the six lords have appeared on the battlefield so far.

However, the contents of the intelligence booklet have never been wrong so far, so no one has questioned the intelligence of the six lords.

The thought that behind the undead army stood six demigods, and an even more terrifying being, weighed heavily on Alicia's heart.

She put down the file, let out a long breath, and turned her gaze to the window.

These are turbulent times.

Just then, footsteps came from the doorway.

A young elf strode into the side hall, stopped a short distance in front of the long table, and bowed her head to report: "Lady Alicia, the delegation of the Free Alliance has arrived and is waiting in the outer hall."

Alicia snapped out of her reverie, thought for a moment, and said, "Let the rest of the delegation go and rest first. I need to discuss this with Grant alone."

"Yes, Lady Alicia."

The young elf bowed and took his leave.

Alicia then got up and left the side hall.

The Royal Court and the Free Alliance had previously formed an alliance during the battle for the Holy Dragon Mountains. Now, facing the undead army spreading across the western and central parts of the continent, they felt immense pressure and naturally considered forming another alliance.

The delegation from the Freedom Alliance has arrived today to discuss the specific details of the alliance.

After passing through an arc-shaped corridor, Alicia pushed open the wicker archway at the end and entered another room with a simpler layout.

Grant was standing by the window with his back to the door. Hearing the noise, he turned around, saw Alicia, and smiled.

"Long time no see, Alicia."

Alicia looked him up and down a few times, a gentle smile appearing on her face.

"I never expected you to represent the Freedom Alliance. Didn't you never get involved in these things before?"

Grant shrugged and said, "I would like to continue not getting involved, but I am ultimately a member of the Freedom Alliance. My teacher was a guardian of the Alliance before he passed away. You know the situation the Alliance is facing now. It would be inappropriate for me to stand idly by."

He paused here, his tone unusually solemn.

"Besides, if we can't wipe out the undead army, the entire Dawn Continent will eventually become a wasteland. Where can I go to take risks then?"

Alicia nodded silently, deeply agreeing.

Both of them knew very well that the war against the undead army was not a mere skirmish between local powers.

It is a war concerning the survival of all intelligent beings.

It is a battle between life and death.

There is no room for compromise.

"Have you heard what's going on with the Silvermoon Clan?"

The two sat down at the long table, and Grant changed the subject, his tone becoming more casual again.

"What are they planning to do by planting trees and expanding forests along the northern border of the mainland?"

Alicia looked up at him, and instead of answering, asked, "You and Anton are such good friends, why don't you just ask him directly instead of coming to me?"

Grant shrugged helplessly: "Anton is currently in seclusion."

"Another seclusion?" Alicia was slightly taken aback. "Is Anton about to break through again?"

"Who knows?" Grant's expression was unusually complicated.

Anton's strength is increasing at an increasingly alarming rate.

He was already comparable to a demigod before, and if he breaks through again, even Hamilton might not be his match.

After a moment of silence, Grant asked the same question again.

Alicia didn't keep them in suspense this time, shaking her head and saying, "I don't know the specifics either, but judging from the current situation, they should be setting up some kind of large-scale magic array to resist the undead army."

"As you know, the Silvermoon Clan has always had many tricks up its sleeve."

Grant nodded in agreement instinctively.

From the intelligence he had gathered in recent days, the Silvermoon Clan had indeed demonstrated a great deal of methods to control the undead.

The sheer variety and precision of the talismans, specially made weapons, magic arrays, puppets... clearly demonstrate that they had made ample preparations.

This is precisely why, among all the forces currently engaged in direct combat with the undead army, the Silvermoon Clan has the lowest casualty rate.

“Speaking of which,” Alicia added, “the Silvermoon Clan recently made a deal with us, exchanging a batch of runes and rune equipment for a Mother Tree of War.”

The Mother Tree of War is no ordinary thing.

As one of the Emerald Court's most prized war artifacts, its core ability lies in providing buffs to elves and hatching large numbers of Oak Guardians.

Provided there is sufficient energy supply, the Mother Tree of War can quickly generate organized, living plant forces.

During the battle between the Royal Court and Bloodhowl Fortress on the Azure Plains, a Mother Tree was used to withstand an attack by an army several times larger than the orcs, relying on a continuous supply of oak guards.