Chapter 1019 Shadow of War

During the five years of catastrophe in the Holy See Empire, the number of people who died is unknown, and the number of souls intercepted by the Holy See in the battle is also unknown, but the souls were brought back by the secret troops led by the Eternal Night Army and sent to the No. The number of the Second World is known—two million three hundred and forty-five thousand six hundred and eighty-two.

This number far exceeds the total number of the leaders of the Yongye Army who died in the disaster five years ago.

...

"In the East Odin Grassland immigration area, 103,000 new immigrants were resettled last year. The nomadic plan has achieved initial results. So far, not only have they not asked for a single grain of food from the territory, but instead fed various livestock back to the territory. Thirty We are confident that even if the situation is not ideal, we will still resettle more than 100,000 victims and feed back no less than 500,000 livestock.”

"The reclamation area of ​​the Donau Plain has recovered to 70% of what it was before the disaster. Although there have been a few minor disasters this year, our grassroots staff have done a good job of preparing and actively leading the people below to help themselves. Most of the regions have survived by their own abilities, and they are now in the stage of grain harvesting. If there are no major accidents, the grain harvested here this year will not only meet their own self-sufficiency, but also be rich enough to go into storage."

"In the Andes Basin, 90% of the recultivation this year has reached, but the weather is generally dry, most of the mountainous areas cannot be fully irrigated, and the production has been severely reduced. It is very difficult to achieve self-sufficiency this year, and we need to mobilize food support from other places. .”

"The cultivated area newly controlled by us in Huayu Plateau increased by more than 300,000 square meters last year. This year, we expect to be able to assist the territory with 80,000 tons of grain."

Just after the autumn harvest, the situation of each area led by the Yong Ye army was immediately summarized to Xiao En.

On the whole, the situation of the Yongye military leader has improved in an all-round way. The shadow of the disaster year is moving away from them, but the shadow of war is getting closer and closer to them.

...

"Some people blame the true God for all the hunger, war, and death we have experienced in these years. This is a kind of outrageous idea. The True God is leading his own legion of angels. In order to protect our souls and not be tempted by the devil, Not to be eroded by nightmares, not to be devoured by demons to fight, if there is no protection of the true god, the devil's conspiracy will be rampant among us, nightmares will erode our dreams, let us no longer have peace in our sleep, demons are even more It will wreak havoc in the world, the true God has already done so much for us, what reason do we have to criticize the true God any more?"

"This disaster is neither the fault of the true God, nor the fault of our simple and kind believers. All faults originate from those pagans in the east. This is the natural law's anger and punishment for their blasphemy against natural magic. You see Look at this tree, is this what nature should have done?"

"My God, how can there be a giant tree bigger than a town in the world?"

"This is an existence that violates the will of the true god!"

"How much energy does it need to absorb when it grows to such a large size? Could it be that it is the culprit that has caused our successive years of disasters, because it has absorbed all the energy that originally belonged to our food?"

"That's not all. It is said that its underground root system is ten times or even a hundred times larger than that on the surface, and it is spreading at a terrifying speed. It has almost spread all over the Odin Grassland, as long as it is where its root system goes. , the vegetation there will become extremely luxuriant, even if it is like us, there will be disasters again and again!"

"All over the Odin Grassland? How is that possible? How huge is the Odin Grassland? It is said that a fast horse needs to run for a month from south to north, and three months from east to west. No matter how huge the tree is, It’s impossible to do that.”

"Under normal circumstances, of course it is impossible, but those heretics use evil magic to make the impossible possible. Do you imagine, when did the disasters of these years start? Think again, those evil The heretics wantonly intercepted the souls of the victims in our territory a few years ago, what exactly did they want to do? Where did the souls taken away by them with evil magic end up?"

"What do you mean to say? The souls taken away from us by the leader of the Yongye Army were all used by them as nutrients for that giant tree?"

"It is very possible that in this world, is there anything that cultists who worship their lords as gods can't do? Only in this way can it be explained. A tree bigger than a town popped out of nowhere, And grow so huge."

"My poor grandmother, my poor mother, even after death, her soul will not be at peace, and she will be enslaved to become the nourishment of a tree."

"My three children, won't they also fall into this situation? It's too evil. This is a kind of blasphemy. This kind of evil can never be forgiven."

"No wonder, no wonder, even if those heretics were in a disaster year, the land would still produce, and this year is a year of abundance, but our territory is still plagued by disasters. It turned out that everything was caused by them. They took away what originally belonged to us. The food was stolen with evil magic, and the food in their hands originally belonged to us."

"We must not sit still, we must do something, for our food, for our loved ones whose souls have been taken away, we must do something!"

"We want to take back the food that belongs to us and save the souls of our relatives, even if it is the price of blood, we will not hesitate!"

"We will use our own hands to take back everything that belongs to us and destroy the source of our destruction."

The public sentiment is so surging, the Holy See of Saint Ether is not formed in one city and one place, nor is it formed overnight. Many deep-rooted concepts need to be repeatedly reiterated and guided by someone.

In order to divert the internal contradictions of the empire and their own ineffectiveness in disaster relief, the top officials of the Holy See Empire have been looking for external objective reasons.

In the past, this kind of scapegoat was usually carried by the witch secret society, such as black magic, secret spell experiments, etc. These mysterious things, even the witches and those involved, have no way to explain it clearly, let alone ordinary people. Most are convinced.

The witches' conclave has a bad reputation in many parts of the Byron League. Although there are reasons for their own behavior, the bigger reason is the smearing of the Holy See for hundreds of years.

Now that the Witch Conclave has been crippled by the Holy See, the Witch Conclave from top to bottom is considering packing up and fleeing. They are no longer enemies on the same level. It is obviously not so convincing to use them as targets.

The leader of Yong Ye, who is rising rapidly and has surpassed the Witches' Secret Council in the use of spells, has become their new target.

Especially in many aspects of the Yongye army leader, even the people of Yongye leader who are in it feel that they are developing rapidly, and they feel a little out of touch with the times, let alone an outsider.

Among other things, just one Arshan World Tree will make all the followers of the Holy See who see it through memory images incomprehensible, which is far beyond their knowledge.

Under the conscious guidance of the high-level Holy See, the Arshan World Tree, which once sealed the space crack and had an indelible guardian duty to the Arshan Continent, has transformed into the chief culprit of this disaster, and all of this is the leader of the Eternal Night Army. and their lord Sean, the result of misuse of evil magic.

The leader of the Yong Ye army sent soldiers to secretly sneak into the territory of the Holy See Empire, absorb the souls of those disaster victims with soul gems, and bring them back to the second world.

It has also been distorted to collect soul materials for evil magic. The souls of those victims who were taken away by them may now be imprisoned, and even become the fertilizer of that evil magic tree.

People at the bottom are often blind and ignorant, and are easily deceived by lies.

Especially the mysterious things they don't understand, once they can't explain it with lies that they can understand, they will often believe it.

Although the Eternal Ye Army has been fighting back through public opinion, it has had little effect. Before the establishment of the Holy See Empire, it had already expelled all the public activities of the Eternal Night Army. How could it be possible to allow their public opinion newspapers to enter the Holy See? What about empire lands?

The Holy See Empire's method of attracting disasters has indeed played a big role. Inside the Holy See Empire, the sentiment of hatred for the Yongye Army Commander far exceeds that of the high-level people of the Holy See Empire.

They attributed all the hardships they had experienced in the past five years to the commander of Yong Ye.

This kind of emotion reached its peak when the situation of the Yong Ye army leader improved.

A big reason for this kind of emotion is the death threat brought by hunger.

They want to wage war for themselves, drag themselves out of the swamp of hunger, and look for a high-sounding reason.

Compared with the Holy See of Saint Ether, who wanted to be a whore and wanted to set up a torii.

The West Odin Empire is undoubtedly much cleaner and neater. When the Ashen World Tree purifies the East Odin Grassland, the grass and trees here will become plump again.

There are scattered tribes who have begun to tentatively migrate here. Compared with high-sounding things, in the eyes of these Odin orcs, survival is more important.

The fate of these Odin orc tribes is obvious. The leader of the Eternal Night Army did not even send out the regular army, but was eaten by those brave and warlike Kentana barbarian tribes, and became their vassal tribe with horses and sheep.

In the years when starvation was everywhere, these Odin orc tribes who became the vassal tribes of the Eternal Night Army were a lucky thing.

As long as they keep themselves safe after surrendering, they will usually be included in the planned economy. Although life may not be very good, at least they will not starve to death.

This year, the situation of the East Odin Grassland was obviously better than that of the West Odin Grassland. Ulan Bari couldn't stand it any longer, and issued the Eastern Expedition Order again.

It's just that compared to the ambition of unifying the entire Odin Prairie ten years ago, they came here for survival this time.

Whether it is the number or quality of the army, compared with the past ten years, it is more than one or two worse.

During the Eastern Expedition ten years ago, the Xiodin Empire claimed to have a million soldiers. In the early days, this statement was indeed watery, but in the later period it would definitely not be less than this number.

The soldiers are mainly young and middle-aged Odin orcs who have been on the battlefield. They have lived and hunted in the Odin prairie for decades. Whether it is riding, archery or their own resilience, they are quite amazing. During the Ding Empire, the momentum was like a broken bamboo.

When these elites went south for the second time, most of them were lost in the line of broken veins, and the most number of them were killed by the leaders of the Yongye Army.

In this Eastern Expedition, the army led by Emperor Ulan Bari mainly consisted of Odin orcs who had only grown up in the past ten years. Although they were as brave as their ancestors, they still lacked too much experience.

The number is only half of the last time, and it is only about half a million when it is fully loaded.

Compared with the hurricane rush of the last Eastern Expedition, this Eastern Expedition of the Theodin Empire is obviously procrastinating.

Before the frost had thawed at the beginning of the year, the news that the Xiodin Empire was preparing to go east again was known all over the world, and they didn't start their journey until early summer.

Along the way, it is more appropriate to say that it is not so much an Eastern Expedition as it is a grazing, and it is extremely slow. If it is not accompanied by the king's tent of the Theodin Empire, it is very doubtful about the authenticity of this Eastern Expedition.

Not to mention the military staff department of the specialized organization of the Eternal Night Army, even someone who has some knowledge of the overall situation in the Asharn Continent can easily analyze the psychology of the Theodin Empire.

The Arshan Continent is now divided into three parts.

During successive years of wars, the Theodin Empire, which lost troops and generals, was the weakest.

On the contrary, in the five years of fighting against the disaster, the Yong Ye army who did the best was the strongest in all aspects.

The most important thing is that the Theodin Empire and the Yongye Army Leader have not been able to please them in several fights, especially the trend of the Yongye Army Leader in recent years has far exceeded their high-level cognition.

If they were not forced to do so, they absolutely did not want to take the initiative to provoke the enemy of the Yong Ye Army Commander.

The current Eastern Expedition of the Theodin Empire is more to show a gesture, to show their neighbors the Holy See Empire of Saint Ether, and to let them feel at ease to use troops against the Eternal Night Army.

One-on-one, whether it is the Theodin Empire or the Holy See of Saint Ether, they are three-pointed against the leader of the Yongye army.

If it is two against one, they still have a lot of confidence.

There is no need to conspire to contact this kind of thing at all. When the Theodin Empire made such a gesture, the high-level people of the Holy See of Saint Ether naturally understood, and there was no other way to go.

Because at this time, the war against the Yong Ye army leader is not determined by their needs, but by the situation in their territory.

...

Odin Grassland.

Bias towards the boundary of the East Odin Grassland.

The division of the East and West Odin Grasslands is an artificial division, and there is no significant geographical mark.

Even an experienced Odin orc can hardly tell whether he is in the West Odin Grassland or the East Odin Grassland. It is precisely because of the difficulty of demarcating the border that caused constant disputes between the Eastern and Western Odin Empires.

Now there are two grasslands here, and there are more obvious signs.

That is, from west to east, the further you go, the more lush the vegetation.

This feeling was especially profound for Skanbari and his party who rushed all the way from Miracle Peninsula to East Odin Grassland non-stop.