Chapter: Chapter 528
The atmosphere in the elven capital grew increasingly strange. The elves living in the largest elven city almost all sensed the impending storm, and were preparing for the potential changes.
Many elves speculated whether Her Majesty the Empress was about to go to war with the elders.
Since Her Majesty the Empress reappeared in the elves’ sight, they found that the empress, who had almost no presence before, seemed to have become a different person. Her previous timidity and weakness had completely vanished. She was like a fighter, launching an assault on the decadent and rigid system of the elven race.
Her actions had achieved some results. With her efforts, half-elves were finally treated as people. However, in other aspects, her achievements were not so satisfactory. The reason was simple: her actions did not align with the interests of the Elder Council. These elves, powerful and prestigious, did not support the empress’s reforms.
If not for the fact that Her Highness the Princess was unwilling to contend for the throne with her sister, the elders would have long since united to depose the current Empress.
But there would come a day when the conflict would erupt. The conflict between the empress and the elders could not be resolved with a few words. Both sides were now racking their brains to eliminate the other, to solve the problem once and for all.
And now, the strange atmosphere in the City of Life seemed to be silently telling everyone that day was not far off.
“I bet they’ll start fighting in the next few days,” an elf with messy hair said to his companion in a small tavern, taking a sip of wine.
The elves sitting around the table had red faces, clearly quite drunk. Elves did not have a high resistance to alcohol, and getting drunk was a normal occurrence.
“So what if they fight? What does it have to do with us if the Empress and the elders fight? We’ll just live our lives as usual,” another elf interjected. He slammed his wine glass heavily onto the table, his expression angry. “If you ask me, neither side is good. It would be best if they all died!”
“The Empress is a lowly half-elf, and the elders are no better,” other elves agreed.
To be fair, Queen Evangeline was doing a decent job as empress. She had also enacted various policies to care for the lower-class elves. However, her identity was her biggest flaw. Under the deliberate indulgence of the elders, Evangeline’s identity had become an open secret.
On the surface, everyone would acknowledge Evangeline’s status as empress, but in private, how many elves spat at this half-elf was unknown.
These high-and-mighty elves were unwilling to accept a half-elf of impure blood as their empress.
How could an elven empress be a half-elf? The empress should be a pure-blooded elf! That was their thinking.
As for whether the empress was capable, they did not care. In any case, the elves’ lives were relatively peaceful. Generally speaking, as long as there were no natural disasters, ordinary elves could always eat their fill and stay warm.
And if the empress wanted to do something troublesome, the elders would step in to stop her. In these people’s minds, the elders were the true foundation of the elven race, and they were the ones who protected the elves.
“I still prefer that Empress. How badly we lost in the last war. If another war broke out, could we really still hold on?” a discordant voice emerged. Everyone turned to look and saw that the speaker was an elven ranger who had been to the battlefield.
“The demons, humans, and those orcs, their individual abilities are inferior to ours elves, but we can’t fight a hundred at once. If war breaks out again, can the stagnant elves really win?”
How long had the elves been stagnant? No one could answer this question.
All elves, since they could remember, had been this way. Almost nothing had changed in hundreds of years, like stagnant water.
It was only when the spatial rifts appeared that the elves sent an expeditionary force to explore. The result was astonishing. Completely unfamiliar races, completely unfamiliar worlds, greatly surprised the elves.
Demons, humans, and orcs, intelligent beings that seemed different from but also related to the elves, appeared in the elves’ field of vision. Vast territories rich in resources ignited the greed of the elven empress at that time.
The elders also, unusually, stood on the empress’s side, completely agreeing with her idea, as they too could benefit from territorial expansion.
Thus, the elves gathered a large army and set off for the parallel world. In the minds of the empress and the elders, the elven army would defeat the natives of the other world with overwhelming force, making them slaves of the elves and bringing their lands under elven control.
The war started smoothly, and the elves did advance with overwhelming force. But as time passed, the elves found themselves mired in a quagmire.
Human technology and superpowers, and demon magic, all brought them considerable trouble. In the end, the elves could only bully the orc tribes, and sometimes they couldn’t even properly bully the orcs.
What’s more, as the elves fought, they discovered a desperate truth: the demons and humans were getting stronger.
The demons, needless to say, were strong from the start. Although their individual combat power was inferior to elves, when formed into large armies, they could exert much greater power than the elves who were accustomed to fighting alone. When elves encountered organized demon armies, they were basically slaughtered like pigs.
And humans, after their initial defeat, seemed to have awakened. High-quality psychics emerged one after another. The elves killed one, and tomorrow, several more would appear. The more they fought, the more there were.
How could they fight when the enemy was cheating so much? They couldn’t!
At that time, the elven empress regretted it and wanted to retreat, but she couldn’t. Once she showed any sign of wavering, the demons, who were already fueled by bloodshed, would definitely try to destroy the weakest elves first.
The current fighting was taking place in the wilderness of the human world. If they retreated back to the elven forests, then the demons and elves would be fighting in the great forest. And given the demons’ ability to perform large-scale magical attacks they had displayed before, the elven empress, after careful consideration, chose to hold on, hoping to endure until a turning point occurred.
Well, a turning point did occur, but it didn’t seem to be the one she expected.
More accurately, she didn’t see the turning point because her head had already fallen off her neck by then.
The human Star River Sword Saint emerged and, with unstoppable performance, ended this protracted war. The elven empress, as a sacrifice for peace, happily ascended to heaven. It was truly something to celebrate.
The previous empress was gone, so the war naturally couldn’t continue. The elves could only reluctantly accept peace and withdraw from the occupied human lands (which were not that much after all), and retreated back into the great forest.
After that, the elves acted as if nothing had happened. They continued as before, without any major disturbances, until the young empress truly stepped forward not long ago and began to directly confront the elders.
She said she wanted to change the elves and make them stronger, so that they could better protect themselves when the next war arrived.
Regardless of whether she truly thought so in her heart, what she said actually aligned with the thoughts of the old elven soldiers who had participated in the war. These elves had their past illusions shattered by harsh reality. They knew clearly that if the elves remained unchanged, then the elves of the future might truly face annihilation.
Oh, perhaps not annihilation. After all, elves had good appearances, and being captured as slaves was a normal thing.
“I hope the Empress can defeat the elders. If she can really win, perhaps our elves will have a future,” the ranger covered his face with his hand, his voice tinged with a hint of despair. “But the elders are so powerful, how can the Empress possibly win?”
No one believed that Evangeline could defeat those elders, not even her supporters.
“Why say so much? Drink, keep drinking…” Seeing the atmosphere gradually becoming somber, an elf quickly spoke up, wanting to liven things up. However, before he could finish, a huge explosion suddenly erupted outside the small tavern.
Boom!
The tavern, built on a large tree, began to shake, making the drunken elves unsteady.
But more than being unsteady, they were more concerned about another question now: what did this explosion signify?
Was it a magical experiment gone wrong somewhere? Or had the demons broken in? Or perhaps, the empress and the elders had finally fallen out and decided to fight with real swords and spears?
This question was answered a few minutes later. A royal guard in armor knocked on the tavern door and said to the elves hiding in the tavern, “Her Majesty the Empress has opened hostilities with the Elder Council. Please refrain from going out at will until the chaos subsides, so as not to be accidentally injured.”
After saying this, the guard turned and left without hesitation, not even bothering to say a second word.
There were many places he needed to notify, so he couldn’t waste time here.
After the guard left, the elves in the tavern immediately began to whisper. They knew the empress was going to fight the elders, but they didn’t expect this internal conflict to come so quickly. This made them wonder if their empress had lost her mind. Did the empress really have so much confidence that she could defeat the terrifyingly powerful elders?
Almost all the elves were not optimistic about Evangeline. Some busybodies were even betting on when their empress would be deposed.
“The situation is not optimistic. Our forces cannot directly contend with the elders,” Evangeline sighed softly in the palace. With the forces she commanded, she could not pose an effective threat to the elders. She understood this naturally.
She was now taking a gamble, betting that her sudden attack this time would catch the elders off guard. As long as the attack was successful enough to eliminate more than half of the elders, then the elders’ coalition might not be unresolvable.
This was the only way she could gamble, as time was not on her side. The elders were accumulating strength much faster than she was.
Rather than a slow death, it was better to fight desperately at this moment, and perhaps win.
But not everything went as smoothly as planned. Soon, Evangeline received news from Flora that the attack had failed, and the elders had been prepared for a long time.
“They were waiting for us to make a move,” Flora said to Evangeline. “I won’t be able to help much from now on. My old opponent has come looking for me.”
At the very first moment of the conflict, Flora was approached by a god from the elder faction. Unluckily, this god was Flora’s ‘old friend.’
They had fought each other many times before, with each side having wins and losses. In other words, neither of them could decide a winner in a short time.
“You hid yourself quite deeply. I thought it would be someone else, but I didn’t expect it to be you. Tsk,” said Flora, looking at the gray-haired girl who appeared in mid-air.
Hearing Flora’s words, the gray-haired girl giggled. “This doesn’t sound like your usual reaction. Shouldn’t you attack as soon as you meet? What’s wrong, are you scared, or do you think you can’t beat me?”
“I’m not afraid of anyone but you, Ash,” Flora also ascended into mid-air, facing the gray-haired girl. “But if the two of us fight here, then the battle below will probably be meaningless, right?”
If the two gods fought with all their might in the sky, the elven capital below would undoubtedly be torn apart by the aftermath of the divine war. This was something Flora could not accept.
The god known as Ash touched her chin with interest, as if Flora’s words had greatly intrigued her. “Hoo, the god most faithful to desire actually said something so wise. Tsk tsk tsk, you truly surprise me.”
“Heh, the god who loves destruction the most is actually helping mortals. I’m very surprised too,” Flora retorted ungraciously.
“I’m just here to watch a good show. Besides, although those mortals displease me, they did release me from countless years of seals. Fulfilling one of their wishes is not difficult,” Ash spread her hands, indicating that she was not an ungrateful person. Moreover, “I’m quite, quite happy to cause you trouble.”
Saying that, she pointed at the City of Life, which was already in chaos. “Your little empress will lose very quickly.”
Her words were not wrong. After the attack failed, the elders’ armies had already begun to engage in full-scale warfare with Evangeline’s supporters. And the current situation was not optimistic for Evangeline.
