The dragon's harem

Chapter 1475: War Is Ugly

Jasmine sighed, sitting on a wooden chair as she took a sip from her large mug of black blood wine that Arad had stored from the days of the Beast Lands. ”A civil war, right when I’m away.” She sighed, and Elis, who was close, shrugged.

”Of course, they’ll wait until you’re gone to start troubles. Like children only jumping on beds and causing chaos when their parents are away.” Elis walked closer, and the ground shifted, forming a chair for her. ”And I’m sure the cult is behind the attack. They’re trying to burn Yggdrasil all of those times; they can’t be just a bunch of ignorant fools.”

Jasmine took a deep breath and sighed, looked at Elis, and then at the wine, ”What do you mean?”

”Look at Yggdrasil. This massive, magnificent, all-powerful tree transcends space and the gods and dominates almost all of the worlds of the universe. Do you really think that the fools behind the cult don’t know that it is useless to burn it?” Elis waved her hand around the table and formed a cloud of silver sparks.

”Elves don’t just live in the mortal world; there are billions of worlds out there, all with their elves. Dark elves, high elves, wood elves, deep elves, snow elves, shadow elves, fire elves, and far more kinds that you might never meet in your lives.” Elis leaned back, ”Elves are like plants, they adapt and change over time to suit their environment. So, burning the World Tree in the mortal world would do nothing. It won’t harm Yggdrasil, it won’t harm Sylph, and it won’t harm me.”

”So? You’re saying that burning the tree isn’t their goal?”

Elis nodded, ”They can hide from my eyes, and I can see through the eyes of any dark elf. They are protected by something, and that something has to be as strong as me to protect them from my power.”

”So? Another god is involved, someone who wants to break the elves apart, separate them, and then pick them off one by one when they are weak.”

Elis nodded, ”It could be a god, or an abomination. You’d be surprised to find out how much those bastards interfere with the universe. And since Yggdrasil is the pillar of the universe, I suspect that their goal is to destabilize everything so Nyar’s troops can invade.”

Jasmine stood, finished her wine in a single gulp, and looked at Arad, who was sitting on the other side of the room with his eyes closed. He was probably watching the chaos at her royal capital.

”How is it going?” She asked with a worried face, and he stirred.

”167/12 deaths in our favor, the rebels aren’t a match for Frella, Mesharra, and Mary. Especially Mesharra, it is her job to catch and detain criminals after all. She isn’t called an Inquisitor for no reason.” Arad opened his eyes. ”They’ll be done in several minutes. The rebels weren’t ready to face any resistance.”

Cerilla approached and patted her on the shoulder, ”Don’t worry, the dark elves are pretty religious. With Elis’s church on your side, the people would just turn on those rebels, no matter what stories they try to spin around.” She looked at Arad, ”And besides, do you really think a mother would care what those bastards say. When the alternative to their stupid story is her children being safe?”

Elis approached, ”Cerilla is right. That woman, Frella, the light keeper, had seen her husband die in war and was left alone to tend to their child. She knows that one day she would’ve been forced to leave him alone and head to the frontlines, possibly dying and leaving her kid with nothing. What’s worse, I bet she hated the fact that one day, she might have to watch him go to war and die just as her husband died.”

Sylph had lived far longer than anyone here, and she looked at them with a smile. ”That’s true, most rulers only see their soldiers as statistics, numbers on a sheet, going up and down. They get happy when the numbers don’t go down, but none of them care that hundreds are dying each hour and are replaced with fresh meat, which is what makes the numbers stable. The people, on the other hand, see each soldier as their family, lovers, and friends; their deaths aren’t just numbers; they change lives, for the worse.”

She stood and approached, ”War is ugly, and it is bad for everyone involved. No matter how grand the reason behind it or how noble, it would only benefit the nobles and kings who never stepped a foot into the battlefield.”

Elis sighed, ”You know it’s fucked up when the only people who had a valid reason to start a war are the Orcs.”

Sylph froze for a second, ”The Orcs’ hordes, the green flood, the poor bastards only wanted food.”

”The Orcs?” Arad looked at them, ”There are several tribes here and there, but I never heard of them starting an actual war.”

”Not those Orcs, the first Orcs that the first Dark Elf goddess killed when she first mastered her blade dance and ascended. They ate their whole world dry and started flooding into other worlds to eat them. Untold trillions over trillions of them, enough to cover the whole surface of the mortal world in hours.” Sylph smiled, ”And get this, they grow to adulthood and reproduce within a month, so their numbers keep growing at blinding speed. They only live for twenty to thirty years, unless killed and eaten.”

Arad sighed, ”And, what happened to them?”

”The overgod Cain built a system of worlds for them to migrate through, with a harsh enough environment to keep their numbers in check. So they are traveling in a circle between twelve worlds, which gives those worlds just enough time to recover before the horde comes back.”

”Let’s hope they stay there.” Arad sighed and closed his eyes, looking back at the throne room. The battle has moved outside, and he could only hear the screams and shouts of the soldiers, so he needs a pair of eyes outside.

”You’re out.” He said, and a drop of blood fell on the throne. From it, a tall woman emerged and quickly disappeared before anyone could notice her.

”Don’t interfere, let them solve the issue on their own, with the help of the soldier they got. Having vampires involved would give them an easy reason to justify what they did, so stay out of sight.”

”As you wish, my Lord.” She slipped past all of the soldiers unseen and unheard, quickly finding herself hidden behind a large wall, looking out of the window with one eye at the battles raging beneath.

”You can see them. Our side is winning, none of the rebels is a match for Mesharra. There are some who can give Frella a fight, but that’s the extent of their power.”

It was the reality that even though most elves live far longer than humans and are, by extent, much stronger, very few could reach the level of talent of some of the world’s strongest people. Mesharra was nowhere near the top in this world, but in Yog’s world, she was a literal monster who controlled the weather.

She flew across the battlefield, carried by torrents of wind, and whenever her sword clashed with anyone, their body would just burn by lightning and then be flung away by a burst of air. They tried to evade letting her attack them directly, so she just made it rain and started shooting lightning bolts at them from afar.

To keep the common people safe, Mesharra had drowned the whole capital in a storm of heavy downpour and hail, making it impossible for normal people to even stand on the streets. This had made everyone who wasn’t out to fight for their lives run away and hide, which lowered the chances of her burning someone innocent by mistake. Albeit from what Arad knows, Mesharra might not care if an innocent person or two got killed by mistake.

Mesharra’s soldiers, on the other hand, were split into two teams, one that fought the rebels and one that tried to push the civilians away, like the maids and servants who had nothing to do with this mess.

Frella was fighting out there as well, doing a bit worse than Mesharra, but she was far stronger than most royal knights, because she actually went to war and returned. No matter how chaotic this battle got, it wasn’t anywhere near the chaos when two armies clash and hundreds of deadly soldiers start throwing their all at everything that moves.

The royal knights were careful not to hit each other, but Frella moved with ease, swinging between them as if she didn’t care, but still, she didn’t hit anyone. She knew how to control her blade as if it were a part of her body.

As the fight burned, soon, the paladins of Elis joined the battle, fighting against the rebels to bring back peace. Their goddess has spoken, the silence was broken, and it was time for their power to be proven.