Chapter 988: It's all my fault

Chapter 988: It’s all my fault

Silverwood Realm, the Forest of Nature.

It was a dying forest, choked by a spreading corruption. Every living thing on this land was under threat.

The invasion of demonic monsters and the spread of a virulent plague were no natural disasters; they were deliberate acts of war. Barring some unforeseen miracle, this place was doomed to drown in endless fear and agony until nothing remained.

The only hope for such a miracle, a Wood Elf who had been forced to bury her heart, now stood atop the canopy of a great tree, watching a pillar of thick smoke rise in the distance. And smoke, more often than not, meant war.

“Elder, the scouts have returned. Another hidden settlement has been discovered,” an elven archer said, her voice tight. She stood behind Aerin, her gaze also fixed on the horizon. In her eyes, hope and sorrow warred for dominance. “If we don’t go now, they might not survive the day.”

“Freyla, I know what you’re thinking,” Aerin said, turning to face the High Elf, the first to pledge her loyalty. Freyla was Alpha-level, nearly as powerful as Aerin herself. “But now is not the time.”

“Elder…” Freyla’s expression fell, and the last flicker of hope in her eyes was instantly extinguished.

“I’m sorry. It isn’t that I don’t want to save our people,” Aerin’s voice was heavy with a sorrow she could no longer show. “Our duty right now is to protect those who follow us, to ensure we remain hidden. The lives of the people behind us are more important than those who have already been exposed.”

The future of the Wood Elf race was dwindling with every passing day. She couldn’t afford to throw away the last ember of hope she held in her hands on a single, emotional impulse. Aerin could feel her heart growing harder, colder. She could see the confusion and the doubt in the eyes of her followers.

“Besides,” she added, her tone softening slightly, “if we go to their rescue, it would be suicide. We’d be moths to a flame.” She met the other elf’s gaze. “Freyla, promise me you won’t do anything foolish. If I don’t have your help, I don’t know if I can keep our people alive.”

If her previous words had been an explanation, these were a plea. This war had forced her to grow, to become calm and calculating. Aerin knew that until her patron, Orion, arrived, she had to do whatever it took to hold this ragged group of Wood Elves together. Even if it meant playing the part of a heartless leader.

“Freyla, we have to endure. We have to hold on. The salvation of the Wood Elves is coming.” As she spoke the last sentence, her face was a mask of grief, her eyes filled with such sorrow she looked as though she might break down at any moment.

“Elder, I… how much longer must we endure?” Freyla asked, her voice trembling. “What is our next move?”

It was the question on her mind, and on the mind of every Wood Elf refugee. They had not only lost their homes; they had lost their way.

“The next move… the next move…” Aerin murmured, looking down at the forest floor. What was the next move? She had no idea.

If Orion arrived successfully, she had a few ideas. But if his arrival failed… she was just as lost as everyone else.

But as Aerin and Freyla stood frozen by their own despair, a fluctuation of spatial energy rippled through a patch of nearby deadlands. With a shimmer of distorted air, Orion and Clymene appeared, leading a vanguard of undead troops.

“The ambient death energy is thin, but the world is saturated with raw elemental power,” Shade Valkyrie Clymene observed, her senses already assessing the new environment. “Building a proper necropolis here will require a steady supply of corpses and souls.”

“Don’t worry, sister,” Orion replied calmly. “Our whole purpose here is conquest. There will be no shortage of war, and no shortage of corpses.”

ROAR!

As Orion spoke, four massive Blight Wyrms of Alpha-peak strength launched themselves from the center of the undead army. Clymene had raised them from dragon corpses during the previous war.

“Sister, I’m going to scout the area and find a friend,” Orion said, leaping onto the back of one of the undead dragons. “I’ll leave things here in your hands.” With that, he and the four Blight Wyrms shot into the sky, heading in the direction of a faint signal he could sense.

As Clymene watched him disappear, the seven souls within her began to speak amongst themselves.

“So this is another world! The air itself feels alive!”

“This forest alone proves the land is fertile.”

“I can feel my soul humming. This will be our battlefield!”

“Does this mean we are the pioneers?”

“For the Horde! We claim these new lands!”

The voices of Vargrum, Mordak, Zorn, Balgor, and Grendel were a chorus of excitement, awe, and determination, all proud to be the vanguard for their Tribe.

“Lord,” a different voice, smooth and practical, cut through the zeal. It was the succubus, Desdemona. “Our first priority should be patrols. Then, a temporary camp for the Horde. After that, we gather the local dead and begin construction of the necropolis underground.” The three thousand elite troops they’d brought with them were just the beginning; they needed the necropolis to summon more skeleton warriors.

“Desdemona is right,” Clymene’s own voice affirmed. “We must establish a foothold before we can begin the conquest of this world. Desdemona, I’m giving you control of this body for now. We will follow your orders.”

It was a strategic decision. As a succubus, Desdemona’s mastery of illusions would be invaluable for gathering intelligence from any local creatures they encountered. With their plan set, Clymene’s forces immediately set to work.

Back at Aerin’s position, disaster had struck.

“Elder, you have to go! I’ll hold them off!” Freyla shouted, shoving at Aerin. Her right arm was wrapped in a special green bandage, a poultice from a plant root that could staunch bleeding and temporarily suppress the plague. But its effects were already fading.

Freyla’s face was a mask of desperation as she tried to push Aerin away, to save the one she saw as the Wood Elves’ only hope. After their homes fell, it was Aerin who had gathered the survivors. To Freyla, she was hope.

“It’s all my fault… I should have seen the signs. I should have moved us out yesterday…” Aerin murmured, her head hung low. She let Freyla push her but didn’t move an inch.

Yesterday, when they had stood in the treetops watching that distant smoke, she should have known the danger was already at their doorstep. That had been their window to escape.

But she had missed it. It was her first time in command, her first time being overwhelmed by the sheer weight of her people’s lives, and she had overlooked it. And mistakes, more often than not, came with a price.