dtnovels Chapter 229: Oh shit…
Chapter 229: Oh shit…
There were many reasons why the Eternal Forest remained so desolate and overlooked by the kingdoms across the continent, despite housing a surprisingly large population and being rich in resources.
One of the main ones was the sheer difficulty of moving armies through that lush green labyrinth.
There were no roads, no basic infrastructure of any kind, just a hellish sea of ancient trees and dense vegetation.
The western plains, completely surrounded by the Eternal Forest, were the only place that supported decent infrastructure and prosperous cities, some with populations reaching millions.
But for any army to reach them, only two options remained:
The first was the seemingly calm waters of the Solene River, which flowed into Lake Azur, a body of water teeming with sea monsters naturally drawn to large clusters of vessels.
The second option was the forest itself, but even in the regions with the easiest crossings, any army had to traverse at least two hundred kilometers of that green expanse.
Any force large enough to truly threaten the city-states of the western plains usually emerged from the crossing in such a miserable state that it could barely face the region’s weakest settlements.
Because of this, the Eternal Forest had become a true graveyard of armies, a region completely ignored by the continent’s great powers.
Subduing it was possible, yes, but everyone reached the same conclusion: the investment simply wasn’t worth it.
Naturally, Alistair and his army, after marching a hundred kilometers without rest, didn’t take long to feel that firsthand.
"Ah... I can’t wait to wipe this whole damn forest off the face of the earth!" Alistair growled through clenched teeth, sweat trickling down his brow as his blade furiously slashed at the low-hanging branches in his path.
Moving four thousand soldiers through such dense forest was a logistical nightmare. Fortunately, that suffering was coming to an end.
Soon after, the army finally pushed through the most suffocating stretch of the woods and emerged into a wide, open valley.
The sunlight poured down on the troops like a blessing after the green oppression they had endured.
"My lord, should we set up camp and send scouts to check the safety of the valley?" asked the captain of the Whitefall guard, walking alongside his lord’s horse.
"No." Alistair shook his head dismissively. "My mother controls all of Goldenveil’s intelligence, and she’s already ensured that this route is clear. We just need to push on, get there as quickly as possible and wipe out their forces.
Without their walls, those vermin won’t stand a chance against us."
Hearing this, the captain merely nodded in silence, his lips pressed into a firm line.
He would have liked to warn his lord about the danger of blindly trusting anyone, especially a person Alistair himself had cast aside as a consolation prize to one of his subordinates.
But in the end, he swallowed his words.
Alistair was not a man who thought with his head, and his vice-captain had discovered this the hard way when he tried to warn him of the dangers of a previous campaign.
It was a mistake he would never make.
"You’re overthinking it, old friend. Those bastards are already dead and don’t even know it," said the mage of Whitefall, a lascivious smile curving his lips. "And don’t worry, i’ll share Ophelia with you for a night; just relax and get ready to crush them!"
The captain remained silent, keeping a steady pace alongside his lord’s horse, his jaw tightening almost imperceptibly.
They marched for many miles, camped for a single night in that open field, and by the first light of the following day, they were already on the move again.
The morning was still young when the high rocky walls of the valley began, slowly, to give way to gentler slopes.
The four thousand men marched along the bank of a deep, nameless river of crystal-clear waters, struggling to maintain some sort of cohesive formation as they squeezed through a valley barely over a hundred and forty meters wide.
It was precisely in this precarious position that, suddenly, the mage of Whitefall—whose face until then had borne nothing but confidence and lust—froze.
The mana there felt... strange.
"Something wrong?" Alistair stopped as well, turning toward his mage with an eyebrow raised in curiosity.
The man did not answer immediately. Instead, he quickly cast the spell to detect life, his mana spreading through the valley like an invisible wave.
The answer made his heart sink like a stone in his chest.
In that valley, there were six thousand living presences. But there should only be four thousand... their own.
The mage’s head jerked to the side, his eyes darting toward the hill on the opposite bank of the river.
His pupils contracted in sheer horror.
Up there, silhouetted along the hillside, stood hundreds of archers, and at their head was a woman so beautiful she looked like an angel incarnate among mortals.
The woman, with her long golden hair and blue eyes so piercing they seemed capable of cutting through the soul, was a mage like him... No.
Seeing the colossal amount of mana enveloping her body like an almost tangible aura, he was absolutely certain: she was much, much stronger than he was.
"AMBUSH!" A roar tore through the valley, and instant chaos seized the column of soldiers. The mage, however, was already in motion.
His mana responded to the call in a burst of energy, his mind calculating dozens of spells in fractions of a second, until he finally settled on a barrier spell.
The army staggered to a halt, and a brilliant blue dome rose around the troops, firm and powerful, closing over them like a translucent shell.
The mage braced himself for hell to rain down on them at any moment, but that didn’t happen.
He saw the sorceress’s eyes sharpen in concentration, her mana exploding toward the barrier, but not as a common attack.
The mage’s eyes widened in panic, and in the next instant he heard a sharp, shattering sound, like glass breaking.
"S-she... broke my spell?" The mage’s heart plummeted in his chest. "Oh shit..."