Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1309: Chapter 1308: Regional Victory

A surprise, a surprise that has been tunneling stealthily through the dark land for an entire year, is emerging in a form as devastating as a natural disaster from the rocks and earth at the border of the Black Forest and the banded flatlands, presenting itself to the aberration Army swarming out from the wasteland.

The rumbling from the depths of the earth, a continuous tremor shakes the entire southern border of the Dark Mountain Range. Deep beneath the dark soil, within the geological structures undetectable to humans, the colossal plant structures that spread all the way from the Sorin Plains have already created numerous astounding tunnels and openings. These things, whether considered roots or vines, have been gnawing through the soil and rocks, drawing extra energy from biomass conversion plants and storage tanks set along the way. They have been growing continuously for the past few months, gathering strength for today’s breakthrough, and now, the moment to emerge and embrace the sunlight has finally arrived. These "distant branches" of the Sorin Giant Tree... begin to stretch their structures arrogantly over the earth.

Thorny vines and sharp wooden stakes tear through the earth. From the southern Forward Base of the Cecil Clan to the dark mountain pass at the border between Typhon and Cecil, countless plant structures swarm out from every crack and cave at a frenzied speed. Those huge "roots" that burst forth chill the spine; from afar, they look as if the earth has suddenly sprouted countless wildly writhing tentacles. They stretch madly in the dim twilight like seaweed shaking in the air, and in the blink of an eye, they’ve blocked all the paths leading into the Dark Mountain Range.

The forward aberration army relayed the last scenes they witnessed before their demise, images seared deeply into the eyes of Dark Druid Bertrum—he saw the dark green or dark brown root tendrils emerge from the surface, sweeping predatorily towards nearby aberrations and various mutated creatures. The vines pierced the flesh of the monsters, coiled around their bodies, and with enormous force, they could even cause the weaker creatures to burst into a mess of flesh. The vines wrapped around the dying, struggling aberration monsters and flesh hybrids, dragging them one after another into the suddenly opened large gullets in the ground, where Bertrum saw countless writhing, grinding teeth in those dark, deep crevices, muscles rolling and squeezing, alongside bubbling, frothing digestive liquid pools.

Beneath the entire banded flatlands... is astonishingly a digestive organ hundreds of kilometers wide, a hungry, tooth-bearing stomach built on the foundation of underground caves and enormous biological structures. This colossal digestive system has been starving here for a long, long time, and now... the Oblivion Association from the wasteland has delivered a massive feast for this hungry, writhing stomach.

Soon, this food would be transformed into a new source of biomass for that verdant forest barrier, becoming the new limbs and hands of that wildly emerging "vegetative forest sea"!

A coldness forgotten for hundreds of years finally surged from the depths of every limb and branch, and Bertrum felt every inch of his bark and every twig trembling in the wind. In the final images sent back from the few remaining aberrations, he saw those roots emerging from the ground rapidly harden and transform into the form of towering trees, not only becoming a green barrier protecting the mortal world but also greedily absorbing sunlight with their green leaves, continuing to replicate and spread their roots outward, reinforcing the defense line.

And more terrifying than this scene is the voice that linked into his mind!

Since the forward aberration army came into contact with that green forest barrier, a somewhat familiar yet particularly chilling female voice kept entering his mind through some kind of neural link!

"I can smell your fear, Bertrum... How interesting, I’ve ’worked’ with you for hundreds of years. For hundreds of years, I’ve always regarded you and your grotesque comrades as honorable warriors willing to sacrifice for a great cause. You said you feared nothing in the wasteland, you said the continuation of the world was your highest pursuit... Yet now, you command a frenzied, filthy army to attack us, and after facing a little setback, you shiver in fear... Bertrum, am I really that terrifying?"

The voice continuously pierced his mind through nerve nodes traversing deep beneath the earth and rushing across the battlefield. Dark Druid Bertrum shook his branches and desperately urged the guards beside him to escort him as far into the wasteland as possible, while angrily yelling in his mind: "Beltira! You freak even more deformed than us! You monster more revolting than the aberrations! You stand in the camp of those low-tier beings, gnawing at the soil underground to build a barrier for them, yet you are still a monstrosity, you won’t have a place in that so-called ’civilized world’! You are... a traitor among the evolved!!"

"I need to correct you, Bertrum," Beltira’s voice persisted in piercing the Dark Priest’s nervous system like a sharp awl, her calm recounting dripping with enormous sarcasm, "Those so-called lower beings you mentioned have already triumphed over the Mad Gods in direct confrontation, ended the famine that spread across the Plains of the Holy Spirits within two years, they allied with the dragon, reconciled with the gods, and cracked the truth of the universe within the kingdom - there is hardly anyone qualified to call them ’lower beings’ now. As for your concern about my place in the civilized world... I fear you’ll be disappointed. I have new friends everywhere here, a race daring to kill even gods, and their insight is not as shallow as you imagine..."

The tremor from beneath the earth came again, thunderous sounds echoing near the now extinguished great walls, and yet another living forest rose from the depths of the earth, shaking tentacles and vines that consumed the nearby aberrations and wasteland monsters before beginning to transform in place, forming one protective layer after another. And beside this quickly taking shape "forest," the deafening booming resumed.

It was the main cannon of the "General Winter" armored train roaring— with the line of human defense re-stabilizing, that dreadful steel fortress began again to project shells toward the Gondor wasteland, its high-power shells landing outside the "feeding range" of the "Living Forest Barrier," slaughtering the monsters that escaped the forest’s predation.

Half of the main force at the vanguard of the legion was already lost to that continuous barrage and the rolling gastric juices of the living forest underground, the astonishing loss relayed back through neural signals made Bertrum’s eyes red with rage.

"Beltira!" He halted in fury, turning back to angrily stare at that living forest standing at the edge of the great walls, sealing the gap completely; he felt his heterogenized neural system boiling in anger, "At the end of the day, your form is no different from us mutant monsters! Do you think you’re a great savior?!"

"There is no such thing as a savior, all mortals are meant to save themselves - as Brother Gawain told me," Once again the neural system ached, and Beltira’s voice stabbed deep into Bertrum’s mind, "And the so-called monster... my former colleague, sometimes only monsters... are best suited to confront monsters. The Cecil Clan always values pragmatism..."

Bertrum turned and left, quickly moving deeper into the wasteland under the protection of his guards, abandoning half of his forces to draw the Cecil Clan’s fire. After moving further into the wasteland, he finally felt his neural system gradually begin to recover—the continuous stinging started to diminish.

This phenomenon allowed his heart to finally relax: although that living forest appeared terrifying, its power indeed remained fixed like a plant within a certain area. While that forest clearly had the capability to spread, its spreading speed was limited by biomass reserves and its own structure, making it unable to chase him into the wasteland.

An immobile formidable opponent, therefore, is not a formidable opponent.

At this moment, Bertrum truly relaxed a bit, even deliberately letting himself over-relax, as if in doing so he could temporarily forget the terrifying living forest, forget the misery relayed by front-line aberrations torn apart by the earth’s teeth, dissolved ceaselessly by the stomach of the living forest, and most importantly... forget the dreadful defeat of losing half of the vanguard corps.

He stopped in a lowland area, surrounded by towering jagged rocks sheltering him from the wasteland’s cold wind. It seemed as if he could still faintly hear the sounds, hear the booming of shells landing and the chewing of the living forest. Among these sounds seemingly like phantom pain remnants of the nerve system, he heard a fragmented and weak whisper faintly reaching him silently—

"Run as much as you like... back to your lair... but eventually, we will find you, Bertrum... My distant limbs still lack a final dessert, there is still a corner in my stomach pouch reserved for you and Balken..."

...

In front of the half-buried communication bunker, Fendil stared wide-eyed at the astonishing change on the battlefield. He looked towards the Dark Mountain Range and saw a lush, dense forest standing in the wind, so verdant that it was hard to imagine that not long ago, this land was a desolate scorched earth; amidst the dim shadows deep within the forest, some twisting, writhing roots and vines could still be seen swiftly moving, simultaneously restoring the surrounding land and rapidly transforming into shrubs, flowers, and berry bushes in the forest.

Fendil recognized those berry and shrub bushes, having toured Sorinburg before. In that miraculous place, similar berries and shrubs were everywhere, serving as important economic products for the region.

The young Northern Marquis had already surmised a lot. He glanced down at a green vine on the ground near the base door and a few small flowers blooming nearby, murmuring under his breath, "This is quite... impressive."

He couldn’t guess the complete scheme of the emperor, but he deduced this must be a trump card, a card forced to be revealed prematurely—the aberration army’s attack on the sentinel towers was unexpected, and the extinguishing of the great walls wasn’t in the plans. Thus, this suddenly risen "Living Forest" to block the breach wasn’t originally intended for this moment; this card was meant for another purpose, but now...

The extinguishing of the great walls forced Madam Beltira, who had been secretly spreading deeper into the wasteland, to emerge early, exposing herself to the enemy in the form of the Living Forest.

Fendil shook his head, unwilling to delve deeper into these thoughts; it wasn’t his place to consider such matters at the moment.

The initial excitement and impulsiveness upon joining the army had been cooled by reality. This vast, uncontrollable battlefield exceeding the knowledge taught in schools made the young man realize the reality of the present frontline and how it differed from his imagination.

At this point, a buzzing sound came from within the bunker, mixed with the crackling of signal interference.

Fendil and the communication soldiers with him exchanged quick glances and turned to run into the bunker.

The Magic Web Terminal, hastily repaired, was emitting blurred, intermittent broadcasts. The voice from the frontline command center was broadcasting to all the soldiers along the defense line.

The broadcast instructed soldiers to take advantage of this brief respite to quickly rest, report losses, transport the wounded, regroup, abandon the completely extinguished and irrecoverable great walls, and rely on the newly appeared "green barrier" to rebuild the defense line.

The general did not issue an order for a reckless counterattack or push into the wasteland during this sudden "victory," which made Fendil breathe a sigh of relief.

The retreat of the aberration army was merely a local phenomenon, and the underlying issue was the complete loss of control over the great walls beyond the Cecil Defense Line. Moreover... the Living Forest couldn’t move like ordinary military units.

Stabilizing and reinforcing the defense line is the current priority; a victorious counterattack is the next consideration.

"Sir..." A soldier’s voice interrupted Fendil’s thoughts. The soldier nervously looked at the "forest" swaying slightly in the wind nearby, murmuring cautiously, "Is this forest really our ally?"

"... The Empire’s army is ever-changing; sometimes unexpected ally units suddenly appear," Fendil didn’t know how to explain his speculation to the soldier, so he forced a strange expression and said, "You’ll get used to it. I’ve learned stranger things in military school..."

"Is that so?" The soldier’s mouth twitched, but he still couldn’t help but glance at the forest nearby, mumbling softly, "This is a bit too strange..."

"Stop grumbling, the orders have come down," Fendil helplessly shook his head, sighed, and said, "Let’s report back to the main base... I have a premonition that this is just the beginning."

...

Not only the Cecil Clan and the aberration creatures could see the "Living Forest" that suddenly appeared near Sentinel Tower No. 98.

Its vastness and scale even reached near the Typhon Empire’s defense line.

On the eastern part of the "green barrier," atop a treacherous ridge, Andresha Wendell stood in the cold, bitter wind, her eye twitching slightly as she looked at the "forest" that blocked the barrier gap.

"Cecil Clan... What have they created this time?"

She suddenly felt that the changes in this world had become somewhat incomprehensible to her.