Rydel was on the front side of the gathering of elves in the main plaza, he was next to his parents and Neena. The main plaza was filled to the brim, the entire one thousand elves of the Elphyra’s were present for the occasion.
In front of them, every Elder of their clan stood with serious expressions. Along them stood Lady Allyna and Shael, two more high elves were radiating a majestic aura.
Grand Elder Pyria took a step forward, she raised her hand and addressed the crowd.
“We are thankful to receive the assistance and concern of the Imperial Family in these troubled times.”
There was an absolute silence present. Every elf made a light bow to show their respect to their rulers.
“Lady Allyna, Lady Melora, and Lord Nyvorlas will help us to neutralize the enemy powerhouses. We decided to give them a last chance of redemption, offering them a talk before attacking.” Pyria said. “If they don’t acquiesce to our demands, we’ll initiate the attack in accord with the preparations.”
“We are not looking to complete extermination. Try to spare the civilians if you can.” Elder Vulas added.
“You can use forcible methods if they try resisting.” Elder Aubron retorted, both Elders glared at each other.
“That’s enough. I won’t give any motivational speech, we aren’t being on the good side by returning their aggression at full force. Some would even call us petty and tyrannical.” Pyria said. “We, however, won’t stand seeing how our brothers and sister were killed in cold blood for some meager benefits.”
A bloodthirsty aura emanated from the Grand Elder in full force, the elves with weaker willpower had to be assisted to not fall into a killing frenzy.
“Forest elves return each aggression a thousand-fold, we will bathe in their blood if they dare to take us lightly.” Pyria finished her speech with a whistle.
A howl reverberated in the plaza, quickly followed by the deep thuds of steps. A giant black wolf made his appearance, Pyria floated until placing herself on his back.
“Is everyone ready?” Pyria said.
“Yes!” Every elf presented shouted their affirmation.
The army marched to war.
***
They had scouted the location of the human’s camp beforehand. The army needed five hours of jogging to reach the destination, it wasn’t a problem to maintain this rhythm with the average endurance.
Only those that were incapable of fighting, kids, and elderly were left behind, they summed up a total of 100 elves. The civilians who couldn’t give much assistance stayed behind the ranks to give their support when they were needed, they numbered about 600.
The Elphyra Clan had few members, everyone was at least E-grade, with a good portion being in the Middle stage. Even though they weren’t good fighters, they had the attributes to back up some ranged attacks and to make distractions to prevent casualties.
The rest were the 300 warriors who were divided into 10 squadrons, with the ten best of each one forming an elite team.
The human camp was located west of the village, near the coast, it was protected by tall stone walls four stories high. Although they weren’t very thick as they were constructed with haste, they were enough to slow them down.
“Stop here.” Grand Elder Pyria ordered, everyone remained to wait in formation.
“Protect Lady Shael.” Galather asked Rydel.
“I will make sure that no harm befalls her.” Rydel assured him.
Shael didn’t seem happy about being entrusted to someone but understood the situation and stood next to Rydel’s parents.
The Elders stood in each cardinal point of the camp, in case someone decided to sneak up on them they’d be able to rapidly respond. Meanwhile, the Ascended elves went to the middle point between the two camps.
“I’m Allyna Faerveliel Elrand from the Elrand Imperial Family, rulers of all elfkind in the Afrein Peninsula. We ask for the human representatives to come and have a meeting with us.” She said with a powerful voice that was heard by every member of both camps.
After a couple of seconds of silence, a group of five humans floated above the wall and slowly made their way to the elves. The two groups stood at 20m of each other, a distance that could be crossed in an instant, but gave a certain margin of protection.
Of the five humans, four of them looked like rogues. Their aura had a hint of wickedness, their tone of skin was sickly pale and their postures were slightly hunched.
In contrast to them, the remaining human was dressed in fine and silken clothes. He wore a spotless long white robe, in the center was weaved in gold the symbol of a winged serpent. He was holding a wooden staff in his right hand and had an amiable smile on his face.
“Greetings, my friends. I’m Priest Caden, a humble servant of the Caretaker. I hope that we haven’t been any inconvenience to the great Lords.” He said.
“I’m saddened to say that I haven’t got the honor to know about your God.” Allyna said.
“It isn’t a problem as we do not seek recognition. It is enough for us to know that we are true for ourselves and to the will of our god.” Caden responded.
“Could you explain to us what you are doing in our territory without seeking permission?” Pyria said.
“We are on a mission, looking for places that would accommodate our people and their needs. The Church of Humility is always on the lookout for the well-being of all.” Caden said.
“Why did your people act without care and attack to kill us then?” Pyria said in a cold tone.
“Sigh, I offer my apologies for that, there are some among us that might misunderstand our stance and try to take advantage of it.” Caden said with a saddened expression.
“You greedy bastard! You told our men to take anything if the indigenous people were weak.” One of the roguish men said.
“Do you see that the other side is weak? As I said, you misinterpreted my words.” Caden asked, disappointed.
“Is that the humility that you were preaching about?” Pyria snorted in disdain.
“Even a poor monk has to eat. There is nothing wrong in redistributing the resources for those in need.” Caden said.
“I assume that meant that you wouldn’t care if said resources had a previous owner.” Allyna had a displaced expression.
“Everything comes from the hands of god, it’s our duty to safeguard every opportunity to protect those in need.” Caden said.
Pyria looked intently at Allyna, and the latter nodded with reluctance.
“Enough with the nonsense. You have admitted your crimes, either give up your life of your own accord or we’ll do it for you.” Pyria said as an ultimatum.
“Giving up my life would be a sin. Besides, I have the responsibility to take care of every little lamb that has crossed the ocean with me.” Caden said.
Grand Elder Pyria observed him for a while.
“Very well, you have made your choice.”
Pyria looked back momentarily at Elder Vulas and sighed.
“You have five minutes to evacuate every civilian to a nearby area away from the battlefield. Don’t try to play any tricks, Rex will observe you.” Pyria patted her wolf.
“We are thankful for your consideration, I won’t permit any deceit under my watch.” Caden said.
“Not just you, make sure that there isn’t any deceit in general, not merely ‘under your watch’.” Allyna said.
“Of course, it’s almost the same.” Caden assured her.
It was a decision that the elves took not only because of morality. The meaningless slaughter of much weaker foes produced negative karma. Not only for the person doing it himself but for the collective that they belonged to if they were under orders.
If it was a few dozen it wouldn’t matter, but if they killed thousands of people systematically every time that there was a war. Their Clan would inevitably suffer a calamity eventually, only fate deciding if they would have a major seatback.
It was a matter that any faction took with utmost caution in wars. They tried harvesting good karma by doing good deeds afterward, to regain the balance. Too bad that it was easier to sin than to act in kindness.
Even though karma was a fickle variable, it wasn’t to the point that factions needed to calculate every move either. As long as they weren’t a host of demonic cultivators they didn’t need to worry too much, and even in that case, there were methods to reduce the negative karma.
The 300 civilians rapidly escaped from the camp to the boat that was anchored on the beach. They wore ragged clothes and looked malnourished.
Every elf watched intently that there were no hidden moves. Three minutes later, everyone was on board.
“As I said, we wouldn’t t-.” Caden started saying, but mid-phrase he threw a storm of darts to Allyna, who was the one nearest. He had taken them off his spatial ring, the tip of each dart was dripping a purple liquid.
“ATTACK!” Allyna had felt that the aura of the priest was weird from the beginning, she hadn’t dropped her guard since then.
She took out a tower shield that was twice her height and used it to cover in front of her. The shield was white with a crystal brightly shining in the center, giving a contrast to the black armor that she was wearing.
Allyna pumped energy into the crystal, making it summon a barrier that covered her allies. The barrier sizzled when the darts touched it, Caden was still throwing darts, they had almost fully penetrated it.
Allyna snorted and activated her Daodrop of Guardian, making the barrier shimmer in a golden light, recovering the damage and making the darts useless.
Pyria didn’t hold back, she jumped from Rex and attacked any of the enemy powerhouses. The rest of his allies found a target and started to fight in the air, they maintained a line of separation to not intervene with each other.
Pyria and Rex aimed at the warrior who spoke back to the priest earlier, he used twin daggers as a weapon.
He ignited his entire body in green fire taking the appearance of a human torch. He opened his mouth absorbing a great quantity of air, his whole body inflating in an instant, he spat a fire blast that covered the whole sky.
Pyria lifted her hands, a whole forest sprouted from the ground devouring the flames, their trunks were yellow with scarlet leaves.
“Nature is unceasing, always finding the way to counter any natural disaster. You are naïve if you think that a little bit of fire can stop a forest elf.” Pyria sneered.
Rex was already upon his foe, he opened his maw to devour him whole. The warrior emanated a huge quantity of spiritual energy, he transformed into fire and flashed under Rex. He stabbed the twin daggers, causing an explosion of fire.
Rex howled in pain, a huge splash of blood painted the crowns of the trees.
“YOU DARE!” Pyria shouted.
She burned through her reserves of energy in a big explosion to reach his enemy back. The warrior didn’t have time to finish the wolf off before turning and defending from the sword slash of Pyria.
Both fought with rage in a bloodthirsty way, without caring about their injuries. They exchanged dozens of attacks in an instant, their endurance and vitality allowed them to ignore the superficial injuries as they closed in a second.
Although they were equally matched, the warrior was worried as Rex only needed to rest for a couple of minutes to come back in full strength. He desperately summoned fireballs the size of cars and threw them to the common warriors fighting below them, without caring about friendly fire.
Pyria was forced to expend the majority of her focus on creating a canopy that separated her clan from damage, making the progress of their battle even slower.
Pyria’s hatred shot through the skies, her eyes becoming bloodshot. Her only desire was to rip apart the throat of his enemy and partake in his blood.