Chapter92

The general on the city wall, General Qi, indeed held a divine weapon granted by the System, but it was not the arrows being shot out. It was the long bow in his hand.

The moment Elara touched the arrow, she immediately understood what was going on, and the System popped up related information.

It was just a low-quality ranged weapon. Every arrow shot from that bow was imbued with energy. This energy reduced air resistance during flight, allowing the arrows to shoot at extremely high speed and power over a long distance.

The energy also strengthened the arrowheads, letting the arrows easily pierce many hard materials that were normally impenetrable.

For example, Francis's fine iron sword was pierced by the energy on the arrows.

It was truly a weapon very suitable for Damon.

Damon paused and raised his eyes to look at her.

Elara rolled the broken arrow back and forth between her fingers. "The Shadow Cloak I gave you, do you wear it?"

"Your Majesty, always close at hand," Damon replied. A faint glow appeared around him, the Shadow Cloak Elara had given him.

Elara nodded. "Good. When Francis begins digging the underground water channel to flood Delphinium Border, chaos will break out."

"You use the Shadow Cloak to sneak onto the city wall early. Then during the chaos, take that bow!"

General Qi was dealing with attacks from her, Maurice, and Prince Leland. Each country sent only 200,000 troops, showing the army was already stretched thin.

Even if General Qi still had divine weapons, they could not be many. His main defense focus should be Prince Leland's forces, as both were second-tier countries with deep hatred between them.

The General on Delphinium Border's wall showed his "divine bow" before the battle started. Instead of intimidating, it looked more like a bluff due to lack of troops.

Trying to scare Elara's army with that bow?

Elara chuckled quietly and pulled out fifteen special palm-sized mechanical locks from under the table.

"Take these mechanical locks. Salvia Kingdom must have traded with the Skyworks Pavilion before. The dozen or so mechanical arrow towers on the wall are powerful."

"You use the Shadow Cloak to sneak onto the wall and quietly embed these fifteen locks into the fifteen arrow towers. When the battle starts, those towers will fail."

The iron shields and armor on General Qi's troops were not a threat. The danger was the mechanical arrow towers and the naturally strong high ground.

Once Francis's flooding method took effect, Damon would finish disabling those fifteen towers and seize the "divine bow" from General Qi. Delphinium Border would no longer be threatening.

"You're good with a bow. Once you take that divine bow, it's yours. Use it directly."

Damon's eyes flickered as he looked at Elara. She spoke calmly, showing no concern for the bow's appearance. Damon's hand tightened slightly, but he said no more. He bowed deeply to Elara, his voice low and heavy.

"My lord, I thank Your Majesty for your grace!"

...

The next two hours passed.

On Delphinium Border's wall, General Qi's troops watched Elara's army, frozen as if truly intimidated by the "divine bow." Meanwhile, Francis personally sent two adjutants with two thousand elite soldiers. They silently climbed the mountains on both sides of the city.

They quickly dealt with the watchtower guards and replaced them. The rest slipped into the mountain pools and began nonstop digging of the water channels.

Since it was being dug inside the mountain and most of the soil was hard, the sound was extremely faint. The city of Delphinium Border, located below the mountain wall, couldn't hear it at all. Their attention was focused on the Plumera Kingdom army a hundred meters away from the city and had no idea what was happening inside the mountains.

Damon timed it just right. When General Qi used Puppet Soldiers to send word back that they had dug almost enough, Damon activated the "invisible view" feature of his Shadow Cloak. He silently approached the bottom of Delphinium Border and, using his strong core strength and powerful inner energy, climbed up the city wall without a sound, avoiding all nearby Jingstone soldiers. He calmly inserted the fifteen mechanism locks Elara had given him into the fifteen mechanism towers one by one.

Then he slipped into the tower building inside Delphinium Border, holding his breath and hiding silently in the ceiling beams of the rest area where the Salvia Kingdom general was staying, waiting for the right moment to strike.

General Qi didn't keep him waiting long.

In just the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, sudden screams and shouts echoed throughout Delphinium Border.

At the same time, loud crashing sounds like floodwaters smashing down burst out crazily from both sides of the city, near the mountain walls. The explosive noise of panic and screams instantly erupted inside Delphinium Border like hot oil hitting water.

The Salvia Kingdom general, who had just entered the tower and not rested for long, suddenly stood up, his face tense. "What's going on?!"

He got up to check outside, but before he reached the door, a soldier had already stumbled in, panicked and gasping. "General! The city is flooded! Water is pouring in everywhere!"

"What?!"

The general was shocked. He grabbed the "Divine Bow" and quickly rushed out.

Damon silently followed from the beams above.

Outside, two thick and raging water columns surged down from the mountain slopes like beasts breaking through barriers. They roared straight into the heart of Delphinium Border.

Delphinium Border was located in the lowest part between two mountains.

So when the two massive water columns burst out, they poured straight into the city.

The two hundred thousand Salvia Kingdom troops weren't all standing on the walls.

And the walls of Delphinium Border weren't as wide and sturdy as the ones Elara had recently built in Plumera City.

These ancient city walls, even in a second-class nation, were narrow due to outdated construction techniques and corruption in funding. There wasn't much room for soldiers.

Most of the Salvia Kingdom army was still gathered inside the city, waiting for orders.

But what greeted them wasn't a battle between armies, it was an inescapable flood.

The flood roared and crashed in wildly, quickly submerging the entire ground of Delphinium Border.

The Salvia Kingdom general could no longer calmly stand on the wall and watch the Plumera Kingdom army a few hundred meters away. He had to shout in urgency, commanding over a hundred thousand soldiers in the city to move to higher ground that wouldn't be submerged.

But just as he split his forces into two groups to head toward the surrounding cliffs, he heard another loud rumbling sound above the crashing water.

His heart tightened, and when he looked up, he was stunned to see countless massive rocks tumbling down from both sides of the cliffs.

The Salvia Kingdom soldiers who had just moved toward the cliffs were hit immediately. Many were struck by the falling rocks and thrown back into the flooded city.

Screams and cries of pain erupted again and again.

The Salvia Kingdom general clutched his chest, enraged to the point that blood surged up his throat.

He waved off the surrounding guards and ordered them to start rescue efforts right away.

Then he returned to the tower building and grabbed a brush to write a letter to the Salvia Kingdom. He warned them that Delphinium Border is very likely to fall soon, and the cities and counties behind must shut their gates and defend themselves. They must not underestimate the Plumera Kingdom army just because Plumera is a third-class nation. Maximum alert and strict defense are required.

Before he could finish even half a page, a sudden chill spread across the back of his neck. His vision went dark, and he collapsed onto the table, unconscious.

Half an hour later, the water from the two deep pools had almost all flooded into Delphinium Border, submerging more than half the houses and buildings.

At the same time, on both sides of the mountain cliffs, the elite soldiers of Plumera Kingdom who had just finished digging the canals continued to push huge rocks down from above.

The Salvia Army at the foot of the mountain had nowhere to escape and were crushed or drowned in great numbers. Their morale collapsed, and many who tried to flee were captured by Plumera Kingdom's elite forces waiting nearby.

On the city tower, the Salvia junior officers found out that their general had been assassinated in the chaos. Even their divine bow had been stolen. Facing the tragic scene inside the city, they could no longer hold on.

They ordered the gate guards to open the city gates to let the water drain out. They hoped it could flow all the way to Plumera Kingdom's army and flood them too.

Unfortunately, this idea never became reality.

Outside Delphinium Border's main gate was a flat plain, with cliffs surrounding it. Plumera Kingdom's army had set up their camp five hundred meters from the gate. No matter how the flood flowed, it couldn't reach them.

Even if the city gates were wide open, the flood would still prevent Plumera Kingdom's forces from rushing in. Trying to attack in such conditions would only lead to being swallowed by the waves.

The Salvia junior officers had counted on this and dared to open the gates to release the flood.

Once the flood inside the city had mostly drained, they quickly closed the gates again. They reorganized the remaining Salvia soldiers, sent archers back to the walls, and activated the ten or so mechanical arrow towers they had bought at great cost from the Engineering Pavilion, preparing for another standoff against Plumera Kingdom's army outside.

Their general was already dead, but a few junior officers were still able to regroup and take control of the remaining forces.

This level of command ability earned them a little respect.

Still, from Elara's point of view, these few junior officers were too naive, or perhaps they were ready to fight to the death.

After all, with Delphinium Border flooded, the usable horses, medicine, and food supplies had all been soaked and ruined.

Now the city was practically lifeless. Other Salvia forces were still tied down by Prince Yu and Prince Leland. Reinforcements would not arrive. With time, the lack of supplies and growing exhaustion would slowly destroy their will to fight.

Sure enough, that very night, Plumera Kingdom's army didn't even need to wait a day or two longer. The exhausted Salvia soldiers, having endured flooding and rockfall, now saw their expensive mechanical towers suddenly stop working. Hungry and desperate, they couldn't maintain their guard any longer.

Senior General Duanmu and General He led two elite Northern Frontier armies and quietly scaled the walls at night. They opened the city gates from the inside.

The sound of battle echoed through the night, but the situation was completely one-sided.

By the next morning, over ninety thousand Salvia soldiers were dead, more than thirty thousand had fled, and over sixty thousand were captured.

The flag of Plumera Kingdom was raised above the gates of the Salvia city.

In the days that followed, with no more Salvia resistance and supported by the forces of Prince Yu and Prince Leland attacking from two other fronts, Plumera Kingdom's army advanced through Salvia's territory as if no one was guarding it.

They swept through everything, defeating all resistance.

More and more flags of Plumera Kingdom were raised over the cities and counties of Salvia.

On the other side, the forces of Prince Yu and Prince Leland also smashed through the Salvia armies and continued pushing deeper into the country.

Over ten more days passed like this. By then, Plumera Kingdom's army had taken control of nearly every city in the western part of Salvia.

Prince Yu led his vast army to seize all the central cities and counties of Salvia Kingdom. Prince Leland, on the other hand, led his forces to occupy the western territories of Salvia Kingdom.

At this point, the second-rank nation of Salvia Kingdom had been split into three parts by the three countries, each part merged into their own territory.

However, this war was not completely over.

Five days ago, seeing that the situation was lost, the royal family of Salvia Kingdom abandoned the capital and took the remaining members north to flee toward the northernmost cities and counties of the nation.

Everyone understood the simple truth that if you don't pull up the roots, the weeds will grow back. So Elara, Prince Yu, and Prince Leland all sent people to continue the pursuit.

But a day later, the news that came back was completely unexpected for Elara. Even she was deeply shocked.

The three cities in the far north that the royal family of Salvia Kingdom had fled to were covered year-round in snow and frozen ground. In just one night, they seemed to have been torn from the earth by some immense force.

Along with the vast lands of those three major counties, everything vanished overnight and sank into an abyss too deep to see the bottom.

After receiving the report, Elara personally rushed to the Northern Frontier at once.

At the edge of the border where it connected to the three counties, a perfectly sunken massive abyss stretched endlessly along the borderline.

The neat and straight edge of the split looked as if a giant from a myth had used divine power to slice it clean.

This could not be a natural disaster.

The edges of the cut were too smooth and precise.

But if it wasn't a natural disaster, then what kind of power could split mountains and land like this?

Elara stood still a hundred meters away from the edge of the abyss, dazed for several seconds, then dismounted. With generals cautiously surrounding her for protection, she slowly approached the edge of the pit.

A bitter wind, like one coming from the depths of hell, blew up from below.

Elara tightened her clothing and used her inner energy to resist the chill, forcing back the wind's icy bite as she walked to the edge.

Invisible spiritual power surged from her back, extending downward into the giant pit to probe.

The abyss below seemed like a gaping black mouth, presenting itself through spiritual perception, bottomless and terrifying.

The longer she looked, the more it felt like a force from within the depths was pulling at her, trying to drag her down.

Elara closed her eyes for a moment, waved off the generals trying to persuade her to retreat, and left only Uno by her side. Then she sat cross-legged right at the edge of the pit, releasing a transparent spiritual force that slowly and steadily reached downward.

But this suddenly appearing abyss was far too deep, too vast, and too wide.

Elara spent half an hour exploring the edge but found nothing.

She only discovered, on the cracked surface of the earth, circles of barely visible but enormous wave-like marks, as if something with a wavy shape had deeply pierced the ground.

Each of these wave patterns was around ten meters wide. In this ancient and underdeveloped time, which nation could possibly possess or use a tool with such massive wave-shaped blades?

Divine Vein's gift?

Impossible.