Chapter 439: Clouds of War |
After finishing his meeting with Hayley, Gauss did not go out again.
In no time, the day of the assembly arrived.
Accompanying Gauss were the other members of Gauss’s squad: Ivan, Luna, Ethan, and the dwarf Toga.
Although the party looked large, there was more than enough space on the carriage—after all, the local guild had provided four full vehicles.
Once aboard the guild carriage, the vehicles soon sped down the wide avenue.
Passing through the inner and outer walls, pedestrians and traffic on the street noticeably thinned.
Those who lived in the inner city were mostly Barry’s upper class; it would not be an exaggeration to call land here worth its weight in gold.
The people who came and went were mainly nobles, large merchant guild members, senior government officials, church priests, bankers, renowned scholars, and artists. Aside from them, the rest were employees of service businesses and other staff who worked here.
Gauss and his group’s carriage stopped in front of a classical circular building. The open area before the entrance was already filled with many carriages of various designs.
The two groups instinctively kept their distance from each other.
Gauss naturally drifted toward the adventurer side, but his eyes were raised, fixed on the towering tree behind the Barry Adventurers Guild headquarters that reached into the clouds.
After entering the inner city, they drew ever closer to the mother tree of the Forest Capital, and the awe it inspired—like being watched by a deity—grew even stronger.
The towering tree reached into the clouds; each leaf could easily be the size of a house. Rumor had it those leaves never withered or fell by natural causes. The entire inner city was wrapped in a large magical protective dome that could be activated at any time, so there was no worry that falling giant leaves would bring disaster to the city.
Sunlight filtered through the gaps between leaves. Against that backdrop, griffin knights—tiny as flies in comparison—darted through, impaling strange parasitic bugs on the tree trunk with long spears as they busied about.
“This is Terrahil.”
Such a tree could only be called a miracle. It was like a gentle mother shielding the residents beneath it from natural disasters, moderating the climate so the city enjoyed eternal spring and favorable weather.
The air itself seemed to flow with vigorous life energy.
Among the group, Aria—the one who had awakened her elf bloodline and whose original vocation was Druid—looked the most devout. Her whole body relaxed, and every cell seemed to cry out with joyous celebration.
“Incredible. This tree is practically the incarnation of nature.”
Aria breathed deeply several times, and her normally beautiful face looked even more graceful for it.
“Isn’t there that legend? They say before humans built a city here, back in the Second Age, this place was one of the elf tribe’s major gathering sites.”
“Maybe one of your ancestors, Aria, actually lived up in the treetops many, many years ago.”
“Perhaps,” Aria murmured.
She didn’t have an especially strong sense of identity with the elf race; her awe now came more from a natural reverence than personal lineage.
“Guests of the Red Dragon Guild, I am Bella, their receptionist for today. Please follow me. The meeting is about to begin.”
While Gauss and the local group were noisily exchanging words, a short-statured red-haired girl quietly approached their party and interrupted them apologetically.
Only then did Gauss realize the others had already been guided away by their receptionists and were leaving the guild building; only his few companions remained behind.
“Sorry, sorry. Please lead the way.”
Of course, he could not blame them. Unlike most local teams, they were outsiders; it was natural they wanted to see the tree up close out of curiosity.
The main guild building remained spacious—accurately put, cavernous.
Apart from the high-ranking adventurers who had come to attend today’s assembly and the local military brass from Barry, there was almost no one else.
After asking the receptionist Bella, Gauss learned why.
It was normal for the headquarters to have so few people.
Or rather, the headquarters’ functions differed from those of the branch halls scattered across the city. Even the basic task-accepting service was not open to lower-ranked adventurers here. Only a handful of important occasions would summon people to this place.
They went up to the third floor meeting hall.
The number of people was noticeably higher.
Adventurers of many different races were visible everywhere. Anyone attending such an important meeting had a nontrivial background.
Most present were Black Iron-rank adventurers—Master-level professionals; even the usually lofty Silver-rank adventurers and some Transcendent powerhouses could be faintly detected among the crowd.
Those people emanated an overwhelmingly strong presence.
It wasn’t that every one of them was a dazzling beauty or handsome peak of Charm; rather, they exuded a “stand-apart” aloofness.
Even if they looked plain or short, they were easily distinguishable from others, as if they were a different kind of being entirely.
That was the stark difference in life hierarchy.
“Is it the effect of Domains?” Gauss thought privately.
Although his current power had surpassed many Level-11 professionals and even rivaled some Level-12s in combat strength, he himself was only Level-8 and had not mastered that unique Transcendent force.
Still, he had a rough understanding of what a Domain was.
While observing the others, he noticed several of those special figures furtively casting glances his way.
He did not know if they had heard rumors about him beforehand, or if they sensed some unusual quality emanating from him today and so watched him now.
Distinct groups were present.
The largest comprised high-level adventurers; they looked most relaxed and many of them knew one another.
Another group represented the military, wearing uniform attire.
Looking more closely, government officials could be seen, along with priests in pure white robes and merchant delegates. Clearly this was not merely a meeting for adventurers, but a gathering of society’s elites.
After orderly seating, Gauss was assigned a relatively forward spot in the hall.
On the stage stood a middle-aged man of average height but robust build.
What drew Gauss’s attention was his dense, graying beard.
He could not help but suspect the man might carry some dwarf blood.
From the murmured whispers of the high-level adventurers around him, Gauss soon learned the bearded man’s identity.
He was the president of the Barry Adventurers Guild.
A paladin who had reached the staggering Level-15 pinnacle of Transcendent—only one step away from the legendary Epic rank.
In short, his power was terrifying.
Yet this guildmaster’s presence felt deceptively low-key compared to the Transcendents Gauss had sensed outside. Gauss did not believe those Transcendents were stronger than the guildmaster; the only possibility was that the guildmaster was so powerful his aura remained concealed.
Perhaps those others could not yet achieve the same effortless restraint and invisibility of presence that the guildmaster displayed.
That guildmaster, and other Transcendent figures Gauss could not perceive, may have already passed beyond that stage.
It must be remembered that gaps between ranks above Transcendent stretch far wider.
Especially in direct confrontation, each step up produces a qualitative change in a professional’s Domain—area expands, quality rises dramatically, and it can easily crush the Domain of the previous tier.
Gauss had personally experienced the snowy Domain of the Dragon Priestess who had barely stepped into Transcendent, and it had left a profound impression.
That Dragon Priestess and the guildmaster now stood at opposite ends of the Transcendent spectrum. If even Cecilia the Dragon Priestess’s Domain could reach such scale, how powerful would this guildmaster be when he unleashed his Domain?
Even if Gauss gave his all, escape would likely be impossible.
He could not help but think one must not judge by appearances.
This ordinary middle-aged man might not draw a second glance in the street, yet behind him he was a “human-shaped nuclear bomb.”
His decision to station himself in the Forest Capital of Barry surely reflected Barry’s strategic importance: it was the bridgehead facing the Emerald Forest. Without sufficiently powerful guardians, long-term stability would be hard to maintain.
Reflecting on this, Gauss reminded himself again not to size people up by looks; the arrogance born of fleeting dominance in the Maze was instantly extinguished.
A person’s mind, like any tool, required constant polishing.
Once everyone had taken their seats, the meeting began.
The bearded guildmaster strode to the center of the stage. When he raised his hand, the soft magical curtain behind him rippled like water and lit up.
“Thank you all for coming.”
His voice was not loud, but it entered everyone’s ears with crystal clarity, as if he were speaking right beside them.
The scattered chatter in the hall fell silent the instant he spoke.
“I am Matthias Monroe, president of the Barry Adventurers Guild. Your time is valuable, so I will not waste words. I will get straight to the point.”
He waved his right hand and the magical screen behind him began to display colored imagery. A sweep of verdant green blossomed from the center, like an ocean of green, expanding and revealing what most in the room recognized as a map of the Emerald Forest.
On the map, numerous red dots were slowly converging until they formed a dense crimson cluster in one area.
“About half a month ago, when the Timberbell Maze again began to exhibit anomalous openings, our reconnaissance teams collected intelligence deep within the Emerald Forest showing a significant uptick in monster activity.”
“At first, your intelligence personnel judged it as the precursor to a seasonal beast tide before summer. But as your elite squads probed deeper, you obtained more detailed information. The monster abnormality this time is far more severe than initially thought.”
“Across the entire Emerald Forest, the tribes affiliated with the Green Dragon have all been withdrawing and redeploying, pushing back in the direction of the Hecury Province border.”
“The scale of this monster congregation is unprecedented since the signing of the peace accord!”
“You have also attempted to communicate with the Green Dragon through the only channels available, but unfortunately there has been no response.”
I paused, my gaze sweeping over the stage.
“So, I have to tell you some unfortunate news: war may be about to begin.”
Although many present had already suspected the meeting concerned the Forest Capital’s Green Dragon Queen, hearing the word “war” from Matthias Monroe still changed faces.
No matter how powerful or highly ranked, few people could remain calm at the prospect of war.
Only a small number—likely those who had learned insider information through other channels—sat unmoved.
If it was confirmed the Green Dragon Queen was mustering all her forces and planning a war, this was grave; its scale would not be like the minor clashes Gauss had faced in Grayrock Town.
It could evolve into a war sweeping the entire province.
Moreover, the Green Dragon Queen’s actions could be the opening salvo of an even larger campaign.
As one of the seven Borderland lords, the Green Dragon Queen maintained considerable autonomy, though she formally acknowledged the authority and leadership of the Monster King.
The previous Monster King had been slain by the Sword Saint Roland, and after more than a century of quiet, the Green Dragon Queen stirring war clouds again could indicate unknown changes brewing deep within the Monster Kingdom.
That was a reasonable conjecture.
Although skirmishes between humans and monsters occurred around the Borderlands from time to time, the peace treaty prevented any side from deliberately tearing it up and launching an all-out war.
Why would the Green Dragon Queen dare to break the treaty and risk a war with human forces?
Even as a mature dragon of great power, a single green dragon’s dominion would struggle against the might of a nation.
Dragons were proud but not foolish; green dragons were also known among chromatic dragons for being treacherous and cunning, not rash. It seemed improbable they would act so unwisely.
The only possibility was that their move was a prelude to igniting continental-scale war.
Other Borderland lords, and even other demonic factions within the Monster Kingdom, could join in to wage collective war against humanity.
Taking the speculation further, a more terrifying thought quietly surfaced.
Could a new Monster King already have arisen?
The Monster factions were not monolithic; without an absolute power capable of uniting many monster lords, how could the monster forces act in unison?
And the birth of a new Monster King would be, for many, even more terrifying than the war itself!
Every Monster King represented the ultimate single force of its era.
The previous Monster King had been felled by Sword Saint Roland, but Roland himself was now dead and the Hero’s Sword lost. If the monster threat returned, who could rise to oppose it this time?