Chapter 908: Disagreement |
In fact, long before the Demon Emperor arrived at that great hall, the hall had already been filled with great demons arguing furiously.
The point of contention was whether to immediately launch another great war now, one of life and death with the human race.
Whether or not to start a war was actually not the main issue. Over so many years, how few great wars had the demon race fought with the human race? What truly mattered were those few words.
Life and death.
In the past, wars were always initiated by the royal city, drawing forces from several tribes to assemble an army and begin attacking the city walls. As for whether they could ultimately fight their way onto the walls, they never seemed to care much. It was as if the demon race was naturally warlike - if no battles broke out, life felt unbearably dull.
But if one day things truly reached the point of a life-and-death struggle with the human race, then they had to worry about how many would die in a single war.
Yes, they had never doubted that they could beat the southern human race into submission.
It had always been this way. They believed that as long as they unleashed their full strength, the southern human race would be like fish in a jar. No matter how bitter the fighting, the ones who emerged victorious would still be them.
But the real question had never been whether they could win, but whether they truly wanted to stake everything on annihilating the human race.
At this moment, the demon race High Priest stood at the side of the throne, watching the great demons quarrel, without saying a word.
This second-most important figure of the demon race had always appeared in the many affairs of the demon race as a strategist. But because of his exceptional intellect, many people had forgotten that this High Priest was in fact also a demon lord of terrifying cultivation.
Seeing the hall descend into chaos, the High Priest showed no reaction. He merely glanced to the side from time to time, waiting for the Demon Emperor to arrive in person.
In the current demon territory, no matter how many voices rose from below, they were ultimately of little consequence. In the end, the Demon Emperor could still decide everything with a single word.
What kind of existence a Demon Emperor who had broken through the end of Nepenthe represented to the entire demon race was something that hardly needed to be said.
“High Priest, must this war truly be fought?!”
At last, a great demon in the hall could no longer hold back and spoke, questioning the demon race Grand Priest.
The High Priest glanced at that great demon and recognized him as one of the Red Eagle race. He asked calmly, “Do you not wish to see the vast lands of the south? In some places it is spring all year round, and you might never even see wind and snow.”
The Red Eagle great demon shook his head and said, “Compared to seeing vast lands, I would rather my offspring be able to fly through icy skies. At least there, they can still fly.”
The High Priest smiled faintly and said, “You want to soar through the skies, but the human race may not give you that chance. In the future, whether the land beneath your feet will still be yours is hard to say.”
“How could this be?”
The Red Eagle great demon’s crimson hair stirred in the wind, his expression solemn. “Where would the human race get the ability to defeat us?”
The High Priest said, “A hundred years ago, perhaps they could not. Fifty years ago, perhaps they still could not. But twenty years ago, ten years ago, signs had already appeared. After that human emperor ascended the throne, he continuously deployed troops to the north. Half of the nation’s annual taxes were poured into the northern front. Over the past dozen years, has the combat strength of the human armies not been rising day by day?”
This was solid, undeniable truth. Since its establishment, the border army had always been the most elite force of the Great Liang Dynasty. Yet overall, its strength had remained within a reasonable range. No one had expected that over these past dozen years, the combat power of that human border army would begin climbing higher and higher. This could be clearly seen from the wars fought during this period.
"So what?! At most, we merely underestimated them. Once we truly gather our resolve, they still will not be our match.”
A great demon interjected. It was a great demon from the White Elephant race, towering in stature, like a small mountain. “
“Are you all blind to the minor defeat in that great battle a few years ago, or the major defeat in last year’s clash? Do you really intend to wait until the human armies leave the Great Wall, march north, and cross the Onan River before you finally wake up?”
The High Priest drew a deep breath and said with restrained anger, “If it truly comes to that, it will already be too late. Your lands will be trampled by them. Your descendants will be slaughtered to the last. By then, the air will be filled with the sound of weeping, and the glory accumulated by your ancestors over countless generations will be lost in an instant!”
“High Priest, do not speak such nonsense here!”
A great demon spoke up, looking at the High Priest in a fury.
Clearly, he could not accept the scenario the High Priest described. It was not only humiliating, but also carried a trace of fear buried deep in his heart, the kind he least wanted to acknowledge.
What the High Priest said was fact, and the subsequent conjectures followed logically from those facts.
“High Priest, the human race has always been divided. That should not change in a short time, should it?” another great demon asked anxiously. Though he was unwilling to believe it, he could not help but feel uneasy.
“The human race is divided? Have we been truly united?"
The High Priest looked at that great demon and smiled. “In every great war, how many truly act with sincerity, without regard for consequences, to do something for our own sake?”
The High Priest took a deep breath. “The rise of the human race has long ceased to be empty words. Over these past dozen years, every single day has been proving it to us with facts. That human emperor already has the strength to fight His Majesty. And now that young martial artist has been constantly uniting those cultivators. As for that young woman you all look down on the most, what do you think she is doing right now? She has just defeated us in the desolate north!”
“The human race is visibly growing stronger and stronger. Even the equipment used by their frontier armies is better than before. Do you not know this? Or do you simply not want to know? Do you refuse to even take a look, not even once?”
The High Priest sneered. “Always standing high above, heads held aloft, never imagining that the ants beneath your feet could one day grow this strong.”
“Everyone, wake up.”
The High Priest took a deep breath and said with utmost seriousness, “If we continue to watch the human race grow like this, one day it will no longer be them building a Great Wall to guard against us, but us who will need to build a wall to guard against them.”
These words from the High Priest were well-reasoned and spoken with genuine feeling. At once, everyone present was rendered speechless, falling into deep silence.
The great hall was deathly quiet.
The High Priest muttered softly to himself, “Whether in the past or now, there is still time. But perhaps this is also the last chance. If we do not seize it, everything will come too late.”
The High Priest was deeply pessimistic about the future of the demon race. Even with their invincible sovereign, he was filled with worry when facing a human race that, without anyone knowing exactly when, had begun to unite from top to bottom.
Let this race disappear from the world sooner.
Perhaps only then could they be at ease forever.