"Why bother defending it when we can't keep it safe?"
"If we didn't defend it, this barrier would have collapsed long ago." The old woman spoke with a smile. When she smiled, the wrinkles on her face, which resembled the bark of an ancient tree, smoothed out as well, giving her an impression of benevolence and kindness.
"Why not let more people come and defend it?" the purple-haired girl asked. "You should inform the Nine Nations and have them send their strongest human cultivators to defend this place. Then this barrier could be held. If the Devil Race gives it everything they have, our Human Race can do the same."
"If we did as you say, and I notified the experts of the Nine Nations and they all came, and the barrier was successfully defended—what then?"
"What then? Wouldn't it be enough that we held it? Why worry about what comes afterward?"
The old woman wore a faint smile, and her murky pupils held the wisdom of one who had seen through the ways of the world.
She looked at the purple-haired girl with affection and said, "If we fail to hold it, perhaps that would be better. At that time, the Human Race would stand united against a common enemy, and everyone would fight with all their might, because they would understand that if they did not give their all, all of Divine Land would likely be overrun by those demons, and every human would become food in their mouths."
"But the situation now is that the barrier has not yet been breached by those demons, and for the time being, it does not look as though it will be. No one even knows when it might be breached. Whether it is the royal families of the Nine Nations