"No! Of course not. I'm making amends for my sins!!!" Robert said with fierce conviction. "My foolishness caused this war. Yes, I could stand here and rail against these Demon Beasts for their brutality and bloodlust, or even invent baseless accusations of slaughter and pin them on them. But what then, Lord Warwick? I have no doubt whatsoever in your ability to lead troops, but even if you sacrifice hundreds or thousands of soldiers to drive these Demon Beasts out of our borders, they can simply hide in the mountains and forests, and our army will never be able to pursue them. I imagine General Dieter has already told you about their ability to burrow underground. If we make bitter enemies of them, the only ones who will suffer in the end are the people and soldiers on our frontier!!!"
Robert's face was full of anguish. He was the lord of Morton, a count, yet now he was being questioned like a criminal—and on top of that, he had to rack his brains to bring about this truce. Was he doing this for Ye Luo? Of course not! They had met only twice, and both times they had been on opposing sides. Wasn't the reason he had agreed to serve as an envoy for peace precisely because he was thinking of the people on Morton's frontier?
Warwick stood up and asked quietly, "Will these Demon Beasts really give up the territory they've taken so easily?"
"Lord Warwick, I've already told you that these Demon Beasts are no less intelligent than we humans. The suggestion that they withdraw from the Smoke Mine came from their leader. I once tried to persuade him to surrender, but he laughed and said something that sent a chill down my spine. Think about it: if any of these Demon Beasts escape during the fighting, they'll be able to vanish without a trace in the forests and mountains. They could raid our villages, towns, or even our military camps at any time. That would be a disaster for the people and army on the frontier. And since they're willing to live together in peace, why shouldn't we give it a try?"
"Live together in peace?" Warwick scoffed. "Regardless of race, peaceful coexistence requires at least two sides of equal strength..."
"Lord Warwick..." Suddenly, the old mage sitting beside him with his eyes closed interrupted.
Warwick turned to him in surprise. His gaze was questioning, but there was not a trace of anger or displeasure in it.
"Lord Warwick, I think Lord Robert has a point. We soldiers aren't afraid of fighting, sacrifice, or death. But the people on the frontier are different. If we choose war this time and give up this rare chance for peace, leaving the border in turmoil from now on, then we'll become the kingdom's criminals..." The mage's voice was old, but clear. His words reached everyone as if they could be etched into their hearts. "However, our orders were to capture this Demon Beast Clan. A newly discovered species is worth as much to the magic guilds of the various kingdoms as one or two years of our kingdom's treasury revenue! So if we want to change our strategy from war to peace, we must first obtain His Majesty's approval..."
Robert nodded obediently. "Naturally, Mage Barrit. The king's wishes come before all else..."
Barrit nodded and looked toward Warwick. Warwick regarded him with a puzzled expression, but Barrit's gaze was utterly resolute.
Warwick pondered for two or three seconds, then turned to Robert. "In that case, Lord Robert, I'll have to trouble you with another trip. Please go back to the Smoke Mine and convey our decision to the Demon Beast leader. I, Warwick, will report this matter to His Majesty and recommend that he halt the war and send an envoy to negotiate with them..."
Robert sighed and nodded.
Ye Luo gathered his thoughts, wondering if this was all going too smoothly. With their overwhelming advantage in numbers, would they really be willing to give up the fight just because of his vague threat?
A day and a night later, Ye Luo returned to the base. Robert arrived at the same time, repeating the decision he had already made clear to Ye Luo and asking for a five-day ceasefire... Ye Luo readily agreed. The longer the ceasefire lasted, the better. With every passing day, his forces would grow by another three percent...
By now, the Zerg Base on the coastline was up and running. Five hundred Drones were harvesting the mineral deposits beneath the sea at full capacity, bringing Ye Luo an extra 5,000 a day. With another five hundred Drones added at Smoke, Ye Luo could now earn a full 10,000 energy points each day. That meant his Zergling army could grow by a thousand every day!
Five days of waiting lay ahead, but waiting was what Ye Luo disliked most. As the Zerg Emperor, he found the Zerglings darting around adorable, but it was still all too monotonous. Just as he was preparing to disguise himself and sneak into Morton's main city to enjoy the bustle of human society again, a sudden message arrived from Ye Meng on the coast: the Iron-Claw Green-Spine Shrimp Clan had launched a surprise attack on the Stone Crab Clan. Caught unprepared, the Stone Crab Clan had suffered heavy losses!
The news startled Ye Luo. He didn't dare hesitate; he immediately led five thousand Zerglings toward the coast and ordered the Zerg Hive there to start mutating into offshoots at once, with all the Larvae immediately evolving into Zerglings!
At his command, six new Zerg Hives sprang up along the coast. Then twelve hundred Zerglings joined the Stone Crab Clan's defenses, barely managing to turn the tide of their rout!
"Boom... boom..." Waves crashed against the shore. From time to time, enormous crabs or shrimp washed up from the sea, occasionally mixed with the bodies of Zerglings...
The battle was still raging along the border between the Iron-Claw Green-Spine Shrimp Clan and the Stone Crab Clan.
The seabed, once a colorful patchwork, was now devoid of schools of fish swimming freely and all manner of strange creatures. The slaughter between the three clans had thrown the seafloor into chaos!
"Click, click!" An Iron-Pincer Green-Spine Shrimp the size of an adult clamped its enormous pincers around one of a Stone Crab's arms. It squeezed with all its might, spraying green fluid as the arm was snapped clean off. The Stone Crab writhed in pain and counterattacked with its own pincers, while jets of water shot toward the shrimp one after another.
The Iron-Pincer Green-Spine Shrimp ignored the water jets, letting them strike its body. The hard shell covering its green spine was like armor on a human, turning every jet aside. The Green-Spine Shrimp were famed for their pincers, and theirs were far more powerful than the Stone Crabs'. One savage sweep knocked the Stone Crab's pincers away. Then, taking advantage of the opening, it tore off another of the crab's legs and squeezed hard. "Squish..." Another spurt of blood...
The Stone Crab cried out to its companions for help, but the Stone Crabs were no match for the Iron-Pincer Green-Spine Shrimp in combat, and they were vastly outnumbered, too! The Green-Spine Shrimp's attack was clearly no spur-of-the-moment act. The two clans had once been roughly equal in number, but the Green-Spine Shrimp had deliberately expanded their clan, and the Stone Crab Clan had long since fallen far behind...
The Iron-Pincer Green-Spine Shrimp cruelly snapped off the Stone Crab's remaining limbs, then watched leisurely as it sank helplessly to the seabed before swimming off toward its next target!
Before you continue