Dawn finally broke through the long night.
The first ray of morning light slowly flowed through the Emerald Ridge Mountains's rugged back and smeared on the ruins of Dragonbreaker Pass.
However, the smoke did not completely dissipate, lingering in the cool morning breeze.
Red Iron Dragon did not check the Aura army, which had already begun to take over the pass and gather the prisoners.
He restrained his fighting posture, shrunk in size, and returned to his normal state of about forty meters long.
Even so, with his still huge body, dark red and black body, metallic scales, and naturally emitting Dragon Might, his silent existence is hard to ignore.
At this moment, Red Iron Dragon is standing on the top of one side of the peak.
Viewed from this commanding height, the walls of Shatter are like toppled building blocks. Emerald Ridge Mountains is winding and extending to both sides under his iron-like claws, forming a huge natural barrier. And further away, beyond the last undulating mountain ridge, is the vast and flat hinterland of the Theo Kingdom shrouded in the morning light.
"Unless Theo wants to subjugate the country and exterminate the species, and is willing to fight to the last drop of blood, otherwise, Two-Ao War will come to an end."
Garos looked into the distance and thought in his heart.
Noldon Pass After the First World War, Theo Kingdom no longer had a defensive line that could be used.
Emerald Ridge Mountains The barrier they had placed high hopes on has been broken open.
What's even more fatal is that most of Theo's Legendary Realm were either killed or captured in this battle, and only a few managed to escape by special means or luck.
This means that Theo has lost the sharp knife for counterattack.
On the other hand, the situation on the Aura side is completely different.
Red Emperor went on two personal expeditions and personally turned Theo's most difficult bones into ashes and slag.
None of his Legendary Realm died.
Those subordinate lords and generals, because of the emperor's bravery and proper strategy, suffered far less losses than expected. Instead, they were tempered by actual combat in this battle. The casualties of the lower-level soldiers were also controlled within an acceptable range. The skeleton of the entire legion was intact, the flesh and blood were abundant, and it still maintained strong combat effectiveness.
The most important thing is that the successive victories, especially the near-invincible image of His Majesty the Emperor, have pushed the morale of the entire legion to an unprecedented peak.
And this high morale can maximize the power of the military formation.
"The benefits of defeating Two-Ao War and seizing all the territory north of the Emerald Ridge Mountains are huge enough."
Garos silently thought in his heart, "The wars between other kingdoms... Aura should no longer participate directly and on a large scale."
He raised his head slightly and seemed to see several other burning battlefields on Romanian Plains.
The contest between Lothern and Ribos, the fierce battle between Sak and Lane, the conflict between Matena and Cambrook...
"If Lothern or Matena requests support in the name of the alliance, Legendary Realm or troops can be sent to participate according to the situation and express their attitude, but they cannot be involved and fall into the quagmire of another war."
"Excessive military use will overdraw the kingdom's potential and cause unnecessary vigilance."
This battle of Aura–Theo War and Aura, which has lasted for some time, has already achieved sufficient results.
The area north of the Emerald Ridge Mountains, including the place itself, has since been incorporated into the territory of Aura.
Moreover, if Theo wants to cease the war and seek peace, in addition to ceding land, it will inevitably have to pay huge war reparations and sign a series of unequal treaties that may include trade and military restrictions.
Stabilize the situation, digest these gains, and truly transform the new territory into the power of Aura.
This is the most important thing to do right now.
As for going all out, taking advantage of Theo's weakness to annex its entire territory, or turning its forces to attack other kingdoms that seemed to have an opportunity...Garos rejected these seemingly tempting ideas.
Too much is not enough.
Now is not the time.
Aura's digestion capacity is not unlimited. The internal integration of the old and the new also takes time, and the resistance in the newly occupied areas also needs to be suppressed and appeased.
More importantly, although he is powerful, he is not truly invincible.
Among those kingdoms with a long history, who doesn't have a few trump cards?
He knew very well that the current victory and the enthusiastic cheers of the people were just the beginning, the first deep stake Aura had planted in this plain.
When the curtain falls on Second War of the Nations and the dust begins to settle, the real challenges will emerge.
Romanian States, whether it is the human-led Lothern or Ribos, the Dwarf Kingdom who is good at forging, or the Goblin Kingdom who is famous for his alchemical engineering, they all essentially belong to the category of "humanoid race".
Although their cultures, social structures, and ethical concepts are different, they have basic things in common.
And Aura Kingdom... from the emperor to the people, it is filled with a large number of Dragonkin, Gnoll, Troll, Ogre and even more ferocious monster groups.
Its composition, in the eyes of the mainstream humanoid race, is an out-and-out alien and a terrifying country of monsters.
Those who are not of my race must have different minds.
In many cases, this sentence is not just based on prejudice, but also on fear of the unknown and different ways of living.
Aura Such a rapid and violent rise is bound to make other countries feel uneasy.
It feels like sitting on pins and needles, like a awn on the back, like a lump in the throat!
In the future, this uneasiness will not only come from the always hostile Ribos side, but may also gradually spread to the current ally Lothern, and even include all countries that cooperate with Aura.
Between countries, there are only Eternal Realm interests, no Eternal Realm friends or enemies.
Garos's identity allows him to understand this point more thoroughly than any human monarch.
To take a step back, suppose that Lothern's current king, O'Brien, is a person in power who has sincere goodwill towards Aura, trust and cooperation from the heart, and does not have the slightest grudge in his heart due to racial differences.
But how long can this last?
What about the next generation?
What about the next generation?
Human life is as short as morning dew, but the life of dragons is as long as mountains and rivers.
If nothing unexpected happens, Red Emperor will witness with his own eyes the birth, growth, aging and passing of generations of human kings.
Kings change and policies change. Who can guarantee that the Lothern of the future will still be the Lothern of today? Who can guarantee that other generations of Lothern rulers can continue this fragile trust?
What Garos needs to do now is to let Aura Kingdom develop as soon as possible while the dust of Two-Ao War has settled and other kingdoms are still entangled in their grievances.
What he needs is to strike steadily, lay a solid foundation, and digest the newly occupied areas, rather than making enemies everywhere and causing excessive vigilance and joint targeting.
Now he is not at the point where he can do whatever he wants.
For example, the Dragonbreaker Pass battle that just ended actually contains a lot of risks for Garos.
At this moment, looking back from the position of a victor, he could better analyze the dangers involved.
"If the enemy Legendary Realm can truly have the same goal, abandon selfishness and suspicion, and completely unite, they may really pose a fatal threat to me."
Garos narrowed his eyes slightly, and the scenes of the fierce battle last night were quickly replayed in his mind.
That Theo's Fate Hunter Percival's arrows could bring substantial damage to Garos, but he wanted too much to end the life of a dragon emperor with his own hands, and was too eager to keep this glory and prestige to himself.
Therefore, in the most critical early stage of the encirclement and suppression campaign.
He chose to sit on the sidelines and did not immediately coordinate with other Legendary Realm to take action.
However, what is missing in the encirclement and suppression of Garos is an attacker who can continuously cause high damage, forcing Garos to be distracted.
The woman Dwarf Legendary Realm holding a giant ax is considered a threat.
However, she is a melee combatant and must always be on guard against Garos's counterattacks. She does not dare to bully her too close. The offensive will inevitably be limited, and the attack frequency is limited.
But Percival is different.
As a powerful archer type Advanced Legendary Realm, if he decisively joins the encirclement and suppression from the beginning, he can stand at a relatively safe distance and continuously shoot those deadly arrows.
This will bring huge trouble to Garos. If you ignore the other, the possibility of defense loopholes will greatly increase.
In this way, Ribos Transmuter, who should have many trump cards and tricks hidden in Garos's intuition, may have a completely different attitude.
When we saw that the encirclement and suppression was indeed effective, and when we saw that Red Iron Dragon began to show weakness or flaws under the attack from many parties.
Advanced Spellcaster The vacillations and hesitations that arise in the heart are likely to be suppressed.
He will be more determined to show his true skills and participate in this promising dragon-slaying battle, hoping to gain more benefits for Ribos after the war, or simply to eliminate the potentially huge threat of Aura.
"If that happens..."
Garos thought calmly, "I might be forced into a desperate situation, or even lose my life, and then I have to use Rebirth at Death's Door to break out in the desperate situation and create a gap."
"But, even so, the battle after the outbreak will still be a hard fight."
"Unless I go all out and push Wild Form to an extremely high level, even to the point of losing my mind, it will be difficult to win as devastatingly as I am now."
Garos's eyes flickered, and he did not shy away from the difficulties involved.
However, to the end of the deduction, he was still convinced that the final winner would be himself.
The reason is simple.
He is not alone in this fight to the death.
No matter how Theo and Legendary Realm cooperate, it is impossible to kill him or even defeat him in a short time.
On the periphery, the defense line formed by Unyielding Bastion will inevitably be broken first by the Aura Legion's attack regardless of the cost.
Once the defense line is broken, Legendary Realm from Aura's side will come to support immediately.
At that time, Theo and Legendary Realm will either fall into a desperate situation of being attacked from both inside and outside, waiting for defeat; or they will have no choice but to decisively give up the fight and flee in all directions, completely ruining the national destiny of Dragonbreaker Pass and Theo.
However, if it really develops like that, Garos's victory will never be as prominent as it is now.
Theo Even if we surrender, we still have more bargaining chips.
However, there are no ifs in history, and time will not repeat itself. Percival's arrogance and greed for merit, and Transmuter's hesitation, together created last night's defeat that was a disaster for Theo.
"You need to be more cautious in the future, or acquire new skills as soon as possible."
"My second life has been completely exposed, and the enemy does not know the true situation. If they still want to target me, in order to ensure that everything is foolproof and that I will not be resurrected for a third time or even more times, they will inevitably come up with a quite terrifying lineup."
Garos took a deep breath.
In this battle, he exposed one of his trump cards. He cannot rely too much on Dragon Jade in the future. Otherwise, if he relies too much on a certain skill that has been exposed, he may run into big trouble.
Phew! Phew!
The heavy flapping of wings interrupted his thoughts.
Iron Dragon Sorog and red dragon Samantha, one on the left and one on the right, flapped their wide dragon wings, slowly landed on the rock not far from Red Iron Dragon, and converged their wings.
"Hey, the next step is to make those Theo humans officially surrender, right?"
Samantha still had a strong smell of gunpowder smoke and Bloodshed on his body, and said in an excited voice, "With the little Legendary Realm they have left now, they can't stop our army from advancing. Theo's Silverglow City is like a ripe fruit, waiting for us to pick it."
Two-Ao War continues to this day, and a total of nine Legendary Realm participated before and after Theo.
Except for Balna who was first captured by Glutton Demon at Ashen Plains, the other eight all appeared at the Emerald Ridge Mountains last night.
It is worth mentioning that, after wavering and hesitating, Balna ultimately did not reveal any key information.
However, Garos didn't care about it.
His true support is always himself, and everything else is just the icing on the cake.
But last night's battle, Theo's eight Legendary Realms, ended miserably.
Percival and Hawthorne were killed directly, leaving no trace of their bodies; while one was guarding Unyielding Bastion, Glutton Demon Kalu seized the opportunity and was beaten to death on the spot.
And when the pass completely collapsed, the remaining Theo Legendary Realm began to flee desperately in different directions.
Garos captured three more people during the pursuit.
There were two other Legendary Realms, who either possessed unique life-saving secrets or used precious rare items to successfully escape from this death battlefield while their companions were being chased for a short period of time.
The number of the Legendary Realm Theo Kingdom has on the surface is twelve digits.
After this battle, three people were killed on the spot, three were captured, two escaped, and one exhausted his life and turned into a stone statue.
Including Balna who was captured before, Theo only has four Legendary Realm left.
Even if there are still some hidden Legendary Realm in China, it will be difficult to reverse the disadvantage.
Moreover, First Civil War has not yet ended, and the Legendary Realm power of the various countries is almost all on the surface, and there is not much hidden power.
"Theo is indeed unable to stop our troops, both militarily and psychologically."
Iron Dragon Sorog took over.
He first glanced in the direction of Theo's hinterland, then turned his head and looked at the increasingly majestic blood brothers beside him.
"But our goal now should be to force Theo to cede the land north of the Emerald Ridge Mountains, pay huge war compensation, and sign a series of treaties that limit its armaments, open trade and passage rights."
"As for further ideas..."
"At least we need to wait until Garos passes your next slumber and your strength stably reaches the level of the Advanced Legendary Realm, then we will have enough confidence and strength to plan and implement it."
Garos nodded slightly, and the scales on the dragon's neck made a slight clanging sound.
He agrees with Iron Dragon's analysis.
"By the way, there is one more thing I need to report to you."
Iron Dragon seemed to have remembered something and said.
"Say."
"The commander-in-chief of humanity, Commander Rodrigo, who was called "Theo's Shield" by the Theo people, committed suicide after leading the last remaining army to surrender to us."
"He is not Legendary Realm. His soul strength is limited. After his physical death, he was not forcibly sucked away by other planes immediately."
"I used Hall of Heroes, which you entrusted to me for safekeeping, to absorb his soul in time.
Legendary Realm The soul of life is powerful and rare, and is a very attractive Gravity resource for many Outer Planes.
Usually, at the moment Legendary Realm's physical body dies, the rules of the plane will spontaneously operate, creating a powerful pull.
Legendary Realm's soul will be difficult to stay unless it has strong obsessional resistance or special protection means. It will be quickly led to the corresponding plane, where its memory and past will be washed away, and it will be transformed into various new planes of life.
As for the souls under the Legendary Realm, the interest in those planes is much smaller, and the pull is not so timely and fierce.
Hall of Heroes Although it is difficult to snatch the soul from the plane, there are two ways to collect the soul.
One is to collect it first.
Before other planes notice it and the pulling is not fully effective, collect the new Undead soul first.
The second is pre-agreement.
When the target life is still alive, guiding it to voluntarily leave a spiritual imprint on Hall of Heroes is equivalent to signing a soul-level contract. After signing, when the life dies, its soul can be left in Material Plane. It stays for a period of time, and its existence will be partially obscured by the power of Hall of Heroes, thereby greatly reducing the probability of being instantly pulled away by Outer Planes, creating a window for the collection of Hall of Heroes.
Rodrigo's soul is through the first way.
In addition, Aura Kingdom currently has about one-fifth of the bosses, generals, and some individuals who are particularly outstanding in skill, courage or loyalty signed Heroic Spirit Pact.
After Two-Ao War, it is expected that the number of Heroic Spirit will increase significantly.
The spiritual space that accommodates and nourishes Heroic Spirit is not infinite, and it already seems a bit crowded at the moment.
However, the good news is that Hall of Heroes itself has growth potential.
In the past period of time, Aura Kingdom collected some Advanced Spirit-Matter Crystal.
After Hall of Heroes absorbs these Advanced Spirit-Matter Crystal and upgrades it with some specific materials, it can not only expand the internal space to accommodate more Legendary Heroic Spirit and mortal objects Heroic Spirit, but also support the signing of Heroic Spirit Pact with more lives.
"Well, you specifically mentioned the soul of Rodrigo, it seems that you are not just reporting on the collection situation?"
Garos looks at Iron Dragon Sorog.
He knows that his brother Sorog is very purposeful in doing things and will not mention small details without reason.
Sorog nodded and admitted. "Yes."
"The Theo people used Magic Satellite's tactics of dropping elite troops for raids in the early days of the war, which gave me some inspiration."
"I am planning to build a lightning assault force belonging to Aura, and this planned force will need an experienced commander."
Garos did not express his position immediately, but nodded again, indicating to Iron Dragon to continue to explain his complete thoughts.
Sorog thought about the sentence for a moment, and then spoke.
"One of the current shortcomings of Hall of Heroes is that there is no guarantee that the soul will be collected in the first time, especially on a fierce and chaotic battlefield, where there are too many surprises. We have already seen the delivery and teleportation skills of Magic Satellite with our own eyes."
"So, what if Magic Satellite and Hall of Heroes can be combined?"
"Imagine, if our soldiers who signed Heroic Spirit Pact die, their souls can be immediately picked up by the teleportation beam of Satellite and brought back to Hall of Heroes in high-altitude orbit, thus avoiding most risks."
"And our Heroic Spirit can also be launched from space to any corner of the battlefield through the Satellite platform."
"They are spirits themselves, and their consumption of teleportation energy is much lower than that of physical units. They are not afraid of death and can be resurrected multiple times. They are simply the most ideal commandos."
Iron Dragon The more I talk, the smoother my ideas become.
"Not only that, if the people of Aura and ordinary soldiers can witness their heroes' souls returning to Hall of Heroes after death, and also witness Heroic Spirit descending from the sky to help kill the enemy at a critical moment, this will be an immeasurable improvement in morale and loyalty to the kingdom."
"Therefore, I want to prepare an important alchemical project, codename-"Sanctum"."
"Aiming to create a space platform that integrates soul guidance, Heroic Spirit storage, and rapid projection."
Garos listened quietly, showing interest in his eyes.
"The idea of using Satellite to mount Hall of Heroes is feasible, but it is just a theory now."
"This Temple Project needs to be verified step by step as to whether it will work or not, and what troubles will be encountered in its implementation. But practice will bring you true knowledge, so just go ahead and do it."
He approved Iron Dragon's idea.
Although Magic Satellite is powerful, it is a technology mastered by multiple kingdoms, and it cannot be said to have an exclusive advantage.
Cannon Fortress like Mattena Kingdom is a strategic weapon in the true sense, unique and powerful. Temple Project is undoubtedly moving in this direction.