Chapter 1691: Chapter 558 Racing Against Time {Middle}

Later, King Sal of the Bimon Kingdom, Prince Zhang Bolun of the Holy San Francisco Empire, and Prince Ilhan of the Pompei Empire engaged in a trilateral dialogue, but they did not immediately reach any substantial outcomes.

It wasn’t that the princes of the two human empires didn’t believe that the Sea Clan and Demon Clan were about to invade the Aegean Continent, nor did they not understand the simple truth of “when the lips are gone, the teeth are cold.” Instead, the matter was too significant, and the implications were too broad to be settled by just one high-level meeting.

The two human princes didn’t have such vast authority.

However, faced with unprecedented pressure, the humans acted swiftly. Led by the Holy San Francisco Empire and the Pompei Empire, and with the help of various magic communication tools, a multilateral meeting between the Bimon Kingdom and human nations was held in Sabak City, the capital of the Bimon Kingdom, three days later.

This multilateral meeting involved high-ranking leaders from twenty-one human nations, whereas the total number of human nations in Aegean is twenty-three. Except for the two permanently neutral countries of Saint Roland Kingdom and Saint Reuel Kingdom, which were still hesitating, all other human nations stood with the Bimon Kingdom.

As one of the top leaders of the Bimon Kingdom, Lucian also participated throughout this multilateral meeting.

Faced with the powerful invader, the Demon Clan, the disparate human nations cooperated with an unusually collaborative attitude, initially finalizing a military assistance plan. The specifics of this plan would be coordinated by the three major military powers of the Aegean: the Holy San Francisco Empire, the Pompei Empire, and the St. Jose Empire of the East Coast. Once ready, they would continuously transport aid to the four major cities of the Bimon Kingdom through the Teleportation Crystals provided by Falkland.

In addition to the heavy weaponry proposed by the Bimon Kingdom for city defense, the human nations also planned to dispatch officer observation teams into the Bimon Kingdom to guide city defense construction and understand the combat methods of the Demon Clan army.

The reason negotiations concluded so smoothly, without even wasting time on bickering, was mainly due to the notorious reputation of the Demon Clan’s “Undead Scourge”!

Even the densest human high officials knew that the Demon Clan would certainly reserve this arcane plague to deal with humans rather than the Bimon—after all, the Bimon’s various races are too numerous. Using the “Undead Scourge,” which targets specific genes, to eliminate the Piegel race, which has the largest population within the Bimon, would be extremely uneconomical!

The “Undead Scourge” is not like buying a basket of cabbage for a coin—this top-level forbidden curse of death-type arcane requires a significant amount of specially made arcane spices, and only the Witch King has the ability to summon and use it; during the gods-and-demons war ten thousand years ago, aside from the most technologically advanced Aegean Goblins at the time experiencing the “Undead Scourge” once, the Demon Clan never managed to use it a second time by the end of the war!

Such an apparent truth as “the best steel should be used for the blade” is understood not only by the Dwarves. If today’s Demon Clan invaders don’t reserve the “Undead Scourge” for the Aegeanian Humans, who number 80 million, are half Caucasian, and are the most technologically and magically advanced, they would truly fail to see the dead!

The current continental situation is clear: the Demon Clan plans to first sweep through the Donau Wasteland and establish it as a base to then gradually conquer the entire Aegean Continent. From a military strategy perspective, the Demon Clan’s cautious, steady invasion approach causes the Aegean races to feel a chill run down their spines; however, it also presents Aegeanian Humans with a great opportunity, as the Demon Clan’s strategic deployment suggests that the only place they might use the “Undead Scourge” against humans would be the Dorott Duchy!

Additionally, the “Space-Time Rift” on the Kalimdo Plains, due to its extensive range, could also become a second option.

The “Undead Scourge”, after all, is a forbidden curse-level arcane, and chanting and summoning this large-scale arcane requires extremely prolonged incantation time and a heavy guard to protect the Witch King performing the curse. Without any means of knowing that the Aegean races have found a way to deal with the “Undead Scourge,” the Demon Clan’s Witch King has no reason to mass troops and reselect a location to release the “Undead Scourge”!

This arcane plague has a cooldown time, and failure to succeed once means enormous losses. Even as strong as the Demon Clan is, with only three Witch Kings, they can’t withstand repeated squander!

With a determined strategic area, dealing with the “Undead Scourge” is no longer a daunting task. The most terrifying aspect of this engineered plague is that it can correspond to a specific genetic life form, spreading on a large scale through moving populations!

The terrifying part indeed lies in this mode of propagation!

With the “Fragrant Absorbing Red Beans” provided by Falkland, even if a Demon Clan Witch King unleashes the “Undead Scourge,” humans can immediately control the source of infection—so long as nobody around dies in droves due to the plague, neither civilians nor the army will panic! Without panic, there won’t be large-scale refugee flows, and without large-scale refugee flows, the spread of the “Undead Scourge” will be confined to a narrow region! Once the cooldown time is endured, this forbidden curse is no more lethal than a spell of a Magic Apprentice!

The Thousand-leaf Nymphaea, like roses and ivy, can produce thousands of fruits from a single vine. Falkland, using “Lotus Bar Silk,” traded ten pounds of “Life Spring” from the Fallen Elves of Lusen City. Each drop of “Life Spring,” after being significantly diluted, can cultivate a massive quantity of “Fragrant Absorbing Red Beans,” ample enough to cover the entire strategic area even if not distributed to every human across the continent!

Nevertheless, the ultimate solution for cunning humans to thoroughly eliminate this fabricated plague is to drag the Sea Clan into the war immediately. With the Sea Clan’s strength, once they enter the war, the Demon Clan’s “Undead Scourge” will inevitably target the Sea Clan, not the Aegeanian Humans!

King Sal previously mentioned to Lucian that he had some confidence in pulling the Sea Clan into this epic war.

In this multilateral meeting, the mystery was revealed, as human high officials also proposed involving the Sea Clan in the war, and their plan coincided with King Sal’s.

The method was actually rather simple—directly delivering a formal war declaration to the Sea Clan!

However, the humans thought more thoroughly than King Sal. Besides delivering formal declaration documents, they suggested also sending a set of women’s low-cut long dresses.

If the Sea Clan dare not face the challenge, they might as well wear dresses and be women!

The cunning of humans was something the Bimon had to acknowledge.

With the Sea Clan’s military strength, even dispatching a border guard corps could leave the Aegean continent scarred. Such open challenges and humiliation delivered through official diplomatic channels could not be ignored by the leaders Seia or Ares. If they refuse, the prestige of their kings would utterly collapse.

This challenge plan, seemingly simple, offers a natural advantage for Aegeanian Humans—due to their inherent isolation, the Sea Clan has no way to learn about the early activation of the “Space-Time Rift” and the Demon Clan’s impending invasion of the Aegean Continent. If the Sea Clan takes the bait, there’s no turning back: when two thieves reach into the same pocket, neither can retract their hand.

Yet one must admit, if the Sea Clan and Demon Clan simultaneously invade the continent, it would be a high-stakes gamble without a foreseeable tomorrow for all the surface races of Aegean, but given the current situation, neither humans nor the Bimon have any choice but to take a gamble.

The urgency of time had Lucian wishing to split every second in half. Besides transferring the Life Spring and Thousand-leaf Nymphaea seeds to various human nations, he took the opportunity to reorganize his private armed forces significantly during this precious time.

The Summer Palace Guard’s troop composition was extremely complex, with irregular fill rates, and huge discrepancies in personnel numbers among different units. For instance, the aerial unit led by Dragon Knight Lampard, even after retiring Newton Giant Birds and Musketeer slingshots to second-line service, still consisted of seventy-six Panta javelin throwers, five hundred scythe arrow shooters, twelve Moonstone Mirror Cannon operators, one hundred sixty Twin Tesla Shock Troopers, and two hundred fifty-two Kuerke Flying Blade throwers composing the five major divisions.

From an academic military commander’s perspective, such a chaotic organizational structure resembled a band of marauding bandits rather than a regular armed force, a point of which Lucian himself was also acutely aware, making restructuring imperative.

As the ace military branch within the Falkland military lineup, the main responsibility of the Summer Palace Aerial Unit was bombardment rather than air combat. Equipped with Tamerlarya oil gourds and concentrated alcohol barrels as bombing weapons, they possessed a fearsome capability to alter the course of war! Having five hundred scythe arrow shooters, Lucian also transferred the “Durex Burst Arrow” utilization rights to this airborne unit, allowing Dragon Knight Lampard’s undercommand to amass three Falkland strategic weapons. Once war commenced, their fame would be carved into history.

To adapt to air combat demands and reduce weight, Lucian replaced the traditional totem pole weaponry of the Musketeer aviators with Judgement Steel Rods and increased the loadout of Kuerke Flying Blades.

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