CHAPTER 857: CHAPTER 857: COULD BE THE SPARK OF ANOTHER GREAT WAR

As for the culprits, of course, those bastards must pay for what they did.

Zion reported they had already imprisoned all the members of the Crux Royal family except for Princess Serafina and Prince Sebastian.

"Who among them hired the necromancers and had anti magic weapons made?" Ferdinand inquired as they entered his study.

Zion’s expression darkened as he replied, "It was Queen Trista and the Ruela Household. They had magic advisors who suggested it. We had imprisoned and interrogated them as well."

Raymond also grimaced as he added, "They planned to use our numbers against us by turning every casualty into undead.

They knew the slaves they had forced to be part of the war would not last in the battle.

And those were the ones they planned to turn into undead first to distract our soldiers so their magicians could swoop in to kill as much of our soldiers as they could and turn them against us."

"Among human war strategies this kind remains the worst," Ferdinand shook his head in disgust.

The long-lived races also had their own skirmishes and battles among them. However, using their own kind shamelessly and mercilessly like this was never done.

Ferdinand had to wonder if this was humanity’s tenacity to achieve a goal or simply idiocy.

The long-lived races never used a great number of their own kind like this as sacrifices even when they were outnumbered and cornered by humans and they were the ones who were on the run.

Yet, humanity could discard a great number of their kind so easily like this.

Was it because human reproduction was so easy?

Their population always boomed so easily so they did not mind their numbers lessened?

The long-lived races both in Estrella and Umbra were yet to recover from the devastation of losing almost all their numbers in the Great War.

On the other hand, humanity had already bloomed even anew and even had the luxury of warring among themselves while the long-lived races are still struggling to increase birth rates.

"Indeed. I admit I was reckless and somewhat merciless when I was young and experimented on a lot of things that caused a lot of damage. But I never intentionally killed so many numbers of one kind nor had I seen any among the long-lived races who use this kind of tactic just to get the upper hand in battle. Even those in Umbra do not go this far. Yet, humans do it so easily on their own kind," Zion agreed.

"It would have been understandable if they were not the ones who provoked the war. If we had attacked with the intention to wipe them out, I would have understood it as desperation to survive. But this is something else," Raymond sighed deeply as well.

"If they succeeded with their plan, we would have had some casualties. But we would have never lost the war. It was sacrificing their people needlessly," Ferdinand replied confidently as he seated himself.

"Indeed. It’s true we underestimated their resourcefulness but they underestimated our capability." Raymond said and seated himself on Ferdinand’s right side.

"The knights would have disliked killing obviously unskilled and untrained people, but it was war Crux themselves initiated," Zion added as he seated himself on a chair on Ferdinand’s left.

Their side would have had casualties indeed, but the number of people that could have died on the Crux side would have been quite a lot more.

But then again, Crux was a kingdom whose ruling class did not mind sacrificing a great number of the common people.

If not for Princess Seraphina and Prince Sebastian who had an agreement with them, the slaves thrown at the front lines would have all died and left a bitter taste at Ferdinand’s knights for having killed untrained civilians forced to carry weapons.

But just as Zion said, it was a war Crux initiated. They were given too many chances but they chose to go this far.

And they used unconventional methods that had been forbidden.

"Did they admit where they bought the raw materials for the weapons?" Ferdinand inquired.

He already had an inkling of the source though.

After the Great War, it was part of the Peace Treaty that the weapons and materials used to kill the long-lived races were gathered from all over the world.

For the safety of the remaining long-lived races, all the weapons were destroyed.

However, the Great Temple was allowed to keep some of the materials and even mine for more and craft weapons against the long-lived races.

It was for a valid reason of course — the safety of humanity.

It was so that in case the long-lived races, though already few in number, decided to go back on their word and attack humans, they would have something to protect themselves with.

However, it was only for defense purposes. They were not supposed to initiate the attacks themselves.

Thus, the Great Temple was supposed to hide the fact that they have the said weapons and materials with them.

Even the poison used on the weapons, the Pope was the only survivor among the human mages who crafted it.

All the remaining poison used in the past was also collected and destroyed.

Some amounts were left to Estrellian leaders to build resistance against it. But none of the said leaders would be idiotic enough to give any human access to it after they witnessed the deaths of their fellows.

Thus, it leads to the Pope and the Great Temple as the suspects.

The reappearance of the anti-magic weapons and the poison could mean the start of another Great War.

The war with Crux had just ended and there were still problems in the other parts of Valeria but it seems they must prepare for another war again.

But if the war ended up as humans against long-lived races, it might be a totally different scenario.

In the past, Ferdinand would not have minded since for long-lived races who remained in grieving for the lost ones, they would gladly grab a chance to give humanity a taste of the pain and suffering they feel.

Ever since Valeria was established, they had tried to abide by the Peace Treaty; but if humans were the one to spark the war, the long-lived races could reason they were the ones on the defensive.

But would it still work now that some of them had mated with humans?