All-Out Conflict

“The Great Devourer of the north is coming from the sea!”

The Kingdom of Bartonia had been known as the Southern Kingdom since ancient times.

Celia had also heard of this place.

It possessed advanced shipping and maritime technology, along with its own pride and a long history.

But now, this place was suffering from the attacks of countless Great Devourers, turning it into a living hell.

Landing alongside the other Great Devourers, Celia frowned as she watched the panicked citizens of Bartonia.

She had done this many times before.

It was to allow the Great Devourer to secure victory as quickly as possible, shortening the war to save more lives.

Celia intended to destroy this Kingdom of Bartonia, which was ruled and ruthlessly exploited by the elves.

【Elise urged to accelerate nest construction】

“We will capture the coastal city of Zaphir and establish a nest there.”

Furthermore, this invasion of the Kingdom of Bartonia was slightly different from their previous operations, which only involved invasive nesting to disrupt the enemy's rear.

The Great Devourer intended to build a fully equipped nest here, complete with heart-fusing worms to produce magic hearts and decomposers to generate nutrients, completely turning this place into the territory of the Great Devourer.

The Great Devourer's goal was to drive a dagger right next to the elves' heart.

If it were just harassment like before, the elves could easily afford to abandon their occupied territory of the Kingdom of Bartonia.

Celia was satisfied that the Great Devourer was not carrying out indiscriminate invasive nesting, which would turn the land into a place where no other living creature could survive.

The city's governor was shouting furiously at his subordinates, “You bastards... don't run! We must hold the city! This is an order from above!”

This governor had risen to power after killing the nobles who were originally loyal to the elves. A reinforcement formula and a magic stone core had also been implanted into his body, making him a hopeless elven servant.

“Y-You are!”

The governor stared in sheer terror at Celia, who had traversed the chaotic battlefield to appear before him in an instant.

Her notorious reputation had long since spread here.

Celia grit her teeth, confirming that the governor and all the surrounding soldiers were members of the Elven Empire's foreign race units.

The Great Devourer of today was no longer fixated on ordinary humans as food, but they would show absolutely no mercy toward the servants of other deities.

They would relentlessly hunt them down and kill them at all costs.

As the deities stopped directly bestowing divine protection and instead strengthened their servants through indirect technology, the number of these hopelessly devoted servants was increasing rapidly.

In Celia's view, this whole system had to be uprooted before more people turned out this way.

“Begin constructing the nest immediately. As long as there is an abundant supply of raw magic stones, this land will soon fall into the hands of the colony.”

With a single strike from a fire magic spell that would have been called an Eighth-Ring grand magic—a virtual miracle—in the past, Celia wiped out the governor and his cohorts. She then stood atop the half-ruined governor's mansion, overlooking the entire city.

Collapsed buildings, burning ruins, and corpses scattered everywhere.

She watched the low-class refugees fleeing for their lives, whom the Great Devourer ignored, and then turned her gaze back to the rapidly expanding Great Devourer units filling the empty spaces.

Worker ants cleared the ruins to build new nests; the heart-fusing worms, production units, and other organisms transported by the Leviathans also took their places.

In the once-bustling city square, a decomposer rapidly swelled from a tiny clump of cells to the size of a house. Thrusting its tentacles deep into the ground, it prepared to produce vast quantities of nutrient solution.

There were also spider ants spitting out silk, constructing various defensive structures and traps.

This historic and once-prosperous coastal city was turning into a bizarre ant nest at an astonishing speed.

To know his enemies as well as himself, Lin Miao had been recording and organizing information on all the adversaries the Great Devourer encountered from the very beginning.

The goblin tribes, the Holy Kingdom, the beastkin, the Lucadia Empire, the Dwarven Alliance, and now, the Elven Empire.

At first, he could only obtain limited information through the Great Devourer, but ever since Celia joined them, things had become vastly different.

Even after transforming into a half-human, half-insect state, Celia still retained her human way of thinking. She placed great importance on gathering intelligence, which allowed Lin Miao to learn a great deal.

Loyalty was never something easily obtained.

What other deities cared about most was also how to make their servants absolutely loyal to them without resorting to coercive means.

The goddesses emphasized unconditional faith; a God of Knowledge like Astaroth used the answers to questions and the advancement of civilization as bait; the God of War created empowered heroes to make them leaders.

Which method of rule was truly correct was a clichéd topic that the deities on the Divine Net forum would argue endlessly about whenever they had nothing better to do.

But the Great Devourer was different.

Every individual was connected through the hive mind, acting as a single entity.

For ordinary individuals without self-awareness, betrayal and slacking off were concepts that simply did not exist.

As long as Elise, the leader, remained absolutely loyal to Lin Miao, the entire Great Devourer colony would follow his command.

“Shake the elves' colonies. Make it impossible for them to focus on the war, forcing them to divert their attention to handling domestic affairs.”

There was no need to take the long way around when a simpler path existed.

The power of the elves came from their endless exploitation of their colonies.

As long as these colonies were shaken, more and more people would inevitably want to break free from elven rule.

And the Great Devourer, whose internal cohesion would never waver, only needed to seize the opportunity to attack and eliminate the weakened elves.

“Have you heard?”

“Those damned monsters!”

Even the new elves, who considered themselves different from the old elves, could not deny one fact: the Great Forest was the eternal homeland of the elves.

At the center of the Great Forest, the World Tree supported the sky with its massive trunk, and the elven capital was built right here.

At this moment, a fierce argument was erupting in the council chamber.

“The Third Legion has almost completely conquered the human factions to the southwest!”

“If you put it that way, the First Legion has it the worst. They had already accepted the enemy's surrender, signed the annexation treaty, and were currently processing the spoils of war!”

“The Fifth Legion has only just arrived at its destination. And now they want us to withdraw?!”

The source of the argument was the Legion Guardians who had been dispatched to various regions.

Their faces appeared in real-time within the council chamber through the blue water in stone bowls, allowing them to participate in the meeting.

Facing the opposition of the Guardians, the elf sitting at the head of the table sighed and shook his head. “There is no other way. It is time to concentrate all our forces and drive those monsters away once and for all.”

He had long, silvery-white hair and was named Sarel, the Speaker of the Central Council who ruled the Elven Empire.

Although he was the Speaker, his status was equal to that of the other members of the Central Council, leaving him exhausted every day from coordinating among the various factions.

“The wars of conquest will be temporarily halted. In any case, there are no longer any forces in this region that can threaten our great forest empire.”

Sarel muttered as he looked at the exquisite map before him.

Although the Great Forest was vast, it was only a corner of the continent.

But the elves who had emerged from the Great Forest had already conquered all the surrounding lands, ruling over a territory several times larger than the Great Forest itself.

The number of foreign race soldiers following them had already surpassed the elves themselves and was still steadily increasing... or so it should have been.

When Sarel launched the revolution to overthrow the elders, he had always assumed that the traditional northern powerhouse, the Lucadia Empire, would be the elves' greatest rival for global dominance.

But just as the elves were gathering their strength to fight the Lucadia Empire to the finish...

The Lucadia Empire was defeated by another enemy, handing over their entire nation to them.

And this newly emerged enemy surpassed everyone's imagination.

Even the World Tree Spirit—their deity—whom they believed in so devoutly, could not clearly explain the true origin of the Great Devourer.

“This is our sacred mission, and it must be completed. Please distinguish what is truly urgent and important.”

“Mhm...”

“There is no other way. While pioneering new territories is important, protecting what we already possess is even more vital.”

Seeing Sarel's solemn expression, the Guardians who had originally opposed the idea could only sigh and nod in agreement.

Sarel turned to one side and said, “I ask the Second Legion to continue holding the front line before the support of the other legions arrives.”

Virgil, the commander of the Second Legion who was currently engaged in a bloody battle against the Great Devourer, merely nodded expressionlessly.

Though this was quite rude, no one dared to provoke Virgil, who was consumed by rage over the tragic death of his niece, Sillian.

“From what we know, the territory of those monsters has already crossed the human Empire and extended into the undeveloped regions further north. We require more troops and resources.”

“Wait, the troops and supplies currently being conscripted from various places have already reached their limit. Many of the occupied territories have not yet stabilized... If this continues, there will be trouble.”

To launch a large-scale, all-out war that would not only drive away the Great Devourer but also launch a counteroffensive into their nests, thorough preparations were required.

Hearing Sarel's words, Governor Lynel, who was responsible for managing taxes, conscription, slaves, and other affairs in all occupied territories, widened his eyes.

Most of the occupied territories had not yet stabilized. They had already turned criminals and captives into slaves to force them into production, and they had now reached their absolute limit.

“There are indeed difficulties, but we do not need to consider the resistance of third-class citizens. This is their duty.”

Sarel shook his head expressionlessly.

“Backward technology, filthy streets, barbaric cities... We changed all of that with our power, so they should naturally pay a greater price.”

With the full support of their deity, it had only been a little over a year.

For the elves, it was but the blink of an eye, yet the world had undergone earth-shattering changes.

In Sarel's eyes, the occupied territories in other regions were synonymous with barbarism and backwardness.

While the elves were already equipped with reinforcement formulas and piloting treants, the people in those places were still fighting with swords and spears, relying on mages for magical combat.

While the elves had freed themselves from food limitations through artificial spirit fusion, the people in those places were still performing sacrificial rituals to pray for rain.

In Sarel's eyes, humans were an inferior race in need of salvation and redemption.

Was it not only natural for them to use their short lives to repay the advanced civilization the elves had brought them?

Most of the new elves thought this way.

“We will drive those monsters away. Furthermore, other forces are already advancing in the northwest. We must seize everything before they snatch away more credit and land.”

The Great Devourer was their common enemy for now, but the Beastkin Kingdom and the Dwarven Alliance would also be enemies in the future.

The war machine of the Elven Empire was thus fully set in motion.