It was possible that nobody expected the species most sensitive to the Holy War to be the seemingly unrelated fairies.
They didn’t have any conflict of interests with other species, but they would be one of the biggest losers the moment a Holy War broke out. Perhaps this was why they saw everything the clearest from the sidelines. They were the first to warn humans.
They quickly published an emergency report, which was sold for a far lower price than its cost of publication. Information that many countries’ spy networks were unable to obtain instantly became available for cheap prices. A lot of information was given to everyone.
In this special report, the fairies showed off their incomparable information gathering, verification and analytical skills. Not only did they explain how the mortal plane was under a threat the likes of which it had never seen before, but they even categorized the different types of main threats. They effectively consolidated and utilized rumors which had been scattered all over.
The fairies categorized three major threats.
The first major category was the return of ancient immemorial species.
Actually, this type of trouble would happen in every Holy War. After all, the Holy War represented the flourishment or decline of every species. The final victor of an eternal Holy War would rule. The humans had only started ruling the world from a few Holy Wars ago, and the losers obviously weren’t willing to bow out of history so easily.
The first major species to return would, quite naturally, be the elves—it was just like how a worm would keep wriggling even after being cut into pieces. As the species which previously ruled the world, they had lost the position of ruler despite having been on the winning side in the Holy War. Of course they wouldn’t want to idly sit by—they desired to return to their former glory.
With the Elven Gods’ protection plus many, many years of accumulation, the elves’ natural talents and subordinate species, it would be a major incident if the elves started any trouble. The human countries had always been on guard against them, which was only natural as the elves were still the second highest candidate species for ruler of the world.
However, the prerequisite for the elves to stand up was to first determine who represented the elves. This would require internal warfare among the elves.
Silver Elves were the majority elf species in the southwest mountain Elf Kingdoms. Last year, they constructed a new united kingdom with no elf king in name. However, secretly behind them was the Silver Elf War God, Sonya. He was the number two ranked Elf God, although he never seemed to have much of a presence.
The new Saint Heen Empire saw more than twenty Elf Kingdoms declare war against it right when it was established, but a similar number of Elf Kingdoms also declared themselves subordinate to this new empire. Its ruler, Moonlight Elf Queen Afina, had a status that was self-explanatory. Although it wasn’t yet publicized, anyone in the know would understand that the Elven Main God Anslo was behind Saint Heen.
Quite obviously, the Moonlight Elves and Silver Elves, along with the respective Elven Gods backing them, were going to use force to determine who was going to be the leader of all elves.
Silver Elves were a warrior species among the Royal Elves, courageous and skilled at fighting. Moonlight Elves were more skilled at Divine Arts and magic, with countless mystical secrets passed down in their tribe. Plus, Anslo was obviously stronger than Sonya, so everyone felt that the Moonlight Elves were more likely to be victorious.
Of course, there was also the possibility that this was all fake news that wanted to hide a secret alliance already arranged between the two species. However, judging by the combat reports of how brutal their infighting was, the likelihood of that was incredibly small.
That’s right—a full-blown internal war among the elves was now raging, and it was happening in an incredibly brutal fashion. Both sides unhesitatingly used ancient magical weapons and highest-level magic. Every day, more than ten thousand elves and more than thirty thousand subordinate species’ members would die in battle. Although the elves’ neighboring human countries were unaffected for the time being, every human country bordering them was on the highest level of alert.
Meanwhile, the fairies’ assessment placed the Tark Republic undead as the second greatest threat out of all the returning species. Thanks to a special report I sent to the fairies, these undead’s past lives were now revealed for all to know about. Their overall power was frightening to behold with how many Undead Emperors they had.
Due to the dimensional laws, the undead were currently not a threat to anyone other than the Bardi Empire. However, the fairies unhesitatingly assessed the undead as the second most dangerous threat amongst the top-level threats.
Of course, this special report had very detailed descriptions of the undead as they were considered a top-level threat. But I didn’t have to read this as I was naturally familiar with all this information.
The third returned species was the great demons. These demons had once been the rulers of the mortal plane too, and they’d once coexisted with the elves. The great demons also had a rather complex relationship with the Tark Republic.
Large numbers of Snow, Cliff, Forest and other great demon species appeared in San Antonio’s Safron District. It was evident that these great demon tribes had banded together rather than acting independently. Perhaps ancient great demon royalty or priest bloodlines still existed within these tribes. Far away from this location, in the Amu Mountains, Flame Demons had started appearing. Flame Demons were half demon and half elemental, an abnormal combination that made them incredibly difficult to deal with.
Originally, great demons weren’t viewed by anyone as a threat. In fact, many were even delighted at San Antonio’s troubles. However, the fairies’ reports indeed helped raise the human countries’ vigilance.
“These great demons aren’t the simple human-eating beasts as described in legends. They actually treated the human citizens quite well in the cities they conquered. The great demons are even providing the humans in those cities with food. They’re steadily creating their own power base. And nobody knows just how they arrived. It can be predicted that they’re not working independently of each other, and it’s highly likely that there’s a God supporting them in the shadows.”
However, the great demons were dealing with major problems of their own. Although it was unknown why they established their base in San Antonio’s mountains, this mega empire definitely wouldn’t be dealt with easily.
The fourth-ranked threat was the Sea Tribe. The Sea Tribe were quite powerful and also had a True God backing them up, but they could only survive in the sea or very close to the seaside, so their area of influence was limited. That was why they ranked only fourth out of all the threats. Besides, Auland was also keeping them busy.
Of course, the fairies’ list of threats was incomplete. Some of the most ancient species that had only a few individuals appear so far weren’t on the list. And obviously the fairies missed the most important species of all—the Titans’ return and the giants regaining their lost Intelligence. However, the Titans and giants were currently being kept busy by the dragons and the Bardi Empire.
Still, just these listed ancient species were more than enough to cause havoc everywhere in the mortal plane. All the major human countries were dealing with their own troubles. Any one that collapsed would cause a huge chain reaction.
These returning ancient species were classified by the fairies as the humans’ main enemies because these ancient species had once ruled the world at one point in time. They would be the most aggressive and proactive in invading. It would be impossible to negotiate with any of them without dealing them serious losses and countless defeats first.
“Negotiate? Giving us only a tiny piece of land to live on? Why should we accept? All of this belonged to us in the first place.”
The secondary threats on the fairies’ report were much easier to deal with.
The most attention-grabbing threat were the giant worms that appeared near the North Sea. However, that location’s average temperature was negative ten degrees Celsius. Only some very primitive human tribes and sea lions would need to be on guard against them.
The fairies were still trying to obtain more information on these giant worms, but it was impossible to communicate with the worms. Any that approached their territories would come under attack. It was also impossible to understand the giant worms’ communication with each other, making it very difficult to obtain information on them—it wouldn’t happen anytime soon.
Next were the “octopi aliens” that caused me to shout “Are you kidding me? Aren’t they the wrong style for this story?” These strange creatures had highly advanced scientific technology and had tamed many local species. The octopi even began constructing strangely-shaped buildings and seemed intent on playing the role of scientific alien invaders fighting against a local magic-based society.
However, the octopi population wasn’t very high, so they hadn’t attracted much attention—yet.
Of course, not all of the new visitors came with bad intentions. Out of all the strange “guests” that arrived in the mortal plane, the beast-eared SemiBeastmen were cute, gentle and incredibly popular. They called themselves the Kamil Tribe, but the humans called them ‘tiny beastmen.’ The nearby countries were already communicating and making contact with them.
One’s outer appearance was truly important. For instance, the octopi were treated as invading monsters from the very beginning while the tiny beastmen were extremely popular.
Of course, the fairies wouldn’t forget about the new species known as the wood spirits. However, they also had cute appearances and a well-known clean background, so the world accepted them from the very beginning.
These secondary threats were considered threats not because of their high threat level but because more and more new visitors would be arriving in the mortal plane as the Holy War continued. These visitors would bring about more variety to this world, but along with that they would bring more danger.
The tertiary threat the fairies listed was actually what I viewed as the main threat to this world: the wars between the human countries.
It was common—incredibly common for the humans to war among themselves. If I had to dab points of red on a map on every location that humans were currently warring against each other, I might end up with nothing more than a rag fully drenched in red.
Small human countries declared war against other small human countries. Large human countries declared war against both other large human countries and small human countries. Human mega empires continuously declared war against each other. Of all generations, this was the best of all for those with ambitions.
Warriors desired to become heroes in the Holy War. Powerful individuals desired even more strength and to become undying. Rulers desired to become renowned in the history books. Even the Gods themselves desired to progress in power level. In that case, there were plenty of reasons for everyone to go to war.
As for the inciters of war and those scheming to gain benefits through warfare? Even with concrete evidence, rulers that desired to expand their territories would pretend not to see anything.
The flames of the Holy War had been ignited. The Holy Church no longer had as much authority as it should have as it was embroiled in the conflict between divine and royal authority. The ambitious who desired to obtain more by force naturally started taking action.
These three major categories of threats with detailed lists were astonishing to read about.
When I finally woke up from my deep sleep and read the magazine, I could only helplessly shake my head. This was how unstoppable this damned game history was. All these countries and rulers wanted to go to war and would find any excuse to expand their territory. It would be impossible to stop the humans’ internal warring unless one killed all the rulers.
Still, it wasn’t meaningless for me to read this report. It helped firm my determination to carry out my grand scheme without caring about the consequences. I had no more room for hesitation.
“I don’t have much time left. I need to hurry things up. It can’t be helped if there are some sacrifices…”