Chapter 553 — The Envoys

It could not have been easy for them to come to Typhon—that was a journey of half a continent!

Though questions rose in his mind, Duke Pei Yi betrayed not the slightest surprise—he gathered all his thoughts deep within and nodded politely to the elves, then came before Emperor Luo Yan: "Your Majesty, I have come in answer to your summons."

"Be seated, Pei Yi," Luo Yan Augustus said with a slight nod. "As you can see, we have some guests—these elves bring very important news."

Pei Yi looked at the elves—each one extraordinarily handsome; truth be told, a human with a poor eye for faces could hardly even tell their men from their women. Pei Yi could only judge by the other's attire that the elf seated across from him was a lady: "Madam, I am glad to meet you—I am Pei Yi Wendell, the Emperor's advisor."

"Silva? Farwalker, messenger of Belantia, the Silver Queen," the beautiful elf spoke—thank goodness, it really was a woman—"We bear a weighty mission: the Silver Empire sends the gravest warning to the nations of humanity. The Grand Wall is in dire straits."

Pei Yi? Wendell's eyes sharpened in an instant.

After a brief exchange, Pei Yi learned the purpose of these elves' visit, and the situation as it stood.

These elves had come to warn the nations of humanity, keeping faithfully to a covenant seven hundred years old—though to humans that was a matter of the distant ancient past—and bringing the latest news of the Grand Wall. By their account, the deterioration of the Grand Wall had reached an extremely grave state, one that even the Silver Empire could no longer handle, and that unsettling disturbance in winter... had been merely the opening of a series of catastrophic events to come.

As a noble of the highest rank in Typhon, Pei Yi of course knew of that winter disturbance in the barrier—any nation whose borders touched the Grand Wall could have observed it. The flashing and the sounds that lasted a full three days had put everyone along the border on edge; the western region of the Empire had even briefly entered a state of martial law because of it, and the Winter Wolf Legion had dispatched a unit to the western frontier to keep watch on the wasteland, though fortunately it had all proved a false alarm, and the worst had not come to pass.

Now the elves' envoys had arrived, bringing the most disturbing truth: it had not been a false alarm.

"We paid a tremendous price—the elves sacrificed twelve mages and nearly a hundred ranger warriors, and the Highland Kingdom sacrificed a third of a full-strength mountain legion—and only thus did we succeed in restarting the Sentinel Tower," the elf Silva said in a calm tone. "But if it is damaged once more, I fear no number of lives will be enough to fill the gap."

It had not been a false alarm. It had been a true disaster.

The worst had already happened—it simply had not fallen upon the people of Typhon.

Pei Yi? Wendell suddenly felt an immense pressure, but he knew the elven lady before him had not the slightest intention of alarmism or of applying pressure. From what he knew of elves, she was most likely only stating facts: and these facts needed no exaggeration whatsoever to be deeply unsettling.

He pondered briefly, glanced once more at Emperor Luo Yan, then turned to the elf: "Then what... can we do?"

"We have no power to rebuild the Grand Wall, so the best course is to reinforce the barrier before it is extinguished entirely, to set up additional protections and ease the burden on the Sentinel Tower's core systems, so as to prevent their total collapse," Silva said. "And that requires the cooperation and aid of every nation around the barrier."