Chapter 99: Council of High Elves (Two-in-One!)

The White Tower.

This pure white tower stands tall on the inner ring of the Island of Eternal Gathering, forever adorned with brilliant, gentle, and artistic shimmering light.

Countless Elves believe that this high tower is the place with the most extensive magical records in the world, even more profound than the Mage Council of Violet.

Because as the site where the initial Chaos disaster descended, this is the front line for resisting demons. Countless mages used their knowledge and abilities to forge this unprecedented magical fortress, merging their own souls into this White Tower.

This high tower standing on the Island of Eternal Gathering can not only serve as a power source to lift the entire Island of Eternal Gathering from the ocean, floating several meters high to isolate the Elven homeland from the attacks of most monsters, but one can also read the flow of the world's Winds of Magic from within it.

Although this function sounds unremarkable, it is actually crucial.

The large-scale world-ending rituals that countless demons and other forces wish to perform, or the vicious curses meant to destroy certain civilizations, can all be detected through the ritual tracks on the White Tower as hazy changes in the Winds of Magic.

And every time such a strong change occurs, it requires summoning the Phoenix King and the Master of the White Tower to deliberate. Only the greatest individuals in Elven society can express their thoughts in such closed-door meetings, and even communicate with the gods.

This time is no exception. Two months ago, a brief message came from the White Tower, causing many figures of the Elven race to teleport into the conference hall one after another.

It contained only one simple sentence.

"A massive rift in the Winds of Magic has been discovered at the border of the Arctic Chaos Wasteland; while it blocks the Winds of Magic of the Chaos Wasteland, the chaotic energy has been stabilized locally, cause unknown."

Today, this notification finally became the signal to open the Great Elven Council.

In the completely sealed secret chamber known only to Elves, besides the Phoenix King who walked out from the flames and the Master of the White Tower who had long been waiting in a seat wearing white robes, only projections appeared in the other round table seats, and the vast majority did not even have projections appear.

"... The time has passed, those who are not here now cannot join, let us begin."

Sitting at the edge of the round table, the current generation's Phoenix King, Silent One Olivien, frowned as he looked at the predicament of having only one Elf around him, the expression on his face becoming increasingly unsightly.

Although in the eyes of the outside world, the Elven Phoenix King, the co-ruler of the Old World, the New World, and many other vast regions, Silent One Olivien is a true king beyond reproach. However, every family has its own difficult problems.

Looking at those distracted projections, Olivien knew that the division of the Elves was a fact.

Thousands of years ago, the Sea Elves made a request to the then-Phoenix King, Messenger of Calamity Kelenue, because of the problem of guarding the ocean for years without rotation; they were cursed by Kelenue in conjunction with the White Tower Mage Corps, making them forever unable to land on the Island of Eternal Gathering, destined to guard around Ulthuan for generations.

Since then, the Elves lost contact and news of the Sea Elves.

By the time they met again, the Sea Elves had already become beasts with soul trauma, no longer possessing the so-called Elven demeanor.

Fourteen hundred years ago, Messenger of Calamity Kelenue was killed on the Throne by the next generation Phoenix King, Heartless One Renis.

And this terrifying Phoenix King's idea to kill Messenger of Calamity Kelenue was not out of justice, but out of fun. Precisely because of this, he broke through the malicious defensive barrier of the strongest spellcaster Kelenue and killed him on the Throne.

And his terrible concept of not respecting the gods and having no ethics or morals greatly enraged the then-Wood Elf King Muste. During a ritual of blaspheming the gods, Heartless One Renis gathered the Phoenix Guard and began a massacre of the Wood Elves on the Island of Eternal Gathering and other regions.

In the end, the tragic Blood Wood War ended with Heartless One Renis committing suicide out of boredom. As a price, the Wood Elf race vowed to break away from Elven society and even leaned toward the Humans.

After that, because Sleeper Misk neglected the co-ruler of the Grassland Elves due to sleep, the Grassland Elves broke away from the Island of Eternal Gathering system.

Oathbreaker Ksat secretly framed the Dark Elves who had already joined the Island of Eternal Gathering at the time, causing the Great Schism to begin again.

Now, only the current Phoenix King and the Master of the White Tower on the entire Island of Eternal Gathering use the legacy of the ancient Elves to monitor and observe this world. Of the Elven leaders who once filled the seats, only two remain who have appeared as projections.

The Mist Elf responsible for guarding the Island of Eternal Gathering on the outer ring, and the Sea Gate Elf responsible for foreign trade at the Island of Eternal Gathering's Hag Graef. Only these two lords are still willing to obey the Phoenix King's summons. In other words, outside of the Island of Eternal Gathering, the Phoenix King and the power of this ancient legacy can no longer command any Elves.

Looking at the two impatient projections on the huge round table, the Silent One sighed in his heart and officially unfolded the projection of the Winds of Magic.

Under the monitoring of the White Tower, the frenzied Winds of Magic from the Antarctic and Arctic Chaos Wasteland and volcanoes blew toward the ocean, turning into countless violent lines that boomed into various parts of the world.

Among them, the nodes occupied by the Elves looked quite orderly, and there were networks composed of lines of different races and abilities where other intelligent beings lived. But only in the Arctic direction, a huge rift appeared in the area where the violent energy originally boomed in.

That huge rift looked a full hundred kilometers wide, sucking in all the violent Winds of Magic, and then evenly covering that land.

This method of Magic Manipulation, rather than being called manipulating magic, looks more like something violently punched a hole in the Subspace, and then something is blocking that hole, forcibly holding back a counter-surging wave, calming down the originally chaotic and violent energy of the Chaos Space within a hundred-kilometer range.

This strange state can be said to be few and far between in the tens of thousands of years of Elven historical records. In the data, only a small number of artifacts can achieve such an effect.

According to the rules of the successive generations of Elves, when facing such a strange scene, the Phoenix King must dispatch the nearest Elven army to investigate and collect information.

But now, the Phoenix King looked at the projection in front of him and just asked calmly: "May I ask what the current sea conditions around the Island of Eternal Gathering and Ulthuan are? Can we lead the Phoenix Guard to that area for recovery and contact?"

"I'm afraid not, Your Majesty."

The gold-and-silver-clad ordinary Elf supervisor shrugged in the projection.

"The Sea Elves don't know what kind of madness they've caught recently; they are having a grand time fighting the Vampire Pirates on the ocean, and whoever goes there will get hit by a few cannonballs. The location you marked is exactly behind the battlefield, our fleet cannot get through."

"The Mist Fleet could, though."

The Elf shrouded in a mask nodded and said seemingly impartially: "But you know, according to the special act from seven hundred years ago, unless facing a life-and-death crisis for the Elves, the Mist Fleet and the Mist Elves shall never step even one step outside the outer ring of the Island of Eternal Gathering. We cannot disobey orders. Can you provide evidence that the Elves are facing an existential disaster?"

"... Then, wait until the Vampire Pirates and the Sea Elves have calmed down, and send a fleet there."

"Obeying your will, Lord Phoenix King."

The gold-and-silver-clad Elf smiled, and the projection closed in the blink of an eye. The masked Elf also disappeared from the room.

Silent One Olivien looked at the empty round table, couldn't help but take a deep breath, and then slowly exhaled.

Vampire Pirates and Sea Elves are fighting? The devil believes such a thing. Either they aren't fighting, or it's already over.

As for why they would release fake news... it is nothing more than the predecessors cutting down trees, and the successors suffering the consequences.

"Your Majesty, in fact, the Bretonnia side has already conducted a failed Chivalrous Expedition to the Broken Lands. The members were corrupted by Chaos, but were completely cleared by the controller of that Broken Lands."

The Master of the White Tower looked at the disappeared projection and said as if inadvertently: "If you need, perhaps we can contact our Human servants and let them carry out some special actions... for example, contacting that strange wizard. We might be able to teach him not to use that barbaric method. Then we can use the method of exchange to learn about the magic in his hands."

"Humans? Let those Human servants do things? Are you joking?"

"I am very terrified, Your Majesty."

The Master of the White Tower said indifferently: "But this rift objectively exists and cannot be ignored. As for the matter of the Winds of Magic...?"

"Leave it there and don't worry about it, there is nothing that cannot be ignored. Don't tell me about small fluctuations either. I have seen this kind of thing, it is nothing more than something caused by an accident. It has nothing to do with the Elves. I am going to see what these two guys actually want."

Having casually instructed the Master of the White Tower, the Phoenix King rubbed his brow, looked at everything in the secret chamber with difficulty, and sighed with some displeasure.

Although there are drastic changes, the Elves have long been unable to control all of this.

It is just some natural environmental changes, or problems caused by artifacts. That violent magical fluctuation doesn't show any signs of human manipulation.

The final result is nothing more than letting the local Norscans perhaps establish a literal country.

Or perhaps the Chivalrous Expedition finally obtained an Arctic base?

But so what? Let it be.

Whether it is the length of time, the changes in the world, or anything else, he does not care.

After all, the Elf, this kind of decaying and degenerate creature, should quietly and silently make way for those who come after in the silence.

As the only Phoenix King to set a mandatory time of death for elderly Elves, the Silent King Orivien is likewise a madman in the eyes of the Elves.

He led the Phoenix Guard to kill every Elf who dared to defy his orders; he killed all the aged ones, those fellows who occupied wealth and status and refused to step down. Because he was simply able to do it. As the most powerful assassin and killer among the entire Elf race, he alone could handle all of this.

Yes, he knew that within the Elves, he could be said to be notorious, enough to stop children from crying at night.

But he did not care.

His predecessors were likely the same.

In fact, the vast majority of the factors that allowed them to become Phoenix King lay in the fact that, in their hands, the Elves of Evermeet indeed lived better.

After finishing off those aged and frail Elves, those legacies naturally belonged to the people of Evermeet. Silent One Orivien was very good at making those chattering court lobbyists shut up.

Possessing benefits, having power, and even controlling force himself, the so-called High Elves showed no great difference from primitive monkeys in the face of these things. Whether it was education, Magic, or any other messy things, in the face of the most primitive violence and terror, they were no different.

He even knew very clearly that he and his kind were not good things either. The information they told themselves was very likely correct, but it was also information from a long time ago. Because the political struggle of the Elves was just like this.

If you do not describe your qualifiers clearly, then do not blame others for using rather subtle vocabulary to fool you.

Silent One Orivien had also once thought about whether to completely overhaul the entire Elf race, but after thinking about it carefully, he gave up this idea and began to turn toward becoming a conventional Phoenix King.

"Dispatch the fleets of the White Tower and the royal court to teach those demons attacking the territory a lesson. Then warn that young fellow, and while you're at it, educate them on what is called true spellcasting, and what is called true opposition to Chaos. We are the true vanguard against Chaos, we are the race that has mastered the true techniques."

"Should we unconditionally hand over those techniques for opposing Chaos to those backward races?"

The Master of the White Tower raised his eyebrows somewhat unpleasantly.

"The primitive psychic technology mastered by those monkeys can also play a certain role; perhaps they might even be able to produce some results. There is no need for us to fill their technology inventory with various teams. Perhaps exchanging knowledge is not bad."

"Do not always think about swindling and bluffing things from the hands of other races, old man. You and I both know very well that the Elf race is the best."

He was, of course, not the best.

It would be better to say they were the most disgusting.

The entire race, from the gods to the leaders, was full of despicable fellows like himself.

Therefore, Orivien had always thought about sending this despicable race to the grave, just as he had sent the elders and those who were too old among his race to the Silent Forest.

'Enjoy the legacy given by the Elves well, you lucky fellows. This is all I can do.'

Silent One Orivien walked out of the hall and thought thus.

Perhaps no one could imagine that the Elf Phoenix King of Evermeet, Silent One Orivien, was actually a xenophile.

This somewhat extreme xenophile walked out of the secret chamber, traversed space, and arrived at the tip of his royal court tower. In the charming and sweet air of Ulthuan, this master assassin sighed, sat in a chair, and poured a glass of wine.

And just as he was about to drink, the corner of his eye suddenly caught a glimpse of gold.

Then he was stunned to discover that a second sun was rising on the horizon.

... Now he had to do something.

Orivien thought thus.

(End of this chapter)