Chapter 2014: Arrivals of All Parties, Confrontation Before the Meeting

The 838th year of the Netheril Calendar, also known as the Year of Sweet Wine in the Elf World, the last day of the Falling Leaf Month.

Representatives from all parties of the Northland Alliance gathered at Adofier Fortress, and finally, under the leadership of Bulundesi, boarded a temporarily constructed flying platform to arrive at the negotiation venue in Hengchun Square, the Public Zone of the Floating City.

Xia Duo stepped forward personally to welcome them and said, "Thank you all for coming upon invitation. I hope this meeting can lead the Northland Alliance toward true order and prosperity!"

"Well said! Here, I represent the Northland Alliance in thanking Lord Xia Duo for his righteous act of stopping the war, and I also hope that the representatives of all nations will fully respect the Alliance Charter in the upcoming talks and prioritize the future development of the Northland."

Being able to express support for Xia Duo without hesitation like this, among the representatives present, there was undoubtedly only the representative of Netheril, and the person representing Netheril to participate in this meeting was none other than Badijiaer himself.

Xia Duo cast a grateful look at Badijiaer; he knew there were many ways to frame his stopping of the war, and it would be easy to remedy later, but inviting representatives of various nations to the Floating City for talks was, to some extent, an overreach of authority.

The reason why the various nations were willing to send representatives, apart from the genuine necessity for negotiations, was likely more about wanting to probe the bottom line of the Floating City; for such a suddenly appearing new thing, one must always have a rough understanding and judgment.

Of course, those with such thoughts did not exclude the Seven Towers.

The relationship between Xia Duo and the Seven Towers was relatively complex; on one hand, the two sides were considered partners with many common interests, while on the other hand, the Seven Towers were the true rulers of Netheril and inevitably held a different view of an anomaly like Xia Duo.

After Badijiaer defined Xia Duo's previous actions, Prince Baside, the representative sent by Danzo this time, also stood up immediately to support him and express his own attitude:

"War causes too much pain; Danzo, having just experienced the Drow War not long ago, understands this best. No matter what kind of contradictions or conflicts there are, war is always the worst choice!"

Although Danzo was on good terms with all the nations on the Surface, these words still made the Yierlan representative quite annoyed, especially since the one representing Yierlan for the negotiations this time was Adalier, the commander who had presided over the war.

He seemed not to have realized the severity of the problem; this meeting was essentially everyone ganging up on Yierlan, not to mention that on the way the representatives came to negotiate, a scandal involving a Magic Bloodline Family had broken out within Yierlan.

Think about it, what was the reason Yierlan gave for starting the war initially—that Siluwende had been infiltrated by Demon Descendants; so what about now? What kind of treatment should Yierlan, which had also been infiltrated by Demon Descendants, receive?

The representative of Ilfalan, that is, the Mage Tailun who had not appeared until now, saw the Yierlan representative upon coming over and rebuked him with almost no attempt to hide his anger:

"In order to act without interference when launching the war, Yierlan did not hesitate to incite foreign threats in neighboring countries. With such sinister intentions, I fear it is you who have truly been infiltrated by Demon Descendants!"

Once these words were spoken, Adalier's expression changed drastically. He knew Tailun was referring to the incident where Yierlan incited the Orc Tide in the northern part of Ilfalan. He had not participated in this, but he had heard of it.

However, Ilfalan was not some obscure, insignificant country, but a major power with profound influence within the Northland Alliance!

Once this accusation from the other side was accepted by the other nations, even though Yierlan was also a major power, it would inevitably be severely crippled as a result.

Thus, Adalier hurriedly retorted:

"Mage Tailun, please be careful with your words; do not speak recklessly about things without evidence. While our side does bear responsibility for the Spirit Wind Family incident, this precisely illustrates how terrifying the Demon Descendants are, hiding so deeply.

"If even Yierlan has had a Magic Bloodline Family appear, then Siluwende, as a former land of Demon Descendants, is likely in an even worse state internally!"

The Spirit Wind Family incident could no longer be denied, so Adalier simply clung to Siluwende. His logic was—I have Demon Descendants, but you have more, so all things considered, you are still worse and more in need of being sanctioned.

Xia Duo had not attended many Northland Alliance meetings, but today's scene only solidified his thought that "Elves are just another kind of human"; the emotions and desires humans have, they have just as many.

After Adalier finished speaking, the Siluwende representatives, who had been silent until then, immediately expressed their opposition. They had sent two representatives this time: one was General Kelusi, whom Xia Duo had met before, and the other was an old man with graying hair.

According to Bulundesi's introduction, the other person was Sepeitiya, one of the leaders of the 【Ekrix Contract】 organization, a high-level Mage who had reached the end of his life and was forcing himself to remain in the world solely by willpower.

This was likely an important reason why the 【Ekrix Contract】 had not been wiped out by Yierlan before; Sepeitiya could risk his life without hesitation, but the Yierlan side did not necessarily have such resolve.

It was this "walking living bomb" Sepeitiya who spoke this time, and his opening statement shocked all the representatives, including Xia Duo:

"Siluwende has already purged the Demon Descendant infiltration within its upper echelons. I know you may not believe this, so in order to gain the trust of all nations and for the sake of subsequent stability, we hope that the nations of the Northland Alliance will send personnel to be stationed in Siluwende to conduct real-time inspections of the Demon Descendant infiltration within Siluwende."

Clearly, no matter what, Yierlan could not achieve such thoroughness and decisiveness as Siluwende. The intensity of their internal purge of Demon Descendants might be greater than the intensity of the various nations inspecting Siluwende, but it was absolutely impossible for them to hand it over to other nations to handle.

This was where a country's sovereign dignity lay. Siluwende could disregard it, or rather, had no way to care about it, but Yierlan could not abandon it; once abandoned, the vast country would likely disintegrate immediately.

Only then did Adalier realize the severity of the problem. He had originally thought that Crown King Heli had let him represent Yierlan in the negotiations to give him a chance to make up for his previous mistakes on the battlefield, but now it seemed he had likely been treated as a scapegoat from the very beginning!

For a moment, Adalier felt that his friendship of several hundred years with the Crown King had been in vain, but upon second thought, the Crown King's doing this was likely a helpless move.

Military failure required someone to take responsibility. The Bemacher Philosophy Society might have sufficed, but their weight was not heavy enough; even if it were, the Crown King's opponents would still aim their spears at him.

At present, domestic reform had reached a critical "either-or" moment. Adalier understood Crown King Heli's pursuit; if his sacrifice could be exchanged for the opposition's compromise, then he considered it worth it.

This sacrifice was not truly asking for his life, but merely a political death, and he would have to move behind the scenes in the future; this was not unacceptable to Adalier.

Although he was in a high position of power, he did not have much desire for authority; those were merely things she had passively acquired in the process of following the Crown King all along, nothing more.

As for the present, well, it was a negotiation, and there were always opportunities and bargaining chips to discuss!