Chapter 3431: Divergence

————Currently rushing~~

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Starting from the meeting with Dafuni in Dali's memory, Xia Duo used the "Context Method" to continuously trace this clue, tracing it all the way back to Dali's first contact with the Illuminati.

Unlike the expectation that the Illuminati would go around "soliciting sponsorships," Dali's contact with the Illuminati was actually initiated by Dali himself.

From the moment he learned that there existed a special type of Sea Elf known as a Land Walker, Xia Duo realized that it was absolutely impossible for Beilunuo to have lived in long-term seclusion at the bottom of the sea, isolated from the world, as they appeared to be.

Even if the elves on land had little contact with them, they themselves could still go ashore to observe; this point was also corroborated in Dali's memory.

Not only Dali himself, but the official authorities of Beilunuo also frequently dispatched Land Walkers to the land for research, and their targets for research were not just the Northland, but the south as well.

As for the east, Beilunuo even had some understanding of Imaska and was not entirely ignorant; for such a nation to repeatedly seek coastal territory in the Northland instead of elsewhere, it was clearly planned long ago.

One must know that the Main Plane does not have a unified power, and even in places like the Northland where a unified Alliance has already formed, there are still quite a few undeveloped or even ownerless lands, let alone other places.

To the south of Calimshan in the south, across the ocean, lies the Southern Continent, where ancient elves once established a civilization; the most famous among them was, of course, Ilythiri, which once vied with Aryvandaar for the crown of the continent.

But after Aryvandaar's victory, the vast majority of the elves in the Ilythiri camp—mainly Suri Elves, Wood Elves, and a small number of Gold Elves and Moon Elves—were exiled to the Underdark.

The entire southern power suffered the most brutal purge; to this day, Kaitemier, near the Northland Alliance, has become the southernmost elven civilization, though in reality, they belonged to the northern region in ancient times.

Under such circumstances, what the Southern Continent, which was originally the old lair of Ilythiri, looked like goes without saying.

When Xia Duo traveled the Main Plane previously, he had tried to find the ruins of the former Ilythiri, but he found nothing; all that remained were vast stretches of primeval forest and some scattered elven tribes.

Perhaps they were survivors of the war back then, but today, those elven tribes could hardly be said to have any magical heritage; they hadn't even managed to pass down their civilization or culture, appearing entirely like primitive people.

Such a Southern Continent, although in an undeveloped state and requiring great effort to develop, had the greatest advantage compared to the entire Xilu: it was ownerless.

That continent (located to the south of Xilu, separated by the Guangyao Hai, but connected to Xilu by land in the east, not an independent landmass) was not only ownerless but also had no competitors.

As far as Xia Duo knew, the Southern Four Kingdoms (Kaitemier, Zhamu, Calimshan, Sannata) had fought to the death in the past, but none had ever thought of developing the Southern Continent further south.

Even Calimshan, which was the closest and separated by only one sea, had never had such a plan, and even if it had, it was never implemented.

This gave outsiders an opportunity; Beilunuo's strength was not exactly weak even by Northland standards, and as long as they perfected their magic system, they could leap to become a powerful nation in the Northland.

With such strength placed on the Southern Continent, they could completely perform a dimensionality-reduction strike against those primitive tribes.

Even if they didn't want the land, wouldn't it be good to occupy some territory on the nearby coast?

Yet the result was that they didn't; Beilunuo not only failed to go to the Southern Continent to develop land, but they didn't even occupy the nearby coast, which was somewhat inexplicable.

The only explanation was that the ocean there had an owner; unless one could go directly to develop the land, as long as one passed through the ocean, one might be seen as an invader and suffer attacks.

Going directly to develop the land had a certain degree of difficulty for Beilunuo, but it was not insurmountable; the real difficulty lay in the fact that not every Beilunuo elf was a Land Walker.

Moreover, even the children of Land Walkers might not necessarily become Land Walkers; under such circumstances, developing land became a thankless task. Even if they dispatched Land Walkers generation after generation, would the eventually developed territory still listen to the motherland?

The Beilunuo elves certainly did not know the history of the Bald Eagle on Earth, but the principles within it were the same.

The only difference was probably that the Xilu people on Earth could spontaneously go to the Americas to develop, while it was difficult for Beilunuo elves to go to land alone; but as long as they gained a firm foothold, separating from the motherland was almost an inevitability.

Therefore, Beilunuo had only one choice, which was to choose to develop in the Northland coast closest to their homeland, but the Northland already had owners. Under such circumstances, if they wanted to utilize the coast, they had to obtain the consent of the Northland Alliance, and even Xinnaliya.

This was likely the truth behind why the Tide Queen so readily agreed to join the Northland Alliance; there really was no other choice.

……

It was just that no one expected that even this only choice still had variables; the variable was that Magic Artifact Dali carried with him, which could allow Sea Elves to adapt to the land environment, and as time went on, the effect could become permanent.

This was equivalent to the entire population of Beilunuo becoming Land Walkers.

Under such circumstances, the difficulty of directly developing the Southern Continent or other ownerless continents dropped to almost zero. As long as they overcame traditional concepts, it was just a matter of going back ashore, just as they had gone from land to sea back then; Beilunuo could equally become a land-based nation.

But in this way, joining the Northland Alliance was no longer the only choice Beilunuo wanted for development.

Of course, things that had already been negotiated could not be reneged upon at will; at least until the Northland Alliance explicitly refused, Beilunuo did not yet have the strength to renege.

It was also because of this that Xia Duo became more determined to pull Beilunuo into the Alliance.

Besides acting as a catfish to promote the Popularize Magic among the countries of the Northland, Beilunuo's joining could also allow the Northland Alliance to logically get involved in the Southern Continent.

If his guess was correct, Beilunuo might have established observation points on the Southern Continent a long time ago; those observation points were the qualifications for entry. Even if they didn't have any, it didn't matter; he would just let them build a few before Beilunuo officially joined the Alliance.

This was a mutually beneficial matter, and the Beilunuo side could not possibly refuse.

The only ones who might have objections were the Southern Four Kingdoms, especially Calimshan and Zhamu; the former was only one sea away from the Southern Continent, while the latter could reach the Southern Continent by simply attacking southward.

In fact, Zhamu was already doing so, and the Zhamu side likely regarded the Southern Continent as their own possession long ago; the involvement of other powers might trigger their strong backlash.

But this was also a key step for the Northland Alliance to move from a regional alliance to a world alliance; Xia Duo certainly could not let such an opportunity slip by.