In the battle on the Main Plane, the pygmies and underground creatures had never had much sense of presence.
The pygmy race used to be one of the stronger races on the Main Plane. But during the great development of mankind, they had encountered many failures, and finally, they could hold out no more. Following the fall of the final kingdom, they dejectedly withdraw from the competition for hegemony.
At that time, most of the pygmies on the Main Plane had followed the pygmy gods who had retreated to other worlds. Only a few stayed behind and became vagrants of the vast land.
Some of them were scattered about the towns and villages and became minorities. Some built small underground villages in the wilderness and lived in seclusion.
It was needless to say anything about those underground creatures. They were mainly known by people because of stories like “Dungeon Adventure.” For instance, an explorer discovered an underground legacy and found several treasures, or some expedition chanced upon a group of underground magic beasts and beheaded them all to gain some benefits… things like that.
Other than these stories, those races who lived underground were no longer known to the inhabitants on land. It was as though they did not exist at all.
In fact, they had always been around. Not only that, they even had their own civilization, as well as their own gods.
This time the Orc gods had contacted various God Systems to lay siege on the Human God System, so of course, they had found the gods of these underground races as well. In the beginning, these gods had not intended to participate in this war that was of little significance to them. But they learned that the Master God of the Orc God System had driven his God Kingdom into a forced collision with the Human God System. Such a suicidal attack brought heavy casualties to both sides and caused them to change their minds.
One should never let go of a golden opportunity that heaven has bestowed. Since the opportunity was already right in front of them, it would be a pity if they did not even bother to grab it!
So they secretly contacted the dwarfs and pygmies, who were equally adept at underground activities, to discuss a joint attack.
The dwarfs rejected this plan. This group of short, strong men who called themselves “the children of the rock,” showed a strong abhorrence for conspiracies and intrigues. Even if they had to fight, they would fight their enemies in an open and aboveboard manner. But the pygmies hit it off with the underground creatures. Both sides immediately sprang to action, gathered their forces and headed to the Duchy of Griffon.
Beneath the Main Plane, the situation was different from place to place in regards to the suitability for excavation. One of the most suitable places was the great eastern plains of Duchy of Griffon.
This area was also one of the main territories of the pygmy nation many years ago. It was the homeland that the pygmies had pined for. They had set up many decorative arrangements here. And all of it was to prepare for the chance to return in the future.
Now, it was the time to give full play to these arrangements!
Relying on these decorative arrangements, as well as the power of the underground races, both sides assembled a massive army with a considerable number of soldiers. They did not hasten into action but waited patiently for the Orcs to open up a third battlefield. When the humans were overwhelmed, and when the Duchy of Griffon had sent out all its troops in plain sight, they would launch a surprise attack.
Under the cover of nightfall, the mighty army rushed out from underground and took down the capital of the Duchy of Griffon.
The Duchy of Griffon was void of defense and simply could not put up a decent amount of resistance. Besides, their capital was originally not a sturdy city that had walls made of copper and iron. Therefore, the underground allied force was able to break through the city at one fling. By dawn, including the Duke of Griffon who had not escaped in time, at least a thousand officials and aristocrats’ heads were hung on the city walls. One after the other, they were hung in a long, ornamental mass, as though they were common accessories.
According to the plan of the underground creatures, they had wanted to kill all the people in the capital city and hold a large-scale blood sacrifice to help enhance the power of their own gods. But the pygmies persuaded them against doing so. The reason they gave was simple—breaking through the capital city, killing and injuring the officials, aristocrats and soldiers, those were not considered much at all. But if it were a large-scale massacre of the civilians, were they confident of being able to deal with the Void Mask who might strike out of angle?
Even if the Void Mask did not make any move personally, it was also great trouble for just the followers of gods, Oracles and clergymen under his command to strike!
The leaders of the underground race discussed among themselves for a while, then decided that they certainly were unable to put up any resistance against the mighty jellyfish god. So most regretfully, they had to give up on this plan to carry out a large-scale blood sacrifice.
But this did not mean that they had spared the people of the capital. They drove the people out, and the refugees who had been looted by them were reduced to tears. After being chased out of the capital in a sorry state, the people had to head to the nearby cities to seek help.
During the time where all the fighting and killings were happening, Sui Xiong did not intervene at all.
Although… he seemed very angry.
“Having developed to this extent, this war is already getting a little out of hand,” he told Wall. “If this goes on, I’m afraid the war will spread throughout the entire Main Plane.”
“It can’t be…” said the God of Knowledge, who had previously successfully predicted the imminent misfortune that the Human God System would come to face. He was greatly taken aback, and said with some trepidation, “There’s nothing much to say about this side. But it can’t be that there’s going to be a fight in the South as well, right?”
Sui Xiong shook his head and looked at the vast land in the South. His eyes were full of worry.
Wall did not know the power of the Realms of War, so he had no inkling about the matter at all. But in Sui Xiong’s eyes, the battle clouds in the skies above the Great Marsh were becoming increasingly thicker and intense. It seemed like those Marsh natives were ready. The only thing was that no one knew who they wanted to attack. Who on earth would that be?
But, compared to the battle clouds slowly gathering in the skies above the Duchy of Thunder, it was likely that the target the Marsh natives wanted to attack, was still going to be them after all.
And over at the Ancient Forest, battle clouds were also gathering. Those battle clouds were linking with the battle clouds in the sky above the Mountain of Broken Clouds of the Kingdom of Dwarfs. It was feared that these two parties would combine forces to attack the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs.
In truth, this was not surprising. Since ages ago, the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs had always been trying to invade the dwarfs and elves. Both sides could be said to have worldly vendettas against each other. Now that the dwarfs and elves had the chance, would they possibly not want revenge?
So long as they took the chance to defeat the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs in this war, both the dwarfs and elves would be able to live in peace for many years to come.
The only places where battle clouds did not rise were the Mifata Federation in the South and the Dhaka Commercial Association that was next to it. The strengths of these two countries was another matter. The main problem was that they had few enemies around them.
The only enemy they could claim to have was probably the elves of the Ancient Forest in the north. But the two countries did not have much influence over the development, or rather, the invasion of the Ancient Forest. Given such a situation, it was believed that the elves would still be focusing their efforts on stirring up trouble for the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs.
“It’s really… simply fire everywhere!”
Sui Xiong mumbled and shook his head helplessly.
With that, he could not help turning his head to look at the sky again.
Amidst the void space that was lit by a light ball created by the collision of two God Kingdoms, a large number of gods were still carrying out a thorough search for any traces that the human gods might have left behind.
“Where on earth did the human gods go? Hiding themselves like that is not going to be a solution after all. It’s better to come into the open earlier. Let us all fight a good battle and then the victorious side shall remain while the defeated side will leave. It’s just that simple! No point letting the people bleed like crazy, is that meaningful at all?”
