Chapter 574: The Monarchs' Decision

"[Heaven's Judgment]! [Tiger's Howl, Dragon's Bellow]!"

Along the spear's breadth rose a dragon of wind and a tiger of thunder. As they twined around each other, the tip of the spear gleamed, crackling with concentrated power.

The spear strike rent the battlefield in half.

Yang Ze alone handled the eastern front. The battlefield was shrouded in thick white mist, and a horde of blue sharks seemed to roam within it.

Many of the sura fighters quickly developed a phobia of mist and fog, and even of the water vapor that emerged from the most mundane of things.

"[Avatar of the Fae: Earthbound Prison]!" Zhou Ying released all her stored energy, causing the ground to quake as thousands of jade-green wood dragons rushed out of the earth. Each was at least thirty meters long, and they easily covered the skies with their combined bodies.

They swooped down toward the sura, turning them into petrified wood on contact.

In the center of an outburst of green light, Zhou Ying's hair rapidly grew so long it reached her leg, fluttering in an invisible wind. The vitality radiating from her was visible to the naked eye. She seemed to have become one with the land. Pulses of green energy rippled from her, healing the wounds that the Renhuang fighters had sustained.

Zhou Ying and the shaman of the wood spirits were always able to take to the battlefield at the most crucial of moments. She was heralded as the goddess of life, able to petrify the sura and simultaneously heal the wounded. She was bane to the sura and boon to her allies; allegedly, she had even forced back a sura monarch.

The member of Team Zenith who stood out most as a result of the large-scale warfare, however, was none other than Sun Mengmeng. She alone provided artillery support for countless battlefields.

Where she set her bow, purple-red flames filled the air. Fire-attuned genetic energy burst from Sun Mengmeng's body as her body erupted in flames. She pulled her greatbow taut. Only a series of afterimages were visible of her hand as she shot countless arrows of purple flame of her bow, producing what seemed like a meteor shower that tinted the air purple and gave the battlefield a phantasmagorical appearance. The air turned dry and arid, as though a cataclysm was nigh.

Under the brilliant purple sky, the sura fighters began to burn, drowned in a sea of purple flame.

Where Sun Mengmeng went, a fatality of meteor showers followed.

The members of Team Zenith had all made a name for themselves during the fighting, and all the sura fighters knew and feared them. Their names spread throughout the sura and the alien races working with Renhuang.

The sura monarchs convened a meeting at their headquarters.

The monarch of the sun boomed, "To date, he still hasn't made an appearance."

The monarch of the moon nodded. "According to our spies, the governor of Renhuang may have left Renhuang some time ago."

"Shall we strike?" the monarch of the sky asked.

The monarch of the sea shook his head. "The reason the governor of Renhuang hasn't appeared is because we haven't put enough pressure on Renhuang yet. Just like us, he doesn't think his side needs his help."

The monarch of mountains concluded, "In either case, it seems like as long as our opponent doesn't use its trump card, neither will we."

"I wonder if that's good or bad..." the monarch of the sun mused.

The monarch of the moon: "Regardless, let's try to apply pressure to Renhuang. I'd like to see whether or not the governor of Renhuang is indeed present. If he isn't—"

The monarch of the sky cut in, rubbing his palms. "If he isn't, it's time to rid ourselves of Renhuang's damnable army."

Zhang Lie hadn't appeared on the battlefield at all, but his presence was keenly felt. Without the threat of Zhang Lie, the sura monarchs would have leveled the Renhuang army long ago.

The monarch of the sea asked, "Is it time to enact our plan?"

.

"Yes—move those pawns!"

Back in Renhuang, Hong Xi nudged Sun Mengmeng. "What do you think of the nicknames you've gotten on the battlefield? The demoness of purple flame, the tyrant of—"

Sun Mengmeng cut her off with a sigh. "Well, it's not as if we want those titles, but you'd better not laugh at mine. Don't they call you 'the maiden of sun and moon'?"

Hong Xi clutched her head as she moaned. "I don't want a title like that!"

In the battle against the sura, Hong Xi's aura of [Eclipse] had proved to be a great boon.

She changed the topic. "Why do you think the Yeluo chieftain summoned us all back?"

The members of Team Zenith all played instrumental roles in the fight against the sura army, but Sun Mengmeng and Hong Xi had temporarily left the battlefield. They had received a transmission from Yun Bing claiming that the Yeluo chieftain had succeeded in a piece of research that would turn the tides of war.

With this research, they would apparently be able to finish the sura off for good.

Sun Mengmeng sighed. "It would be amazing if it were really that impactful."

The sura army seemed to be fighting on equal footing with the Renhuang forces, but there were a number of hidden problems with the Renhuang forces that were only now making themselves known.

After all, Renhuang's forces were a coalition of wildly different races, and it was basically a given that there would be spies mixed in.

The sura were frequently able to lay ambushes for Renhuang's forces, and the unstable stalemate had only been preserved so long because of the members of Team Zenith.

It was impossible to ferret out these spies, so the members of Team Zenith instead decided to decentralize command of the army to a cohort of supervisory tacticians and strategists formed largely from members of the four prime races.

While these spies still had a detrimental effect on Renhuang's strategy, the overall result was acceptable, and Renhuang's forces fell prey to sura ambushes much less frequently.

The problem was that the five sura monarchs had barely made an appearance on the battlefield, and if they were to strike simultaneously, Renhuang's forces would surely suffer even if they could hold the five sura monarchs back. After all, there was currently no force sufficient to counter their simultaneous incursion.

Perhaps the members of Team Zenith could take them on for a while, but it was unlikely that they would come out victorious.

Furthermore, Renhuang had far fewer resources than the sura, and a prolonged battle would prove more and more disadvantageous for Renhuang once it started to drag on.

Renhuang would run out of provisions and supplies, and once they began to suffer defeat, the morale of the alien races would drop and the army would fragment.

At that point, Renhuang would have well and truly lost.