Chapter 583 (1/2)
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The capital city of the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs was called Nephrite City. Before Void City appeared, this city was known as the most beautiful city in the Main Plane. Its city walls were constructed with stones beautiful as white jade, and when the weather was good, the light of the sun made those walls glitter like a single gigantic piece of jade. It was more beautiful than anything you could imagine.
Until now, it had always been called a “heaven on earth,” or “the city as beautiful as the Holy Kingdom.” Not only had wandering bards composed countless ballads praising it, even the gods themselves often sent down clones to visit it. Of these, the one who visited most often was the Goddess of Spring Water.
This mid-level god from the Nature God System loved more than anything to wander about between mountain forests and spring waters, her core requirements from her believers being to “cherish spring waters” and to “increase the number of fountains.” She cared for nothing else. Good or evil, soldier or thief—none of that mattered to her.
Yet, it was precisely because of this attitude of hers that she was chosen by the human gods to give them the power they needed to strike against the Ancient Forest and the Mountain of Broken Clouds, fully supporting the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs with all her strength.
Nephrite City, as the capital of the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs, was covered all over in fountains. These fountains weren’t like the ones in Shandong, that famous spring city on Earth where the water bubbled out from underground; these fountains were three parts natural, seven parts manmade. Back when they’d first built this city, a good number of great legendary magicians had worked together to create a portal beneath the city that lead directly to the Water Element Plane. An unending stream of fresh water flowed underground through that portal, following pre-cut fountain holes up to the surface and creating the fantastic scene that was “a city of 1000 springs.”
Within this city, surrounded by those white jade walls—no more and no less—were exactly 1000 fountains.
When they first built this city, the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs was only in its fledgling stage and had yet to even decide on a name for itself. It was after this city of 1000 springs was built that the Goddess of Spring Water sent down a clone, personally giving her blessings to this country and christening it the “Kingdom of Thousands of Springs.”
But behind this beautiful city lay mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
There originally had never been a Country of Thousands of Springs on this planet, and neither had there been a Nephrite City. Originally, the land southeast of the Mountain of Broken Clouds had been a zone of never-ending hills. Its north bordered on the Mountain of Broken Clouds, its south faced the Golden Desert, to the east lay a great plain, and to the west was the Ancient Forest. Dwarfs, Pygmies and other races all mixed together here, living peaceful lives.
When humans rose to power, they first followed the God of Knights in fighting a series of battles against the Orcs, but ultimately came out at a disadvantage. Afterwards, the God of Revenge took power. He changed their strategy, leaving only a small portion of humans to guard that bit of fertile land between the Broken Clouds, Graystone, and Ash-Beast Mountains from any more Orc invasions, while the rest of the humans were sent out to assault the east.
This was the famous human historical event called the “Eastern Campaign.” Over the course of these conflicts spanning several thousand years, the humans wiped out the Pygmy, Fairy, Dwarf, and other races’ countries which had originally occupied the eastern part of the continent. In the most fertile eastern plain on the entire planet, they then established the 28-City Commonwealth—what would later become the Kingdom of the Blue Moon.
Afterwards, the humans split into two branches. One branch worshipped the Sun God; they turned their assault to the north, thoroughly annihilating the Pygmy Kingdom and establishing the Kingdom of Holy Angels. The other branch turned their assault to the southwest, capturing the Elf God System and subsequently being exterminated by the Master of Mystery. Finding a chance to inflict serious damage, the Elf Race then joined forces with a part of the Nature God System. They annihilated all the Dwarf and Pygmy powers in the hills and erected their country.
Naturally, there was a massive amount of killing involved in this course of events. The Fairies, once famed as the “Dexterous People” due to their skill in manufacturing small-scale machinery, were practically wiped out. The few survivors left the Main Plane for some other unknown world under the protection of their god; a good number of Pygmy countries of all sizes were wiped out as well, the Pygmy race becoming famed across the continent as a vagrant race. Only the Dwarfs, with their sturdy physiques and undying fighting spirit, continued to tenaciously resist.
These past few years, probably once every three or five or ten years, the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs would organize an army and head out to attack the Kingdom of Dwarfs in the Mountain of Broken Clouds. On one hand, they coveted the local mineral resources and the Kingdom of Dwarfs’ money and valuables; on the other hand, they simply wanted to follow things through to the end, forcing the Dwarf race to leave the Main Plane like the Fairies did and thus resolving one of their worries.