Chapter 908 (1/2)

Chapter 908: Purification (Part 1)

Winter was drawing to an end, and spring was approaching.

Spring was the season of life where all things were rejuvenated. The earth would be covered with green, where there would be flowers and verdure, mountains and rivers. Even the animals were completely reinvigorated after the long winter and began to reproduce. And once again, they were starting a new cycle of life.

But this spring was different.

It was very cold.

The cold was not only in the air but also in the hearts of the humans.

The calendar of the Main Plane was similar to Earth in that it divided a year into four seasons. That particular day with the shortest period of daylight of the year—the winter solstice—was made New Year’s Day. This calendar was simple and crude. It was extremely convincing.

The winter solstice was the midpoint of winter. One and a half months after the winter solstice marked the start of spring. And during this one and a half months, the first half month was more or less the coldest period.

Generally speaking, if they had to fight wars, the humans would mostly choose winter. This was mainly because during winter, the farmers had nothing much to do and were idle.

But for the Orcs, fighting a war in winter could consume many lives, thus allowing them to save food and optimize the population of their race. This was a political strategy that was worthy of recognition and praise.

Sui Xiong floated above the terraced on the rooftop of the Void City’s town hall and looked at the eastern sky.

The cloud of war had almost condensed into a solid substance, an iron-gray patch that made it uncomfortable to look at.

“I wonder how many people will die in this great war!” he said. With a deep sigh, he shook his head.

“Ultimately, this is the choice they make,” Leon said calmly as he came to stand beside Sui Xiong. “We can try to protect the refugees and stop the slaughter. But we can’t stop them from going to war. If the people themselves want to die, then there’s nothing the others can do to help them.”

Sui Xiong nodded. But still, he could not help sighing.

He loved life and hated war. The acts of betting the lives of thousands of people over the struggle of land, wealth, power, status and the likes of them, was blasphemies against life itself.

But he could not stop this war because both sides wanted to fight.

Just as what Leon said, this was the choice of both the humans and the Orcs.

Even if only one side did not want to fight this war, Sui Xiong would still have to take the side of the party forced to fight and use force to convince the aggressors to give up on this war. However, with both sides wanting to fight till the rivers were stained with blood and dead bodies were strewn all over, there was simply nothing Sui Xiong could do.

These days, he had been appealing for peace and for the people to withdraw from this war. Be it the humans or the Orcs, or other races that had been implicated in this war, so long as they were willing to pull out of this war, Sui Xiong was willing to protect them so that they could be safely distanced from war. They could live in the Republic, which was like a retreat away from the turmoil of the war.

But everything that he did had not reaped effective results.

Indeed, there were many mortals who believed in him and decided not to join this war. They were brought to the Republic of Northwest from all over the world where they had settled down. But there was a much greater number of people who were willing to go to war—for the mortals, beliefs were important, but their lives, their family and what they loved and hated… these were just as important.

The Kingdom of Eagle, for example, had fought the Orcs for years. Almost every family had an elder who died on the northern battlefield. There was practically no one willing to back out of this war, just for the sake of defeating the Orcs completely. Many of Sui Xiong’s clergymen, after praying and confessing to Sui Xiong, had taken off their robes emblemed with the holy symbol of a jellyfish. They put on their armor, picked up their arms and went to the battlefield.