Chapter 319: The Reason for War

“Xeila…” Wu Qingsong couldn’t help but call out her name as he looked at her veiled face.

“What?” Xeila turned her gaze away from the densely packed tents below the airship and looked back at him.

Wu Qingsong suddenly found himself at a loss for words. Tell her not to kill so indiscriminately? But these people were Nagrand’s enemies, she hadn’t done anything wrong.

And he knew that this was her way of solving problems—the way she was best at.

“Don’t get careless,” he finally said. 

The words had reached his lips but ended up as nothing more than a pointless reminder.

Xeila nodded. Wu Qingsong reached out, awakening her power. The next moment, her body vanished. The airship trembled slightly, and Wu Qingsong immediately knew she had already jumped down.

Turning back, he found Ling watching him quietly in the darkness. That made him feel a little flustered. 

“What?”

Ling shook her head. “Nothing.”

They hovered in place, about fifty meters above the ground. Though sentries were patrolling below, beastmen had a habit of scanning their surroundings rather than looking up. Few ever thought to check the pitch-black sky above.

That meant they weren’t in much danger.

Then again, even if the sentries spotted them, what could they do? Shooting arrows straight up at Ling’s reinforced airship wouldn’t even leave a scratch. At most, they’d just waste their breath screaming.

They waited in silence. Below, the Boyle Clan’s camp remained calm and quiet. That probably meant Xeila’s mission was going smoothly.

After about an hour, one of the tents suddenly caught fire.

Wu Qingsong immediately tossed the rope down from the airship as planned. Moments later, Xeila reappeared aboard the ship, and Ling swiftly lifted them back to a safe altitude.

Together, Wu Qingsong and Xeila hauled up the beastman tied to the rope. By now, the fire below had spread rapidly between the tents, and panicked screams echoed through the camp.

But in a place so short on water, putting out a fire like this was next to impossible. Their only option was to salvage whatever they could before the flames reached them.

However, Xeila had already killed most of their leaders. The beastmen ran in chaos, with no one to take charge. It took them over half an hour before someone finally stepped up to organize the survivors and rescue supplies.

At that moment, the airship descended once again, and Xeila disappeared into the darkness once more. Moments later, the few remaining capable and respected leaders—the ones trying to take control—suddenly collapsed in the shadows.

The camp plunged into complete and utter chaos.

“If only we had an army…” Wu Qingsong muttered to Ling.

They could shatter the Boyle Clan’s leadership like this, but they had no way to conquer or absorb them. They wouldn’t even gain any direct benefits from this victory.

Maybe the Boyle Clan would descend into another year of turmoil before producing a new leader. Maybe they would collapse entirely and get swallowed by neighboring clans.

But for Nagrand? The only real gain was neutralizing this threat, letting them focus on the other enemies approaching from different directions.

Xeila reappeared on the airship.

“That should do it,” she said.

Wu Qingsong didn’t ask how many she had killed. He simply nodded and kicked the beastman at his feet.

“Let’s see what he knows.”

***

Soul fragments were the best tool for interrogation—quick, clean, and not too bloody. But because they worked directly on the soul, they were far more devastating to a person’s mind than mere physical torture.

It wasn’t long after they returned to Nagrand that the bearman finally broke down, wailing as he spilled everything he knew.

He wasn’t the new leader of the Boyle Clan, just the new leader’s nephew. Not that it mattered—he still knew everything worth knowing.

Daryl’s intelligence was confirmed, but what he didn’t know was that the Broken Horn Clan and the Bloodmoss Clan had already mobilized, leading their warriors south. The Broken Horn Clan was set to rendezvous with the Boyle Clan on the western shores of the Ice Sea in five days, while the Bloodmoss Clan would meet with the Ogota Clan and the Bares Clan on the eastern shores.

They planned to march toward Nagrand in seven days.

At the same time, the Antai Clan would set out from the south, link up with the Skude Clan, and then advance north to completely encircle Nagrand.

By then, Nagrand would be surrounded on three sides by an army over seventy thousand strong.

Their leaders had all sworn before the spirits of their ancestors—no matter what the cost, even if they had to fight to the last warrior, they would crush Nagrand and wipe it off the map.

Wu Qingsong couldn’t hold back his question.

“Why?”

This wasn’t just a war between tribes anymore, this was starting to feel like a full-scale campaign.

Nagrand was just a small settlement, a city barely over three thousand strong that had migrated here less than a year ago. 

Was it really worth all this?

“You… you are followers of the evil god!” 

The bearman practically spat out the words through clenched teeth. Shame burned inside him for breaking so easily, but the agony Wu Qingsong had inflicted upon him—pain that struck straight at the soul—only made him more certain of his beliefs.

“You will corrupt this land! Defile the hearts and minds of beastmen! Devour our souls, so we can never return to the home of our ancestors! Even if we must fight to the last, we will—!”

Beck slammed a wooden club against the back of the bearman’s head, cutting him off mid-rant.

“This is trouble,” Harold said.

If they were attacking for land, resources, or power, there would always be a way to divide and weaken them. But this was different.

Wu Qingsong felt a bit speechless. In a way, the bearman wasn’t wrong. Not exactly. Looking at it from a beastman’s perspective, if someone had to describe what Wu Qingsong’s Xuanyuan Church was doing in the most extreme terms possible… It wouldn’t sound that different.

He didn’t quite believe in the so-called Ancestral Homeland. If such a place truly existed, then what about the tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of beastmen who were forced to convert to the elven god across the continent? Where would their souls go after death? Given the elves’ arrogance, would their god really accept those they considered lowly and inferior? And what about the beastmen tribes that had been completely wiped out—where had their ancestors gone?

But at the same time, he wasn’t arrogant enough to completely deny the possibility.

After all, this was a world of magic. Nothing would surprise him anymore.

That was exactly why he had founded his own church instead of adopting the beastmen’s existing faith. If gods were real, the last thing he wanted was to accidentally hand over all his efforts to some unknown deity.

But looking at it now, this approach was clearly too aggressive for beastmen who still clung to their traditional faith.

How did religions from his old world manage to replace indigenous faiths?

Did they really have to spread it through blood and fire?

“There’s no problem,” Xeila said flatly. “If the elves could do it, why can’t we? Weren’t the elves’ gods evil gods to the beastmen too? Then why did so many beastmen convert? It’s simple. Because the elves were strong enough to make them despair. Thhe only difference now is that they still don’t understand our power. Power is everything. Win this war, and even if Xuanyuan truly is an evil god, a whole crowd of people will start worshipping him.”

“Praise be to Xuanyuan, the most merciful lord of all…” Morin’s voice rose softly in prayer.

For some reason, Wu Qingsong felt like laughing. But he couldn’t.

“Alright,” he exhaled, then nodded. “Then before they can unite, let’s show them what we’re made of.”