Chapter 394: The Crane and the Clam

“What do you think will happen next?” Both Ram and Nina were intrigued by the future of the Stampede Plateau.

“I don’t know,” Wu Qingsong said.

He had already done everything he could. As a phrase he once read in a book put it—the dice had been cast. Whether it was a win or a loss was no longer in his control.

But in this gamble, he was not a mere player. As the dealer who could overturn the table at any moment, his chances of winning were far higher than those trapped in the game.

As spring arrived, Ling’s pregnancy was becoming visibly apparent. However, he still had to accompany her on a trip to Gale Island, limiting their journey to three stops along the way to prevent her from becoming overly fatigued.

Fortunately, the development of Gale Island was progressing satisfactorily.

There were no awakened harpies yet, but nearly all of them had become followers of Xuanyuan—at least on the surface.

Many harpies were desperately learning the beastmen’s language. The first group of harpy priests had already begun attempting sermons. However, based on the results, they were still merely going through the motions rather than truly believing in Xuanyuan. There were neither soul stone manifestations nor devout believers born among them. 

However, Wu Qingsong was confident that out of a population of a hundred thousand harpies, at least one percent would eventually break away from the crowd. Once those few displayed genuine devotion and gained supernatural blessings, the faith would explode in popularity—just as it had in Nagrand.

“I’ve launched four attacks against the murlocs of the Seven Islands.” When Wu Qingsong visited Boulder in the cave beneath the cliffs, the undead shaman informed him, “They have shown no signs of strong resistance. If you wish, we can take the islands in the next raid.”

“That is, of course, my expectation. But the specific pace of the operation should be decided by you and Morin together,” Wu Qingsong said. “You both understand Gale Island’s situation best. If you believe this will bring in a large number of devout believers, then go ahead with it.”

Boulder nodded, but Wu Qingsong did not leave just yet.

The cave remained silent for a while before Wu Qingsong finally spoke. “I remember you once said that you had recovered memories from your past life?”

“A portion of them.”

“I want to know how many other strong warriors like you exist on Mojina Plateau. Where are they?”

When most undead were revived, they typically retained only the instincts and basic knowledge of their former bodies. Just like Raman—despite also being a lich, he had no recollection of the secrets within the elven hierarchy.

But Boulder was different. Wu Qingsong wasn’t even sure if the undead shaman had truly let go of his resentment over being slain, or what he genuinely thought about his transformation from a nature-revering shaman into a lich.

He wasn’t eager to provoke Boulder into dwelling on those memories, but this information was crucial for his upcoming plans.

“There are others,” Boulder responded without hesitation. “But I no longer remember their names, nor where they reside.”

“Do you think they will become enemies of Nagrand?”

“As long as the Xuanyuan Church continues to extend its influence into the depths of the plateau, that is inevitable.”

“Is peaceful coexistence impossible?”

Boulder glanced at Wu Qingsong. “That is a question you should ask yourself.”

‘Ask myself?’

“The Xuanyuan Church does not prohibit beastmen from worshiping their ancestors, nor does it oppose nature. Any sect, any form of ancestor worship among beastmen, can be incorporated into the Xuanyuan Church’s belief system. Is that still unacceptable?”

“If you think you could accept such a compromise in their place, then perhaps they could too,” Boulder replied before refusing to answer any further questions.

Was that a no?

Wu Qingsong wasn’t entirely sure.

From his perspective, even if the beastmen’s gods truly existed, they had always maintained a stance of non-intervention. When their followers were invaded, slaughtered, or even driven to the brink of extinction, these deities did not step forward to protect them—at least, he had never heard of them doing so. So, when his fabricated god began to consume their followers just as the elves once had, would those gods suddenly decide to act?

And if the beastmen’s gods did not exist, then what reason did these shamans and warriors have to oppose him?

Whether they believed it or not, he wasn’t seeking to strip them of their power and status—what he truly desired were more believers. More talented beastwomen.

***

Upon returning to Nagrand, Wu Qingsong shifted his focus back to the development of the church and the knightly order.

After the failed incursion by the Stampede Plateau raiders, there was no longer any force around the Icy Sea that could threaten them—aside from the elves. Those clans and tribes that had stubbornly tried to maintain their independence from the Nagrand system finally surrendered completely in the face of this outcome.

Back when they were first defeated, Wu Qingsong had relied only on the strength of himself, Nina, Xeila, and a few others. While such overwhelming power was unmatched, it still had its limitations and could not cover every possible threat. But now, with the growth of the Divine Knight order, Nagrand possessed a sufficiently large force of supernatural warriors, capable of crushing all opposition. This left the dissenters with no more illusions of resistance.

When Grove of the Bloodmoss clan became the first to openly declare his conversion to the Xuanyuan Church, accepting baptism and sending all his daughters to Nagrand in hopes they could join the Beastwoman Sisterhood, the other clan leaders and elders seemed to awaken from a deep slumber. One after another, they approached the priests in their own territories with the same request.

In the sixth summer since Nagrand’s founding, the Xuanyuan Church had finally, at least on the surface, fully integrated into the beastmen of the Icy Sea, becoming the sole faith of hundreds of thousands of beastmen in the region.

Meanwhile, the beastmen of the Stampede Plateau had plunged into a prolonged civil war.

The northern Sarl Alliance’s assault was thrown into disarray when twenty thousand troops suddenly appeared behind their lines, leaving them trapped in a dilemma between advancing and retreating. Both sides engaged in dozens of battles between the Daran Valley and the Stampede Lowlands, turning the valley into a wasteland. The northern-aligned Dustmother Clan, Daran Clan, and Barin Clan, as well as the southern-aligned Lorandell Clan, Lowland Clan, and Warsong Clan, all suffered immense losses.

In war, all men become devils, and for the beastmen caught in this vortex, survival was never an option.

Over a hundred thousand perished in the flames of war. Hundreds of thousands were displaced. In the end, it was Nagrand that stepped in to mediate and broker a ceasefire between the warring sides.

The beastmen knew full well that this war had been orchestrated by Nagrand. Had the southerners’ leaders not been slaughtered, had their thirty-thousand-strong elite army not been annihilated, had certain suggestions not been made, the northern alliance would never have entertained the idea of invasion.

Had those captured soldiers not been released at the border, armed, fed, and sent straight back into battle, they would never have been able to immediately regroup and sever the northern alliance’s supply lines, forcing them into brutal foraging campaigns in Daran Valley.

Had it not been for Nagrand selling weapons and armor, the southern alliance would never have lasted in its leaderless state. 

In the end, the northern alliance had no choice but to take on debt from Nagrand for grain and weapons to maintain their advantage, further entangling them in this conflict.

The beastmen knew they should expose Nagrand’s schemes and unite against them.

But this war had already sown too much hatred. The northern and southern beastmen of the Stampede Plateau could never reunite again.

To maintain the fragile balance and prevent Nagrand from exploiting the chaos, they were forced to bury the ugly truth, even as they put on friendly smiles before the Nagrand envoys.

The one who embraced this necessity most enthusiastically—and most thoroughly, without any hesitation—was none other than Tony Barros.

Having gradually tightened his grip over the captured army and seized control of the Lowland Clan’s territory during the war, Tony declared his conversion to the Xuanyuan Church the moment Nagrand’s envoys arrived. He humbly requested that the Xuanyuan Church send priests to baptize him and immediately set about establishing a temple.

Strangely enough, the ten thousand warriors who had survived the war also followed his lead, making the exact same choice.