Page 493

Battle reports were continuously delivered to the high-ranking officials of various factions, including orcs, humans, and even the undead. Everyone was paying attention to this overseas war for different reasons and perspectives, hoping to glean information relevant to their interests.

After three months of warfare, the grand battle finally reached its climax.

It was a rare magical showdown across the Star Sea Mainland.

Heroic Werewolf Scroll, Chapter 61: The Deadly Whirlpool of the Floating Sea

The first major battle between the Mermaid Empire and the elves, later known as the "First Blue-Green Battle," reached its peak in a grand magical confrontation.

The two sides were the Mermaid Empire's 120,000 water-based marine mages and the high elves' 60,000 elemental mages.

There are approximately 800,000 high elves in the world, with at least 100,000 holding the title of official mages. This number is more than ten times that of human mages. However, the strength of this elven mage corps is significantly weaker compared to the elven mage army of four hundred years ago, not just in quantity but also in quality. The current elven mage corps lacks a crucial element—the millennium elves.

Elves generally live between 1,500 to 3,000 years, making them the continent's longest-lived intelligent race. However, due to their longevity, their rate of strength improvement is ten times slower than other intelligent races. Otherwise, with their innate elemental affinity, the entire elven race would be composed of tenth-level mages. Thus, while any adult elf, even if not a mage, can cast simple spells below level 3, mastering the strongest tenth-level magic requires nearly a millennium of cultivation. For this reason, within the elven community, tenth-level mages, who form the core of the mage corps, are collectively referred to as millennium elves.

Four hundred years ago, millennium elves made up almost one-third of the high elven mage corps, naturally making them incredibly powerful. This is why the Twelve Sages had to deploy several taboo spells in joint formations during each battle. However, with the fall of the elven kingdom, the once-dominant elven mage corps vanished long ago. A large number of millennium elves perished under the taboo spells of the Twelve Sages, and although 300,000 to 400,000 elves retreated to the islands of the South Sea, few elite mages survived. Even after four hundred years of perseverance, many of the former novice mages have grown and advanced in rank, but the number of millennium elves in the current mage corps remains less than one-tenth. This proportion has led to an overall decline in the magical strength of the elves, which is also the fundamental reason why the elven kingdom has not dared to reclaim the mainland.

Nevertheless, the average level of high elven mages still surpasses that of the Mermaid Empire by a significant margin.

Although the Mermaid Empire, as natural marine creatures, has an innate affinity for water elements and boasts a national mage count of 200,000—more than the high elves—those familiar with their internal situation know that this number is highly inflated. Aside from the 60,000 official mages from the empire's core mermaid race, nearly half of the water mages recruited from various marine races are innate mages, meaning they possess natural magic similar to magical creatures. However, these mages are not as powerful as one might think. In fact, the innate magical abilities of intelligent beings are inferior to those of magical creatures, typically ranging between levels 4 and 5, with only three to four spells castable per day. Moreover, their magical power increases as slowly as the advancement of magical creatures, making many of these marine mages weaker than human magic users, serving merely as cannon fodder in the mage corps.

Therefore, in the final South Sea magical battle, although the number of mermaid mages was double that of the elves, they did not hold a significant advantage.

By May in the South Sea, summer was in full swing, with scorching sun, hurricanes, and thunderstorms alternating in a constantly changing climate.

However, neither the elves nor the mermaids paid much attention to the weather, as one side possessed a complete magical civilization, and the other was deeply submerged in the sea, both unaffected by natural disasters.

On May 12th, heavy rain fell.

Hailian, the commander of the Mermaid Empire's "Sea God Mage Corps," a 330-year-old tenth-level mermaid mage, was seated on the marine alliance's unique biological underwater warship, the "Giant Eye Sea Rainbow Ship," deploying the upcoming battle.

"Report, Marshal, news has come from the elven kingdom," a mermaid soldier swam into Hailian's command room and said.

"Speak."

"Yes, yesterday at noon, the two floating golden tree islands, 'Moonlight's Edge' and 'Blue Fantasy,' located in the southern sea of the elven kingdom, simultaneously activated and began moving southeast. At the same time, the golden tree island 'Rain Night,' docked on the western side of the elven kingdom's main island, also set out in the same direction. According to scout reports, accompanying the tree islands were 24 floating platforms, 12 golden tree spirits, three phoenixes, 10,000 dragon-hawks, and an estimated 60,000 elven mages. Additionally, the enemy appears to be fully revealing their strength, so the scouts' reconnaissance should be relatively accurate."

"Very well, you may leave," Marshal Hailian waved his hand.

After the soldier exited the room, the marshal fell into deep thought.

The war had reached this point, which was not beyond his expectations. After all, both sides of the war were different from humans. Humans have an enormous population base but an exceptionally small number of mages, so every major war involves massive numbers of soldiers in combat. In this war, not to mention the sparsely populated high elves, even the Mermaid Empire has only 20 to 30 million people, more than half of whom are non-mermaid vassals, making it impossible to sustain heavy losses. Therefore, to secure victory, it was necessary to launch a magical battle before the full deployment of the army, completely crushing the enemy's formation and seizing magical dominance. This way, the winning side would gain the upper hand, reducing casualties to one-tenth of direct clashes, while the losing side would be forced into a rout, facing suppression and slaughter. (This theory is somewhat similar to modern warfare's struggle for air superiority.)

The high-ranking officials on both sides of the war had absolute confidence in winning this magical battle. The elves, as the direct descendants of a magical civilization tens of thousands of years old, had absolute confidence in the field of magic. Even though they lost to the Twelve Sages in magical warfare back then, it was because the gods had prohibited the elves from mastering taboo spells from the beginning. Otherwise, how could half-elves and humans have gained such world-altering power? The mermaids' confidence stemmed from their intimacy with the ocean. After all, being in the sea, the combat power of water mages increased severalfold. The thick seawater not only served as a source of magic for marine mages but also as a solid shield. Intermediate-level magic, and even some high-level magic, could not penetrate tens of meters of seawater to harm them. With this advantage and double the number of mages compared to the enemy, the emperor of the Mermaid Empire was fully confident in thoroughly crushing the arrogant elves.