NOVEL NEXT Elven Interlude
150 years ago
Afvalin, Elven Nation
The moon shined brightly over the seemingly quiet city. The king was tired. Another day dealing with the nobles across his country and making deals with the human countries. These human countries were a bit troublesome but he had been able to keep a relatively stable peace with them through trade and various other diplomatic activities. It was quite beneficial in some ways too. The resources provided by humans had greatly improved the economy. Of course, some of the nobles had demanded an invasion of the humans to take their resources. An invasion of the human countries was preposterous. Due to the vast number of them, along with the time and resources required, would make such an operation impossible. A servant quickly burst through the doors to his throne room.
“Your highness!”
“What is it? You didn’t even knock.”
“I’m sorry, your highness but this is of great urgency! We have a rebellion on our hands!”
The king was surprised. A rebellion? During these times? The economy was doing great. Who would lead a rebellion during such prosperous times?
“Where is this happening?”
“They have stormed multiple barracks in our city and taken them by surprise!”
“How...”
The king sighed as he realized something. This was his fault. In such peaceful times, he had neglected the military. Underfunded and barely trained, they were more like a peacekeeping force for the country. In the past three decades, there were no signs of threats. The human countries loved elven technology and trade. The elven economy benefited from trade with humans. This led to a golden age for the elves. However, there were some of those who were unhappy with the humans. The fact that the humans were treated as equals seemed to disgust them. The king had paid them no mind. They couldn’t possibly rebel when times were so good. No one would support them. With the king thinking that there was no possibility of rebellion or invasion by the humans, slowly he cut off military spending and management. Now it was backfiring on him.
“Alert the military commanders and palace guards of the current situation! Send word out to all remaining barracks and soldiers under our control to prepare for battle!”
“Understood your highness!”
Twenty minutes later
The sound of marching feet resounded outside of the palace.
The king looked out from his balcony to witness seemingly hundreds of torches marching towards the palace. The sound of boots slamming down in perfect unison indicated that whoever was trying to take over had trained their men for some time.
“Where are the soldiers?!”
“We have sent a messenger car to the remaining barracks, your highness.”
“They aren’t going to get here in time. Are the palace guards ready?”
“The guards have closed the gates, your highness.”
In mere minutes, the gates to the palace were breached. Using artillery captured from nearby barracks, the rebels gained entry to the palace. Fighting raged in front of the palace as the king and his family was guided towards an escape route in the palace.
“Your highness, our soldiers are on the other side to receive you.”
Many minutes later
The king walked out of the concealed hole on the side of a hill a few miles from the palace. Kingdom soldiers with swords appeared out of the dark to greet him.
“Your highness! Thank goddess you are safe! We immediately came from our barracks the moment we heard about it.”
The rest of the King’s family appeared out of the hole.
“Come on let’s go.”
The soldier beckoned him forward and the king walked towards them. The king then noticed the sword that the soldier was holding. It was dripping with blood. The king stopped a few feet from the soldier. Something wasn’t right. The king’s eyes widened as he felt immense pain in his stomach. The king looked down to see a sword in his stomach. He finally noticed what was wrong. Normal soldiers only had rifles. Swords weren’t something that a soldier was equipped with. The king collapsed as his family behind him screamed in fear.
Just before the Elven invasion of the Magus
In one of the many streets of the capital of the Elven Nation, a boy happily skipped down the street to his house. He had just witnessed the awesome National Military parade that indicated the start of their rightful place in the whole world. He was even able to see their leader, son of their savior, who would lead them to prosperous elven world order. He was extremely curious about the barbarians that resided in the rest of the world. Right now, he just couldn’t wait for the elven’s hammer of justice to strike down those inferiors. There was also a probability that he would be able to see a human. He had heard of plans to bring some back to serve as slaves like the inferiors they are. He was excited to see the inferiors that his teachers had talked so much about.
Many many years ago he had learned in school about the existence of humans and the wider world. Then he had learned about the inferiority of humans. From his science classes, he had learned that humans had shorter lifespans, weaker magic, and inferior technology. Their shorter lifespans and weaker magic were a clear indication that they were not the blessed beings of this planet. They were a deformed evil being. Their inferior technology also showed how barbarian they were and how inferior they were to the elves. In history class, he had learned about the stupidity of the one who had ruled when the Elven Nation was called the Elven Kingdom. The last of the elven kings had listened and was even welcoming to the humans because of how much benefit the humans had brought to him. The humans promised riches, women, and personal benefits to the king so that the king would allow them to steal elven technology. The common elves suffered greatly because of the humans. Society and economy fell apart because of human influence.
It sounded ridiculous to him. How stupid was that last king? When the elves had discovered the humans by sailing to them, the humans acted like cavemen and had technology comparable to the Ages of Iron. They should have subjugated them. The technology given to them by the last elven king elevated the human’s power to the point of being comparable to the elves. The last king had brainwashed much of the elves to think that these vile beings were friends. The economy started to collapse after that. Then in 50 AE, the wise elves who saw through the treachery such as their savior Ayre Venharice led a glorious revolution, overthrew the corrupt king, and threw the barbaric humans out of the continent after a magnificent battle that crushed the humans. Most would think that after that the brainwashed elves would come to their senses but even now some of the older generations were still the same. They still said stuff that the last elven king wasn’t so bad. His school has taught him to pity those of the older generation because they did not understand that they had been exploited. There were efforts to reeducate the older generations but it wasn’t always successful. These still brainwashed were looked at with distrust and pity by everyone.
The boy entered his house and happily went to his mother to tell her about the great news. She was busy cooking up dinner so she wasn’t able to attend the parade. Today’s dinner was supposed to be mainly some type of fish with bread and some meat. Fish was something that the boy has constantly been eating. It was most likely because they lived underwater in an air bubble so that food was mainly fish. Of course, there were places where cattle and crops were raised. He hoped that once the continent surfaces that he could have more meat and crops. The land taken from the humans would definitely allow this to happen
At the beginning of the Elven invasion of the Magus
Tarron Venharice looked through the folders on his desk. Behind him was the flag of his country. Red in the background with a blazing yellow sun in the middle and a black cross on it. The folders he was looking at were details of massive projects. Superweapons. Some percentage of the national budget and various top minds of the country were working on these. Their newest super tanks, super planes, and much much more. Some of these projects were even finished. These were very important. Sure they were winning right now against the humans but that might not hold true in the near future. Tarron understood that the humans greatly outnumbered the elven population and that at some point the number of humans could become unbearable for the National Military. The usage of these weapons would allow them to counter the human’s quantity with much superior quality. They would also cover for any possible surprises that the humans could throw at them. His scientists and experts had, for the most part, accurately predicted the technological level of the humans. Of course, there was a great disparity in technology between different continents of the humans as shown by the less developed Kingdoms. This wasn’t worrying since to his knowledge, there was also no possibility of humans more advanced than the Empire. After defeating the Empire, there would only be even more inferior humans left to deal with.
The superweapons were also meant to combat a possibly more dangerous enemy. Tarron only believes a possibly more dangerous enemy because they might not even exist. There were many ancient Elven prophecies of the appearance of horned beasts in the far future with terrifying weapons. The truth of these prophecies was very dubious. However, it gave him more excuses for creating the superweapons so he was okay with them.
A thing that had interested him about the Empire was their change in flag. The documented flag of the Empire had a blue crown in the middle of a black cross with a white background. Now the Empire’s flag had changed in a minor way. Instead of the blue crown, it now had two blue swords crossing each other on a blue pentagram. The pentagram represented magic so that could explain the change. From reports, the Empire was using magic. That magic was definitely stolen from the elves. However, it was a very inferior magic. They didn’t seem to have invented the magibattery yet. Such a wondrous invention. It meant that the elves didn’t need to find resources to power their vehicles or factories to make ammunition. The mana that the elves have could be poured and mixed with other’s mana into a magibattery. Of course, it had many flaws and still needed more development. A living body was still the perfect vessel for the usage of mana. The magibattery could only be used for simple things like power, signal waves, and being able to become dense enough to be used as ammunition. It also had a limit of mana it could carry and it wore down quite quickly which caused it to need constant replacement. The perfect magibattery would be one that has no limit in mana, no need for replacement, and an ability to do the things an elf can with their mana. That kind magibattery was very far in the future. It might not even be possible but if his scientists could figure it out, the elves would be unstoppable. Another flaw in the magibattery was the way it was used as ammunition. Next to the main gun, there was a mana densifier connected to the magibattery. The speed of the reload depended on the shell size. The bigger and more powerful the shell was, the more time it took to form. If they could make the mana densifier faster, they could greatly increase the rate of fire for the medium and heavy tanks. A weapon with the power of a tank cannon and the fire rate of a machine gun would be terrifying. Scientists were trying to find ways to do so but there has yet to be much progress. Yet another flaw of the magibattery was the lack of efficiency. It took multiple elves to fill up one which would only last a few hours depending on the consumption rate of the machine. The more complex or heavier the machine, the shorter amount of time it had to run on a single magibattery. For example, the pilots on their planes could refill theirs in flight by using all their mana but it would only last on average at most another 30 minutes before it was out of power. An elf’s mana took many hours to recharge. It varied from elf to elf.
Well, in the end, the fate of the human species had been decided the moment the elven continent surfaced. When his father and Great Magus were still alive, they would plan and discuss weapon development and strategies. The Great Magus was a genius at weapons development. Most of the current and future weapons were designed by him. However, he denied his genius and called it visions given to him by their gracious goddess, the Mother of all Elves. This was all for the invading humans. Tarron’s father, Ayre Venharice, held extreme hate of the humans. His hate and belief that the humans were inferior to elves were shared by his son.
“The humans are finished.”