537.Chapter 535 534 When the Hate Has Disappeared

Chapter 535 534. when the abomination has gone up in smoke
The terrain of the Dark Valley was indeed as ingenious as Adele had said.

Especially after Sister Pomegranate followed the NPC through three consecutive sections of the drawbridge, she realized that trying to forcefully attack this area simply wouldn’t do! The roads here were too narrow for ground troops to pass through on a large scale, and the half-elves had cunningly left some psychic energy traps for all the paths they had to pass through.

Vikrama was sure that those traps could blow up the only way in and out as soon as they were activated, and in a critical moment these half-elves didn’t even need to activate the traps, they only needed to break the drawbridge, which would be enough to make the three consecutive cliffs hundreds of meters high a nightmare for all the attackers.

The only way to enter this place on a large scale is to take to the sky or underground.

For example, when Lady Adele was forced to leave this place twenty-five years ago, she drove a large number of dog-heads to dig tunnels from the ground directly into the Valley of Shadows, or deployed a large enough number of flying soldiers to kill directly into the stronghold of the valley.

From that point of view, the defense of the Valley of the Shadow was far from unbeatable, but the problem was that this valley didn’t have any rare resources or important targets.

Aside from the terrain, the difficulty of attacking it was completely disproportionate to its benefits!

Especially for the Jackals who were going to rush into the continent from Transylvania, this damn place was a true chicken ribs, there was no way they would spend manpower to attack this place and then turn it into an outpost, it was far away from Transylvania.

But on the flip side, if the Transylvanians were going to stop the Jackals nearby, then the terrain of this valley would be perfect.

The half-elves who lived here also understood this very well, they didn’t panic just because the Black Plague was coming, along the way, Adele could find that the valley guards were trained quite well, although they lacked excellent protective gear, the war bows and spears in the hands of these alert guys were by no means extraordinary.

Especially when entering the outskirts of the valley, even Lumina, who was the slowest in scouting, noticed that the half-elves were preparing supplies for the war.

They were placing large bundles of arrows into the various posts, including some psychic arrows that the Shadow Elves had helped make, and there were also things like kerosene and psychic stones being transported out.

On one of the outlying open cliffs connected by wooden ladders and drawbridges, there were also new recruits who had just finished their melee training practicing shooting in the darkness of the night, with a few old elves with fury on their faces training them.

It would not be an exaggeration to describe this valley as “full of martial virtues”.

At least from Sister Pomegranate’s point of view, the defense system and strength here was not as crotchless as they had previously thought.

After all, the Valley of Shadows was built by a group of gladiators who escaped from the elven city, they did not lack power, and living in the unfriendly area of the Barren Mountains for many years had also allowed them to accumulate the wisdom to survive.

They never take the initiative to provoke external enemies, but once there is a bad guy who intends to give them some “pressure”, these half-elves without the lazy and elegant nature of the legendary elves will never be merciful.

“Look! So many tombstones!”

As he stepped into the core area of the Valley of Shadows, Little Vikrama suddenly pointed in a direction and shouted.

Pomegranate and Lumina twisted their heads to look.

Good fellow!
At the edge of a raised cliff, densely packed tombstones formed a cemetery, roughly counting at least three hundred stone monuments there, for elves who had a long lifespan but had a hard time reproducing, this was indeed a terrifying number.

“That’s our heroes’ graveyard.”

A half-elf ranger leading the way explained in a calm tone:

“Only clansmen who died for the valley are qualified to leave a tombstone, cowards only end up in the wilderness here.”

“Wow, your traditions really go well with the brave Transylvanians.”

Lumina commented:

“I think you martial virtue-rich half-elves would live well there.”

“But we already have our own home, and we’re not interested in going anywhere else.”

The elven ranger frowned at the arithmetic jewel on Lumina’s wrist, and he could tell that the strange unintelligible language Lumina spoke was converted to elvish through the thing.

These vampires that had followed Adele back were quite strange.
Pomegranate stood at the intersection to the elven village, she turned her head and looked at the valley in front of her, the valley was divided into several areas, the number of people is quite large but far from rich, the half-elves here live in houses made of stone and wood, there are also some similar to the “kiln” near the rocky location.

She asked:
“We are attendants accompanying Lady Adele back to pay our respects, can we wander around here while Lady Adele pays her respects to her mother?”

“Generally, no!”

The half-elf captain escorting them surveyed the three vampires as he spoke coldly:

“We are not in the habit of inviting strangers into our homes, but Lady Adele’s mother, ‘Freehand’ Mona, is our eternal chieftain and everlasting hero, so you get a little bit of privilege as well.

You are free to move around our village, but you are not allowed to go anywhere but the village! It would be embarrassing for both of us if you were caught in a cage because of unclean hands, so I expect you to fulfill your obligations as unwelcome guests.”

“I’m a hunter!”

Little Vikina flapped her wings and hovered in the air as she patted the Hammerguard on her back and addressed the half-elf captain in front of her:

“I saw the well-made Horned Eagle Bow in your hands, and I think that thing is cool! Can I buy some bows from you guys to take back to my friends? Or exchange tips with your hunters?
We’re just staying for one night anyway.

Do me a favor, I can pay if I have to.”

“Ch, what’s the point of us asking for money here?”

That captain skimmed his lips and took another look at the weapons on Little Vikramana, this guy was obviously a pragmatist who knew his business, so he rolled his eyes and said:

“I myself am the second most powerful hunter in Spectral Shadow Valley besides Elder Penny, I would like to appreciate the art of vampire hunting, but we are all warriors, and there has to be a prize for cutting or something.

How about this.

Let’s compete in archery, if I lose, this purple-shirted wooden war bow from my mother in my hand will be yours, but if you lose.”

“Ha, the cunning half elf has his eye on my hammer guard!”

Little Reed Name laughed as he crossed his arms in the air:
“It seems that you also know that this gun is very powerful, fine, fine, let’s compete, I’m not afraid of someone challenging my shooting skills, but I’m curious, don’t you elves all use bows?”

“Look at this place, guest.”

The half-elf captain grunted and said:
“We’re short of everything here, and if we want to survive in this place, the meaningless traditions of the elves will have to be the first to be thrown out.

I’m not a barbarian who hasn’t seen a musket before, we have brothers and sisters who use them too, those are great weapons that are more destructive at short ranges, the only problem is that Sulphur Flywheel, the halfling warlord from the Hungry Mountains, holds the monopoly on bullets.

That bastard sends us a shipment of supplies every half month, but it’s very expensive, and the ogre caravans from Hungry Mountain can’t get through after the vampires from the Blood League clan set up their defenses at Black Flame Pass.

We have guns, but we’re very short on ammo.”

“Told you so!”

Little Vikrama and Lumina exchanged a glance, and the two little witches immediately opened their psychic packs and threw out a few boxes of bullets produced on Loyal Brother’s side, and also took out two classic Mosin Nagas along the way.

Lumina had long been holding her breath to brush up on her reputation in the Valley of the Darkness, and would see fit to introduce it:

“Although we Transians are as poor as you are, we already have our own arsenal, and the bullets we use aren’t the same style as the Halflings’, but they’re a lot cheaper than their goods.

What you pay for one gold-burning projectile will buy twenty pointed bullets from us!

Come on, try it, my fellow elves”

“Fellow elves? No! How can we humble half-elves be compatriots with the proud moon elves?”

The Ranger Captain of the Valley of Darkness did not refuse the weapon handed to him by Lumina, he made an aiming motion with the classic otherworldly firearm in his hand, playing with the “new weapon” while spitting with a certain resentment:
“In your eyes, we are just lowly evil pariahs! But you moon elves are quite strange, you don’t have that annoying indifference and unwarranted arrogance of other moon elves.”

“Huh? You guys have also met a moon elf?”

Lumina asked:
“Have any moon elves visited you?”

“You’re trying to trap me! Ha, what a clumsy attempt.”

The ranger captain glanced at Lumina and slipped another pointed bullet into the chamber under the guidance of the young reed name, he aimed at a tree branch not far away then pulled the trigger, a thud letting the bullet out to hit the target with precision.

“Good! A weapon with this much accuracy will get recruits through their weakest period before they master the mechanics of the warbow, and with a little training, civilians can use it for self-defense as well. Easier to use than a halfling’s gun, and a little weaker in power but not a big deal.

Just hit the head.”

The ranger captain was pleased with the firearm in his hands.

He turned his head and gave a five sign to Little Vikrama and Lumina and said:
“I want five hundred of them! If you can bring them to us before the Black Plague breaks out, you’ll be friends of the Valley of the Shadow, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know. Oh yeah, haven’t introduced myself yet.

How rude.”

This cold and icy ranger captain showed a slightly fleeting smile as he introduced himself:
“My name is Mekel, Mekel Spectral Blade, the frontline commander of the Valley of the Darkness, and Lisa’s husband.”

“Hey, Mrs. Bernice will want to see you.”

Garnet winked and whispered:

“Your mother-in-law is in our camp, and Lady Adele thought it would be best to have Ms. Lisa prepared before she went to see her, I mean, if you’re concerned about your wife, why don’t you follow us tonight and meet her first?
We have other weapons in our camp that you will need as well.” “Hmm?”

Mekel frowned instantly as he said:
“Ms. Bernice is alive? That’s not right, if they’re alive why don’t they come back? My wife has been missing her parents, could . . something happened to them as well as Adele?”

“It’s a complicated situation that can’t be explained in a sentence or two.”

Vikina rolled her eyes and waved her hand:

“You’ll know if you come down with us and see, don’t worry about us tricking you, you can bring lots of people with you, our elf friends are welcome at our camp and we can finish the shooting contest between you and I there too.

I for one like to make friends!
Especially friends who are good at what they do, so win or lose, I’ll gift you a Hammerguard, and I have several replacement weapons anyway.”

“Friends? Nah! We’re not friends yet.”

Mekel was a bit impressed, but he said coldly:
“I don’t know your Transylvanian understanding of friends, but in the Valley of the Darkness, the word friend is not to be used indiscriminately until blood has been shed for a common cause. Wait for me for a while, I’ll follow you down there after I’ve arranged my defenses.

But we must return before dawn.”
—
“After you were taken by my parents, your mother survived the night with great difficulty, and it was only when dawn came the next day that she drew her last agonizing breath, and all the while in her deathbed trance she was calling out your name.”

In a stone building in the Valley of Shadows that could barely be called a “shrine”, Adele placed a bunch of wildflowers picked from the roadside in front of the sarcophagus where her mother had been laid to rest.

Her childhood friend Lisa Bella stood behind her, playing with a serpentine dagger, and said in a low tone over the flickering candlelight:

“I won’t ask you where my parents went, I know they treated you like their own daughter too, and the fact that they would do anything for me means they would do the same for you. They wouldn’t give up their daughter, and the fact that they didn’t come back is proof that something terrible happened to you on the run.

Alas, it was a disaster.

We lost a fifth of our clan the night you left, many died, more were marauded away, supposedly captured in the goatmen’s earth palace, we tried to rescue them but the goatmen were fierce and we were so weak we had to endure the pain and give them up.

The whole valley nearly collapsed then as a result, but luckily Mekel’s parents were there to preside over the situation and get us stabilized again.

Do you remember them?”

“Are you testing me? Lisa.”

Adele knelt in front of her mother’s sarcophagus, reaching up to rub the inscriptions on that sarcophagus while speaking in a muffled vampire tone:
“You are suspecting that the vampires have taken control of me and are using me as a sharp knife to drive into the hearts of the clan, and it seems that you have grown to be a good alpha, just as you always tried to play the alpha in a group of children, as we used to do when we played as children.

You are much stronger and better than me.

Yes.

I remember Uncle Manu and Aunt Jacques.

Uncle Manu’s left eye was pecked out by the venom of a dark scorpion in the gladiatorial arena, but he is still the best archer among the gladiators of the House of Mejva, and he can easily shoot a lark at a distance of three hundred yards, while Auntie Jacques is a formidable warrior like your mother, and she can fight with a double shield.

She is best at attacking her enemies with her flying shield.

Together with Bella and Aunt Bernice, they became my mother’s escorts and her most trusted friends.

I remember Merkel.

He was a very shy boy who was a constant follower on your ass as a child, and he even picked flowers to confess his love for you the night before the disaster that befell us.”

“Gee whiz, the guy ended up getting his hands on me, I couldn’t help it, there were only so many people in this valley, I had to pull a general out of the short straw, luckily Mekel was very competitive, and with the help of Uncle Manu and Auntie Jacques, he became our ‘Ranger General’.

Oh, it’s just a little captain, but we have to be a little ceremonial.

By the way, Uncle Manu and Auntie Jacques are already the elders of the valley, and they’ll be happy to see you back as well, I’ll take you to meet them in a while.”

It was only when Adele voiced these past memories that Lisa, who had been very wary, revealed her first smile as she whispered:

“Actually, Mekel and I have always wanted a child, and I had already decided that I would name that child Adele, just in honor of the best friend I ever had, and then fate sent you back to me.

I really don’t want to talk politics with you at this point, I’d rather talk with you about the stories we’ve been through with each other over the years, but maybe it’s fate that has brought you back to us at this stormy time.

As your mother once did a miracle, Adele, you may be the one sent by Avalon to save the Valley of the Shadow.”

“Hmm?”

Lady Adele heard a flash of uncertainty from her childhood friend.

She stood up and very discreetly released the spell on her bracelet to make the building isolated from all prying ears, before looking to her best friend.

She said:

“Something happened to you guys? I’m guessing it has something to do with those shadow elves? Was your distaste for us just now feigned? Or was the conversation itself a decoy? I must tell you, Lisa, before you take the next step you must know that Uncle Bella and Aunt Bernice are not as dead as you think.

In fact, they did die.

But they were disturbed from their peace by jackal warlocks and now roam the earth as undead.

They miss you.

Don’t disappoint them.”

“This.”

The valley leader, whose face wasn’t as delicate as Adele’s but could definitely be called beautiful, stared in disbelief; her figure was rather a standard elfin figure, and had nothing to do with Dodo Daemon.

She looked at Adele.

After realizing that Adele wasn’t making a bad joke, this mistress of the Valley of the Shadow clenched her fists.

She hesitated for a long time before she spoke:

“We are not in danger, at least not yet, but at this very moment of your appearance, several of the elders in the valley and I are debating whether or not to actually take in those of the Maejwa family, and I won’t lie to you, Adele.

Mekel and I loathe them, for we know what our fathers suffered in the Eternal Rift.

But many of the clansmen in the valley don’t feel the same way.

Especially now that we have confirmed the destruction of House Mejva, many believe that we should absorb the escaped Shadow Elves, who hold in their hands the spellcasting power we need.

And their leader is a life-weaving maiden!
You know those priestesses of the Spider Lady can foretell fate, and we need their prophecies.”

“Is it true that the Mejva family is overthrown? Why? Was it because of the machinations of the Shadow Elves?”

Adele trailed off:

“And why would they come running to join you? That doesn’t make any sense!”

“That family died in a natural disaster.”

Lisa whispered:
“We don’t know the specifics, but after they first appeared over a year ago, we sent a team of farseers who ventured back across the Dark Mountains to the Eternity Rift for reconnaissance, that was led by Elder Penny herself, and she came back to confirm that the city of Medjevar had indeed fallen.

Monsters pouring out of the Dark Regions had taken over there, the Lord Mother of Mejva and her warrior chiefs had disappeared, and the entire city had been turned into an inferno.

As for the specifics, those Shadow Elf exiles never said anything.

The reason they came running to us is because of a prophecy made by their life-weaving maiden, who said that she could find a chance to bring the Mejva family back to prominence here.”

“A prophecy? That just doesn’t sound plausible.”

Adele scoffed at that, and she said:

“Where is that life-weaving maiden? Can I meet her?”

“She is missing.”

Lisa said with a helpless sigh:

“That’s the worst thing that’s happened in the valley in the last month, to be precise, she’s been kidnapped. That fool took a couple of Sword Bards to try and establish contact with those difficult Blood League vampires in the Black Flame Pass, but they were ambushed by goatmen on their return.

Several of the Sword Bards were seriously injured, and the unlucky Fate Weaver Maiden was captured and taken to Baphomet Canyon, where those Shadow Elves are compelling my people to try to convince us to send someone to rescue their Seer, and I’m having a headache over it.

But you have come just in time!
You said you brought warriors from Transylvania?
It just so happens that I have a job for them here, and I’m eager to make sure that they are truly fearless”

(End of chapter)