San Jose, Kyoto City, Red Fort

The Emperor of Benin has been in a good mood lately, since the outbreak of the war between the Nine Nation Merchant Alliance and the Desik Empire, the cabinet ministers have been in pre-imperial meetings every day, busy discussing the current situation of the war.

San Jose, as a great power, is also attracted to the war on the mainland these days, and when the cabinet ministers are focused on the war in the northwest every day, few people come to disturb the Emperor of Benin. In the past few days, he has been staying with Master Mo Ning, and Master Mo Ning's magic lamp has made the Emperor of Benin want to ~ immortal death.

Aking up from his blurred vision once more, the Emperor of Benin opened his wistful eyes and stared blankly at the large lavish table in front of him, the blue magic lamp slowly extinguishing. A middle-aged mage, dressed in a gold-rimmed white robe, was tidying up.

"Master Monin, how long has it been this time?" Benin sobered up for a moment, "Your Majesty, it's not too long. ”

"Well, Master Moning, I know that this magical gadget is getting more and more addictive to me now, but I always feel that it's not a big deal, what do you say?"

Master Morning bowed, "You are the emperor of San Jose, and the court magicians are all servants at your service, of course, it's not a big deal. ”

The Emperor of Benin shook his head slowly and sighed, "But someone doesn't think so!"

Mo Ning left the emperor's room and turned to the imperial meeting next door, the conference room was quiet, everyone was checking the documents, and Master Mo Ning walked up to an old man at the table, "Minister Dirk, the emperor is free." ”

The Emperor of Benin was stunned for a while, and then he saw several cabinet ministers and walked into the house one after another, "You guys are here, how is the situation in the west?"

Dirk and the others sat down and opened the document in their hands, "Your Majesty! The border offensive and defensive battle between the Desik and the Shang Alliance is over, and the Desik people have won." At present, the losses of the merchant alliance are not large, but they have lost almost all the border fortresses, and now they have to retreat to the Verdun area northeast of Manning, relying on the Langs Mountain to reorganize the defensive line. ”

"Well, what about the Desik?"

Dirk continued, "The Desikhs, it seems, are fighting a protracted war, and it has been reported that the Desikhs have built a huge camp near the Dunkirk Bridge, which they call the Forward Base in their own country, and more than 70,000 soldiers are resting in this camp, and it is estimated that there will be a next move soon. ”

"Oh," replied the Emperor of Benin, "is there any other news, Dirk?" ”

Chief Minister Dirk put down the document in his hand, "The news, more or less, is still there, but it is all rumors. Your Majesty, the most important thing for us in San José right now is probably how to view this war, and this is something that several of us have been arguing about for the past three days. As he spoke, he pointed to the people behind him, where the Minister of State, Berish, the Foreign Secretary, Langton, and the War Secretary, Earl Mosick, were all seated.

"Let's talk about it. Benin waved his hand.

"Oh, wait a minute, Your Majesty, the Grand Magister of Merlin will be here soon, I have already asked Master Moning to invite, the battle of Dunkirk, something very unusual happened. ”

"Do you mean that dark magic appears on the battlefield?" the Emperor of Benin suddenly became interested and sat up.

"Yes, Your Majesty—" Before Dirk could finish speaking, Archmage Merlin, dressed in purple robes, stepped into the room.

"Hehehe, don't look at me all, Your Majesty, I've just received a summons, so I'm hurrying here, Minister Dirk, you go on!" Merlin smiled and sat down, motioning Dirk to continue.

"Yes, Your Majesty", Dirk continued, "although I am not a direct participant in the war, but this war is also affecting my country in all aspects..."

Dirk's words are mainly divided into several aspects:

First, the two sides of the war are the other two countries on the mainland, the Desik Empire and the Nine Nations Business Alliance. Desik does not say that the merchant alliance is a large commercial and trading country, after the war stopped, San José's trade routes from the merchant alliance to trade all kinds of special products were almost cut off, and at present, except for a small amount of trade on the border of Tra, the commercial action of the entire Morro River waterway has almost stopped.

Second, the Desik Empire had nearly 100,000 troops on the border of the Shang League. According to Count Mosik, the mad Emperor Desik, Edward VI, should have drawn a large number of troops from the southern generals who were originally guarding the border of the Morro River (Note 1), and the southern generals added a large number of new soldiers under his command. This is good for San Jose for the time being, at least, the pressure on the border will be much less.

Thirdly, in the Battle of Dunkirk, the combat effectiveness shown by the soldiers of the Shang Alliance was quite fragile. It took only three days for the entire canyon defense line to be completely broken. You must know that the Shang Alliance has been operating this line of defense for more than two full years, and similarly, their newly formed army is very average in strength.

Fourth, the Desik soldiers are the best in the world, but it was mainly the dark mages who helped them win the Battle of Dunkirk.

Of course, the last point, Dirk only briefly mentioned it, and then sat down, looking at the Grand Magister Merlin calmly.

"Merlin, tell me about it. The Emperor of Benin spoke.

"Then I'll talk about it!" Merlin smiled and stood up and walked to the middle of the room.

I saw him close his eyes, silently recite a few incantations, and with a wave of his big hand, the table in front of Benin, including all kinds of paper, pens, and metal table clocks on the table, flew up one after another, spun several times in the air, and then slowly fell into a corner of the room, and the center of the room was empty.

Several of the ministers in the room seemed to be accustomed to it. This Merlin Archmagister has always been an outlier among court magicians. Most of the magicians are mature and stable types, but Merlin never forgets to be in the limelight and loves to joke, and he doesn't have the demeanor of a grand magister at all.

But who knows, it's been so many years since magic waned.

Merlin's movements did not stop, and in front of him, several multicolored rays of light appeared, and the rays of light were rearranged, and soon, the outline of a large area of terrain was formed.

"This is the topography of the canyon area, this is the Dunkirk Bridge, this is the Highland Bridge, this is the Lowland Bridge, and this is the Morro River. The red pile is Desik's attack cluster, and the blue pile is the defense line of the Shang Alliance. Then, notice that this mass is black, and this is the dead of those two regiments that the dark mage has obscured with spatial magic. ”

The people in the room were interested, watching intently as the Grand Magister Merlin magically performed the course of the battle.

"The battle itself in the early stage is very normal", Merlin continued to demonstrate, "Later, these dark magicians, using space magic, directly sent the dead soldiers of the two regiments to the rear of the Shang Alliance's defense line, which is here, this group is black. As he spoke, Merlin stretched out his other hand and pointed to the light of the demonstration, "They appeared in the rear and disrupted the layout of the Shang League's defensive line, and in a hurry, the commander of the Shang Alliance mobilized the defenders of the Dunkirk defensive line. Five hours later, the Dunkirk Bridge, which was desperately short of manpower, was declared a failure. ”

Merlin waved his hand, and the various colors of light in the air began to gradually peel away, flying into the air and then dissipating, and soon, only the black mist remained, "This is it, this is a space magic." ”

After talking for a long time, Merlin finally got to the point, and everyone present was a little embarrassed, Master Merlin was good at everything, but he loved to show some of it.

With a long time of effort, the court magicians finally found a key record in the pile of old papers in the Great Library.

In the era of the Magic Empire, there was an elemental magic called the Dark Veil, which was able to create an absolute dark barrier, and within the scope of the barrier, nothing could penetrate, including light.

In addition, there is also a magic in the space branch of the spiritual system, which can carry more than 10,000 people to instantly transfer a distance of about five miles through the combination of magic arrays and spells. It was a forbidden spell, the name was no longer known, and even in the most glorious years of the Magic Empire, there were no more than five magicians who could use it.

The Minister of War, Count Mosik, suddenly stood up, "In other words, you haven't found out exactly what magic the Desik used, and we don't know the conditions for the use of this magic, how many people can be teleported by this magic and how far away?

"Ah!" Count Mosic's words caused an uproar, and everyone was startled by his thoughts.

"No, no, no, it can't be!" Merlin quickly interrupted the Minister of War, "The use of magic is conditional, and with this kind of magic, every time you teleport one more person, or one more mile you teleport, the magic elements consumed will increase exponentially. Otherwise, at that time, De Sick's 6,000 people would not have only teleported to three miles behind the Shang Alliance's defense line. ”

"That's good!" everyone, including the Emperor of Benin, breathed a sigh of relief, "It's okay, it's okay!" Although everyone didn't say anything, their actions still showed that everyone was scared.

"Count Mosik is a layman," Dirk stood up and rounded, "but he's right, Grand Magus Merlin, the court magician must find out how well the Desik have mastered dark magic, and at what stage." Now, although it is a war between the Shang Alliance and the Desiks, who can say for sure this kind of thing. If war breaks out between us and Desik one day, we must avoid being attacked by the magic of the Desik, and this is what you court magicians should do. ”

"Yes, Chancellor Dirk is right," said the Emperor of Benin, "and, moreover, there is one thing that I find even more strange. Why, Desik, would suddenly use dark mages in war! You know, Deciks have hated magic for thousands of years, who can answer my question?"

The room fell silent and everyone stopped talking. This question is indeed strange, according to Merlin, this dark magic consumes a huge amount of magic elements, and it is not that advanced magicians can't use it at all, so where did this dark magician come from?

Note 1: The Morro River is the natural boundary line separating Desique and San Jose. The border of the Morro River here refers to the border between the two countries.