The Elven Cultivator

Chapter 204: Chapter 193: The 3 Stages of the Dragon Slaying War

In Anton’s memory, the Dragon Slaying War lasted for more than fifty years before it was finally over.

It was a catastrophe that swept across the entire Dawn Continent.

Countless races and factions were drawn into the conflict, and innumerable lives were lost in the flames of war.

Even Legendary Powerhouses were like candles in the wind during that war, liable to be extinguished at any moment.

To put it simply, this protracted war could be divided into three stages.

The first stage was a bloody battle of attrition.

It was also known as the "meat-grinder battlefield."

The Dragon Court possessed a uniquely advantageous geographical position.

It was situated deep within the Holy Dragon Mountain Range, encircled by the Storm Rift Abyss.

The so-called Storm Rift Abyss was a massive, bottomless chasm left behind from the collision of tectonic movement and elemental energy at the dawn of the continent. It perpetually surged with incredibly violent elemental energies.

These energies erupted from deep within the earth’s crust, colliding with the air currents in the sky to form an unceasing magical storm.

Lightning, hail, fire, hurricanes... All kinds of elemental energies wove together into a destructive canopy above the abyss. Any living creature that entered would be torn to shreds in an instant.

Not even a Saint could survive it.

It was a natural forbidden zone of death that isolated the Dragon Court from the outside world.

There was only one safe passage through the Storm Rift Abyss.

Darkness Fortress.

It was a giant fortress built at the sole entrance to the abyss.

It spanned both sides of the chasm like a colossal iron lock, sealing the gate to the Dragon Court shut.

If the allied forces wanted to invade the Dragon Court deep within the Holy Dragon Mountain Range, they had to take Darkness Fortress. There was no other way.

In the original history, the Dragon Court and the allied forces of the Ten Thousand Races had thrown tens of millions of soldiers at Darkness Fortress, resulting in millions of deaths.

The number of fallen Legendary Powerhouses even reached the double digits.

That was the deadliest stage of the entire Dragon Slaying War.

The allied forces spent a full ten years breaking through Darkness Fortress.

Afterward, the allied forces thought victory was within their grasp, but what awaited them beyond Darkness Fortress was not a clear path to the Dragon Court, but a chaotic expanse.

The Holy Dragon Mountain Range had been the Dragon Race’s most sacred burial ground since ancient times.

Over the long ages, whenever a Giant Dragon died, the Dragon Race would use an ancient draconic ritual to seal the deceased Dragon’s Dragon Soul, Dragon Blood, and the essence of the dragon veins into the earth.

Ten thousand years of accumulation, layered one on top of another.

The draconic essence contained within the veins of the Holy Dragon Mountain Range had grown to an unimaginably vast scale.

When the Dragon Court sensed the impending crisis of their race’s extinction, the Giant Dragons made a crazed decision.

They detonated the ten thousand years of accumulated essence sealed within the earth’s veins, tearing apart and reshaping the area between the Dragon Court and Darkness Fortress into a semi-independent Subspace.

It wasn’t a spatial barrier in the ordinary sense, but a twisted space fraught with danger.

It existed between the material plane and the elemental planes, yet was independent of both.

To reach the Dragon Court, one had to traverse this Subspace.

It was, in effect, another Darkness Fortress.

Thus, the allied forces dispatched numerous powerhouses into the Subspace, engaging the Dragon Race in a forty-year-long battle within this bizarre dimension.

That was the second stage of the Dragon Slaying War.

This stage had no single, unified name.

Some called it the "Myriad Dragon Nest Domain."

Others simply called it "Meat Grinder Stage Two."

But the most common name was the Battle of the Blood Domain.

Compared to the bloody attrition of the first stage, the scale of the Battle of the Blood Domain was much smaller.

The unique structure of the Subspace meant it couldn’t accommodate large-scale legions.

Furthermore, the entrance to the space was restricted, allowing only a small number of living beings to enter at a time.

Massive battles involving hundreds of thousands or even millions of soldiers were simply impossible here.

Instead, it was a theater of small-scale, high-frequency, high-intensity conflicts.

In this mode of combat, the prowess of individuals and elite squads was magnified to the extreme.

To break through the Subspace, the allied forces invested a vast amount of elite power into the Battle of the Blood Domain. It took them forty years to finally shatter this last barrier standing in their way.

After this, the allied forces finally reached Holy Dragon City.

The war entered its final stage.

The top powerhouses of the five great races fought a decisive battle against the Lord of the Dragon Court and killed him. Subsequently, the five-race allied army invaded the Dragon Court and annihilated the Dragon Race’s holy land. The Dragon Race, which had ruled the continent for ten thousand years, was completely removed from the stage of history.

This war, which in the original history wasn’t supposed to truly begin until the year 9946 of the Chenxi Calendar, had now started nearly six hundred years early.

The change in timing meant that many details would also change.

But Anton believed that the overall course of the war and its key turning points wouldn’t deviate too much.

After all, the direction of a war wasn’t determined by the actions of a single person, but by the balance of power between the two sides and the constraints of the geopolitical landscape.

As long as these fundamentals didn’t change, the war’s progression would not be drastically different.

Knowing the future, Anton naturally wouldn’t let the Silver Moon Clan participate in the bloody attrition of the first stage.

The Clan’s population couldn’t withstand that level of consumption.

The six-thousand-strong Silver Moon Legion was a force to be reckoned with on the Eldron Plain, but if thrown into a meat grinder like Darkness Fortress with its tens of millions of combatants, they wouldn’t even make a splash.

The price for a small share of the spoils of war would be the entire Clan suffering a grievous blow to its strength, perhaps even one from which it could never recover.

Anton wouldn’t make such a losing proposition.

Supporting the allied forces with supplies—providing them with potions, Talismans, and metals at below-market prices—was the greatest show of sincerity he could offer without damaging the Clan’s foundation.

Back then, the Jade Royal Court had demanded the Silver Moon Clan become their vassal in exchange for opening partial trading rights.

Now, the Silver Moon Clan was similarly opening partial trading rights to the Jade Royal Court, and at a reduced price, so the Jade Royal Court wasn’t losing out.

This was enough.

Anton’s goal from the very beginning had always been the second stage: the Battle of the Blood Domain.

In the Battle of the Blood Domain, the allied forces had to rely on powerful individuals and small, elite teams.

To incentivize more powerhouses to enter the Subspace, the allied forces offered extremely generous bounties.

Similarly, the Dragon Court would also dispatch large numbers of Giant Dragons into the Subspace to engage the allied forces on all fronts and prevent them from destroying the Subspace.

For Anton, this was without a doubt a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

He could use this chance to obtain a large quantity of rare materials that were normally difficult to acquire.

He could improve the quality of his Sword Pill by hunting Giant Dragons.

On this unique battlefield, his Sword Pill could very well receive an epic-level enhancement.

Anton’s plan was to stay out of the bloody attrition phase of the Dragon Slaying War and develop his strength in peace.

Once the war entered the Battle of the Blood Domain, he would lead the Clan’s elite squads to join in and make a huge profit.

This way, the Clan would not waste precious development time, and would also successfully avoid the deadliest phase of the war, ensuring any potential losses to the Clan were kept within a manageable range.

It was killing two birds with one stone.

Although the three elders didn’t know the history, their trust in Anton was such that they agreed after only a moment’s thought.

A problem that could be solved with resources was indeed not worth sacrificing the Clan’s people over.

As for Eleanor, it went without saying; she always followed Anton’s lead.

"There’s one more thing." Anton suddenly changed the subject. "I plan to hold a second aptitude test within the Clan."

Upon hearing this, the three elders’ spirits were instantly lifted.

"Wonderful," the Third Elder spoke first, his face wreathed in smiles. "I’ve been wanting to bring this up with you for a while, but I was afraid you were too busy and didn’t dare to ask."

The Great Elder and Second Elder also had irrepressible smiles on their faces.

They had been closely watching the progress of the twelve children recruited previously.

Every one of them was not yet twenty, yet they already possessed strength comparable to the middle or upper Black Iron Rank.

This would have been unimaginable in the past.

One had to understand that many underage Elves of this age had only just begun their training and hadn’t even reached the White Rank in strength.

It could only be said that Anton’s cultivation system was far too powerful.

Of course, the aptitude requirements were also extremely stringent.

If Anton hadn’t said that cultivating the Dao required a Spirit Root—something not everyone possessed—they would have eagerly had him take all the appropriately aged children in the clan as his disciples.

"Clan Leader, are the recruitment conditions the same as before?" Eleanor asked.

Anton pondered for a moment before saying, "We’ll relax the conditions this time. Any underage Elf in the Clan can participate in the test."

Times were different now. The Clan controlled vast resources, more than enough to support several hundred people cultivating the Dao simultaneously.

Of course, for those Elves who had already started on the Dawn Continent’s training system and condensed their Magic Power, switching paths would mean that most of their previous efforts would be wasted. Moreover, they might not be able to adapt to the new system, and their path of cultivation would be even more difficult than that of children who had never trained before.

How they chose would be up to them.

In fact, the Silver Moon Clan’s development system was now beginning to take shape.

Those with a Spirit Root would walk the path of Dao cultivation.

For those without, Warriors would follow the legacy of physical power, and Casters would follow the Seed Pill Technique.

Everyone had a bright future.

"Eleanor, you’ll arrange the student recruitment. The testing method will be the same as last time," Anton said, turning to the Elf Maiden beside him.

"Yes, Clan Leader," Eleanor replied, though she was already calculating inwardly.

’Looks like I’ll have to change my plans. The Document Hall will need to hire at least two or three times more people.’

’The number of new students will definitely far exceed the last batch, and since Anton is busy with the construction of Taichu City and has no time to teach, I’ll have to handle most of the basic courses.’

’Fortunately, Laine and the others have matured enough that they can help out and take on some of the simpler teaching tasks.’

’It will both lighten my burden and help them develop their abilities—killing two birds with one stone.’

As Eleanor was pondering, Anton’s voice reached her ears again.

"Elves who walk the path of Dao cultivation are different from Warriors and Casters in the traditional sense. From now on, they will all be called Cultivators and be classified as disciples of Taichu City."

"Henceforth, all Elves who meet the age requirement can apply for the aptitude test. As long as they meet the conditions, they will immediately be granted the status of a Taichu City disciple."