As the undisputed hero of this battle, Big Brother Slime was surrounded by excited soldiers of the Restoration Army, cheering and expressing their respect and affection for this golden warrior in various ways.
If not for Big Brother Slime's pure gold body being too heavy, the soldiers would have even wanted to toss it high into the air in celebration.
Even so, it was inevitable that some young soldiers, with awe and curiosity, would quietly reach out to touch its body, as if touching good fortune and wealth.
Big Brother Slime hummed with a hint of embarrassment; it wasn't very accustomed to this kind of enthusiastic scene of being surrounded by crowds.
But soon, its attention returned to the changes happening within its body.
Mmm... it feels different.
It carefully sensed it. During the fight with that human holding the stone shield just now, it felt like something had broken through.
It felt not only that its strength had increased, but that it had become more obedient. When swinging its short sword, the force was greater, and the feeling of impact against the shield was more solid.
More importantly, those Slime skills it had developed through long-term combat seemed to have undergone a transformation during that duel just now, as if forming a true Slime Warrior skill system.
But the King would surely know what was going on.
Thinking of that always wise King, Big Brother Slime set its doubts aside, relaxed, squinted its eyes, and began to enjoy the soldiers' respectful and curious touches, its dark golden body gently undulating comfortably in the sunlight.
Meanwhile, at the center of the battlefield, on the edge of the charred, molten area left by the Alchemical Cannon, Louisa and Celeste stood side by side, watching the scene before them and falling into prolonged contemplation.
Although they had long known of the existence of this Alchemical Cannon forged by the Slime Kingdom and had heard of its illustrious battle achievements in wiping out several demonic lords in the Southern Territory, when they personally witnessed that blazing white light column, like the breath of an ancient dragon, engulf Raymond along with his giant rock shield, they still couldn't help feeling a shock.
In the epics and legends passed down in the White Horse Kingdom, professional warriors who could step into the realm of The Extraordinary could already be revered as heroes.
They stood at the pinnacle of mortal power, each path of advancement representing the exploration and mastery of the extreme limits of some kind of power or skill.
Raymond Sterling, a Shield-Lance Knight, whose defensive power was among the top even among Extraordinary professionals.
Yet, such an Extraordinary professional almost couldn't withstand a single blow from the Alchemical Cannon. Although Raymond was only a beginner-level Level 10 Extraordinary professional, this was enough to illustrate the terror of this alchemical weapon.
This also made Louisa, who considered herself the collaborator who best understood the Slime Kingdom's foundations, refresh her Understanding once again.
That Little Majesty has been acting mysteriously lately, who knows what he's tinkering with. He's probably still accumulating even more terrifying power.
And fortunately, she was not an enemy of these slimes.
At that moment, Alice walked over. She had removed her dust-covered war helmet, her ponytail gently swaying in the breeze, appearing heroic and graceful.
She saluted Louisa and Celeste, then asked, "Your Highness, Lady Celeste, the garrison city has fallen, the enemy forces have scattered. What should we do next?"
Louisa withdrew her thoughts and looked toward the nearby, ruined Chester Garrison City.
"Knight Commander Alice, Chester Garrison City is the most important land route checkpoint on the Demon Legion's Supply Lines in the Southern Territory. Those demons entrenched in the Royal Capital and their remaining noble allies in the south will never give up this place easily."
"So your primary task now is to immediately retreat and garrison Chester, clear out the remaining enemies, and begin rebuilding the defensive fortifications, completely isolating the demon forces in the north from the garrison city in the south. That will require you to be on high alert, strictly guarding against possible counterattacks or Backstabs."
She paused, then continued, "I need you to immediately request more support from the Slime Kingdom via the Gel Network, specifically dispatching those Slime artisans skilled in rapid construction. At the same time, we need at least one or more Extraordinary professionals stationed at Chester long-term to deal with potential threats."
Alice nodded, taking note, then raised another question, "Your Highness, in our agreed cooperation with the orc Palaver, it includes not only recapturing the Southern Territory but also advancing north to liberate the coastal ports in the eastern part of the Kingdom, opening landing channels for the orc army. The reconstruction and defense of Chester will consume a large amount of time and manpower. Do we need to... delay the northward advance plan?"
Upon hearing this, Louisa's lips curled into a meaningful smile. She didn't answer directly but instead spoke through the Gel Network, "Liberating the eastern ports, allowing the orcs' longboats to continuously transport their warriors onto the coast, threatening the Demon Legion from the flank... that indeed sounds like a good strategy and could also share our frontal pressure."
"However, Alice, personally leading a powerful orc army into the heart of the Kingdom is equivalent to us personally opening another Pandora's box. The ambition and strength of the orc Palaver and Karl are not necessarily much smaller than those of the Demon Legion entrenched in the Royal Capital. Cooperating with them requires constant vigilance and maintaining control."
"Of course, specific strategic adjustments and timing choices still need to be discussed in detail with His Majesty before a final decision is made."
"Now there is an urgent task for you to handle. Arrange the schedules of those orc overseers, ensure they don't learn more, and at the same time, tactfully remind them that rebuilding the garrison city and stabilizing the Southern Territory takes time, and the northward advance plan may need to be slightly delayed."
Alice accepted the order, "Yes, Your Highness."
Louisa then looked toward the side, at the Grand Mage Lawrence, who was tied up tightly with vines, had a rag stuffed in his mouth, and was glaring at them with terrified and furious eyes.
"As for this one..." Louisa's tone was flat, "Lawrence Vine, a formal mage from the Jade City Academy of Astrology and Elemental Studies, said to have considerable attainment in both Abjuration and Evocation schools."
"I think our Little Majesty, who is always full of interest in knowledge and talent, should be quite interested in him. Send him back to Slime City along with the spoils of war, consider it a gift from me to the Little Majesty."
Upon hearing the words "sent back to Slime City" and "gift," the tied-up Lawrence immediately thought of the Demon King and the Demon King's lair, struggling agitatedly, making "mmph" sounds in his throat.
Celeste walked over and kicked him without any courtesy.
"What, scared now? Too late."
As she spoke, she bent down, leaned close to Lawrence's ear, and whispered in a voice only the two of them could hear, "You burned my feathers. I can't guarantee what those slimes will do to you on the journey ahead."
Hearing this, Lawrence struggled even more violently, tears of despair streaming down his face.
...
No one would be more concerned about the outcome of the Chester Garrison City defensive battle than the nobles and merchants of the Misty Bay Harbor Trade Alliance.
On the night the war ended, urgent magical messages crossed the vast distance, delivering the battle report back to this sleepless port city.
Adrian stood under the tall arched colonnade of the "Sea Goddess and Scales Meeting Hall." The night sea breeze, carrying the salty, damp smell and the scent of distant ship lights, passed through the dock district and brushed against his cheeks.
Looking up, the night scene of Misty Bay Harbor was still bustling—the faint noise of taverns and gambling dens could be heard in the distance, the forest of masts in the dock district stood like a black forest, and the hanging storm lanterns resembled fallen stars.
But tonight, all these familiar sights made him feel an unprecedented sense of strangeness and unease.
As the first noble to discover the Slimes' commercial activities in the southern kingdoms, he not only closely followed news from the south but also paid attention to the war in the Southern Territory to the north.
This was because the gemstone business operated by his family sourced its raw ores from mines on the outskirts of Ronnan City.
Now that place had fallen. Whether Chester Garrison City could hold was related to the century-old foundation of his family.
He hadn't been able to sleep at all during this period, staying in his mansion every day, waiting for battle reports sent back from the Southern Territory.
That feeling of shock, anger, and hidden worry seemed like it was just yesterday, and tonight... holding the parchment in his hand, the brief yet bloody words on it made his heart sink to the bottom once again.
Garrison city fallen, Sterling dead, church defected, demons appeared then fled... each word was like an icy dagger, stabbing his most sensitive nerves.
And the last time he had been urgently summoned to the Meeting Hall in the dead of night like this was when the "Gold Lionheart Fortress" fell.
It seemed this time, not only for him, but for the Merchant Alliance, it was an even bigger trouble.
He took a deep breath, pushed open the Meeting Hall's heavy Oak Gate, and walked inside.
As he took his seat in the conference hall, as expected, when those usually well-dressed nobles and councilors gathered again in this grand hall, there was no usual clamor or debate, but instead a suffocating silence.
The flames in the fireplace burned, casting flickering light and shadows, yet unable to dispel the coldness and despair permeating the air.
There were no more impassioned speeches, not even anyone whispering.
He saw a jewelry merchant usually known for his calm shrewdness, using a hand trembling violently to repeatedly wipe his monocle, then having to use his other hand to firmly press down on his wrist just to barely put the glasses back on his nose.
Everyone present understood what the fall of Chester Garrison City meant.
It wasn't just the loss of a fortress.
It meant the second-largest land trade route, which the Merchant Alliance had painstakingly opened over several generations, investing countless gold coins and effort, was completely severed.
It meant their rich gemstone mines, grain-producing regions, magical plant collection sites in the Southern Territory... all the industries and wealth accumulated over generations would rapidly melt away like ice and snow under the sun, devoured by the Slime Kingdom's seemingly insatiably greedy Demon King and its minions.
Their wealth was disappearing, their foundations of power were shaking.
And while the Demon King who brought all this and its puppet army were certainly hateful, the betrayal of those Xirik cultists was even harder for these nobles and merchants, accustomed to controlling everything and skilled at calculation, to bear.
The deathly silence was finally broken.
A white-haired, stern-faced old noble from the Caldwell faction suddenly slammed the oak long table before him with a loud "bang," startlingly loud in the silent hall.
He stood up, his voice trembling slightly with excitement, full of suppressed anger.
"Damn it! I said it long ago, those crazy, unpredictable cultists who only hide in the shadows are utterly untrustworthy. Their ideas were filled with madness and unpredictability from the start."
"Cooperating with these evil fellows is simply pushing the Merchant Alliance into a bottomless abyss."
This sentence seemed to open the floodgates. From the seats, other councilors' long-suppressed condemnations gradually sounded.
"Shortsighted lunatics, they've destroyed the entire southern front!"
"Treacherous and faithless. They took our gold coins, then used that damned sacred relic to blast apart our City Wall."
"These cultists must pay the price. The dignity of the Merchant Alliance cannot be desecrated!"
"We shouldn't have listened to the Thoth faction's instigation back then, cooperating with these Rats from The Abyss."
Anger needed an outlet, and responsibility for the crushing defeat had to be borne by someone. The Thoth faction councilors sat in their seats, their faces growing increasingly grim.
Although the decision to cooperate with the church had been passed by a majority vote in the Council, at this moment, under the overwhelming anger and the shadow of defeat, logic and the past no longer mattered.
The Thoth faction, as the main proponents of the cooperation, naturally became the target of public criticism, shouldering the greatest responsibility for the defeat.
Facing the councilors' unquenchable anger and increasingly sharp accusations, the representative figure of the Caldwell faction, Simon, slowly stood up.
His gaze slowly swept across the hall, finally settling on the wealthy merchant Thoth, who had remained silent, his face pale.
Then he spoke.
"Gentlemen, anger cannot recover our losses, but clarity can prevent us from repeating our mistakes."
"Let us recall, who repeatedly assured us that the risks of cooperating with the Xirik Church were controllable? Who claimed those cultists held the key power to counter the Demon King? And who, in previous meetings, pushed through the motion to cooperate with those cultists, overriding all opposition, even resorting to some less-than-honorable lobbying tactics?"
His gaze pinned Thoth down like a physical weight.
"Mr. Thoth, and the faction you represent, you not only made a fatal error in strategic judgment, but more importantly..."
He paused, took out a thin document from his robe, and waved it demonstratively, "We have obtained solid evidence proving that certain councilors of the Thoth faction have financial and political dealings with the Xirik Church that go far beyond the scope of cooperation, as well as secret collusion that may endanger the fundamental interests of the Merchant Alliance."
When this evidence was once again presented by Simon, due to the fall of Chester Garrison City, the councilors' reaction was much stronger than in previous meetings.
Although in the last meeting, Simon himself and the Caldwell faction he represented had also voted in favor of the motion to cooperate with the church.
But at this moment, with public sentiment agitated and a scapegoat needed, this point seemed to become irrelevant.
On the contrary, because the Caldwell faction had long maintained vigilance and opposition toward the infiltration of the Xirik Church, this now became proof of their "political correctness" and "foresight," instead winning the resonance and support of most councilors.
Simon was also deeply worried about his family's business in the Southern Territory; it was almost one of the Caldwell family's important pillars.
The enormous losses made his heart bleed.
But amidst this pile of bad news, as a political animal, he keenly saw a new opportunity—a perfect chance to completely overthrow the old rival Thoth faction and firmly grasp the Council's leadership in the hands of the Caldwell faction.
He began to deliver an inflammatory speech, sharply criticizing the Thoth faction's incompetence, shortsightedness, and corruption, completely attributing the crushing defeat in the Southern Territory to the opponent's erroneous leadership and suspicious collusion.
He called for, for the future of the Merchant Alliance, the need to clean house and rebuild a purer, more effective leadership core.
Driven by the shadow of defeat and fear for the future, many neutral and wavering councilors quickly sided with the Caldwell faction.
Soon, a motion demanding the dissolution of the Thoth faction's organizational presence in the Council, the stripping of the main members' councilor qualifications, and the initiation of an investigation against Thoth himself was urgently submitted and put to a vote.
The result of the vote was unsurprising.
With the strong push of the Caldwell faction and the concurrence of most councilors, the motion passed with an overwhelming majority.
Thoth sat in his seat, his face as pale as paper, his lips trembling, yet unable to utter any sound.
He watched helplessly as the political power he had painstakingly built and carefully maintained for decades collapsed overnight, reduced to nothing, due to a distant defeat and the meticulously planned political attack by his opponents.
What destroyed him was not only the Slime's cannon fire but also the church he had once trusted and the ruthless, merciless political rules within the Council.
After the opposition was purged, and Thoth and the Thoth faction councilors left the hall under the "escort" of guards, the Meeting Hall seemed to become much cleaner all at once.
Simon stood near the seats originally belonging to the Thoth faction, looking at the slightly empty hall, feeling the gazes of the surrounding councilors upon him. A sense of power, as if he could control everything, spontaneously arose.
He felt he had never been so tall.
But the taste of ecstasy and power was fleeting. The survival crisis brought by the Slime Kingdom did not disappear with the fall of the Thoth faction; on the contrary, it became even more imminent with the complete loss of the Southern Territory.
There was no time for celebration or rest. If the crisis brought by the Slime Kingdom could not be resolved, then the next to fall would be the Caldwell faction.
Under Simon's leadership, the remaining councilors forced themselves to rally and began discussing new topics overnight.
The core of the topics was only two—how to deal with the situation in the Southern Territory? How to defend against, or even counterattack, the Slime Kingdom?
The firewood in the fireplace was added again and again, and the attendants replaced the wine round after round.
Arguments, calculations, compromises, curses... Amidst the pervasive anxiety and the smell of tobacco, time passed bit by bit. The sky outside the window gradually turned from deep black to indigo blue, and a sliver of fish-belly white appeared on the horizon at the edge of the sea.
Before dawn, the exhausted councilors finally reached difficult consensus and resolutions.
First, the Merchant Alliance needed to continue gathering forces and organize a counteroffensive.
Mobilize the Merchant Alliance's reserve of elite mercenaries, stockpiled strategic supplies, contact the remaining noble forces in areas of the Southern Territory not yet completely out of control, and at all costs, launch a large-scale counterattack to recapture Chester Garrison City and reopen the southern trade route.
Second, regarding the Slime Kingdom.
Authorize the large mercenary groups stationed in the western border of the Merchant Alliance to launch a holy war against the Slime Demon King, spreading the flames of war into the territory of the Slime Kingdom to divert their attention from the Southern Territory.
When the final resolution was passed and stamped with the seal of the Merchant Alliance's highest Council, the first rays of morning light had already brightened the eastern horizon. Golden-red Light pierced through the clouds, shining on the undulating rooftops of Misty Bay Harbor and the sparkling sea.
Yet, in the hearts of everyone in the Meeting Hall, the weight remained as heavy as lead.