Chapter 1313: The Rear Front

Regarding the blasted lands of Gondor to the south, High Lord Gawain had prepared countless contingency plans—plans within plans, and backups for those backups. Sometimes, even Hetty and Rebecca thought he was overdoing it. Yet whenever he had the chance, he kept adding more “weight” to the strategies concerning the wasteland.

The reasons were twofold. First, the vivid memories left by Gawain Cecil from seven centuries ago instilled in him an unshakable vigilance against the endless roaming monsters in the wasteland. Second, it was his own judgment: ever since learning that the ancients had sealed a deadly natural disaster behind a wall of wasteland, he’d felt uneasy. His countless past-life experiences told him that disasters kept under wraps always explode eventually, and walls built to hold back monsters are bound to collapse. Why erect such a monumental barrier on the border if not to set the stage for a massive catastrophe when it finally breaks?

Since the day he rose from his tomb, Gawain had been preparing for the day the wasteland’s wall would utterly fall—and now, that day had finally come.

He rubbed his brow and lifted his gaze from the documents on his desk, slowly scanning the large room. Many senior officials from the Imperial Administration, including Hetty, were seated here, alongside numerous arcane network terminals projecting holographic images. These semi-transparent figures gathered—some awaiting updates, others ready for orders.

“Our soldiers have stabilized the front line,” Philip’s image appeared on a nearby terminal, the young imperial commander standing before a tense, bustling frontline command post. “After the Greenwood Barrier rose, the enemy’s vanguard was trapped in the kill zone and completely annihilated. We then used superior firepower to cut off the aberrants’ advance routes. The enemy’s follow-up forces have temporarily retreated deep into the wasteland. We seized the opportunity to push our main force further inside and established several temporary strongholds south of the ruins of the Grant Wall. We’re now waiting for the purification devices to take effect and continue dispatching reconnaissance units to monitor enemy movements.”

Gawain nodded slightly, then shifted his gaze to another hologram across the room. A distinctive figure stood quietly there.

It was Beltira. Through a neural conduit, her hologram took on the form she had as a human. Behind her, half the background showed the towering Solin Great Tree basking in sunlight on the plains, while the other half depicted the vast forest forming the Greenwood Barrier at the edge of the wasteland. Noticing Gawain’s gaze, she nodded and spoke: “Status here is stable. The distal limbs have successfully taken root. I’m currently converting the biomass captured during the day, which will take some time.”

“Good. Don’t rush. Your priority is to secure a stable foothold. The Grant Wall in the northern region now has an irreparable breach. You are the most critical barrier there,” Gawain said gravely, exhaling deeply.

As he spoke, he silently praised his own bold decision. Letting the Solin Great Tree spread toward the wasteland was perhaps the most successful of all his many contingency plans.

This grand and risky plan wasn’t something achieved overnight. Beltira, stationed far away on the Holy Spirit Plains, couldn’t instantly transfer part of herself to the southern front of the Dark Mountains. The “spreading plan” had been secretly devised long ago, jointly by Gawain and Beltira. They had discussed the possibility of the Great Tree growing continuously in one direction, and how to overcome challenges like controlling distant limbs with synthetic neural networks and addressing nutrient shortages during the “spreading period” by deploying biomass factories along the way.

He treated this as a trump card. Even within the Empire, only a handful of top officials and a few directly involved operatives knew of its existence. Over the past year, Beltira’s roots had been quietly extending deep underground—taking over half a year to spread from the eastern Holy Spirit Plains to the southern border, then another two months to traverse the complex rock layers, underground caves, and mountain hollows of the Dark Mountains. Near the Grant Wall’s ruins, she secretly grew, relying on the nutrients supplied by numerous biomass factories set up by the advancing troops, nurturing a massive “predatory organ” underground.

Of course, this vast “spreading” wasn’t entirely without traces. Although Beltira kept her roots deep beneath the earth, she still needed some “nodes” near the surface to replenish nutrients and communicate with local operatives. Over the past year, in areas along the spreading route—Pompeii, Cecil, South Gate Fortress, and forward bases—people occasionally noticed strange phenomena.

These included unusually lush forests, verdant vegetation thriving even in winter, and pure flowers blooming in polluted zones. Essentially, these were “fragments” accidentally shed by Beltira during growth—mysterious occurrences defying common sense, spawning urban legends and rural ghost stories.

Fortunately, rumors remained just that, and the secret plan continued smoothly. Unfortunately, Gawain hadn’t intended for Beltira to reveal herself so soon. In his original design, she would remain a “dark front” spreading underground, while the surface forces launched frontal assaults. Only when the army reached the heart of the wasteland and the battle reached a critical point would the “living forest” burst forth, blossoming within the core and delivering a crushing blow to the insidious Cult of All-Things’ End.

But that was only in his imagination—who could have predicted the Grant Wall would suddenly develop a massive breach at such a critical moment?

“Sorry, Brother Gawain,” Beltira said abruptly, noticing the change in his expression before he could speak. “I acted on my own to break the surface—I’ve exposed your most important card.”

“That’s not your fault. If you’d waited for my orders in that situation, the frontline would have fallen, and the nearby Typhon defenses would have been torn apart. Then no cards would matter,” Gawain waved his hand dismissively. “I gave you the authority to act independently in emergencies precisely for such unforeseen circumstances.”

He paused, then shifted tone: “Now that things have come to this, we must look forward. How’s the situation underground? Can you keep advancing?”

“I’ve started encountering resistance,” Beltira replied immediately. “Just as I expected, those cultists rely on an underground neural and root network to coordinate their command system. It’s a unique technique of the Cult of All-Things’ End. Now that they’re aware of me, their root network has shifted into active defense.”

She narrowed her eyes, sensing distant neural nodes. After a moment, she continued: “They’ve concentrated their root network’s power toward the northern region. My roots face fierce resistance during growth. A frontal breakthrough is the only option now; flanking is no longer feasible.”

Gawain looked seriously at this former dark cult leader, now waging a hidden war beneath the wasteland alone. “Are you holding the advantage?”

A hint of pride crossed Beltira’s face. “Rest assured. Though their root network resists stubbornly, it’s no match for me. They never expected an underground offensive, and I’ve prepared for this a long time. But it will take time—I need to find a weakness in their ‘subterranean immunity shield’ first.”

Listening to her, Gawain pictured the scene: the Solin Great Tree’s roots pushing forward at the wasteland’s edge, clashing with a hostile dark root network that had built a massive counter-wall underground. Living roots intertwined beneath soil and rock, attacking silently with toxins and parasitic spores, using caves and underground rivers as natural fortifications—an endless, soundless battle beyond ordinary understanding.

This was no ordinary fight. Even the greatest strategists of the age would struggle to find their footing here. Gawain himself had no advice to offer.

“Be careful,” he said simply. “Don’t underestimate the enemy. Though your presence is unexpected, those dark cultists have operated in the wasteland for years. No one knows what traps or trump cards they’ve hidden deep within the Old Empire. Your underground offensive is a lone endeavor. Our surface forces can offer little support, so you must be especially cautious as you penetrate enemy territory.”

“I understand,” Beltira replied solemnly.

After a brief pause, Gawain continued: “Now, let’s discuss the aberrant creatures’ behavior during the assault… their discipline.”

“Yes, their discipline is obvious. Those monsters have a command structure,” Beltira responded promptly. “During brief contact with the enemy vanguard—I mean, during ‘feeding’—I also tapped into their mental link. The creatures themselves have limited intelligence, but their minds are connected and controlled by higher-level nodes. I even identified one prominent node named Bertram, one of the ‘prelates’ of the Cult’s wasteland branch.”

“Sounds like a ‘psychic command network’ similar to the old Crystal Legion,” Gawain mused, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “But larger in scale and far more efficient. The Crystal Legion never had such numbers or so many bizarre mutations.”

“Our psychic command technology shares a lineage with the wasteland branch,” Beltira said, her tone briefly strange before returning to normal. “It partly derives from the Sleeper and partly from the Dark Druids’ neural pulse tech. But clearly, the wasteland cultists never shared all their data with us ‘outside’ brethren. They kept key information and have improved it over the years—likely only recently completing these upgrades.”

Before she finished, Hetty couldn’t help but ask, “Only recently? How can you tell?”

“I briefly invaded Bertram’s mind—he thought I was torturing his will and didn’t realize the intrusion,” Beltira explained. “During the invasion, I glimpsed part of their vast command system’s consciousness flow. Though I couldn’t interfere, it was clear this was a newly born system, still slowly growing and refining itself.”

Hetty nodded thoughtfully. “Makes sense. If those cultists had established this system long ago and controlled all aberrants in the wasteland, they wouldn’t be waiting until now to act. With such an army, they could have swept the world years ago.”

Gawain immediately asked, “This is important intel—are there any vulnerabilities in their command system we can exploit?”

“Hard to say for now. I need more information,” Beltira shook her head. “Ideally, I’d like to capture a few high-level nodes to… well, to analyze them. Maybe I can find a way to further infiltrate or disrupt their command system through their now-mutated neural network.”

“As the battle unfolds, we’ll find an opportunity,” Gawain nodded slightly, then glanced at Beltira with a strange expression. “But, speaking of which… you ended up ‘eating’ a lot of those creatures that escaped from the wasteland in a pinch. Are you really okay?”

“Honestly? Not very tasty. Even worse than the rocks in the Dark Mountains,” Beltira’s face twisted into an expression even stranger than Gawain’s. “But I had no choice at the time. Those creatures were contaminated and toxic—I had to quickly eliminate the residual pollution after they died. Tossing them into the biomass splitting pool was the fastest and most effective method. But don’t worry about me—their corrupted bodies have been thoroughly digested in the pool, and their toxins can be converted and absorbed by me. It’s just that…”

Beltira paused, as if fighting back a wave of nausea, then continued after a moment, “It’s just… really awful to eat. Honestly, worse than eating dirt.”

Her words carried a weight of genuine resentment, but everyone present didn’t quite know how to respond. This tree lady’s way of life and perspective on the world were always refreshingly unique, leaving others at a loss for comforting or agreeing with her. As for Gawain… a strange thought suddenly popped into his mind. He had a feeling that before long, a new book would be circulating throughout the Empire—Beltira’s very own Gourmet Encyclopedia: How to Eat Dirt in the Empire.

Fortunately, he didn’t let that odd idea linger for long, because soon after, urgent intelligence from the front lines was delivered to him.

The sentinel towers along the wasteland border—once extinguished—had been reactivated.

——

(Time for a recommendation! This time, I’m suggesting Tian Rui Shuo Fu’s We Live in Nanjing, a sci-fi story about saving the world in a post-apocalyptic setting. The author’s previous work, Dying on Mars, should be familiar to many. The new book has just started and is still in its early stages, but definitely worth bookmarking!)

(End of chapter)