Chapter 1371 — The Meeting After the War

"Vanessa, Deep-Sea War Lord, ordered by Queen Petia, Sovereign of the Ocean, to lead the Antavien Expeditionary Army in support of the Alliance," the blue-haired lady spoke up right after, her voice soft yet textured, as though some wondrous "rhythm" lurked within every syllable—a distinctive trait of many Sirens when speaking the human common tongue (those with excessively heavy accents excepted). "Communications between the Loren Continent and Antavien are currently cut off, so I have full authority over all matters on the Alliance battlefield."

"Ah! I remember now," Lorin said. He had been unable to keep from glancing at the blue-haired lady several times, for he had felt her face to be somewhat familiar—and now it suddenly came to him. "That face that appeared above the clouds earlier—that was... you?"

"That's right, it was me," Vanessa said with a smile. Her gentle, friendly appearance at that moment made it hard to imagine her other face on the battlefield. "The situation was special. I saw your defense line was about to collapse, communications couldn't be established, and the Winter's Roar had to begin artillery coverage of the battlefield immediately. So I had no choice but to use the simplest, most direct method to contact you. Fortunately, you humans have excellent intuition—you actually understood my expression..."

Understood your expression, my ass! Is "watch my expression for orders" really such a crude and simple process for you deep-sea creatures? Just stamping an eighteen-kilometer-wide face in the sky to send emoticons to the people below?!

Everyone present except Vanessa herself—anyone with normally functioning values—felt this was a bit too uncanny. Yet the well-bred prince and Audris, bound by the duties of a king, could only choke down everything they wanted to say, keeping it lodged in their bronchial tubes. Only Byron, a man with no psychological burden to speak of, couldn't help blurting out on the spot, "Honestly, I've gotten used to you Sirens being uncanny in the ordinary way, but you can't be uncanny like *this*..."

"The results were good, weren't they?" Vanessa said indifferently. "Worst case, next time I'll put some words up there too..."

Audris was at a loss for how to insert himself into this topic. Half a lifetime as a king, and he had never witnessed such an eerie conversation—and the two parties to it were the supreme commanders of two expeditionary armies. Fortunately, Lady Asharena cut in at this point, forcibly dragging the topic, which had already begun to go off the rails, back on track. "Let's discuss these details later. We still have serious matters to talk about. Your Majesty, we need a place to talk."

"Of course," Audris said at once with a nod. "A reception hall has already been prepared in the fortress, along with a welcome dinner. Conditions are difficult at present, but the Highland Kingdom's cuisine and berry wine should still be enough to relieve you all of your travel fatigue."

At that, Byron immediately set off. "Then let's go right away. We can talk while we eat."

The group set off toward Fort Greta's reception hall, Audris and several officers leading the way, while Lorin fell back a couple of paces to walk alongside the expeditionary commanders. The young prince had been striving hard to maintain proper conduct and speech, but his occasional shifts of attention had not escaped the notice of a Deep-Sea War Lord whose senses were far beyond the ordinary. General Vanessa glanced back at Lorin and asked with some curiosity, "Is there something you'd like to say?"

"Uh..." Lorin was briefly flustered. He quietly checked on his father walking ahead, then said to Vanessa with a touch of embarrassment, "Forgive me, I don't mean to offend, it's just... I thought Sirens all moved on long snake tails or fish tails. I didn't expect you... er, I didn't expect you to walk on two legs like us."

"There wasn't room in the flier for a tail, so I temporarily switched to legs," Vanessa answered offhandedly. "If you hadn't mentioned it, I'd have forgotten."

Before she finished speaking, the lower half of the Siren general's body suddenly burst with a *bang* into a great spray of scattering water, and in the next instant condensed into a long serpentine tail. Then she swayed her body left and right, a look of satisfaction on her face. "Much steadier this time. I was wondering why walking kept feeling like I was about to tip forward."

Lorin: "..."

Audris, who had turned back at the noise: "..."

When it came to establishing communication with the deep-sea races, the people of the Highland Kingdom clearly still had a long way to go...

...

Amber came running excitedly into Gao Song's study, bringing Gao Yang a piece of tremendous good news. "Just received a live transmission from the southern front! Byron's side has successfully reached Highland Kingdom territory and repaired a ley-line hub that was previously occupied by the aberrant legions. Communications with the south are now fully restored!"

Gao Shao promptly set down the documents in his hand, making no effort to conceal his delight. "Excellent! They finally made it—how are things over there?"

"When they arrived, a main force of aberrants coming south from the Augurey Tribal Kingdom was launching an all-out assault on Fort Greta. Word is that a little later and the Highland Kingdom's outer defense line would have collapsed. Fortunately, the Winter's Roar's artillery support and the Sirens' landing troops were in position in time," Amber rattled on, her face glowing as though she had witnessed it all firsthand. "Right now General Byron, Asharena, and Vanessa have gone to Fort Greta to meet with the Highland King. The comms channel is being kept open, so anything that happens over there can be reported at once... Oh, right, and this—this came through from over there along with the restoration of communications. I made a copy."

As she spoke, Amber fished a blue crystal wafer no bigger than a palm from her garment and handed it to Gao Yang. Taking it, Gao Yang saw that it was a standard-issue storage crystal wafer—a replacement for the traditional, mage-handcrafted recording crystals. Standardized crystals like this were commonly used in data-interchange devices such as ley-line terminals, wetware interfaces, and large computation nodes. They were still fairly expensive and in general use only in imperial administrative bodies or military departments, but with expanded production and technological advances, they had been gradually spreading to civilian use since last year.

"This is the battlefield record from the front," Amber explained casually as she watched Gao Yang slide the wafer into the slot of the ley-line terminal beside him. "Part of it was recorded aboard the Winter's Roar, part of it was shot directly from the air by Asharena, and there's also an aerial view of the battlefield after the fighting ended..."

As she spoke, the ley-line terminal had already hummed to life, and a holographic projection rose above the desk. Gao Yang's and Amber's eyes were both drawn involuntarily to that projection.

A southern front scarred beyond recognition, the Highland Kingdom's defensive line, the blanket of fire laid down by the Winter's Horn, storm and black cloud, thunder and lightning.

Contemporary art, Cecil-style, and the battlefield cunning of the Sirens.

"...Old Sticky-Rice, this is just too damn uncanny..."

"Honestly? It really is."