515: Chapter 440 Gaven’s Winter Military Campaign Plan_1 515: Chapter 440 Gaven’s Winter Military Campaign Plan_1 “Are you having trouble over there?”

“Yes, there are three Dwarves Elf Cities near Mesnoel, and they’ve taken to guerilla tactics in the Mir Forest against my forces.

Ordinary soldiers are somewhat outmatched, so I must engage them with elite tactics, hit them hard, and make them retreat.”

“I see,” said Lord Virginia after a brief contemplation, “I can send General Stelina with three hundred Yaling Spirit Soldiers to support you.

Would that be enough?”

“That’ll be sufficient.

It’s not that I don’t have any capable forces at all.

Recently, I’ve rallied a group of Golia and those controlled by the Divine Root—purified and now under my command.

It’s just their mobility in the dense forest isn’t great.

I need a mobile force adept at navigating and fighting in the forest to pin them down.”

Gaven provided a detailed explanation of the situation on his side to prevent any misunderstanding.

He knew that Lord Virginia’s support for him had been nothing short of wholehearted.

In the whole Spring Bud Forest, there were just over two thousand Yaling.

Though, thanks to their longevity, the percentage serving as soldiers was far higher than in normal races, each with a Professional Level and at least five Life Dice.

More than half could bear arms in battle, and in times of need, excluding children, everyone could become a warrior.

But those who were professional soldiers numbered only about five hundred.

Lord Virginia was dispatching three-fifths of them to him.

“If it’s defense, combining it with your Gnoll Trap Makers’ traps would be particularly effective, especially the Quake Bomb minefields.”

Being an expert in forest combat, Lord Virginia had recently experienced the benefits of Yaling Spirit Soldiers working in conjunction with Gnoll Trap Makers.

The Fairy Steps of the Yaling Spirit Soldiers allowed them to easily avoid most of the Gnoll traps, while their enemies often plunged into them unguarded.

Even if they weren’t killed by the Gnoll traps, they would be cut down by the Yaling soldiers who turned back to harvest their lives.

Thus, it might look like they were giving up much of the Spring Bud Forest, but the advance of the Foul Giants was severely limited here, instead burying a large number of Dark Servants.

Now, their forces were starting to be stretched thin, an unimaginable scenario in the past.

The situation with the Foul Giant Kingdom of Black Mirror was somewhat special in that those Dark Servants were the souls of the good Fae Race swallowed by the Enchanted Realm, resurrected through the evil power of the Enchanted Realm.

They could be killed, but not completely destroyed.

Because their souls would return to the Enchanted Realm, where they would be resurrected again.

Over time, this depleted the other side while strengthening them.

The Black Mirror Kingdom’s power kept increasing, expanding and corrupting more and more territory.

However, the advent of the Dragon Oak Mother Tree disrupted this pattern.

As long as the Yaling Spirit Soldiers marked the Dark Servants and killed them, their souls would be directly pulled into the Dragon Oak Dream Realm, where the Fae Race could kill them a second time.

That would truly mean death for them.

Faced with this new situation, the Foul Giant Kingdom decisively adjusted its strategic deployment, switching to a defensive strategy in the Spring Bud Forest and instead intensifying their offensive against the Court of Summer.

However, everyone knew that the Foul Giant Kingdom had not given up its plans to invade the Spring Bud Forest—not at all.

On the contrary, everything they were doing was in preparation for this strategic goal.

We could see it from their actions in the Court of Summer; they weren’t corrupting the forests they conquered as they used to.

Instead, they were ruthlessly hunting the Fae Race there, transforming them into new Dark Servants.

They were accumulating an army of Dark Servants to completely inundate the Spring Bud Forest and engulf the Dragon Oak Mother Tree with sheer numbers.

It was an undisguised plot.

If this had happened six months earlier, the Spring Bud Forest surely wouldn’t have been able to cope on its own.

But now, they were not without support; Gaven had fully demonstrated his potential.

The rest was a race of development speed.

Who would expand faster: the Black Mirror Kingdom in bolstering its forces or Gaven in his development?

So, while the Spring Bud Forest and the Dragon Oak Territory were nominally separate, in essence, there was little difference—they were like one.

Especially in terms of external expansion, Lord Virginia’s aid to Gaven had been wholehearted.

Whether it was leveraging the Dragon Oak Mother Tree without asking why or immediately mobilizing all forces at her disposal.

Now when requesting troops, she promptly allocated the bulk of her forces to him.

“Thick minefields are better for a stalemate defense.

We haven’t started an official battle yet and haven’t gauged the enemy’s strength.

So there’s no rush for that, but I’ll appropriately transfer some Gnolls over.”

Since they were discussing Gnolls, Gaven naturally continued with the topic of personnel deployments in the Dragon Oak Territory, “I’ll leave twenty thousand Gnolls here by the Mother Tree, all the little Wilderness Kobolds are yours.

Though not fully developed, mass-producing Quake Bombs won’t be a problem for them.

The remaining Gnolls’ main task is to focus on breeding and hatching more Gnolls.”

Gaven realized that the implementation of family planning among the Gnolls had been somewhat rash; he had grossly underestimated his own capacity for causing upheaval.

With the scale of territory he now held, a hundred thousand Gnolls wouldn’t suffice, let alone ten thousand.

Thus, he planned to maximize the species’ advantage of being prolific breeders.