Chapter 249: Grand Duke of Silver Moon City

Silvermoon City.

The polluted energy of the Sunwell had not yet affected this place, and a large number of Quel'Danas civilians escaped here through teleportation. The news of Quel'Danas's fall had also spread here.

Richard and Sylvanas were discussing the defense of Silvermoon City when a wounded dragonhawk knight hurried over.

"General, Your Excellency, His Majesty has an urgent order!" The Dragonhawk Knight took out a roll of parchment and handed it to Sylvanas.

This was King Anastarion's last commission. The content was very short and the handwriting was very sloppy. It did not use the runes that the High Elves were accustomed to. It was conceivable that it was already the last moment and the king was ready to die in battle.

In addition to the king's seal and signature, there were only two short sentences on the letter of appointment: Sylvanas Windrunner is hereby appointed as the Grand Duke of Silvermoon City, in charge of the military and political affairs of Quel'Thalas!
There is another line of words next to the king’s signature: Lead more high-level elves to survive and rebuild the country.

After reading the letter of appointment, Sylvanas was silent for a moment, but soon, a firm look appeared in her eyes. At this moment, she felt the burden on her shoulders was heavier than ever before.

The lives of tens of thousands of high elves and the future of the Kingdom of Quel'Danas rest in her hands.

The high elves have reached the most dangerous time. If she makes a wrong decision, the entire kingdom of Quel'danas will be in danger of destruction.

"Sir, can Silvermoon City be defended?" Sylvanas was very hesitant.

"Where else can the high elves go now?" Richard asked.

The territory of the high elves is not very large, only about a few hundred thousand square kilometers. Although areas such as Eversong Woods, Sun Chaser Isle, and Windrunner Tower seem to be a lot, the only area that can accommodate tens of thousands of high elves is Silvermoon City.

After all, civilians are not rangers and can live in the forest.

Sylvanas was silent for a moment, then shook her head and said, "No more."

"Even if you evacuate Silvermoon City, can you outrun the undead?" Richard continued.

The undead do not sleep or rest, have no supplies, and can march 24 hours a day. If the high elves really run away, Arthas will laugh to death. Those high elf rangers run fast, but what about the civilians? Moreover, where can they run to?

The entire Quel'Thalas was gone, and the final result was that after running to exhaustion, they were killed by the undead.

"You only have one choice, hold on to Silvermoon City. As long as the loss of the undead is great enough, the undead army will not continue to fight with you."

"Arthas's target this time is the Sunwell, in order to resurrect Kel'Thuzad. Now he has succeeded. If you show enough strength, Arthas will bypass Silvermoon City."

"But, Your Excellency, the Sunwell has been polluted. Without the Sunwell's energy, what should we do next?"

Richard said: "It's very simple. Set up a purification magic circle to purify the energy of the Sunwell."

It is difficult for the high elves to purify the Sunwell, but for Richard, he has too many ways to purify the energy.

"Sir, can you purify the energy of the Sunwell?" Sylvanas was overjoyed.

Richard wrote down the necessary materials, handed them to Sylvanas and said, "Go prepare the materials."

Arcanists were the main source of pollution on the Prime Material Plane, and became the target of public criticism during the Arcane Empire period, one of the reasons being this. In addition, the pollution of the Prime Material Plane was not a good thing for Arcanists.

Therefore, after the establishment of the Supreme Arcane Council, it began to study methods of purifying pollution, and cooperated with druids to purify many places.

The most difficult to purify is the pollution caused by powerful creatures such as ancient evil creatures and divine evil. This is already a change in the power of rules, and it will take hundreds or thousands of years to change.

This kind of pollution, which is just the energy of the dead and the dark energy, is not difficult to solve. Casting necromancy spells and resurrecting liches only causes negative energy and pollution of the dead energy.

Richard prepared a set of purification rune arrays. The energy of the Sunwell was transported to Silvermoon City through the earth vein network. Richard set up a rune array at the channel of the earth vein network.

Then, these energies were directed into the Mage Tower in Silver Moon City, where a second energy purification array was set up. The two purification arrays could basically purify all the undead energy, dark energy, and negative energy.

At the same time, Sylvanas began to recruit militia from the civilians. Even the high elves were civilians, and they could more or less shoot arrows or perform a few spells and tricks.

The regular army in Silvermoon City has only two thousand people, while the undead army has hundreds of thousands. Such a huge gap can only be filled by using militia.

Soon, Sylvanas issued the first order that all adult high elves, both men and women, must participate in the defense of the city. The old, weak, and disabled among them will be assigned to transport supplies, take care of the wounded, prepare food, and so on.

The rest of the high elves were reorganized into militias for training. The main task of these high elf militias was archery. Sylvanas asked Lor'themar to be responsible for training the militia.

There was no need to train them to be strong or elite, they just needed to understand various commands and be able to fire volleys. In fact, the strength of these elven civilian archers was stronger than that of regular human archers.

It can only be said that the talents of the high elves are really powerful. In this way, Sylvanas obtained a militia of 20,000 people.

Silvermoon City made emergency preparations for war, and Arthas, who had resurrected a large number of high elf undead, also began to leave Quel'Danas Island and head towards Silvermoon City.

There is only a very narrow strait between Silvermoon City and Sunstrider Island. Arthas used Frostmourne again, summoned the Ice Bridge, and came directly from Sunstrider Island to Silvermoon City.

Soon, the boundless undead army crossed the strait, came to the land, and then marched all the way to Silvermoon City.

Last time, because of Richard's intervention, Arthas had to retreat in disgrace. He was very unwilling to accept this, so after resurrecting Kel'Thuzad and the High Elf Mage Corps, he wanted to come to Silvermoon City for revenge.

There is a powerful lich with a group of high-level undead mages who attack Silvermoon City, which has lost the energy of the Sunwell. Even with Richard there, he is confident that he can consume them to death.

Richard looked at the seemingly endless undead outside the city without any expression. For him, if he used all his strength, it was not impossible to kill these undead, but he was not the nanny of the high elves.

"Can we win?" a militia shooter nearby said in a trembling voice.

"We can win!" Sylvanas said firmly. "Kel'Thuzad, have you selected all those long-eared mages?"

Looking at Silvermoon City not far away, Arthas' eyes were filled with anger. He had not forgotten the embarrassing escape last time. Since he picked up Frostmourne, he had never felt such humiliation in his journey across the entire continent.

"Your Majesty, the selection has been completed. Together with the mages in the original army, we now have a group of 400 undead mages." Kel'Thuzad said.

"Where's Dalkan? Call him over and have him find the right time to destroy the protective barrier of Silvermoon City!"

"As you command, Your Majesty!" Kel'Thuzad passed on the order, and the traitor of the high elves, Dal'Khan, had no choice but to do as he was told. However, he did not know that the protective barrier of Silvermoon City had been adjusted and was completely different from the previous barrier.

His method of destroying the barrier was doomed to be ineffective.

"Now that you are ready, let's start!" Arthas smiled grimly and waved Frostmourne in his hand.

An endless army of undead was dispatched instantly.

"Everyone, prepare for defense, catapults ready!"

Dozens of catapults were quickly prepared, and they were equipped with magic bombs to defend against.

"Protective barrier activated!"

The wizard tower in Silvermoon City lit up, and then an energy barrier enveloped the entire city. A large number of undead were blocked outside by the energy barrier. Catapults continued to throw magic bombs.

In an instant, a large number of undead were blown to pieces, and the elven archers nearby also began to shoot arrows. Countless arrows fell, and soon large numbers of undead fell down.

Originally, the undead were not afraid of arrows unless they were hit in the vitals, but the arrows of these elves were extremely accurate, and most of the undead were shot directly through the head. The soul fire was hit, and these undead naturally died.

"Necromancers, aim at the protective barrier and cover it with spells!" Kel'Thuzad, who had integrated a group of four hundred necromancers, commanded the necromancers to continuously pour necromancy spells towards the protective barrier.

A continuous stream of evil balls fell on the protective barrier, causing continuous explosions and ripples on the protective barrier, but the protective barrier showed no signs of damage.

In Kel'Thuzad's view, the Sunwell was polluted and Silvermoon City would soon lose its magical energy. They would not be able to hold on for much longer and the protective barrier would be broken. But what he didn't know was that with the purification rune array, Silvermoon City had no shortage of energy.

On the other side, Kandal cast camouflage on himself and disguised himself as an undead. He quietly came to the vicinity of the protective barrier, and then prepared to destroy the rune stone of the protective barrier and then open the barrier.

But as soon as he started to act, Richard spotted him.

"Sylvanas, that must be the traitor of the elves!" Richard gave Sylvanas the Eye of Truth, and Sylvanas saw at a glance the culprit who caused the destruction of the elven kingdom.

The anger in his heart was instantly ignited. Erhuo said nothing, picked up the bow and arrow in his hand, took out a magic-breaking arrow, and shot it at Kandal's head with all his strength.

Kandar released his magic power to unlock the rune stone's protection, but no matter how he unlocked it according to the rune key, he didn't get any response. At this moment, a cold light suddenly came.

Kandal's face suddenly changed, his hair stood up, and he instantly activated the defensive barrier on his body, pouring all his magic power into it in an attempt to block the arrow.

But the arrow was like a flash of wind, instantly penetrating his defensive barrier. The magic-breaking arrows used by the high elves were specifically used to deal with magic, and were extremely expensive even among the elves. Sylvanas hated this traitor very much.

Therefore, after seeing Kandal, he used the magic-breaking arrow directly. The arrow pierced through the barrier without giving him any chance, and shot through his head, and then his whole head exploded.

This elf traitor was directly transformed into a headless wizard.

Kandar was killed, and many high elves cheered. For any race, traitors are more hateful than enemies.

When Arthas learned that Kandar was dead, his already dark complexion became even darker. Well, ever since he became a Death Knight, his complexion had turned into a gray-black dead face, and it couldn't get any darker.
Without Kandal, they would not be able to destroy the protective barrier of the high elves, which would be very disadvantageous to the attacking side.

"Your Majesty, don't worry. Even without Kandar, we can still capture Silvermoon City. The Sunwell has been polluted, and the energy inside is filthy. If the high elves dare to use it, they will be in chaos. By then, there is no need for us to attack, and these elves will turn into undead themselves."

"They are now using all the energy stored in Silvermoon City. Once this energy is exhausted, the protective barrier will become ineffective. At that time, the entire city will be at the mercy of Your Majesty, right?" Kel'Thuzad said.

He didn't think the elves of Silvermoon City could hold out for long. As long as they kept attacking, the barrier would soon be destroyed.

Richard looked at the endless undead outside the city, frowned slightly, and gently waved the staff in his hand. In an instant, countless red lights appeared in the sky. The next second, countless basketball-sized flames fell from the sky.

In an instant, the northern area of ​​Silvermoon City was enveloped. Flames fell, the earth burned, and the world was like doomsday. The battle line that was several miles long was directly covered.

The spell Fire Rain and Meteor was originally a nine-ring spell, but with Richard's super magic skills and the staff in his hand, it has a power close to that of a ten-ring spell.

Richard still had plenty of mana in his body, especially with the abundant energy of the Sunwell around him, so his mana was inexhaustible. He wanted the high elves to grow up as quickly as possible.

The dense and countless undead army attacked continuously for three hours, and the protective barrier of Silvermoon City showed no signs of being broken, while the losses of the undead army were astonishingly high.

In just three hours, nearly 100,000 undead had died. Although Arthas did not care about the loss of the undead, if the losses were too great, how could he attack Dalaran?

It now seemed that even if they attacked for another three hours, they would have no chance. Both Arthas and Kel'Thuzad hesitated.

"It seems that we have underestimated that gentleman. He should be able to solve the pollution problem." Kel'Thuzad said.

"Your Majesty, we can't waste any more time. We must execute the Lich King's orders!"

"These damn long-eared beasts, I swear to kill them all!" Arthas vented his verbal attacks. Although he was unwilling in his heart, under the urging of the Lich King, he still ordered his army to turn around, bypass Silvermoon City and leave.

(End of this chapter)