Volume 8: The Sword Points to the Far East Chapter 262 Flood (Part 2)
There is no distinct rainy season and dry season on the grassland.
The cursed land surrounded by three giant mountain ranges is like an enormous basin. When the temperature rises and the snow water stored in the earth during the long winter melts and evaporates, rain may fall from early spring to autumn.
The York Mountains block the subtropical monsoon blowing from the Far East, making summer on the grassland come later than other places. But when the hot wind blows into the grassland from the sea and towards the Samal Snow Mountain, it is officially summer and it is also the time when there is plenty of rain on the grassland.
Rain and heat at the same time can bring about vigorous growth of crops. At the same time, when the rain is too abundant and forms an alliance with the snow water flowing down from the Samal Snow Mountain, the cursed land that has never had any large-scale water conservancy projects built for thousands of years must be prepared to be washed away by floods.
This is the great power of nature and it will not be diverted by the wishes of any individual or group of people.
Ice and Snow King City.
A nimble figure in silver-white armor nimbly jumped onto the northernmost watchtower of the royal city and stood on the base of a huge crossbow that could pierce a dragon with one shot.
The Elf King, who was neither wearing a helmet nor a cloak, looked up at the snow-capped mountains and frowned.
"King." The Snow Elf general who had caught up slowly stopped at the crossbow mount and called out softly.
"There is less snow on the mountains than in previous years." The Elf King had his back to the general, and his deep voice did not reveal his emotions.
There are ten generals in the Elf King's royal army. In the past, these ten generals had to spend at least half of the year on duty in Miriam, guarding the gate to the demon world. But since the last Frank Feast, a certain demon cub secretly fanned the flames, and the Elf King, who knew everything, took advantage of the situation to form a racial alliance of multiple races to guard the gate to the demon world. Now, the lives of these generals are no longer so hard, and they have more free time.
Even a middle-level backbone of the Imperial Army like Lieutenant Selina has the leisure time to go to human countries to play war ball... ahem!
Otilia, the Snow Elf General, who had spent most of her life in Miriam and was now able to return to the royal city for a rare vacation, sighed softly, "Yes... The Cursed Land, we must face the test."
The Elf King turned around and jumped off the crossbow mount.
"Notify the Minotaur."
"Yes, King."
Although it's a bit cruel... but in the eyes of the Snow Elves, the only people worth paying attention to in the Cursed Land are the Tauren, who are the original inhabitants.
Others, whether they are the branch of Centaurs who moved to the Cursed Land during the racial war, or the imperial refugees who sought refuge here more than two hundred years ago, can only be regarded as outsiders, "outsiders".
"By the way, I heard that a group of forest elves opened a port in the cursed land. Although I don't know whether this natural disaster will endanger them, we should still inform the queen." The Elf King strode towards the castle, remembered something, and said to General Otilia.
"Let me tell Her Majesty the Queen," Ottilia said immediately.
The Elf King nodded. The current Queen of the Forest Elf was in poor health and had little control over the Council of Elders. If people of status were not allowed to go to the Queen's City, the Council of Elders of the Forest Elf might not take it seriously enough.
Before entering the palace, the Elf King finally remembered the Snow Wolf People on the grassland who sold a lot of cheap and high-quality goods to the Ice and Snow King City every year. He raised his eyebrows and said, "Let Selena go - wait, Selena went to the human kingdom. Let Lieutenant Dana take people to the Snow Wolf tribe."
"Huh?" General Otilia didn't react for a moment.
"The Fire Tribe of the Snow Wolf Clan." The Elf King thought for a moment and said, "I remember that this tribe seems to be located in the southwest corner of the Cursed Land, which is the area covered by the natural disaster. Let them make preparations early and move to the high ground in time."
In the past few years since the Tiger Tribe fell, the Snow Elves no longer kept a close eye on the Cursed Land as before, but the residence of each tribe was recorded by the patrol troops. Although General Ottilia had been staying in Miriam for a long time, she vaguely knew that the Snow Wolf Tribe in the Cursed Land did not continue to disperse, but chose to live together, so she immediately agreed.
The style of the Snow Elves was vigorous and resolute from top to bottom. On that day, several teams, including General Otilia, left the royal city one after another.
Since the last Frank Feast, not only did the generals have more free time, but Lieutenant Dana, who originally had only half a month's vacation at most each year, also had a happy three-month long vacation every year.
Lieutenant Dana, who was wearing an apron at home and making desserts according to the video "Gourmet Hunter", received an order from her superiors. She was a little unhappy at first, but when she heard that she was asked to notify the Snow Wolf Tribe to guard against natural disasters, she happily took off her apron and gathered people.
Well... There is a reason why the Elf King would let Dana do this. Lieutenant Dana was the part-time maid who ...
The snow elves, whom Xiao Yun privately called "the hairy ones among the elves", were strong and had great physical endurance. After descending the Samal Snow Mountain, a team of snow elf warriors led by Lieutenant Dana ran wildly towards the southwest wearing their heavy armor.
About half an hour later.
Lieutenant Dana took the lead and stopped. Together with the others, they silently removed their armor and put it on their backs. Everyone wore only cool short-sleeved shirts... Although it was raining and the weather was relatively cool, the summer in the cursed land was still too hot .
About a day and a half later, Lieutenant Dana and his team arrived at the upper reaches of the Earth River in the rain.
Lieutenant Dana and the soldiers she led were not responsible for patrolling the Cursed Land, and their knowledge of the Cursed Land was limited to the paper records of the patrol team. However, this did not prevent them from being shocked when they saw the situation upstream of the River of the Earth: the river water had actually flooded the shore!
"...It's too late to notify the Snow Wolf Tribe now!" Lieutenant Dana couldn't help but complain about the Elf King...
"Lieutenant, the water is flowing so fast, it must be difficult to cross." The soldiers did not notice their superior's disrespect to their king, and said after observing the river surface.
Lieutenant Dana thought for a moment and said, "I remember there was a canyon where the Earth River split into two branches. We went through it."
This group of snow elf warriors gave up trying to force a river crossing and walked eastward along the upper reaches of the River of Earth. After about two hours of running, they arrived at the upstream diversion point.
The river channel of the River of the Earth was formed naturally as water eroded the earth over countless years. It meanders and flows along the terrain to the southeast estuary. The place where the tributaries are separated is a small basin surrounded by a series of low mountains that are staggered and intertwined. Two relatively close low mountains that have had half of their mountain bodies cut away by the water are like the two closest cliffs in the canyon-shaped basin.
The bulky snow wolves can easily jump seven or eight meters away. The snow elves with strong thighs and well-developed leg muscles are relatively light and can jump ten meters with a running start. They jump from between two close cliffs to the opposite side, dive down the low hill, and continue to move southwest.
After running out of the low mountains that intersected the diversion, one of the snow elf warriors accidentally looked back and saw a cement dam that was only a blurry outline in the pouring rain, which was several hundred meters away. He was shocked: "What is that?!"
The other snow elves turned around when they heard this and were also surprised.
"Go and take a look!" Dana said immediately.
The closer they got to the concrete dam, the more surprised the snow elves were. This thing was "stuck" in the mountain. It was at least thirty or forty meters high and between four and five hundred meters long. It was grayish white in color overall, and there were stairs on the dam for people to climb.
As they approached, the group of snow elves saw something that was hard to spot from a distance. This strange thing, which looked like a wall moved from the Giant City, had a row of semicircular holes at the bottom, stuffed with thick steel plates. Opposite the holes in the steel plates, there was a deep trench forty to fifty meters wide dug by manpower. The trench was half-filled with rainwater and led to the southeast. Standing under the dam, even if one strained one's eyes, one could not see the end of the trench...
The turbid rain water made it impossible to see the bottom of the ditch, but the two sides of the ditch and the two-meter-wide ground on the shore looked like they were filled with stones or something like that, and then coated (actually poured) with the same grayish-white substance as the dam.
The stunned snow elves just stood on the shore, in the rain, staring blankly for several minutes.
"This is... a man-made river?" Lieutenant Dana asked in disbelief. "Wait, according to Lieutenant Selina's record of the Snow Wolf Tribe, these orcs built a 'canal' from their tribe directly to the seashore, about ten meters wide and two meters deep, which can accommodate ships weighing thousands of pounds... They ran upstream to the River of the Earth and built another 'canal'?!"
The other snow elves were all Miriam's warriors on duty. They didn't know as much about the Snow Wolf Tribe's Fire Department as Lieutenant Dana, who had carefully read the patrol unit records, so no one could answer her questions.
A Snow Elf warrior looked up at the dam, then turned his head to look at the "deep ditch" in the distance, and couldn't help but say: "If this is the river built by the Snow Wolf Tribe...then why don't they use this river to drain water?"
This question was indeed very strange. As they traveled along the way, not only the River of the Earth itself, but even the water from its tributaries overflowed the shore, flooding everything along the way.
"Could it be that they haven't had time to repair it yet?" Another Snow Elf warrior guessed, "Whether it's that giant wall-like thing..." pointing to the dam, "or this river ditch, it won't be easy to repair. The population of the Snow Wolf Tribe is about the same as that of the Tauren. It will take more than ten years to dig this river ditch to the seashore."
Even Lieutenant Dana nodded in agreement after hearing this. The Ice and Snow Royal City had been built for hundreds of years. Building an artificial river in the cursed land was much simpler than building a royal city on the Samal Snow Mountain, but it would not be completed in a few years.
"What a pity! The Cursed Land didn't give them enough time." Lieutenant Dana said with emotion.
"Yes, I hope that this time the Snow Wolf Tribe can save most of its members and continue to repair this artificial ditch." The Snow Elf warriors also said.
The upper class of the Snow Elves do not attach great importance to the Snow Wolf Tribe, and only regard the Snow Wolf Tribe as a "not bad commodity provider"; but for the middle and lower classes of the Snow Elves, the Snow Wolf Tribe is undoubtedly more familiar to them than the Tauren - the sauces and vermicelli that flow into the Ice and Snow King City every winter, especially the sugar desserts and snacks that have become increasingly affordable in the past two years, are a very good spice for the monotonous life.
After expressing their feelings, the group of snow elves continued their journey towards the southwest. This time, there was no need for Lieutenant Dana to urge them, and everyone tried their best to speed up.
Even though the Snow Elves were the "wild ones among the elves", traveling in the wind and rain was still a big burden for them. Three days later, this elite group of the Elf King's army entered the southwestern region where the Fire Tribe and the "vassal races" lived.
The continuous heavy rain gradually exceeded the natural drainage capacity of the earth. Even though the river tributaries flowing to the southwest had not yet shown their fangs, the slightly lower areas were full of water. When the soaked and exhausted snow elves stepped on the mud and water and walked into an area with obvious human traces under the rare sunny day, they saw from afar tiny figures lined up in a long dragon, transferring supplies to the small hills.
"They have already started migrating...so it's too late for us to notify the Snow Wolf Tribe now!" Lieutenant Dana, who has a hot temper, couldn't help but complain again.
The crowd who were transferring supplies to higher ground spotted the approaching snow elves, and one of them quickly ran towards them.
Every winter, the snow elves would come to buy supplies. The people in the Fire Tribe were no strangers to the snow elves. When the people who took the initiative to greet them got closer, they found that this group of snow elves were not the ones who came regularly. The snow wolf man didn't care at all, and said with shining eyes: "Hello, friends of the snow wolf tribe, snow elves, please help us, we are short of manpower!"
Dana & the Snow Elf Warriors: “???”
