Chapter 177: [Filibuster]

Middle Southern part of the main battlefield of the Second Elven-Undead war that has now officially entered its falling action, two sides of color, one brown and one grey, entangled against each other in an intense and bloody altercation, perhaps as bloody as the fight between the elven-human alliance and undeads earlier, perhaps more.

Weapons, magics, fists and feet bashed the bodies of undeads and dark elves alike, as if two closest of friends have become mortal enemies, and alas, the living, even though aware of the greyness of the intentions of the undeads felt that their situation is dire, though less pronounced as they knew this will be an inevitable outcome, they just thought that they will have a chance to reverse the situation, after all, at the time when the undeads helped them create fortresses, there are no generals that are accompanying the undeads, but now, the ones who were forcefully piercing their way out of the encirclement of the undeads that divided themselves into two groups can only curse as they realized that all the fortresses were fortified of the more magically inclined undeads, making the dark elves manning the said fortresses to be trapped in the domain of the undeads, making the generals of the said invaders unnecessary.

Thus right now, the generals of the living that are once allied with the dead, with almost materializing anger in their bloodshot eyes, moved forward towards their rendezvous point with the other dark elf army, a point that they have planned a long time ago, the two generals trekked the forest made of the bodies of the dead alongside their weapons alongside their soldiers, they moved forward, one step at a time, sweeping their weapons and conjuring what little magic their pathetic magical affinity can hurl at their enemy, some enemies will fall, making black blood that circulates just because they are liquid fall, the undeads that have fallen doesn't have any kind of expression even though their hands, or head, or feet or waist were cut clean in half, making the dark elves wince at first, but their hours of step by step escape made them accustomed to it as they watched the undeads become small clouds of grey smoke.

Of course, casualties on both sides are inevitable, while the dark elves moved forward steadily with unyielding resolution, several of their brethren have fallen to the uniform and composed slashes of the undeads, after all, the undeads doesn't need to worry about their lives and even though they were trained to worry about it and readily abandoned their almost nonchalant fighting style earlier, making it resurface is easy, this languidness is a dilemma to the two generals, on one hand, it made their opponent riskily do whatever they want, on the other hand it also made them successfully focus their efforts at the front so that they can dispatch the ones obscuring their escape more effectively.

So effective it was that after rigorous hours and hundreds of sacrifices, the dark elves successfully, albeit temporarily dwindled the density of the undeads to the point that they can maintain their integrity if they focused on creating a circle around them, making the dark elves, who never noticed the single mage inside the formation of the two encirclements emitting pink colored aurora that seeped into their minds and also the other undeads that retreated and made a dash to the invaded lands of the white elves, in the dark elves mind, the lesser than expected density of the swarm of undeads is normal, after all, a lot of undeads were still fighting the humans who refused to retreat, those cluster were too late to aid their companions as the humans mounted a resistance that even the super well trained undeads cannot easily quell in fear of disintegrating into nothingness.

Furthermore, a lot of undeads died when the resurrection sequence of theirs was successfully sealed.

Yes, it's logical, it's only logical for the two armies that gradually was able to meet up in the middle of the Indio territory, this place, is explicitly outside the range of the high brass of the mage department soldiers sneaked in the army that are "preventing" the two armies of dark elves to move forward, basically, they are the generals of the mages of the undead present in the battlefield.

Looking at each other, the two armies that rendezvoused in the middle of their enemy-overrun territory shuddered almost at the same time. It was as if a bolt of lightning descended upon their heads, making them realize something.

_WE HAVE ENTERED A TERRITORY DEEPLY ENROACHED BY UNDEADS!_

It doesn't matter if they know the whole territory more, it is the fact that the enemy leader is more intelligent than all of the dark elves combined while also having a subordinate of the same intelligence, this implied their imminent demise if they pitted their strategies on the same battlefield, such an occurrence is evident when these to specific generals were unable to make their leader wake up from the daze she was in when she was given a new second in command by Sophia, the tikbalang, making Luna just able to say yes as he used the stones given by Kamatayan to create fortresses that will now is trapping the dark elves in their own home.

They tried all of their methods to placate the mind of their leader, but to no avail, she was snared in a plot that no dark elves, that is not known for their intelligence to begin with can contend against, what is more annoying is the fact that Sophia doesn't need to personally participate, she just watched as Luna fell into her ploy while her subordinates are helplessly watching.

Such realization happened in a mere instant, the two armies looked at each other with helplessness as several figures, grey in color, some warriors, some archers and some mages 10x their number that already amounted to 2,095 appeared in front of them using the disposable space magic papers, the look on their faces still smeared with indifference, not a hint of guilt was present in them, as if what they are doing is nothing but a matter of course, a bitter smile appeared on the generals' faces, yet still, they refuse to take this beating lying down, they look at their back, the place where they should escape to and help the humans with the remaining undeads there, however, they have given up, no, they refused to escape away from Luna, the one who painstakingly rallied all of them to mount the only rebellion to have spanned a century in the whole world.

"Don't take this lying down."

The two generals muttered, silent, yet strangely enough, audible to all the dark elves, gripping their weapons, they pointed them at their enemies.

"THIS HUMILIATION WILL BE PAID WITH BLOOD!"

With such a statement, the futile struggle of the dark elves against a virtually immortal enemy being led by one of the world's smartest beings once again commenced.

________

In the main camp of the undeads, the place that houses the two commanders of the undeads and dark elves respectively, Luna is alone, the commander of the undeads being mysteriously absent as if he had disappeared, which is, in fact, he did.

The only commander present, Luna is sitting on a chair, silently looking at the papers that are previously in the desk of [Guide], and as she did so, she felt several presences surround the tent, looking at her with silent intent, yet those presences did not move forward as if waiting for Luna to take the initiative, maybe out of conceit, but most definitely out of pity.

_There are 4 presences, with the other 1 too far away for me to feel. Actually, there are 2 that I can only feel faintly, but the other one has the same presence as the one in front of me... the five generals of Sophia have finally arrived._

Luna's expression turned solemn, yet she was not shocked on how did the undeads turned easily against the dark elves, it was already evident the moment she have failed to establish any kind of communication to her soldiers at the back of the command center, the ones that are guarding the fortresses and the ones in the battlefield, all of them became detached to Luna who did her best to make her retaliation a reality.

_It's because of that grey bastard..._

Luna was angry with the man who manipulated her, well, actually, she knew at that time that she was being manipulated, but she had this mentality that she could escape it, the result? She has been on a daze about what she has done to her brother Linares, and ultimately her family, it was as if they were the bane of her revolution, for in truth, they were the opposite.

At the time she woke up, she thought that it was fine, that is because Aerendil will be on guard of other nations in other continents, she can pierce through him, one way or another, one of the pieces she have are the undeads, though of course, as she have already been controlled by one of them before, she was apprehensive, but it was as if, again, her mind went in a daze, for the second time, she convinced herself that she can get out of any ploys of Sophia, and only when she have been greatly impacted by the sight of Loki, one of the strongest of the Ancient Calamities did she realized that for the Second installment of the elven undead war, that random undead that controlled her, that is now one of the trusted subordinate gods of the god of undeads have left an illusory imprint on her mind that will make Luna think with conceit.

_He made it so that I won't consider my race's innate lack of resistance against magic, after all, when we are still accepted, we have to wear an specialized chainmail that absorbs the energy of the magic hurled at us if we cannot dodge it, specially if it is on the level where Aerendil is the only one that can cancel it... I have been played around by the undeads, just so that they can stall for time and wait for a great leader like Sophia..._

Luna was filled with anger, and in her anger, she activated her unique skill, a unique skill she obtained in all this time that she has been fighting for the rights of her people, yet also a unique skill that she never dared to use, until now, that is.

The prodigal daughter who wanted freedom, the one controlled by her own desire for equality, looked at her front with resolution.

_The dark elves might have met their end, but I am sure as hell that no one will take it lying down._

[Notice: Conditions for using the unique skill [Filibuster] have been met, the user is surrounded with odds almost impossible to overcome.]

[Notice: The unique skill [Filibuster] will give the user a hero's power for an hour, enhancing all facets of combats imaginable, in return, due to this unique skill breaking the Law of Power Hierarchy, the user will suffer irreversible harm to their life the moment the duration ended, killing the user.]

[Notice: Are you sure you want to use the unique skill [Filibuster]?]

Luna gulped, forcibly reinforcing her resolve, of course, she is afraid of death, everyone is, if anything, she wanted to live, seeing how the dark elves prevailed against the white elves in her lead, but alas, she was forced into a corner by her hastiness.

In Sophia's country, Luna is Simoun Ibarra, a revolutionary from the novel of one of her country's heroes, who is a character who has realized that a hasty revolution will never work.

Well of course, Luna is not aware of such a character nor will she give a single damn if she do, in her mind is only a thought.

Long live the revolution.

_________

In the now ruined Kingdom of Stardust, Sophia and Aerendil is still tangled in a war of putting one in an illusion and breaking it, making the battle awfully boring for everyone except for the two participants, Sophia looked at the direction of the the Indio territory as she conjured illusion after illusion in a literal instant, she smiled faintly as she focused on her enemy, such smile made the enemy, Aerendil that is already apprehensive as he already saw such a smile when Sophia "confirmed" something.

At that moment, he knew Sophia is here to get back one of the undead's possessions that he successfully stolen, making Aerendil instinctively want to protect it, yet at this moment, Sophia doesn't care about all of this, for still she continued to pummel Aerendil with potent illusions, making him able to see scenes from his past or random premonitions of his death and other things randomly chosen by Sophia.

Sophia, of course, made such a fight a battle of brawn and psychology, making one another apprehensive and think twice if they had really outsmarted the enemy, just so that all her plans would align with the timetable she wanted to follow

_The final battle will finally start._

Such were the queen of the undead's thoughts.