Elf Kingdom: Game of the World Tree

No one expected Shanatal, with its abundant resources and sufficient garrison, to be breached.

In fact, this underground city was not forcibly breached by the Dark Alliance's forces from the outside; instead, it fell from within the city.

No one anticipated that the grandson of the current chief, the Underground City's diplomat, Duoruru, would collude with the forces of the Dark Alliance.

Seizing the moment when the chief lay asleep in his sickbed, he stole the key that granted access to the core of the Underground City, bypassing the defense barriers of the Shanatal City State, and secretly established a Teleportation Array connecting the outside and the inside of the city...

So, before anyone could react, a large number of undead suddenly appeared within the city.

They destroyed the long-distance Teleportation Array in the city-state and damaged the Death God Statue in the Death God Temple.

The Death God Statue served as the core power source providing energy for the defense barriers; once it was destroyed, the entire defense system of Shanatal collapsed.

With the long-distance Teleportation Array wrecked, the supporting elves could no longer teleport in for support...

Thus, the city's garrison and the Elf Army were immediately thrown into a desperate and isolated situation.

Then, the Dark Army, already prepared outside the city, combined forces with the insiders and the assault units inside, easily opening the city gates which had withstood months of siege.

The grand battle for the city, which was expected to be fierce and intense, did not occur. The Dark Alliance quickly occupied the walls of Shanatal, while the original garrison, caught in a pincer attack, left a trail of corpses as they struggled to retreat into the city.

The war rapidly devolved into brutal street fighting, with fierce battles between the city's garrison and the invading forces of the Dark Alliance taking place throughout the city.

However, the Dark Alliance's forces had long been prepared.

They assembled an undead army of 150,000 alongside a regular force of 80,000, arguably the strongest power in the Underworld Western Region.

In contrast, the forces of the Silent Alliance in Shanatal were far too weak.

The garrisoned forces of the city-state numbered less than 20,000, and even the elves remaining in the city were limited in number, totaling less than 3,000.

In the assault by the Dark Alliance's forces, the armies consisting of the Dark Dwarves and the Underground Dwarves suffered heavy casualties, the elves perished one after another, and the streets of the entire city were stained with blood.

The remnants of the Silent Alliance's forces were gradually pushed to the deepest mines in the city, hanging on by the strength of fortified constructions...

In less than two days, the Dark Alliance's forces had occupied most of Shanatal, leaving only a few mines in the depths of the city occupied by the retreated Dark Dwarves, Underground Dwarves, and Elf Mercenaries.

Those locations were easy to defend and hard to attack, but resources were scarce. The Dark Alliance needed only to keep them confined there, leaving them with the choices of surrendering or starving to death...

It could be said that, by this point, the Dark Alliance had effectively taken over the entire Shanatal.

The original city residents were forcibly confined to their homes, and those who resisted were slaughtered en masse. Chief Katera was killed by the traitor Duoruru himself, and Duoruru was appointed as the new chief by the Dark City State Alliance, announcing the Dark and Shadow Church as the new official faith of the city-state.

At the same time, the Dark Alliance's forces connected the previously prepared statue of the Master of Darkness and Shadow into the former Death God Temple, reactivating the city's defense barriers.

Except this time, the targets of the defense barriers had reversed.

Thus, Shanatal was declared fallen.

When this news spread through the Silent City State Alliance, the entire alliance was in an uproar.

Nobody foresaw that Shanatal would fall so suddenly...

And following the uproar came panic.

With Duoruru's betrayal of the Shanatal City State directly leading to the city's fall, did it mean that other cities might have been similarly infiltrated by the forces of the Dark Alliance?

Moreover, Shanatal and Blade City served as gateways of the Silent City State Alliance to the Dark City State Alliance, making the geographical locations extremely sensitive.

Taking a look at the map of the Underworld Western Region, the overall terrain of the Underground West District resembles a north-facing Hu Lu.

The Hu Lu mouth serves as the passage to the Deep Rift Cave, with the Silent City State Alliance occupying the upper half of the Hu Lu, and the Dark City State Alliance holding the lower half. The two underground city-states sat right at the center of the Hu Lu and served as the entrance to the second level of the Dark Area...

Under such circumstances, the defense battles of Shanatal and Blade City were crucial to the entire war, with the outcomes likely deciding the direction of the entire war in the Underworld; the final battle was also expected to occur here.

If well defended, enduring through the war should surely lead to victory for the Silent Alliance in this secular conflict.

But if any city-state were to fall, it would leave the Silent City State Alliance wide open, allowing the Dark Alliance's forces to advance unimpeded, leading to an instant downturn in the situation...

And now, indeed, one city-state had been breached!

In a sense, it could be said that the Dark Alliance had already achieved a decisive victory in this war.

After all, given the comparison of both sides' strengths, perhaps if defending a single city, the Silent Alliance could hold out with the elves' support, but if several city-states were attacked simultaneously, they were in danger.

Not every city-state had several tens of thousands of garrison troops like these two; many of the underground cities of the Silent City State Alliance had armies of fewer than 10,000.

Of course, this was also because the Dark Alliance had special means to corrupt and pervert regular undead, preventing the Silent Alliance from similarly utilizing an undead army in the war against the Dark Alliance.

In such a case, the Dark Alliance's armies could entirely rely on their numerical advantage to easily lay siege to at least five underground cities simultaneously and stand a good chance of conquering them easily.

It's worth mentioning that considering the costs of establishing a long-distance Teleportation Array, while the Silent Alliance officially decided to establish these arrays in all cities to seek reinforcements, it wasn't the reality.

The truth was, only Blade City and Shanatal, two strategically important and affluent cities, chose to establish a long-distance Teleportation Array connecting to Black Rock City.

While other Silent Alliance cities were geographically closer to the Hu Lu mouth, and therefore closer to Black Rock City, with lower costs for establishing and maintaining a long-distance Teleportation Array... but the more remote they were, the poorer they became, unable to afford even the low costs, resorting to setting up only ordinary Teleportation Arrays between each other.

Of course, this was also because the Silent Alliance was, at most, a loose alliance of city-states, unable to efficiently allocate and utilize the resources of each city-state.

Under such circumstances, even the players found it challenging to provide effective support.

In theory, players could first teleport to the two strategically important city-states, then use regular Teleportation Arrays to reach other city-states.

But the crux of the problem lay here.

Blade City and Shanatal indeed had Teleportation Arrays connecting them to other underground city-states, but these arrays were all concentrated in the Shanatal City State, while Blade City only had one connecting to Shanatal City.

This situation meant that once Shanatal City State was breached, Blade City lost contact with other city-states of the Silent Alliance.

The reason the Silent Alliance established the Teleportation Arrays in this manner was that although both city-states were strategically crucial, Blade City was closer to the Dark City State Alliance's sphere of influence, surrounded by enemies, making it too risky to establish large-scale Teleportation Arrays connecting to other city-states...

After all, if one of these two cities was to fall, everyone expected it to be Blade City. Establishing Teleportation Arrays for support with only Shanatal City State would suffice.

However, who would have guessed that Shanatal would fall first.

Summarizing all of this, it comes down to one thing.

The loss of Shanatal strategically signified the defeat of the Silent Alliance. If they hoped to achieve victory in this war, they could no longer rely solely on secular forces.