32: Chapter 32 Western Continent

After the Starfire Empire unified the Northern Continent, it adopted a new calendar: the Xingyang God Calendar.

"Spread the Divine Light, slaughter the heretics!"

In the first year of the Xingyang Calendar, the Empire formed the Gospel Army. The entire army set its first centennial goal: to swear an oath to eliminate all heretics across the world and ensure that followers of the God spread to every corner of every continent.

However, things did not go as planned; it took eighty years for them to develop the technology and sailing warships to cross the vast ocean.

In the 85th year of the Xingyang Calendar, thirty warships of the Gospel Army arrived at the coast of the Western Continent.

The nearly ten thousand soldiers who landed found the people on this continent to be ignorant to the extreme; not a single person had heard of the great and only God, the Xingyang God.

Consequently, they immediately occupied the coastal city of Luojia, placing gold stones engraved with the Divine Scriptures at every major intersection. Using this city as their base, they spread the faith of the God to the surrounding areas.

The Gospel Army's method was to give the people of each region one month; if they remained obstinate by then, they were heretics who must be slaughtered.

This action naturally incurred the resentment of the various races on the Western Continent. Having been in constant confrontation and conflict with each other, they unexpectedly united for the first time, joining forces to attack the Empire's soldiers in Luojia.

At first, the soldiers of the Gospel Army did not take this disorganized Resistance Army seriously. After all, the Starfire Empire had long since unified the entire Northern Continent, and its army was well-trained and well-commanded.

But when the two armies met, they discovered the terrifying nature of these races on the Western Continent.

There were giants over three meters tall who could easily sweep away two or three Imperial soldiers with a single swing of their arms.

There were Armored People who, when struck hard in the chest by a blade, only suffered a scratch.

The soldier wielding the blade was filled with horror: "Impossible. The skin was clearly broken and bleeding, so why is there iron-like white bone underneath?"

The Armored Person grinned viciously: "Just think of us as turtles; our bones are on the outside of our flesh!"

These two races had already left the Gospel Army in a state of chaos, but there were also Winged People in the sky, shooting arrows from above!

The Winged People were the only race on the planet with wings on their backs, but the males were too heavy, so they could only perform logistical work on the ground.

Those who fought in the sky were exclusively petite and slender females. However, in this Iron Age, as long as one controlled the air, even throwing stones down could inflict both psychological and physical blows upon the opposing troops.

In the first battle of Luojia, the Gospel Army of the Starfire Empire suffered heavy casualties under the joint counterattack of the giants, Armored People, and Winged People.

After losing nearly half of their troops, they were forced to retreat to the warships anchored at the pier.

The allied army of the three races had no navy at the time, and without the cover of other races, the Winged People would become living targets for the shipboard ballistae if they recklessly dived to attack.

Thus, the Western Allied Army ceased their offensive to hold Luojia, cut off the Gospel Army's supplies, and ultimately forced them to return to the Northern Continent.

The Gospel Army, having suffered a crushing defeat with heavy losses on its first transoceanic expedition, was naturally not one to stay down.

They never forgot their mission for a single moment. The Empire's high command was also racking their brains day and night for a way to defeat the Western Allied Army.

In the 102nd year of the Xingyang Calendar, the Gospel Army, while conducting exercises in the south, accidentally encountered fishermen from the Eastern Continent and made contact with the Dongshan people of the Eastern Continent.

The Dongyang Dynasty, established by the Dongshan people, had been the largest nation on the continent for several thousand years, and many small countries on the Eastern Continent were vassal states of the Dongyang Dynasty.

In ancient times, after the Xingyang God taught them how to smelt bronze, the first bronze artifact the Dongshan people cast was a statue of the Xingyang God.

Since then, this bronze statue had become a sacred object similar to the Nine Tripod Cauldrons or the Imperial Jade Seal.

Although the territory of the Dongyang Dynasty had split and reunited over the millennia, and the regime had changed hands several times.

Yet, regardless of who sat on the throne, without the statue, one could not be considered a legitimate dynasty, nor could one truly win the hearts of the people.

When the Gospel Army encountered the Dongshan people, it was precisely when they were once again being ruled by a foreign race.

In the 108th year of the Xingyang Calendar, because they were both faithful believers of the God, the Starfire Empire helped the Dongshan people reclaim their land. The Dongshan people, having secured their rule and retrieved the bronze statue, were moved to tears.

To show their gratitude, they announced that they would also use the Xingyang Calendar and gifted the Starfire Empire the gunpowder formula they had discovered.

The Gospel Army, having obtained the method for making gunpowder, treated it as a priceless treasure and began experimenting without pause upon returning to Imperial territory.

However, knowing how formidable those three races were, the Starfire Empire was not satisfied with the power of this gunpowder.

Yet, the power of an entire continent working together with one heart and sparing no cost was truly immense. They cut down sturdy trees from the snowy forests of the North to burn into the best charcoal and found the highest quality saltpeter mines in the former lands of the Stone Person kingdom.

Meanwhile, the Artisans figured out a distillation method to produce high-purity sulfur.

The five races of the Northern Continent, with the God in their hearts, worked together in unity. They not only improved the gunpowder technology but also created muskets and cannons.

In the 120th year of the Xingyang Calendar, the fully armed Gospel Army, equipped with firearms, once again embarked on an expedition to Luojia on the Western Continent.

"The Xingyang God is above! Spread the Divine Light, slaughter the heretics!"

Following the order from the Admiral, nearly a hundred warships fired thousands of cannons simultaneously! The gates of Luojia were instantly reduced to ashes amidst violent explosions and soaring flames.

The entire earth trembled, and the continuous bombardment ignited fires throughout the city, turning the night into day.

The residents of the city chose to abandon it and flee. Like a tide, the refugees dragged their families along, dodging the burning buildings. As they fled, they looked at the sky illuminated by the fire and the panicked crowds.

After running for a night, the massive group of refugees finally stopped in the woods outside the city when day broke.

Everyone sat on the ground, gasping for breath, looking back at their homes which had been burned almost to ruins, with large amounts of white smoke rising in wisps from the city.

The people, still shaken with fear, began to discuss the situation.

"This is the Whip of the Xingyang God! They are far more terrifying than when they came last time!"

"I wonder if the Allied Army in the city is still resisting? If you ask me, we should just surrender; converting to the God isn't so bad."

An old man nearby chimed in: "Indeed, I was already a follower of the Xingyang God when they first came 35 years ago."

A middle-aged man mocked: "Old man, you're so old, yet you're more afraid of death than us young people."

This immediately drew a burst of laughter from those around.

The old man puffed out his white beard in dissatisfaction: "Bullshit, was I old 35 years ago? I just thought that since our continent's races are always fighting each other and life is never peaceful, we might as well just all believe in the Xingyang God. Who cares who we pay taxes to?"

The old man's words made everyone fall silent.

The various races of the entire Western Continent had indeed been fighting each other for a long time. It was only when the Gospel Army first arrived that they formed the Allied Army, and they had even trained together for many years afterward to guard against another attack.

Who would have known that they would wait for 35 years in relative peace? The rifts within the Allied Army had long been widening.

Even without this second expedition by the Gospel Army, war would soon have erupted among the warriors of the various races on the Western Continent.

The old man's words plunged the people of Luojia into deep thought: if everyone believed in one God, would there no longer be life-and-death battles?