With the vast influx of Earth's high-tech weaponry provided by Liu Hui, coupled with seamless, ultra-long-range communications, Alexander possessed absolute mastery over the battlefield situation, swiftly annihilating the Xiling Kingdom's ten-thousand-strong vanguard purely through pre-arranged ambushes.

Following this successful setup, Alexander’s confidence soared, and the Human army’s morale surged in kind; they realized that the Elven forces were not the invincible juggernauts they had been imagined to be. Consequently, Alexander orchestrated several more brilliantly executed ambushes, wiping out four more Elven vanguard units of ten thousand each, ensuring not a single enemy soldier escaped while the forces of the Church of Light sustained fewer than a hundred casualties.

Communication among the various Elven armies was hampered, and their general underestimation of the Human forces meant that even after five vanguard units were destroyed, their Supreme Commander remained oblivious to the catastrophic anomaly unfolding.

Under Alexander’s personal command, the Church of Light forces moved with the speed of wind, leveraging their peculiar technological weaponry to successfully annihilate fifty thousand Elven troops, suffering less than a hundred losses themselves. This staggering victory not only deepened the respect the Church of Light armies held for Alexander but also intensified their devotion to the Light God, as they believed such magnificent triumphs were solely due to the Light God’s divine protection from the heavens.

Only after losing contact with several successive vanguard units did the Xiling Kingdom’s commander finally sense that something was gravely amiss. Only after dispatching scouts along the expected routes of his vanguard did he discover that fifty thousand of his elite troops had been utterly annihilated by the Human army. They immediately surveyed the battlefield but could find no trace of how the Human army managed to destroy their forward echelon.

The Elven commander instantly perceived the danger. Though still unaware of the mechanism by which the seemingly weak Human army had crushed his powerful forces, he wisely cancelled the tactic of splitting forces for converging attacks. This commander consolidated all Elven troops, preventing them from being picked off individually. They intensified reconnaissance and intelligence gathering on the Human army, then advanced with their newly integrated, formidable strength; along their path, nothing could resist the sheer momentum of the massed Elven army.

The Elven army's revised advance strategy rendered Alexander’s plan—to concentrate superior force for annihilation—ineffective. Aware of the vast disparity in strength between the two sides, Alexander expertly maneuvered his army to evade direct contact with the main Elven host. Utilizing their superior knowledge of the terrain, the Church of Light forces shifted rapidly before the main Elven force could converge, frustrating the Elves’ attempts to pin down the Human main body. The short conflict was clearly trending toward a protracted war of attrition.

It was at this critical juncture that the Elven scouts discovered a major Human stronghold belonging to the Church of Light. The Elven commander immediately directed his forces to surround the large fortress. He then released several captives from the stronghold, instructing them to carry a formal challenge back to Alexander: meet him in a decisive battle with the full Human main force immediately, or every soul within the stronghold would be executed.

Alexander received the challenge quickly and was deeply troubled. The Human stronghold housed over one hundred thousand civilians; their slaughter would represent a crippling blow to Human strength. Alexander convened his subordinates to discuss the new crisis. His officers immediately divided into two factions: one group insisted on mounting an immediate rescue of their brethren; the other argued vehemently that this was a calculated Xiling trap, certain to lead to disaster, and advocated sticking to guerrilla tactics to wear down and defeat the Elves through attrition.

After prolonged deliberation, Alexander reached a decision. He feigned communion with the Light God, then solemnly announced what he declared was the Light God's decree: "The Light God deems those Humans our brothers and sisters; they deserve our aid." By invoking the Light God’s authority, the Human generals finally aligned their stance, resolving to march out to rescue their kin and engage the Elven army in a grand confrontation.

The total strength of the Church of Light forces assembled stood at sixty thousand, facing the Xiling Kingdom's army of two hundred and fifty thousand, which included their most elite formation, the "First Royal Legion."

The Xiling commander had held little hope that his gambit to force a decisive battle would succeed. However, upon receiving word that Alexander agreed to a final showdown, he let out a long sigh of relief. As long as the Humans avoided guerrilla warfare and engaged in a straightforward field battle, the vastly superior Xiling army would undoubtedly crush the Humans and claim victory in this war.

The following morning, precisely at the appointed time, both armies arrived on a vast plain designated as the primary theater of war. The forces arrayed themselves five kilometers apart, beginning the crucial adjustment of battle formations and troop deployments.

Over three hundred thousand soldiers were amassed on this great plain, poised for a bloody clash that would determine the fate of their respective races. This was to be the Church of Light’s first formal engagement on the magical plane, a true gauge of their combat capability.

Soon, the Church of Light and Xiling forces finalized their deployments and began a tense, distant standoff. Hatred between the two sides ran deep, almost beyond resolution; this conflict was likely to end only when one side was completely broken.

Seeing his army prepared for war, the Xiling commander gave the order. The accompanying Elven Mage Corps began chanting various buffs and protective spells over their warriors. A kaleidoscope of magical light flared across the Elven ranks. Empowered by enhancements and wards, the Elven soldiers were instantly filled with vigor, displaying utter fearlessness and inexhaustible fighting spirit.

Alexander gave his own command. His accompanying Priest Corps also began casting enhancement and protection spells upon the Church of Light soldiers. Meanwhile, the Dark Mages stepped forward, commencing the summoning of undead. Having undergone significant leveling increases, these Dark Mages could now conjure tens of thousands of Skeleton Warriors, though these spectral troops were significantly frail, useful only as fodder.

Under the command of the Human Dark Mages, the open ground between the two armies suddenly manifested over a million Skeleton Warriors. These undead staggered forth, their skeletal frames threatening collapse, their empty jaws emitting silent roars of rage toward the Xiling army.

The Xiling commander was somewhat taken aback by the sudden appearance of these Skeleton Warriors, as he had never encountered this new type of fighter before. Nevertheless, his confidence in his own army’s strength remained absolute; he believed any force, no matter how novel, would be ground to dust beneath his main army’s advance. With a wave of his hand, runners relayed orders: the two-thousand-strong heavy Elven Cavalry Regiment, positioned at the front and mounted on massive warhorses, immediately sprang into action, charging toward the Church of Light lines.

Alexander nervously monitored the distance between the advancing Elven soldiers and his own ranks. The heavy Elven Cavalry soon crashed into the summoned Skeleton Warriors. The cavalrymen's great sabers effortlessly cleaved the skeletons into piles of bone, while the skeletons’ attacks proved entirely ineffective against the heavily armored Elven soldiers cocooned within their plate mail. Over a million skeletons, facing the onslaught of two thousand heavy cavalrymen, had no means to fight back and were quickly extinguished, though they successfully managed to slow the cavalry’s advance.

Observing the deceleration of the heavy cavalry, Alexander recalculated the remaining distance and issued his command: "Fire Cluster Bombs. Target: Three kilometers directly ahead. Quantity: One hundred units."

The Elven commander, seeing his elite cavalry reduce the skeletal line to bone shards, felt a surge of smug satisfaction, believing the Human army to be nothing more. Even their creation of never-before-seen skeletons seemed militarily insignificant. But just as his satisfaction peaked, tremendous explosions echoed from the Human lines, and strange objects were seen flying from the sky behind the Human army.

While the Elven commander wondered about these peculiar objects, the Cluster Bombs detonated directly above his heavy cavalry detachment.

Detonating one hundred Cluster Bombs in such a confined space caused their explosive forces to overlap exponentially. The resulting shockwaves generated a powerful hurricane directly within the ranks of the heavy Elven Cavalry. After suffering massive casualties from the shockwaves, the remaining heavy troopers were caught in the resulting vortex, swept into the sky, and shredded apart by the chaotic airflow.

Compounding the catastrophe, the widespread oxygen deprivation caused by the simultaneous explosions left those fortunate enough to survive the initial blast struggling desperately to breathe. Their mounts suffered equally from hypoxia and were unable to carry them swiftly out of the oxygen-starved zone. The sheer weight of their armor severely impeded the heavy cavalrymen’s movement, resulting in nearly the entire unit being annihilated in a single Cluster Bomb attack, save for a handful who managed to flee the suffocating zone.

The Elven commander was aghast, unable to comprehend the inexplicable destruction of his elite twenty-thousand-strong heavy cavalry. Yet, his resolve was ironclad; this was a war of extermination, and morale, once broken, was difficult to mend. With a sharp signal, the two hundred thousand Elven soldiers waiting behind him surged forward against the Human lines. The commander believed that sheer numerical superiority would crush the Human forces, and that such a massive, wide-ranging offensive would render the enemy’s specialized weaponry useless.

Alexander remained unperturbed as the full-scale Elven assault began. He roared the order: "Fire the remaining Cluster Bombs. Quantity: Two hundred. Target: Four kilometers directly ahead."

The Human army launched its final salvo of Cluster Bombs. These final two hundred projectiles exploded above the Elven formation. While these blasts inflicted substantial physical damage, the wider blast radius prevented the formation of a hurricane; the mere shockwaves and ensuing asphyxiation failed to inflict decisive casualties.

The Elven soldiers, all ranked level seven or higher, possessed formidable individual power. Though caught by surprise, suffering heavy losses, and experiencing breathing difficulties, these adverse conditions did not prove fatal. As soon as they burst free of the suffocating blast radius, their eyes blazing with vengeance, they charged toward the Church of Light, intent on avenging their comrades. Elven experts in the rear immediately took to the air, soaring toward the Human lines, eager to begin a massacre.

Alexander commanded: "Activate the Railguns. Target: Advancing Elven ground troops. Laser Weapons, free fire. Target: Aerial Elven Experts."

The sixty massive Railgun barrels, previously concealed behind the Church of Light army, were swiftly revealed. These Railguns began unleashing shells at a rate of five hundred rounds per minute toward the Elven army. The sky instantly filled with a dense swarm of projectiles, so thick they momentarily obscured the sunlight.

Upon striking the ground, the Railgun shells detonated violently. In an instant, the Elven formation erupted as if boiling, and soldiers were torn apart, limbs flying as blood flowed in rivers. Several Elven Experts flying towards the Human lines were struck directly by these shells and plummeted, only to be obliterated by subsequent impacts. The remaining Experts, shocked, immediately gained altitude to evade the barrage.

Before the aerial Elven Experts could readjust their vectors, sixty crimson laser beams suddenly lanced out from the Human ranks. These beams slashed through the bodies of the aerial foes. Experts below level nine were instantly severed in half. Those at level nine were locked rigidly in the air, unable to move, before being struck by multiple subsequent laser hits, leading to their demise. Only level ten Experts, capable of calculating the lasers' firing patterns, managed to evade the initial onslaught, though they cut ragged, desperate figures in the sky.

The Xiling commander was now utterly stunned. He had never witnessed warfare conducted in this manner. They had not even engaged in physical contact; the enemy remained far beyond the range of his mages and archers, yet his army was being decimated by strange weapons. His elite aerial force seemed to be in grave peril, and for a moment, he could conceive of no viable countermeasure to the predicament before him.

Railgun shells rained down incessantly upon the Elven infantry. Individually, these projectiles possessed enough power on Earth to destroy a skyscraper, but here, in the magical plane, they were generally limited to severing limbs against the Elves’ formidable personal defenses; they could not inflict instant death. However, the sheer volume of the shelling was overwhelming. Those who survived the initial impact were inevitably struck again by the endless downpour, ultimately being battered to death.

In a mere five minutes, the sixty Railguns had fired one hundred and fifty thousand rounds. This barrage scoured the advancing Elven army three times over and extended its reach to strike the thirty thousand Elven troops holding the rear. Any soldier within the Railgun firing envelope suffered a mortality rate exceeding eighty percent; the survivors were largely rendered combat ineffective.

The entire tide of the battle shifted with shocking speed; the Elven infantry was virtually wiped out in an instant.

Meanwhile, the level ten Elven Experts in the sky were entangled in combat with the Church of Light’s own level ten Experts, preventing their escape. As the aerial duel raged, the Human Laser Weapons seized the opportunity to launch repeated sniping attacks against the Elven Masters. These relentless laser strikes eventually created openings in the Elven Experts' defenses, which the Church of Light Masters immediately exploited to slay them one by one.

The Elven army commander was a peerless level eleven expert. He had taken hits from the Railgun shells, but his immense personal power rendered the projectiles harmless, though they delivered a profound shock. Snapping out of this stupor, he realized his army was virtually annihilated.

Grief washed over the commander—grief not only for the fallen Elven soldiers but also for his own fate. He knew that failure in this war meant certain execution upon returning home. Therefore, he abruptly reversed course, charging directly toward the Human lines, intending to capture or kill Alexander, the Human leader. Only by securing such a prize could he hope to salvage a sliver of survival upon his return.

Seeing the commander spear directly toward Alexander, both the Church of Light's Laser Weapons and Railguns locked onto him, unleashing a focused assault. However, as an eleven-level entity, the weapons could no longer breach his physical defenses. Undeterred by the barrage, the commander absorbed the attacks, flying relentlessly toward Alexander’s position.

Alexander, clad in the three-piece Pope’s Regalia, detected the commander’s intent. He raised the "Scepter of Divine Retribution" in his hand, and instantly, a Sword of Divine Retribution materialized in the sky, striking the commander squarely. Unexpectedly, the commander was also wearing protective gear: several emerald vines erupted from his body, successfully intercepting the keen blade of the Scepter. Though the Divine Sword swiftly severed the initial growth, new vines continuously sprouted from the commander, allowing him to parry the attack using this regenerating foliage.

The commander finally reached Alexander. The Human experts nearby cried out in alarm and rushed to defend their leader, but they could not match the commander’s speed, forced to watch helplessly as he closed the final distance.

As the Elven commander neared, Alexander displayed an expression of terror, rapidly backing away. The commander, seeing this perceived weakness and believing victory imminent, smirked wickedly and reached out to seize Alexander. However, Alexander was protected by the enchanted robe, the "Shield of Holy Light." Just as the commander’s fingers were about to close, he was momentarily halted by a sudden burst of white light emanating from Alexander.

The commander paused, then watched as Alexander suddenly smiled and shifted his body aside, revealing the silhouette of a two-winged angel hidden directly behind him. This angel had been summoned by the "Crown of Sanctity" Alexander wore. With Alexander's increased power, this angel was manifested with incredible density, almost fully corporeal. The moment it appeared, its massive greatsword swung towards the commander’s throat. Startled, the commander rapidly inverted his own longsword, which blazed with fierce fire, successfully blocking the Two-Winged Angel’s cleave.

And precisely at that moment, Alexander, whom the Commander had long assumed was merely a mage incapable of frontline combat, suddenly drew a pistol and rapidly fired two shots directly at the Commander’s head. Two armor-piercing rounds streaked forth. The Commander's heart lurched in alarm, and he instinctively tried to dodge. Though his reaction speed was phenomenal, he couldn't evade them completely; one armor-piercing round struck his shoulder, and the other hit his abdomen. These two rounds possessed immense power, instantly shattering the Commander’s vine defenses and damaging his internal operational systems.

Severely wounded, the Commander immediately knew this operation was doomed to fail. He attempted to pivot and flee, but his escape route was instantly cut off by eight Level Ten masters from the Church of Light, while a Two-Winged Angel stood menacingly nearby, fixed upon him.

The Commander spun around, charging once more at Alexander. Simultaneously, he began burning his own lifespan, unleashing a forbidden secret technique that not only temporarily stabilized his injuries but also boosted his strength to an incredible height. His intent was to eliminate Alexander and then use the ensuing chaos to escape.

Alexander immediately raised his pistol again, preparing to fire another shot, but the Commander shifted his form, avoiding the critical strike, and simultaneously swung a sword toward Alexander's head. He was willing to sustain another injury just to kill Alexander. The longsword blazed with fierce flames; even before it reached Alexander, it was nearly scorching his hair.

However, the Commander hadn't anticipated that Alexander was merely bluffing; he hadn't actually fired the armor-piercing rounds. In that momentary hesitation, the Two-Winged Angel moved to shield Alexander, intercepting the flaming sword with its massive greatsword. Unfortunately, the Angel’s power proved insufficient; upon being struck by the fire sword, it instantly disintegrated into white light, dissipating into the air.

At that instant, Alexander swiftly swiveled the pistol, unleashing the final armor-piercing round it held. The Commander, still reeling in shock from the sudden, inexplicable dissipation of the Two-Winged Angel, couldn't react fast enough and was struck squarely in the head by the projectile.

The Commander did not die immediately upon being shot. He let out a sky-shattering roar, and the flaming sword in his hand suddenly flew loose, hurling itself toward Alexander. Alexander couldn't dodge in time and seemed moments away from being fatally cleaved. Just then, a Level Ten warrior suddenly charged forward, placing his own body in front of Alexander. Consequently, this Level Ten warrior was instantly cleaved in half by the Commander's fire sword. The blast from the impact slightly checked the sword’s momentum; although it still managed to strike Alexander’s face, it only carved a scar across his skin and singed some of Aristor’s hair, failing to inflict a fatal wound.

Only then did the Elven Commander finally collapse, succumbing to death with unconcealed resentment. Alexander broke out in a cold sweat. The preceding moments had been terrifyingly perilous; it was only thanks to the three indestructible armor-piercing rounds his mentor had provided, coupled with the heroic sacrifice of his subordinates, that they had finally managed to slay the most formidable Elven Commander.

With the death of the Elven Commander, the tide of the battlefield clarified instantly. Under the continuous barrage from laser and electromagnetic cannon weaponry, the majority of the Xiling Kingdom’s forces were annihilated. The small fraction that managed to escape, sensing the dire situation, immediately broke into a panicked rout.

The Behemoth Knights, whom Alexander had kept hidden until this very moment, were now unleashed. Relying on their formidable combat strength, reaching Level Nine, they systematically hunted down and eliminated every fleeing Elven soldier. By this point, barely an hour had passed since the formal engagement began.

Within this single hour, the comparatively weaker Human forces, leveraging technological weaponry utterly beyond the comprehension of this magical plane’s armies, had utterly crushed the immensely powerful Elven forces, securing a complete victory in the first decisive battle between the Humans and the Elves.

～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～～ Thanks to reader Feng Zhi Ba Te for the support of two monthly passes... More at address RH