novelno Chapter 1289 Negotiation
Chapter 1289 Negotiation
An hour later.
The city where Lin Yi was located had been completely turned into a sea of fire.
Blue flames shot out from the shattered wreckage of the armored vehicle, dancing in the gray sky and distorting the surrounding air.
The building's exterior walls were covered in charred marks, and some glass curtain walls shattered under the high temperature, with fragments scattered on the street, reflecting tiny glimmers of light in the firelight.
The streets were littered with the wreckage of armored vehicles. Those once imposing armored vehicles now lay crookedly across the road, some overturned, some upside down, and some cleaved in two, with the metal plates at the cut surfaces curled outwards, revealing complex circuits and pipes underneath.
The debris from the aircraft was scattered further away; some pieces crashed through the roofs of buildings, got stuck in cracks in the floorboards, and were scattered across the open square.
The air was filled with a burnt smell, mixed with some indescribable chemical odor, making one's throat tighten.
Occasionally a gust of wind would blow by, dispersing some of the acrid smell, but it would soon be covered by the newly lit flames.
The undead girl stood on a pile of rubble, her wide robes swaying slightly in the heat.
She was humming an unknown tune, a light and cheerful melody with a playful twist, like a children's song a kid might sing on his way home from school. However, the melody created an eerie contrast with the war-torn land beneath her feet.
Countless gray cracks appeared before her.
Those cracks were not ordinary spatial cracks, but entrances to the Netherworld.
The edges of the crack were grayish-white, like a torn piece of paper, with jagged edges, and one could vaguely see the wasteland on the other side of the crack, which was forever shrouded in gray mist.
The corpses would pass through the cracks and fall onto the wasteland, where they would be dragged away by the low-level undead waiting below the cracks, sorted, stored, and awaited further processing.
The undead girl hummed a song as she manipulated the abominations under her command to throw all the corpses into her own territory in the Netherworld.
The Abomination is one of the largest summons in the Undead Girl's hands, standing nearly four meters tall, its body pieced together from fragments of a corpse stitched together.
They are incredibly strong and can carry several corpses at once, lifting them up like rag dolls and stuffing them into the cracks.
These are all very important resources for the undead girl.
Summoning skeletons doesn't consume much, but it still requires corpses as raw materials.
An ordinary human corpse can be transformed into a basic skeleton warrior. Although its combat power is not great, in large-scale wars, quantity itself is a kind of quality.
The corpses in the Netherworld are indeed endless. The beings who died over countless eras are piled up on that gray-white wasteland, like a mine that can never be exhausted.
However, the area controlled by the undead girl is still limited. The territory she occupies in the Netherworld is not very large, and she can only access a limited number of corpses.
Furthermore, the quality of the corpses also affects the quality of the generated skeletons.
The difference in combat power between storing a corpse in the underworld for ten thousand years and directly summoning it into a skeleton soldier is like heaven and earth.
A corpse that has been stored for ten thousand years has bones that have been tempered by time, resulting in a density and hardness far exceeding that of a newly deceased corpse.
Although the bodies of those Kraken soldiers hadn't been stored for long enough, their quality was truly remarkable.
The bones of the Kran aliens are extremely dense and structurally strong, and the resulting skeleton warriors are at least 30% stronger than ordinary ones.
Thinking that her combat power had increased significantly, the undead girl's humming tune became even more cheerful.
After sending the last batch of corpses into the crevice, the undead girl dusted off her robes and returned to where the two had landed.
Meanwhile, Lin Yi sat at a tea party table, drinking tea.
The table was salvaged from the ruins of some coffee shop; one of its four legs was broken, and it was propped up with several bricks to maintain its balance.
A white tablecloth was laid on the table, and the tea set on the table was taken out of that treasure vault by the undead girl. It was a complete set of white porcelain tea set, including a teapot, teacups, tea tray, and tea spoon.
The porcelain is of excellent quality; the color of the tea soup can be seen through it in the sunlight.
The undead girl said she smuggled this from the royal treasury of a destroyed kingdom. She had been using it for several years but had forgotten about it. Today, she finally had the chance to show it off.
Lin Yi picked up his teacup and took a sip.
The tea soup is amber in color, clear and bright. The first taste is mellow, followed by sweetness, and finally a faint floral fragrance lingers in the throat.
Although it's not quite as good as tea made from black maple leaves, it's still considered a premium product.
Based on Lin Yi's understanding of the Undead Girl, this can of tea was most likely taken from another faction's warehouse by her.
Lin Yi put down his teacup, gently stroking the rim with his fingers, and turned his gaze to the scorched open space in front of him.
"The other side hasn't launched an attack for so long, so they're either preparing for something big or they're ready to give up."
The undead girl jumped down from the pile of rubble, walked to the table, and plopped down on another chair.
The chair was better preserved than the table, except for a scorch mark on the back, but it was still quite stable to sit on.
"I think we're going to go big." The undead girl grabbed the teapot, poured herself a cup, and disregarded all the etiquette of tea drinking, tilting her head back and gulping it down. After finishing, she smacked her lips and said, "Delicious."
She put down her teacup, wiped her mouth with her sleeve, and continued, "Look, the army has been driven back, and the air force has been wiped out. If they wanted to give up, they should have sent people to negotiate long ago. The fact that there's been no movement so far means that they're not unwilling to fight; they're holding back a big move."
Lin Yi didn't reply, but simply picked up his teacup again and slowly took a sip.
The Undead Girl's analysis was logically correct. Although the military forces of Kran Star had suffered heavy losses, they were far from being at their wits' end.
They also have reserves, backup forces, and military bases stationed on other continents that have not been mobilized.
If they are truly determined to continue the fight and concentrate the military forces of the entire planet, Lin Yi and the Undead Girl will have to pay a considerable price even if they win.
The question is whether the forces on Kraken have the resolve to do so.
Are the members of the federal parliament and the leaders of the forces hiding in their own territories really willing to sacrifice the entire planet's military power for two "invaders"?
Lin Yi thought it wouldn't happen.
It's not because the Kran aliens are cowardly, but because they're not worth it.
They had no idea about Lin Yi and the Undead Girl's background, their limits, or how many trump cards they had yet to play.
In their eyes, these two people broke through the most elite defenses of Kran in less than two hours, and heaven knows how many more tricks they have up their sleeves.
Continuing to fight under these circumstances would be too risky.
Therefore, Lin Yi's judgment is that Kran Star will choose to negotiate.
It's not that they don't want to fight, but that they're afraid to gamble.
As soon as Lin Yi finished speaking, a huge transport ship appeared in the sky.
The transport ship was at least ten times larger than the previous fighter jets, and was a flat oval shape with a light gray coating on its surface, the same as that of the armored vehicles.
Lin Yi glanced at it and understood what was going on.
The Kran must be preparing for negotiations, otherwise they wouldn't have sent only one transport ship.
If it were a general offensive, what would arrive would be an overwhelming swarm of fighter jets and thousands of armored vehicles, not a lone transport ship.
Transport ships are for transporting personnel and supplies, not for combat. The fact that Kraken sent a transport ship indicates that their purpose is not to fight, but to send people over for talks.
The undead girl also saw the transport ship.
She tilted her head and stared at the grayish-white oval object for a few seconds, then turned her head away, pouted, and looked regretful.
"Sigh, I've already chickened out."
There was an indescribable sense of loss in her tone, like an explorer who had just found the entrance to a treasure trove but hadn't even had a chance to dig before being told to go home.
She was indeed a little unwilling.
After the army arrived on Kran, the undead girl reaped a good harvest of life energy.
But the problem is—she wants more.
If the fighting continues on Planet Kraken, she can continue to reap the rewards, turning these guys into part of the life energy in her pocket.
But Kran Star chickened out.
They stopped fighting, and her harvesting came to an end.
The undead girl sighed, refilled the teacup with hot water, blew on it, and sipped it slowly.
However, compared to the previous Kerser tribe, the number of soldiers provided here is still less.
The battle with the Kaser tribe lasted for almost a day, and the life energy she collected was enough for her to squander for several months.
The battle on Planet Kran lasted less than two hours. Although the individual quality was high, the total number of survivors was still significantly lower.
The quantity is insufficient, but the quality is excellent.
The life energy provided by the Kran aliens, along with the corpses sent to the Netherworld, is enough to support the Undead Girl in launching another million-strong undead war in the next world.
She did the math and realized that the trip wasn't a complete waste, so her initial resentment lessened a bit.
As the undead girl manipulated the surrounding bone dragons to make way, the transport ship slowly descended from the sky and stopped in front of the two.
Upon receiving the order, the bone dragons retreated to the sides, their grayish-white skeletal wings whipping up gusts of cold wind that scattered pebbles and dust from the ground.
The transport ship landed smoothly without making any unnecessary noise.
It hovers about one meter above the ground, with four sturdy supports extending from its bottom, the ends of which rest steadily on the road surface.
The hatch opened.
Several diplomats from the planet Kraken appeared before the two.
Leading the way was a middle-aged male Kran alien with dark blue skin, a shade darker than that of ordinary Kran aliens. He had three silver-white lines on his forehead, extending upwards from his brow bone and disappearing into his hairline.
He was wearing a dark suit, the style of which was somewhat similar to the Earth suits Lin Yi had seen, but the fabric was softer and shimmered in the light.
He was followed by four people, two men and two women, dressed in relatively simple light-colored formal attire, each carrying a briefcase.
Their brows furrowed with barely concealed tension, and their foreheads were covered in a fine layer of sweat.
The leading diplomat paused slightly as he descended the gangway.
His boots stomped on the pavement, the soles making a soft, rustling sound as they rubbed against the gravel.
He raised his head, his gaze sweeping across the surrounding battlefield, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.
Dozens of bone dragons stood around the transport ship, forming an impenetrable encirclement around the airspace.
The bone dragon's enormous wings were folded to its sides, making it look like a series of silent statues.
Their eye sockets had grayish-white flames flickering inside, like a group of predators sizing up their prey.
The lead diplomat took a deep breath, clearing those chaotic thoughts from his mind.
He strode toward Lin Yi and the undead girl, with the four people behind him following closely behind.
He stopped when he was about three meters away from Lin Yi.
This distance is the standard meeting distance in diplomatic etiquette; it is neither too close to be offensive nor too far to be distant.
“Gentlemen,” the lead diplomat began, speaking fluent Void Common.
His pronunciation was very standard, even with a slight Arcane Eternal accent.
His tone was calm, but Lin Yi noticed that his right hand, hanging at his side, was trembling slightly.
"I am Kran Solt, Director of the Emergency Response Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kran Federation. May I ask what the purpose of your visit to Kran Star?"
His words were very direct, so direct that he even clearly stated his specific job title.
The four people behind him were also trembling slightly. They were not soldiers, had never been on the battlefield, but were just diplomats.
They were sent to this war-torn city, facing two invaders who could breach the defenses of Kraken in two hours. It would be a lie to say they weren't nervous.
But they came anyway, because they knew things would only get worse if no one came to talk.
Upon hearing the question, Lin Yi placed his teacup on the table and stood up.
He walked up to the group of people and stopped less than two steps away from the leading diplomat.
At this distance, Solt could clearly see Lin Yi's eyes.
Salt instinctively wanted to take a half step back, but his feet were firmly planted on the ground—a testament to his professionalism as a diplomat.
He looked at the face in front of him and felt that it looked familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had seen it before.
The four people behind him also frowned, their eyes scanning Lin Yi's face back and forth, trying to recall the origin of that face from their memories.
They had reviewed a lot of intelligence. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kran Federation had a huge intelligence database that contained information on key figures from major forces in the void, including their photos, resumes, ability assessments, and so on.
That information is categorized and archived, and only personnel at specific levels have the authority to access it.
Salt has looked through those files many times.
It wasn't because of work requirements, but because he had worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for decades, and when he had nothing to do, he would flip through those files to learn what those big shots in the virtual world looked like.
He must have seen Lin Yi's face in the files.
At that moment, a young female diplomat behind them suddenly let out a very soft gasp.
The sound was very soft, almost like the sound of lips rubbing together, but it was clearly audible in the quiet open space.
"The Abyss... The Abyss Healer." (End of Chapter)