Barov was woken up from his dream by a servant.

During this period of the Red Moon's manifestation, he had not only arranged for personnel to be on duty all night in the administrative hall, but also in his mansion – he required his subordinates to notify him immediately of any unexpected events for which there was no response plan.

Although Edith had been transferred from the administrative hall, her influence on His Majesty had not diminished in the slightest. Now, even his subordinates' departments tended to ask the General Staff's opinion when formulating plans. Faced with such a talented opponent, he dared not relax his demands on himself for a moment.

However, this was not the entire reason for his diligence.

In fact, the old butler even enjoyed this feeling of being constantly busy. Busyness also meant power, which showed that the operation of Neverwinter was inseparable from his existence. At the same time, doing a good job could accumulate His Majesty's trust, and the double happiness made him quite happy.

Barov rolled out of bed, and while changing his clothes, he asked, "Speak, what exactly happened?"

"Sir, it's an order from His Majesty the King. He requires you to immediately gather all the ministers and go to the castle conference hall to discuss important matters."

"Now?" Barov looked out the window in surprise, undoubtedly in the middle of the night.

"Yes, the person on the phone didn't say much. Do you want to send someone to the castle to ask..."

"No need," the old butler quickly judged. It was unlikely to be a miscommunication that could be made from the administrative hall to his own mansion. Since telephones were not yet widespread, only his residence had this thing. Others had to be notified verbally. "Call everyone in the mansion and go knock on the door in batches – all department heads must be notified, and I will hold you accountable if you miss one!"

If it were the past Fourth Prince, he would have hesitated, but the current Roland was an impeccable king. If he decided to hold a meeting at dawn, then it must be a very important event.

"Yes...yes, sir," the servant replied quickly, "Then are you going to the castle alone?"

"No, I will go with the Pearl of the North," Barov replied, "I will personally notify Edith. Kant."

……

"Your Majesty, almost everyone has arrived." Nightingale draped a coat over Roland, "Do you need me to make you a cup of strong tea?"

"Thank you," he nodded, "I just fell asleep and called you over again..."

"It's nothing," Nightingale smiled, "Besides, I'm full of energy. The previous yawns were actually fake."

"Uh... fake?"

"N-no," she suddenly seemed to remember something and quickly changed her words, "I mean, although I yawned a few times, it was just because my eyes were a little dry, not because I was sleepy. By the way, aren't you going to call Anna too?"

"Let her get a good night's sleep," Roland shook his head, "She doesn't need to worry about this kind of thing for the time being, and... she's been exhausted lately."

In order to make the magic cube engine a reliable new generation of power source as soon as possible, Anna spent almost all day and night in the North Slope Laboratory, and the mass production of the biplanes was also imminent. The pressure was conceivable.

"You too." Nightingale handed him the strong tea, "The time you spent entering the dream world doesn't count as rest, does it?"

"Don't worry, I'm quite talented at staying up late..." Roland smiled. Irregular schedules were commonplace in his era. This level of fatigue was far from the limit, as long as he paid attention to making up for sleep in time afterward. "Besides, if I don't explain things, I can't sleep even if I lie in bed."

He drank the slightly bitter tea in one gulp and let out a long breath, "Let's go."

……

When Lightning recounted her reconnaissance experience over the past month in detail, the conference hall was silent. Everyone no longer looked sleepy, but became extremely solemn.

Agatha looked at Roland with a bitter expression, "Your Majesty, we..."

"This is not Taqila's fault," Roland comforted, "Both the increased number of high-level devils and the spider demons show

that the enemy is now completely different from four hundred years ago. Obviously, we are not the only ones making progress."

It was meaningless to blame Taqila for inaccurate intelligence. After all, the other party did not have the ability to predict the future. In a sense, their understanding of the devil side of the Third Battle of Divine Will was similar to that of Neverwinter City.

"Although the expedition team cannot temporarily confirm the information that 'the Red Mist has appeared', if it really crosses the Ends of the Earth, I think new news will come from the front line in less than a week. The question now is, assuming the enemy really has the ability to immediately activate the obelisk, how should we respond? Before discussing the answer, I would like to first determine how far a fully mature obelisk can spread the Red Mist?"

Agatha hesitated for a moment before opening her mouth and said, "Since discovering the alien devil entrenched at the bottom of the mine, the Union realized that the essence of the obelisk is probably a giant magic stone. If the small magic stones embedded in the devil's body are transformed from Chaos Beasts, then the obelisk can be regarded as a part of the original ore pillar. It certainly has the characteristics of growth, but the limit after maturity is still related to the scale of the ore vein. But..."

Roland saw her hesitation, "It doesn't matter. Having clues is better than having no clues. Moreover, there is no unchanging situation in war. If the results deviate from reality, we will adjust it at that time."

"You're right..." The Ice Witch nodded, her expression becoming more natural, "According to the experience accumulated by the Union and the ore vein orientation detected by Lightning, if a divine stone ore vein of the same scale as Taqila is transformed into an obelisk, the Red Mist can spread to about here –"

She condensed an ice crystal with her fingertips and pointed to a corner of the map on the table.

"This is... the Great Duke Island line?" Edith said thoughtfully.

"That's right. If you move the location of the Great Rift Valley to Taqila, this boundary line is roughly equivalent to the Endless Mountains," Agatha explained. "Of course, this is not something that can be achieved in an instant. The spread of the Red Mist takes time. It only takes a few days to cover the surrounding 100 kilometers, but it gets slower and slower the further out it goes. It will take several months to cover the last 100 kilometers before the limit."

Now it seems that taking down the ruins of Taqila in advance was really a fortunate thing, Roland couldn't help but think. Not to mention that being ridden on the face by the Red Mist would render the Endless Mountains useless and the Four Kingdoms defenseless, even if it were a little later, such as now only ten kilometers of track had been laid into the ruins, the First Army's offensive would be greatly hindered by the sky-filled Red Mist. In particular, the mist is a fatal threat to witches. In such an environment, the army is equivalent to being blinded and deafened. Even with the advantage of range, it is difficult to exert it.

"In this case, we must race against time." He looked at Edith, "Does the General Staff have any plans for this?"

"Of course, Your Majesty," the Pearl of the North could be regarded as the most radiant person in the conference hall. After all, she was the first to guess the devil's intention. "Although the enemy's actions are faster than we expected, from a strategic point of view, erecting the obelisk on the spine of the continent can be said to be a helpless move. Although it is hidden enough, it is not conducive to attack, which gives us a chance to reverse the disadvantage – first of all, there is a consensus among all members of the General Staff, that is, if the enemy really appears from the direction of the Eternal Winter Kingdom, our last line of defense must not be Graycastle, but here."

She tapped a spot on the map.

That was the Cage Mountain of the Dawn Kingdom.