Of course, it was unheard of. If demons had possessed such abilities four hundred years ago, the Witch Empire wouldn't have lasted ten years, let alone longer; they would have been wiped out by the demons in a year or two.

After all, relying solely on a small number of extraordinary individuals was no match for the endless stream of enemies. Once a God's Stone pillar was placed at every outpost, the witches would be sitting ducks.

Roland naturally knew how difficult it was to carve out such a God's Stone pillar. The characteristic of God's Stone was that the more complete it was, the stronger it became. Even a close-range direct hit with a firearm on the native boulders at the bottom of the North Slope mine could only leave a few white dots. The only method of mining was to erode and peel it off bit by bit with the blood of magic power, and then cut and polish it. Therefore, larger God's Stones were very valuable.

However, even the hall-suppressing stone in Hermes Cathedral wasn't this large—from the description of the ice witch, it seemed that the demons had directly cut off a section of the original stone with some kind of sharp weapon. If they hadn't mastered incredible processing technology, they had a deeper understanding of magic power.

And neither of these was good news for humanity.

"Looking at the demons' newly emerged weapons, they haven't been idle for the past four hundred years..." Roland tapped the table and said, "The third Battle of Divine Will might be more difficult than expected."

His initial concerns were confirmed. Compared to the demons of the Union era, they were not only more cunning now, but also had made considerable progress in technology. Hybrid life forms like creeping demons were simply perfect for dealing with ordinary combat witches. Their two-kilometer range was enough for them to launch attacks when their opponents were completely unprepared. By the time the witch army reacted, it was basically too late to use their abilities.

Even with an observer like Sylvie, how many teammates could a witch whose defensive ability was limited to five meters protect if the enemy launched a covering attack?

"Although I don't want to admit it, the demons' evolution speed has indeed surpassed ours," Zoe said, "If this were a war during the Union era, we would probably have been completely defeated."

Roland could naturally imagine that being flanked on both sides, cut off from the rear, with high-level demons overseeing the battle from the sky, ground troops with a number of mad demons far exceeding the number of witches, and new types of demons with a wide range of killing abilities, only a very small number of witches could escape the ambush alive.

The question now was, were these five creeping demons the demons' only trump card, or just a small part of the vanguard? Besides variants like the creeping demons, had the demons developed other war weapons? What would they look like, and how should they be dealt with?

These were all pieces of information that Neverwinter urgently needed to know.

After reporting the results of the battle, the next item was the casualties of the First Army.

Regarding this part of the content, Roland already knew a general idea after the battle, and the detailed statistics four days later were not too different. There was no doubt that this was all thanks to Nana and Lily.

A total of more than 190 soldiers were injured, and 75 were killed in action. Most of the casualties were caused by the creeping demons—the stone needles fired from the trenches were unavoidable for the soldiers, and after penetrating the human body, they sank into the soil, almost nailing people to the trenches. In order to send the wounded to the aid camp, the first aid team had to pull out the more than one-meter-long stone needles first, which resulted in massive bleeding. Multiple vital organs were injured, and incorrect rescue methods caused many people to stop breathing within minutes.

Roland certainly wouldn't blame the paramedics—in fact, the first appearance of the first aid team had already bought a lot of time for the injured soldiers. Besides, Nana's magic power could not possibly heal so many wounded at the same time, so she could only use a water-flowing operation method, first healing the fatal injuries in order. In this way, the emergency treatment of minor injuries was particularly important.

In the future, as the scale of the war continued to expand, Nana would be able to take care of fewer and fewer wounded, and the First Army would eventually have to rely on its own strength to solve the problem of treatment.

"Bring back the ashes of the sacrificed soldiers," he said in a deep voice, "Gryphon City will not forget them."

"Yes, Your Majesty!" Iron Axe also replied solemnly.

"So... what are your plans for the First Army's next actions?" the Pearl of the Northern Region asked, "The enemy's losses have obviously exceeded their expectations. According to Lightning xiaojie's observation, the patrol Terror Beasts near the Taquila ruins have become much sparser. She approached within a hundred kilometers before encountering intercepting demons. In addition, Sylvie xiaojie has also confirmed this point—apart from the few tower-like iron frame monsters, the remaining magical light is less than a thousand. In other words, their foothold in the Fertile Plains is currently empty."

Roland pondered for a long time before deciding, "After the wounded have healed, break camp and return to Neverwinter."

"Are you worried about supplies not keeping up?"

"If we can't occupy the ruins, continuing north is meaningless." He took a sip of tea, "And... winter is coming soon."

Although the Evil Moon was not based on the seasons, for the people around the Wilderness, the endless snow and the sky-obscuring dark clouds were the real winter.

At that time, the First Army would not only have to face an extremely harsh climate, but also had to guard against the ubiquitous evil beasts. In such a distant overseas operation, Neverwinter could neither guarantee the supply of food and cold-resistant materials, nor could it provide enough danyao for the army to conduct a multi-faceted war.

Therefore, staying in the Wilderness to spend the winter was an extremely risky thing.

Once the heavy snow fell, it would not be so easy to retreat.

"I understand," Edith replied, "The staff will cooperate with the chief commander to formulate a withdrawal plan."

"Everything should be稳妥." Roland was about to end this "remote meeting" when Agatha's voice suddenly interjected.

"Your Majesty, there is one more thing you need to know."

"Oh? Tell me."

"That's right, that high-level demon who was defeated by the God's Punishment Witch is still alive..."

After listening to Agatha's narration, Roland couldn't help but be stunned.

"Let Camilla link to the demon's mind, is that feasible?"

It was not only consciousness; in a sense, it was even sensory sharing, becoming one. In other words, the subject could experience what it was like to be a demon during mental resonance, which was not a new or interesting thing—the experience of the Taquila witches when possessing a carrier could illustrate the problem: sensory information that did not belong to humans would cause confusion in their thoughts, and after becoming familiar with it, they would no longer be able to return to a normal state, let alone what would happen when two completely different minds collided.

This made him think of the term "mental pollution."

"The risk is very high, so after repeated discussions with Zoe, I came up with a more feasible method."