Over the past few months, in order to build trade routes between the two nations, the Carnation Kingdom had been actively exchanging all kinds of information with the Plumera Kingdom. A high-ranking official from the Carnation Kingdom had already taken up permanent residence in Plumera City.
Over these months, the Plumera Kingdom had steadily grown stronger and more powerful, even joining forces with foreign allies to launch a counterattack against a powerful second-tier country in the Northern Frontier, raising itself from a third-tier minor nation to a strong second-tier country. The Carnation Kingdom witnessed all of this closely.
So this time, whether it was escorting Plumera's envoys with royal guards or sending along a massive amount of rare and luxurious gifts, it was all the Carnation Kingdom's way of expressing admiration and trying to win Plumera's favor.
Just a year ago, the Carnation Kingdom had been a mid-sized third-tier country with slightly more national strength than Plumera. Now, in just one year, Plumera had grown into a powerful empire that the Carnation Kingdom could only look up to and cautiously try to please.
At first, the Carnation Envoy Prince Ying came with a somewhat testing attitude. Back then, the Carnation Kingdom had decided that if Plumera really had any resemblance to the divine prophecy and could help ease their two great natural disasters, they would acknowledge Plumera and its Empress Elara as the prophesied ones.
They were even prepared to send their eldest prince, born of the Empress and her consort, for a political marriage, demanding at least the status of Imperial Noble Consort. But now that Plumera had become too powerful for the Carnation Kingdom to reach, they could only humbly try to please them, no longer daring to think of anything beyond that.
So the eldest prince whom the Carnation Kingdom had originally intended to marry into Plumera's palace and claim an important position had now become little more than a toy, no better than Clematis or Cleome, existing solely to please Empress Elara.
Elara looked at the many "gifts" sent by the Carnation Kingdom, her face showing a formal, routine smile. She said nothing positive or negative.
After completing the formal reception of the envoy, she had someone summon Minister of Rites Esmira to handle the follow-up matters. However, just as Esmira arrived, the Carnation Envoy suddenly knelt before Elara and said,
"There is one more matter I wish to report to Your Majesty."
"Speak."
"To the south of the Carnation Kingdom, near the Forbidden Forest, lies a third-tier minor country called Shanping. In the past, Shanping had always feared our power and never dared to cause trouble at the border.
Sometimes, it even offered tribute to seek peace." "But half a month ago, Shanping suddenly went mad and invaded our country!"
"Our prince, Prince Ying, personally led the army south and fought back. Only then did Shanping begin to retreat step by step and finally fall back within its borders."
"Logically, Shanping should have surrendered by then and sent tributes to beg us not to destroy their country. But instead, they acted like madmen and kept attacking, even after our prince had already pushed deep into their territory!"
"Later, after our prince captured and crushed Shanping's invading army of two hundred thousand, they finally calmed down a little."
"But when we investigated the matter, we found out Shanping didn't just attack us. All the countries around it, except for Rong and Qianshan in the south, were also suddenly and madly attacked."
"What's even stranger is that the two countries Shanping didn't attack, Rong and Qianshan, also went mad and began attacking the countries around them!"
"Our prince, Prince Ying, noticed this strange pattern and sent people to secretly investigate multiple countries in the south. The results showed that not only Shanping, Rong, and Qianshan, but several other countries in the southern region including the large third-tier country Gujin by the Hopeless Sea and its two medium-sized vassals, Jingguang and Zhoumu had all started wildly attacking their neighbors for no clear reason."
The Plumera Kingdom's capital, Plumera City, was located in the southwestern corner of the continent, leaning toward the south. It had always been a remote and insignificant edge of the mainland.
Further south, the various countries were mostly no stronger than medium third-tier nations, and there were no more than three large third-tier countries in total.
Elara frowned slightly after hearing this.
"How many countries in the south have suddenly started attacking neighboring nations?"
"Including Shanping and the two countries south of it, as well as Gujin by the sea and its two subordinate countries, there are a total of seven that have strangely attacked nearby nations."
"Although Shanping and those three countries, including Gujin by the southern sea, do not share a border with your Plumera Kingdom and are quite some distance away, most of the southern countries are small third-tier nations.
If those few crazed countries are allowed to continue, they might take over their neighbors and eventually spread war to the borders of Plumera. So, after much thought, our Empress sent me to inform Your Majesty."
Other than Plumera's southern border, most nearby nations were small third-tier countries. The number of medium third-tier countries could be counted on one hand, and there were only two or three large ones, located in the extreme south near the sea.
They were separated from Plumera by at least three or four smaller countries. In the past, Elara had not paid much attention to the southern border.
But after hearing the Carnation Envoy's report, she could no longer ignore it. At the very least, she needed to send someone to investigate.
However, Gujin and its subordinate countries were at the very southern edge, near the sea, and even the shortest distance to Plumera was more than 500 kilometers.
The distance was too far. Though Elara's Puppet Soldiers could reach that far, her control over them would be greatly weakened.
They would only be able to perform simple tasks, like delivering messages remotely like Black Eagles.
After some thought, Elara decided to hand the matter over to the military. She instructed General Qi to select an elite squad to head south and investigate.
She also sent three Black Eagles to follow them. If anything happened, they were to immediately send word back using the eagles.
But half a month later, something strange occurred.
In the past, whenever Elara sent her Black Eagles to deliver messages even as far as 2,000 kilometers away to the Tiangong Pavilion, she could still vaguely sense their location and condition.
This time, however, the three Puppet Soldier eagles had only flown about 400 kilometers south before Elara completely lost all sense of them.
This had never happened before, especially since the holy spirit blood in her body had been fully awakened by Oswyn's white-haired master.
Back then, to fully control her Puppet Soldiers, she had used national fortune points to upgrade her Puppet Gu, making it far more powerful than the original mother Gu of the Puppet Sect.
Over the past year, these Puppet Soldiers had helped Elara in many key missions and battles. They had never gone out of control before.
But this time, before they even reached their destination, they had completely lost contact halfway.
Something was clearly wrong.
Even more alarming was that today, more than two weeks later, the elite squad General Qi had sent, which should have returned seven days ago, still hadn't come back.
Looking at the message tube that remained completely silent, Elara realized the situation in the southern border might be far more serious than she had expected.