Winter Lord: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 227 Pre-war meeting
The wind and snow could not conceal the heavy atmosphere; the war drums had not yet sounded, but the air was already thick with oppression.

At the start of the meeting, the Duke of Edmund did not exchange any pleasantries.

He simply sat in the main seat, gently raised his hand, and said calmly, "Everyone, let's not waste any more words. You've all seen what's going on outside."

His voice wasn't loud, but it penetrated every corner of the conference hall, like an icicle piercing everyone's hearts.

"This is not a battle, but a... catastrophe of annihilation."

No one spoke in the hall; only the distant rumble of the magic fortress echoed back.

"So today we're only going to talk about one thing: how to end all of this."

As he spoke, he slowly turned his gaze to a shadowy spot beside him: "I've brought this person here for this..."

The figure slowly emerged from the shadows and stepped into the area illuminated by the lights.

It was a being dressed in a dark blue robe with star patterns. The robe swayed gently like the night sky, with starlight constantly rising from its edges, as if it were falling into the void.

He did not give his name or provide any identification.

Even the Duke did not reveal his origins.

But no one questioned it, after all, his aura alone proved that he was an absolute powerhouse.

His entire face was shrouded in a hazy mist.

Even standing next to him, I couldn't make out his features; it felt as if the "fog" was rejecting my gaze and, more importantly, rejecting my understanding.

Wherever he walked, the air seemed to be slightly distorted, as if a sense of an old era, transcending time and space, quietly descended.

"Who is that person...?" a young military officer from the capital murmured.

No one answered.

Aurelion ignored him and simply stood still, getting straight to the point: "The original 'mother hive' was just some kind of low-level magical parasite."

They produce tiny insects that attempt to manipulate the remains of their hosts, using the corpses to replenish the nest and propagate the next generation.

In their primitive state, they could only control a wild mouse, a decaying cat… posing no threat to the world whatsoever.

He paused briefly at this point.

In the conference hall, several officers from the capital looked thoughtful, while the brows of the veteran generals and knights gradually furrowed.

"The current 'mother nest' is no longer a simple host; its reproduction, expansion, and magical sensitivity far surpass any undead structure recorded in the past. The only possibility is that it has been artificially guided, catalyzed, and endowed with ancient dark magic."

These words caused many officers to gasp in surprise, and the faces of the mage members changed drastically.

“This is a monster that has been ‘created’ by humans,” Aurelion added calmly.

He slowly extended a finger and tapped the table lightly: "Of course, no matter how strong it is, its foundation is still that 'symbiotic insect spirit structure'."

Once the mother hive is destroyed, all the insect corpses connected to it will die due to the collapse of their mental core. This has been proven in actual combat.

As soon as he finished speaking, several senior commanders from the Dragonblood Legion and the Cold Iron Legion nodded in agreement.

"Indeed, during the extermination of the mother nest, we witnessed the entire front line come to a standstill after a nest was destroyed," a veteran recalled. "Those insect corpses were like they had been drained of their marrow, unable to move at all."

“If it were an ordinary mother hive, it would be fine,” Gaius said in a deep voice, “but what we are facing now is… the strongest and most bizarre one.”

Aurelion ignored the whispers of the councilors and generals around him, and spoke slowly, his voice low and indistinct, as if coming from the abyss.

"This mother hive... let's call it the 'strongest mother hive' for now."

His tone was flat, as if he were stating a trivial fact, but every word weighed heavily on everyone's hearts.

"It even evolved a kind of ability... known as 'the fog of death'."

For a moment, there was a brief silence in the room, followed by a burst of quiet and rapid whispers.

"The Mist of Death...?"

"It sounds...like it's dangerous?"

"What exactly is it?"

Those government officials and generals who were not skilled in magic looked at each other in bewilderment; many of them did not even understand the meaning of the words.

Having little exposure to magic, they instinctively felt danger, terror, and a sense of awe based solely on the words "death" and "mist."

There was no explanation of the origin of the incantation, nor any explanation of the magical structure, since they couldn't understand it and didn't need to.

Aurelion simply raised his hand, and a dark cloud of mist appeared in the air.

A stitched-up face vaguely appeared in the mist, one eye still opening and closing, the other mouth crying, like a child, like an old man... and around the image, twisted insect corpses were being reassembled.

"The Fog of Death, in essence, is a forbidden superpower that transcends the boundaries between spirit and flesh."

It can reassemble any remains of the dead, whether they are severed limbs, broken bones, fragments of armor, or even a pool of blood.

As long as it is not completely burned, it may be reshaped.

The recombined individuals will lose their original identities and become extensions of the mother nest's will—the kind of spliced ​​monsters you see that defy common sense.

The faces of those around him gradually turned pale.

“And that black mist…” Aurelion’s tone became slightly more serious, “is not just a visual obstruction. It possesses an extremely strong ability to pollute the mind, directly disrupting thought processes and inducing hallucinations and fear.”

It is also a persistent corrosive gas that erodes magical structures and physical cells. More importantly, this mist cannot be dispelled.

Some even showed subtle fear on their faces: "We saw all of this on the front lines..."

Gaius's voice broke the silence: "One charge cost us more than ten Dragonblood Knights, all of them high-level powerhouses, but those monsters don't 'die' at all. We sever their necks, and they just grow new ones."

Chop off their limbs, and the bone fragments can be pieced back together. Smash their heads, and another insect's brain will take its place. You kill one, it breaks into three pieces, and that could be three new ones.

A young commander asked in a hoarse voice, "Then what do we do... keep fighting them? It's pointless, isn't it?"

Aurelion looked at him quietly, his face still blurred by the mist: "So destroying the Mother Nest is the only solution."

"The only way to stop it is to kill the strongest mother hive."

There was a deathly silence, but no one raised any objections.

Based on their experience and the Grand Master's persuasiveness, they knew that this was the only solution.

Duke Edmund nodded, his tone steady yet authoritative: "Thank you for the information, Your Excellency."

He did not use the title "Supreme Master" or his name; it was the other party who requested a simplified form of address.

He waved his hand gently, signaling the next general to speak: "General Rudolf, please report on the specific situation at the front."

That was the deputy commander of the Cold Iron Legion, an old general clad in heavy armor with ice patterns.

He stood up, his eyes as cold as frost, and declared with the force of a hammer: "The strongest mother nest has been confirmed to be located deep within the belly of Frostja Mountain."

According to battlefield reports, the main hive cannot move quickly and mainly relies on expanding outwards through tunnels. We detected that it seems to be advancing slowly, but the main body is extremely well hidden, possessing very strong structural cover and magical barriers.

A decapitation squad composed of extraordinary knights attempted to approach…

The general paused, his eye twitching.

"...But they were all wiped out before even touching the core of the main body. No one survived." "Their attacks didn't even leave a scratch on the outer shell of the mother nest."

The entire conference room fell eerily silent instantly.

One of the younger councilors' Adam's apple bobbed, and he even unconsciously swallowed.

"That's... an extraordinary knight?"

"Hmm." Rudolf nodded, his expression as cold as ice. "But he was killed before even severing the tentacles. This shows that even a peak knight might not be able to penetrate the outer shell of the mother nest."

After introducing some basic information about the mother nest, he sat back down, and another deep voice sounded.

A quartermaster with gray hair and a faded cloak slowly rose to his feet: "We are... running out of resources."

One sentence sent a chill down my spine.

"Supplies are running low." He opened the scroll in his hand, his fingertips trembling slightly. "One-third of the stockpile of Frost Crystal Bullets has been exhausted, and the remaining reserves are insufficient to support three full-scale attacks. The Magic Crystal Furnace can only maintain the main array's protection for seven days. After that, we can only rely on emergency Soul Stones to maintain some of the defense zones."

He looked at the Duke and Arthur, his tone as clear as a nail.

"Physical resources are nearly exhausted. Arrow fragments, armor repair materials, battle aura potions, purification runes... almost everything has fallen below the warning line. Energy resources are also declining precipitously. Two of the seventeen magic fortresses have already stopped operating, and the remaining fifteen can only be operated in rotation."

“And food.” He paused, his gaze sweeping over the imperial officials in their opulent uniforms, “With the current distribution plan, Frostspear City won’t last more than fifteen days.”

The air suddenly froze.

There was no more whispering, no more turning of pens and paper, only silence.

At this moment, no further data or charts are needed, no lengthy battle reports are required; everyone has seen it and understands it.

If Frostspear City falls...

A slowly creeping hell, teeming with destruction and madness, will not stop here.

Millions of the dead will become its tongue and claws, and the horde of corpses will surge across the entire North, heading straight for the heart of the Empire.

It was not a defeat in battle, but a complete and utter decline of civilization.

Frostspear City is the last barrier at the gates of hell.

Everyone sitting at the table, whether nobles, military officers, mages, or government officials, felt a chill that ran through their very bones at that moment.

In the silence, it was the Duke of Edmund's voice that broke the stillness.

He stood up and stood before the table like a wall of cold iron.

“So,” his voice was cold, but his words revealed a ruthless decisiveness, “we must deal with that mother nest as soon as possible… this thing cannot be allowed to live.”

As the supreme commander of the North, Duke Edmund acted decisively and began issuing orders swiftly:
"In the first phase, the Frostspear City's magical defenses will unleash a full-scale Frost Crystal Storm, in conjunction with catapults and Chain Bursting Magic Crystals, to continuously weaken the outer insect swarm. The goal is to clear the attack channels and create an entry window."

"Yes!" The city defense officer of Frostspear City immediately stood up and responded to the order in a clear voice.

"The second phase will be initiated by the Dragonblood Legion and the Cold Iron Legion with the 'Core Breaking Squad' plan."

This time, it was Arthur who personally gave his approval.

"Ten decapitation squads, each with ten members, are composed of high-ranking extraordinary knights. Each squad will be personally led by me, Gaius, and His Excellency the Duke. We will storm the Mother Nest's central hub and destroy the consciousness core and regeneration core—we are going all in."

A soft gasp filled the conference room.

The fact that three top-tier knights personally led the expedition represents one of the strongest combat forces the empire can mobilize.

But Gaius Calvin stood up, his brow furrowed, and said in a low voice, "Theoretically possible... but we've tried it before."

He looked around, a rare hesitation creeping into his voice: "The Mother Nest's defenses far exceed common sense. Three extraordinary knights once launched a coordinated attack, exhausting their fighting spirit, yet they couldn't even tear a single inch of its outer shell... It's not just a shell, but a living fortress."

Moreover, it can continuously spew out black mist, reassemble corpses, regenerate itself, and even corrode the battle aura itself.

He concluded in a deep voice, his eyes heavy: "To put it bluntly... even a top-tier knight would probably find it difficult to inflict much real damage on it. We can't even penetrate its armor."

The air once again fell into a suffocating stillness.

Around the conference table, faces were dappled with shadows cast by the lamplight.

No one made a sound, as if even their breath was compressed into the heavy stone hall.

Finally, someone spoke up: "Given our current resource situation, we can try a three-stage catapult attack... First, throw Frost Crystal Bombs to freeze the outer swarm of insects, then use Shock Bombs to tear open the gaps, and finally throw Sharpened Hammers to concentrate our bombardment on the weak points of the mother hive's shell."

The speaker was a staff officer, speaking cautiously as he pointed to the offensive route drawn on the scroll. His plan was comprehensive, tactically sound, and also took into account Frostspear City's existing firepower resources.

But soon another tactical officer from the Dragonblood Legion shook his head:

"It works, but it's useless."

He tapped the stone table with his calloused fingers and said in a deep voice, "Those reconstituted insect corpses are not afraid of impact at all, and the mother nest does not move at all. What you blasted off was only the outermost shell, and it just regenerated another layer."

Another tactician from the capital stood up: "Can we lure it to move? Induce it to expose its central structure?"

"Lure?" Gaius sneered. "What do you intend to use as a lure?"

The tactical officer's voice suddenly choked.

What followed were ten chaotic minutes.

Some have proposed building a deep-mining blast array, using rivet-driven blasting pipes to penetrate underground insect nests.

Some suggested fusing all the remaining cold crystals to create a 'penetrating cone' in an attempt to strike the core.

Some have even suggested dismantling the Frostspear City's magic core furnace and detonating it in reverse to create a magic energy collapse.

These proposals were put forward one by one, and then rejected one by one.

None of these options are realistic. They either lack sufficient resources, have overly stringent execution conditions, or simply cannot get close enough to the core of the target.

"If the shell can't be penetrated, it's all just empty talk."

"We don't have enough manpower, enough windows, and even very little usable tactical equipment left."

“Unless—human lives are used as a sacrifice.” The voice came from an older strategist from Frostspear City.

His hair was gray, but his voice did not tremble; it was as calm as a dried-up ancient well.

"We only have one choice. Send the ten strongest squads to draw attention and create a path. The remaining knights, armed with explosives, will launch a full-scale assault, sacrificing the Mother Nest in the process."

This is not advice; it's suicidal calculation.

The meeting hall fell silent. The high-seated officials of the capital city also fell silent, some frowning, some bowing their heads, and some muttering words they wanted to say.

Those were words they themselves were unwilling to touch.

"A pile of human lives..."

These words are sinful in peacetime; but when the mother nest is about to hatch hell, it is the last card.

Then, in the silence, a young voice rang out from the corner.

"How about you try my method?"

(End of this chapter)