Seeing that Samael's mind was made up and his gaze remained unwavering, Boudica gave a slight nod. She said nothing more and chose to trust him.
That said, the truth was that the Ancient Serpent had no real confidence at all. Forget swiftly crushing Persia, he was not even sure the eastern front could withstand the first wave from the tens of thousands of Immortals and the Meteor Legion.
True, as a god, the moment he stepped onto the battlefield he could immediately turn the situation around. Given enough time, he could even slaughter the tens of thousands of Immortals himself.
But in this war, a game still fundamentally led by humans, there were rules that had to be followed.
To a nation, a god was the equivalent of a strategic nuclear weapon, something primarily used as a deterrent.
Take the upheaval at the Great Altar earlier that day. The number of ordinary people who had actually died in the clash between gods could be counted on one hand. Most of the casualties had instead been caused by the Meteor Legion and the Assassin Order.
So even when a strategic nuclear weapon was brought into play, it had to be matched against an opponent of the same level to keep both sides in check. Gods could not easily be allowed to slaughter ordinary soldiers on a massive scale.
Otherwise, once unleashed, a god became a catastrophic natural disaster not only to the enemy but to their own side as well.
If things ever devolved into a contest of mass killing, then humanity's rate of reproduction, and its current numbers, might not even be enough to satisfy the slaughter of both sides' gods.
Of course, it was not as if he had never considered simply flipping the table.
The problem was that his side only had one god, while the enemy had three.
If he made a move against the Immortals, Samael was certain that by the next day he might hear that the Pantheon and the entire city of Rome had been blasted into the sky.
If he broke the rules, the other side could always break them harder.
Besides, while he could defeat Cyrus decisively in a one-on-one fight, if he slaughtered the Immortals and the Meteor Legion, then who knew whether a whole host of Persian gods might descend personally?
And beyond that, there was the suspicion that worried him most of all. Were the Persian gods really the only ones behind Cyrus?
Besides, god or man, he was not some butcher without a bottom line. Killing more than a hundred thousand people with his own hands was not a threshold he could casually cross, whether in action or in his own heart. Even more so if this was all just a useless trap baiting him to take the hook.
In short, something like a strategic nuclear weapon only had deterrent value before it exploded.
The moment it truly went off, it would only drag the other side into a struggle to the death.
So his options were limited. Either he found Cyrus ahead of time and killed him cleanly before battle, plunging Persia into internal chaos, or he defeated this Persian army fair and square and used that victory to intimidate the northern and southern fronts.
But neither path would be easy.
Compared with blindly stepping into the sinister land of Mesopotamia to block a fully prepared Cyrus, the second option was still the more reliable one.
Unfortunately, the Third Greco-Persian War had left the Viking fleet trapped in Greece. Otherwise, he might have used it to break the deadlock.
After thinking it through from every angle, Samael still found no good answer.
Sigh. Everything had happened too suddenly. He had not prepared a thing. All he could do was take it one step at a time and adapt on the spot.
The Ancient Serpent drew his thoughts back and sighed inwardly. One hand rubbed at his aching temple while the other continued to play out the course of the war over and over on the sand table.
"I'll return to Britannia now and begin preparing for war. You take care of yourself..."
At that moment, Boudica, standing in the hall, saw that Samael had sunk back into thought and turned to leave.
"Wait!"
"What is it?"
Hearing him call out, the Queen of Victory stopped and turned back toward her old friend.
"I just remembered. There's one more thing I need you to do..."
"Yes. I'm listening."
"..."
Samael tapped the spot representing Britannia with his fingertip. His gaze flickered darkly. After a brief hesitation, he finally looked at Boudica and spoke in a low voice.
"Send people to search for Avalon, and for the six great fairy clans said to exist in Britannia: Wind, Earth, Fang, Wing, Mirror, and Rain. The moment you find anything, do not act rashly. Report to me immediately."
"Avalon... fairy clans?"
Boudica blinked, her face full of confusion. Clearly, she was not familiar with those terms.
"Perhaps the Druidic sects among your people still preserve some records about this. Go back and see if you can find anything. There's no rush. Just do your best…"
Samael considered his words for a moment before answering vaguely. The Queen of Victory did not ask further questions. She nodded seriously, clearly committing the two terms the Ancient Serpent had mentioned to memory.
"My old friend. Travel safely…"
A short while later, Samael personally escorted Boudica to one of the dragon beasts raised by the Pantheon. He watched as she mounted her steed and rode it into the clouds, gradually disappearing into the darkened sky.
Amid the biting wind, the Ancient Serpent stood there for a long time. Under the moonlight, his expression shifted between light and shadow.
To be honest, he did not want Boudica searching for the legendary Isle of Avalon, nor did he want her dealing with those so-called fairies.
Fairies were real creatures.
They possessed a natural affinity for nature itself, which gave them a close connection to the nature-revering Druidic sects. A certain white-haired Incubus who served as a great sage of the Druids was in fact a half-human, half-fairy hybrid.
Like dragons, they belonged to the category of Phantasmal Species, possessing immense strength and extremely long lifespans.
In the region of Scotland, many tales circulated about fairy mischief. Some well-known stories told of children being taken into the forest for an entire week, human babies being swapped with fairy children, or dead rabbits mysteriously appearing at people's doorsteps.
Although these pranks seemed unrelated, they revealed several traits common to fairies.
They had no sense of gain or loss. They did things simply because it amused them, not because they wanted a particular outcome afterward.
Fairies adored beauty and whatever was fashionable. They worshiped pleasure and novelty, yet grew bored easily. Like noisy swarms of bees and butterflies, they constantly searched for new "flowers" that interested them. Once they had drained the nectar, they would scatter without hesitation.
They could enjoy goodness with complete innocence, yet just as innocently delight in cruelty. Human ideas of morality, good and evil, or right and wrong simply did not apply to them.
Take Merlin as an example.
He lived by feeding on human dreams. During his travels, he enjoyed listening to human stories and admiring the intricate patterns woven by human destiny.
Even when the fate of the person he observed was tragic, the Merlin of the past rarely interfered. Most of the time he simply watched with fascination from the perspective of an observer, lacking the empathy that humans expected.
Perhaps it was because he still carried half of a human's blood.
After personally training a young girl with the sword and placing her upon the throne of Britannia, he watched with his own eyes as the Knights of the Round Table under the Knight King named Artoria gradually fell apart, the kingdom collapsed, and that child walked step by step toward the Hill of Swords where her fate would end.
What had begun as "entertainment" unexpectedly left him with a deep guilt that could never be erased.
And so that half-Incubus shut himself away in a tower, isolating himself from the world forever, accepting a punishment like that of a prisoner.
If Merlin had been a pure fairy, then even if Artoria had died right in front of him, she would probably have squatted down with great curiosity just to watch Artoria breathe her last.
(A small Easter egg. Figure it out yourself.)
In short, if one had to describe most fairies with a single word, it would be this.
Trash.
Even Samael, who was hardly a saint himself, had to admit they surpassed him in that regard.
Unless absolutely necessary, he had no desire to deal with those little troublemakers.
However, the progenitor fairies of the Six Great Fairy Clans were connected to a certain major event.
Even though history had already changed, it was still better to prepare an extra precaution, just in case.
...
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