Within Qin Yu's territory,

After round after round of sweeps and training, all fifty children had reached Tier 3.

Hong was still 1,000 points away from Tier 4. Overall, things in Qin Yu's territory were looking great.

But it still wasn't enough. Qin Yu still had to spend a huge amount of materials making portable puppets for the children to carry. Ten per person. For fifty children, that meant 500 total. These portable puppets were basically cannon fodder.

They were only Tier 1. Their only real advantage was portability. They were literally made to be cannon fodder from the moment they were born.

On top of that, each child also needed five guardian puppet charms. These were a bit stronger than the portable puppets, around Tier 2 to Tier 3. Using the main carry and sub-carry concept, guardian puppets counted as sub-carries.

Both types could be carried on the body, kind of like keychains. The portable puppets were tiny, about the size of a Bluetooth in-ear earbud. The advanced guardian puppet was about three times the size of a portable puppet.

The children were all thrilled after receiving this special gift from Qin Yu. Something that could be both a combat unit and a toy? Who wouldn't love that?

"Lord! Can you make even stronger puppets?"

"I want the kind that can talk with me!"

"Me too! It'd be even better if it could play games with me!"

...

Even after getting stronger, they were still children at heart. That kind of innocence was truly precious.

"As for that... I'll try."

A fully equipped maid puppet could handle talking and playing with people. But their way of thinking was basically close to zero, more like artificial stupidity.

Giving a puppet independent consciousness was extremely difficult. Otherwise, that grandmaster alchemist named Bruce wouldn't have spent his whole life chasing it.

In the end, you still had to rely on the soul of a real living being to give a puppet true independent awareness.

As for making a puppet develop independent consciousness on its own, that was basically unsolvable.

The powerful puppets of the Alchemists' Union worked by stuffing all kinds of biological souls into them, catalyzing puppet consciousness.

"Luna, I've got a task for you~"

"Huh?"

As Qin Yu's personal puppet, Luna had already gotten along with him quite well by now. That included things like glaring at him with a look of disgust while warming his bed at night.

"You should be able to capture the souls of living creatures, right?"

Qin Yu had thought about this before. Luna had a golden weapon called the Moonshade Lantern, and one of its strongest functions was collecting the souls of the dead.

"You're after my Moonshade Lantern?" Luna crossed her arms and shot back with slight displeasure. "Don't even think about it. I can't summon that thing right now. Get me to Tier 7 first!"

The Moonshade Lantern was a companion creation born alongside Luna's Fated Artifact, so she had to reach Tier 7 before she could summon it.

"I'm 1,300 points short right now. There's nothing left around here for me to level on. Either I wait for things to respawn, or I go somewhere far away."

Recently, Qin Yu had wiped out all the threatening forces nearby. It would take a month to refresh. If he wanted to level, he either had to travel far or sneak into a war and fish in troubled waters.

"If that's the case, then let's go steal a wave from the Greenwood camp ahead of schedule..."

To get Luna to Tier 7 faster, Qin Yu could only make further changes to his original plan.

"Luna, this mission is just you and me. The target is a Greenwood camp in the eastern region..."

This was an extra arrangement added on top of the original plan. He'd wanted to rest for a bit, but for the sake of soul-related matters, Qin Yu had no choice but to raise Luna's tier. It was also helping himself.

"The children, Shikari, and Nanafu will stay behind and guard the base. The Amazonian Tribe, Tang Jihede's group, and Silver Crimson Snow will come with us and wait near Boulder Town in the east."

The first point of Greenwood's offensive was Boulder Town. The town was located in a valley region, and its geographical position was extremely important. That was why it was heavily defended, true to its name.

But in his previous life, Greenwood's army had captured it in less than two days. It had caught everyone completely off guard. Who would've thought those little green skins had such a massive force behind them?

"As long as Boulder Town holds, those green skins won't be able to threaten the Luminous Theocracy like they did in my previous life. Our territory's influence will also rise sharply."

Qin Yu planned to build a good relationship with the Luminous Theocracy. In the early stage, the Luminous Theocracy was an absolutely powerful force. If he got on good terms with them, his territory would gain a strong backer and safeguard.

"Found you..."

That figure who had once observed Qin Yu and Silver Crimson Snow had finally found Qin Yu again in the main world.

"Hei Ye, I don't know what connection this person has to you, but someone who can use your sword techniques must be very close to you, right~"

A sea of flowers was left behind where the figure vanished.

—

On the battlefield between the Theocracy and the undead,

The endless undead army had already overwhelmed the allied forces of the Theocracy and the Dwarven Empire in sheer momentum alone. Even the radiance of angels looked dim before this million-strong undead host.

"It seems our concerns were right. If we hadn't responded in time, the consequences of dragging this out would've been unimaginable..."

After seeing the size of the undead army, even those at the decision-making level felt that choosing to deal with the undead first had been the right call. And in truth, it was. Compared to the undead, Greenwood was nothing.

If they got the priorities backward and focused on Greenwood first, the undead outbreak would only cause even greater losses.

"Holy Light, please protect your believers and grant them the power to resist the darkness!"

All kinds of blessings fell upon the human army, strengthening every warrior's confidence.

On the other side, the undead army launched its attack directly. Skeleton archers opened the way with volleys. The death knight army charged. The undead mages began sacrificing low-tier undead units to create stronger undead units...

"To all of the Temple, Guardian, and Judgement Knight Orders, we must win this war! Otherwise, the undead invasion will spread across the entire continent, and all living things will suffer. So we must win!"

The commanders of the two great knight orders led a mixed force from the three knight orders and charged straight at the death knight legion.

Even though the death knight legion far outnumbered them, Holy Light had a natural bonus against these undead.

In just the first clash, the death knight legion lost one-eighth of its forces, while the Theocracy's knight orders lost less than one-eighth.

"Bring down divine punishment upon the enemies of the Holy Light!"

Under the bishops' guidance, the priests joined forces to cast large-scale attack magic. A massive magic circle appeared in the sky above the battlefield. The undead mages refused to back down and united to counter it, trying to stop the spell from being completed.

As for the players participating in this war, they were all fishing in troubled waters. There was no way they could join the main battlefield head-on. If they went, they'd basically just be cannon fodder walking to their deaths.

They only hunted the weaker skeleton troops to level up. But when everyone thought the same way, resources naturally became severely insufficient, and huge conflicts broke out.

The players started fighting among themselves. To compete for experience, they directly turned on each other. The players on the undead side were overjoyed when they saw this, and immediately began harvesting experience from the Theocracy-side players...