The situation suddenly reached the brink of battle. For some reason, the other side began directing the monsters around them to launch a fierce attack on us.
Once I realized what was happening, I hurriedly ordered the troops behind me and the remaining Dark Bats on the field to hold off the Skeleton Warriors.
But the level gap, combined with the Elite Skeleton Warriors joining the attack from behind, made them tough opponents. The Dark Bats were pushed back under the enemy’s assault.
“You’ve actually joined forces with the enemy faction? Prepare to face judgment, you piece-of-trash Demon King!”
“Personal attacks are going too far, hey! Keep it up and I’ll bring another two thousand Dark Bats over to ransack your place!” I stomped my foot in anger at the taunt from across the field.
“With strength like that, you’d be better off not making such big claims.”
The Skeleton Warrior’s jawbone clicked open and shut. As its words fell, violent rumbling echoed one after another from the many mines scattered across the open-pit mine.
Countless Skeleton Warriors emerged from deep within the mines. Their grim bone frames pressed tightly together, forming a vast white sea of bones as far as the eye could see.
By a rough estimate, there were at least eight hundred Skeleton Warriors.
My face went pale. I hurriedly ordered all the Dark Bats under my command to retreat, but the Skeleton Warriors had already surrounded us with their overwhelming numbers.
“Hey, Hill, does the Dark Faction treat its prisoners well?” I couldn’t help swallowing, then suddenly felt myself go weightless.
“No. Those Skeleton Warriors turn their enemies into companions just like themselves. So please hold on tight, Your Highness.”
Hill picked me up. The magic circle etched beneath our feet at some point burst into dazzling white light.
When I opened my eyes again, I realized we’d been teleported back to the Demon King’s Castle.
That was when I remembered: although Hill couldn’t directly help me, at least I didn’t have to worry about my own safety.
It was a shame that all the Dark Bats had been left behind. Losing nearly 10 energy in one go made my heart ache.
More importantly, it seemed there was no way to solve the problem.
More than twelve hundred Skeleton Warriors, along with twenty Elite Skeleton Warriors and one level-five boss.
That was the information Hill had gathered. When she finished, her gray eyes turned to me.
“If you want to wipe out those Skeleton Warriors completely, it’ll be difficult with Your Highness’s current strength. What do you plan to do?”
Hill was right. Those Skeleton Warriors alone wouldn’t be easy to deal with. Even if I took every Dark Bat I currently had, we’d probably suffer heavy losses.
But I’d never agree to risk almost everything I owned just to wipe out one group of monsters.
“We have to deal with these guys as soon as possible.”
I bit my nail.
Since we’d taken a beating, the Skeleton Warriors at the open-pit mine would surely grow even bolder and start plundering the monsters at will. If that continued, my situation would only get worse.
But I hadn’t expected a system message to pop up just then.
System: Quest triggered — [The First Battle of a Great Journey]
Quest: The First Battle of a Great Journey
Quest Description: This is the first step in the Demon King’s conquest of the Dark Faction. No matter how powerful the opponent, you must do everything you can and use any means necessary to defeat them.
Quest Objective: Capture the Grove Open-Pit Mine (0/1)
Quest Rewards: 100 energy, 8,000 experience, Special Building Blueprint [Dark Church], 300 Black Crystals, Star-Dust Fragments.
The main problem still hadn’t been solved, so I only gave the message a quick glance and was about to ignore it. But when I noticed the wording in the quest description, I froze—
Do everything you can. Use any means necessary.
“Oh, come on. I’ve been following the usual rules for so long that my thinking’s gone rigid. Even though I already knew what Era was really about.” I patted my head, unable to stop a faint smile from appearing at the corner of my mouth.
In an ordinary strategy game, attacking an open-pit mine would simply come down to comparing troop strength. A more detailed game might add hero bonuses, unit counters, terrain restrictions, and so on. In the end, it would all still follow a set framework.
But Era was different. Its freedom was so great that calling it a second world for humanity wouldn’t be an exaggeration. That meant battles between armies had all kinds of possibilities, just like in real life.
“Let me think. What are the Skeletons’ weaknesses?”
I didn’t even need to rely much on my past-life experience. The previous battle alone had made the Skeleton monsters’ most obvious weakness clear: their stiff bodies.
So the key was figuring out how to use that against them.
More importantly, how could I use that weakness to deal with so many Skeleton Warriors?
The strategy of using Dark Bats clearly wouldn’t work. Even if the Skeleton Warriors’ movements were restricted, they’d still be able to fight, and we’d end up suffering heavy losses anyway.
So what other way was there to minimize our losses?
“Hill, do you have any information on the open-pit mine’s terrain?” I asked, mostly to test the waters.
“I’ve already put it together.”
I hadn’t expected Hill to have actually prepared a map of the terrain around the open-pit mine. As I studied the information marked on it, a bold idea began to take shape in my mind—and the conditions we had seemed to fit the situation perfectly.
“Hurry. We’re going to the control room.”
The Heart of Herentis was bound to me, so I could issue commands at any time. But carrying out anything more complicated would clearly require the control room, and it was better to be precise just in case.
When I reached the control room, I didn’t waste a moment. I recalled the 600 Dark Bats I’d created earlier, converting them back into 30 energy. Added to what I had left, that gave me a total of 90 energy.
I used 60 energy to build a Slime Lair and a Green-Skinned Monster Lair. Both had the same hatching requirements as the Dark Bats, so I didn’t need to worry too much about running short on materials.
Once I’d poured in all the energy and dark elements, two groups of monsters soon appeared inside the newly built lairs.
One group consisted of limp, jelly-like slimes, springy and bouncy. Their bodies were crystal-clear, making me want to sink right into them.
The other group wore ragged clothes and looked like the short forest gnomes from fairy tales. They carried all kinds of battered weapons, but their dopey expressions made it hard to believe they could fight.
I couldn’t help feeling a little helpless about how the Dark Faction always produced cute, harmless-looking creatures like these. All I could do was hope that the higher-level monsters later on would look a little more like “mature adults.”
But that didn’t matter right now. I only needed to deal with the problem in front of me.
“Hill, take them and do as I said.”
“Of course, Your Majesty the Demon King.”
