It personally took Thranduil another full day to finally clear the entire forest.
Except for a few monsters that escaped, all the others died by his hand and powerful magic.
In total, more than 6,000 magic crystals were collected. Although these gains weren't as good as the day before, anything was welcome.
Yesterday he took care of wiping out the swarm of vampire mosquitoes. He harvested thousands of crystals just from the bodies of those vampire mosquitoes.
After all, the area of this forest isn't large, and it's hard to sustain more monsters now that the Life Tree has driven out so much hostile force. Aside from the vampire mosquito plague, he hasn't found any other large-scale monster territories, so today's haul is smaller.
"We need to hunt somewhere else tomorrow. We'll have the numbers to expand, and when the elven forces arrive, we'll be stronger." Thranduil had calculated his progress precisely in order to draw only the minimum necessary attention.
Wearing his silver armor, Haldir said confidently, "Now that we have the numbers, we could locate the palace grounds, clear the area, and claim the territory. The palace is located northwest of the city-center ruins."
"Yes. We'll leave the royal guard that arrives tomorrow under the command of the ancient-trees guard." This time Thranduil agreed to move away from the ancient trees for a very special reason—not mainly because of the number of monsters there, but because the Elven Empire's treasure house was located in that place.
At the same time, that zone was once the most prosperous part of all the ancient-city ruins.
Though thousands of years have passed and most things have decayed and vanished with time, Thranduil still wanted to try his luck.
What if the goddess of fortune favors you and you stumble upon a treasure that escaped the sanction of time?
…
Thranduil rode his giant stag of the Megaloceros line, a glorious magical beast toward which elves felt a great bond.
In no time he left elven lands, spent the day hunting, and before he knew it dusk was falling and night was approaching.
He gave up the idea of continuing the hunt and headed back toward his territory. This place was several hundred kilometers from home, and at night large numbers of undead creatures would appear.
The reason he had traveled so far was that he had been chasing a creature that got away, but he knew he was pushing beyond his own limits.
That's why, when darkness fell, he decided to return. Even if he wants to hunt at night, he'll have to do it in the areas surrounding his territory—not this far out.
On the way back, Thranduil suddenly heard the sounds of battle.
He thought he had run into a group of elves out hunting, but when he went to take a look he discovered that the two sides fighting were actually undead and demonic monsters.
Dozens of undead knights were surrounding a pack of giant swamp rats.
If you counted, you'd find there were hundreds of giant swamp rats—more than ten times the number of Undead Knights.
Yet it was the rats that were being slaughtered.
All those undead knights were high-level undead. Their lowest rank was comparable to an elf of the royal guard, and one had even reached Haldir's level.
A single strike from Undead Knights like these could kill large numbers of swamp rats. Some of the rats tried to flee, but they weren't as fast as the knights and soon fell in pools of blood.
In less than a few minutes the battle was over. Of the dozens of undead knights, not one was killed.
The rats were completely exterminated. After dealing with them, the Undead Knights quickly departed and vanished into the dark ruins.
Shortly after the Undead Knights left, another undead creature appeared, carrying a bone staff and wearing a ragged robe. It waved the staff in its hand, releasing a faint green light that washed across the battlefield.
In just a few seconds, the hundreds of dead swamp rats on the ground stood up again.
But what was different from before was… some of them had become skeletons. Some had become rotting corpses.
They had transformed into undead creatures!
"Necromancer!" Thranduil's expression grew a bit grim. In the past two nights he and his elven soldiers had slain a vast number of undead creatures, but he had never encountered high-level undead knights or similar undead mages.
Up to now, what they'd been fighting were just ordinary undead—mostly low-level, with very few at mid-level.
But now, dozens of high-level undead had appeared at once. "It must be because the World Tree is sleeping, and now the weakened Life Tree has to protect this territory."
"The evil hidden here is incalculable, making it a perfect place for malice to accumulate—so powerful undead spirits are gradually being born."
"I have to speed up the development of the territory as fast as possible. We can't let these undead creatures get ahead of us and grow in number." Thranduil felt an urgency to clear the forest.
If he doesn't do it quickly, never mind cleansing the ruins of the entire ancient city—the undead creatures in the city center alone would be enough to wipe out his troops if they organize.
Who knows if, before long, undead beings of unimaginable power will be born in the city center?
Though Thranduil was powerful, his top priority was tending the trees that were bringing life back to his territory.
But if he's attacked on several fronts, he'd be nothing more than defeated should too many rise at once.
"You're not getting away."
Not far off, the necromancer was preparing to depart with hundreds of newly raised undead rats. Seeing this, Thranduil immediately hurled a flaming spear.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Lances of fire tore through the air.
In an instant, the necromancer—unable to dodge—was nailed to the ruins of the building behind it.
Blue flames raced across its body.
Soon the necromancer was reduced to ash.
The moment the necromancer died, the giant undead rats immediately became headless flies—scattering in panic.
After Thranduil slew most of them—helped by the way his underground-traveling flames erupted in low walls beneath the fleeing silhouettes—he saw a few escaping but did not pursue. His true target had been the necromancer.
This kind of undead creature poses a greater threat on the battlefield than a group of Undead Knights, because it can resurrect the dead.
So long as the soul-fire of an undead creature is not completely extinguished—even if it's been reduced to fragments—the necromancer can use magic to merge them into a new soul-fire and then resurrect the fallen undead.
After clearing the battlefield, Thranduil headed straight back to his territory. "All the elven hunting parties should be back by now."
Thranduil planned to upgrade the Ancient War Tree and unlock more powerful elven soldiers.
…
Shortly after Thranduil returned, the elves who had gone out hunting also came back one after another.
Just like yesterday, many elves carried bulging leather bundles on their backs—but the difference was that today the bundles were more numerous and larger.
As usual, Thranduil, with help from his tallymaster, took inventory. No elven soldier died, though a few were injured.
When asked, it was learned that they had run into strong enemies while hunting.
Some were attacked by high-level monsters, while others—like Thranduil—encountered high-level undead creatures.
"Of course, my guess was right. Powerful undead creatures have been revived one after another." Thranduil knew that the plan to upgrade the Ancient War Tree was urgent.
He not only needs to expand the size of the elven host; he also needs stronger elven troops. For now, upgrading the War Ancient is the only shortcut.
Soon, an elf delivered the counted spoils to Thranduil, who was seated on a throne made of branches.
"Your Majesty, today we collected a total of 53,749 magic crystals and 352 cores. Also, one team found this in the ruins…" As Haldir spoke, a tall elf produced a dark gray magic book.
The magic book was made from the hide of some unknown monster.
Its overall appearance was very heavy. Thranduil took the magic book and opened it. The purpose of magic books is mainly to record knowledge—or magical skills, medicinal craft experience, forging techniques, and so on. With the help of such books, practitioners can understand and master their contents more quickly.
In general, as long as one's spiritual consciousness is linked to the magic book, the information recorded in it can be obtained.
The magic book found by the elven team recorded magical skills.
This was exactly what Thranduil urgently needed now. Unfortunately, most of the book's pages had been eaten by insects, and many were even half-missing.
The magic circle used to establish a spiritual link had also been destroyed and was practically useless.
"What a shame." Thranduil was about to hand the magic book back to the elf and let him take it and do whatever he wished with it.
The system's voice suddenly sounded in his mind.
"[...
You can spend magic crystals to restore damaged magic books.
Not only magic books—most damaged objects can be repaired by consuming crystals.
However, the higher the item's level, the greater the cost.
…]"