Zhang Nu launched his forces.
He first took to the sky and observed.
[Normal forest]. Low exploration value...
[Normal mountain]. Low exploration value...
[Dark Canyon]. The passageway into the Darkness Valley. The path is narrow. Monsters occasionally appear. Relatively low exploration value. Possible reward: Stone, iron ore, etc.
This canyon was the path out of the valley.
The Darkness Valley is set within the area known as the Chaos Forest.
The Chaos Forest is an enormous primordial forest over 5 million square kilometers in size. The Darkness Valley is only a tiny part of it.
Zhang Nu continued searching along the canyon.
A hidden forest village appeared before his eyes.
[Goblin village]. Level 1 elite area. This is a nameless village with a population of about 300. Although it's not much to look at, it does contain several elite goblins... Relatively high exploration value. Possible rewards: Black iron treasure chest, goblin equipment, etc.
Found it!
No wonder Chen Hu and his group ended up attacking the Darkness Valley.
This goblin village is indeed quite close to his base.
The goblins here will soon notice that their comrades are missing, so it may very well end up causing troubles for him. Plus, this village really is just too close to him, so it needs to be removed either way.
Zhang Nu didn't start acting immediately.
Goblins aren't strong, but they are quite numerous.
The moment they get scared, they'll end up running away in all directions, so some might very well end up escaping.
Two hours later, ten draconians and 50 skeleton soldiers exited the canyon before moving in a pincer formation to seal off any avenue of escape for the goblins.
Alright then.
Zhang Nu transformed into his dragon form.
The goblins lived their normal lives within the village when an intimidating draconic roar came, making all the goblins freeze up in fear.
"Dragon!"
"It's a dragon!"
The goblins could see a not especially huge dragon from far away. It was currently charging right for them while emitting a terrifying presence.
"Oh no!"
"It's coming for us!"
"Ready bows and javelins, quickly!"
Although goblins are a weak race, they were still able to live on in this lawless and darwinistic forest. Thus, they of course had their vicious and warlike side as well.
"Attack!"
The goblin village's chief is an elite level elderly goblin mage. He raised his staff up to shoot out a bolt of lighting about a thumb's size in width.
There was a bang.
Although it did manage to strike the dragon, all it did was damage a few scales.
As for all the other goblins' arrows and javelins, the damage they did were almost negligible. The dragon just completely ignored them.
Zhang Nu pushed past all the attacks and breathed out a huge wave of fire, which instantly exploded out into a blast 10 meters wide, instantly consuming 10 to 20 goblins.
This wasn't normal fire.
It's the dragon race's special dragon flame.
The power is far stronger than mere normal fire.
The goblins engulfed by the flames were nearly instantly turned to ash. Even the ones that were just grazed were turned into humanoid chunks of charcoal before collapsing.
[You've slain a goblin. Gold +5!]
[You've slain a goblin. Gold +4!]
[You've slain a goblin. Gold +4!]
[You've slain a goblin. Gold +5!]
[...]
With but a single attack, Zhang Nu had already completely shattered the goblins' will to fight back!
The terrifying pressure and that destructive strike of dragon fire had carved the certainty that there was no way they could possibly win against this great existence into their minds.
Thus, within moments, the goblins all broke and ran.
Zhang Nu flapped his wings and breathed out another blast of dragon fire at a large concentration of goblins. It instantly vaporized another dozen or so goblins.
It has to be said.
Dragon flame really is just way too powerful.
That said, breathing dragon fire is also extremely costly.
With Zhang Nu's current MP, he was forced to stop and rest after five or six breaths. By then though, the goblin village was already completely aflame.
All the goblins that tried to escape into the forest were instead met by the forces that Zhang Nu had set in ambush.
The draconian soldiers charged out with skeleton soldiers one after another.
Goblins aren't all that strong from the start. How could they possibly deal with this ambush when their morale had already collapsed?
Within a few minutes, over half the goblins were exterminated.
The final group of goblins remaining were surrounded by the flames and Demon King army, and the encirclement was continuously shrinking. They were on the verge of another round of mindless slaughter.
"Mercy!"
"Mercy!"
"We submit!"
The goblins all prostrated down and begged for mercy. Zhang Nu didn't think much of it at the beginning. It's normal for these kinds of weak races to be cowardly and he didn't want to leave any witnesses alive.
At that moment though, a message popped out.
[You've conquered the goblin village. You gained Black Iron Treasure Chest x1!]
[107 goblins have surrendered to you. Accept?]
Zhang Nu was somewhat surprised at this notification.
He had originally thought that it would be just like the Darkness Ruins, where an area would only count as conquered if he eliminated every target there.
But here, the goblins haven't all been killed yet and he had already been judged to have conquered the area.