"Your Majesty, we'll come back." Anvil sat on a wagon pulled by two hefty swamp lizards, waved vigorously at Chen Yu who stood at the fortress gate, and laughed heartily.
"Your Majesty, farewell." Beside him, the young Shaman Tulk also gave a restrained wave with his scaly hand.
After watching the wagon loaded with gold coins roll down the Smooth Wasp Forest Path and gradually disappear into the dense trees at the horizon, Chen Yu turned and hopped over to the fortress warehouse area.
It seemed the vampires had heard about his affinity for magic organs. This time, besides gold and scrolls, they had brought along some crystals that emitted a crimson sheen.
After Little Flower found the blood crystals, they were temporarily stored in a dry corner of the warehouse.
In that corner, Chen Yu reached out a gel hand, scooped up a fist-sized dark-red crystal, held it to his eyes for a careful look, then opened his mouth and swallowed it.
Glug...
The large blood crystal made his gel body bulge outward.
"Chew chew chew..."
Huh...
Just as Chen Yu inwardly wrinkled his face in distaste, a panel popped up.
[Devour Digestion Lv.7 triggered — Recorded Blood Bat Servant traits, Talent gestation (1/3)]
A new talent?
Chen Yu's round little eyes brightened instantly.
Nice.
He crunched down two more blood crystals of the same shape.
[Devour Digestion Lv.7 triggered — Fully recorded Blood Bat Servant traits, gained Talent: Blood Frenzy Lv.1]
Hm?
It turned out to be a rare berserk-type talent.
But this talent consumed not only mana, but also fresh blood.
Use it carelessly and he could risk anemia.
No wonder Casimir always looked malnourished, like he never got enough to eat.
His gaze returned to the small mountain of various blood crystals. He picked up two crystals of different shapes, tasted them, and then began a long eating session.
After quite a while, Chen Yu filled his belly until it was round and satisfied, then lay on the floor, squinting as he enjoyed the surging flow of energy inside him, not wanting to move a muscle.
[Devour Digestion Lv.7 triggered — Fully recorded Blood Bat Noble traits, gained Talent: Blood Recovery Lv.3]
[Devour Digestion Lv.7 triggered — Fully recorded Blood Bat Noble traits, gained Talent: Blood Molding Lv.3]
[Devour Digestion Lv.7 triggered — Fully recorded Blood Bat Lord traits, gained Talent: Blood Baptism Lv.3]
[Bat Wings Lv.1 → Bat Wings Lv.4]
[Blood Frenzy Lv.1 → Blood Frenzy Lv.3]
Aside from "Bat Wings," which was purely a physical transformation, whether "Blood Recovery," "Blood Molding," or "Blood Baptism," these Blood Bat talents all required consuming fresh blood to activate.
It was indeed a very unusual power system.
Of course, the extra cost bought powerful vampiric magic.
The effect of "Blood Recovery" was astonishing: it could rapidly heal almost any physical damage except injuries to the brain or soul source.
With enough blood reserves, even severed limbs could regrow within a certain timeframe.
Talent level only determined how fast the recovery was and how efficiently blood was consumed.
"Blood Molding" could be regarded as a mutated version of a fireball spell, consuming mana and the caster's blood to form corrosive blood or boiling-blood spears.
It had tremendous explosive impact and added negative effects like curse contamination and blood corrosion.
But since it required sacrificing the user's blood, the contexts where it was practical were limited.
Only true bloodkin could likely make full use of them.
Chen Yu was thinking this when the "Blood Baptism" talent, obtained from the Blood Bat Lord, changed his perspective.
He hopped out of the warehouse to an open area inside the fortress. On impulse, he tried to activate the new talent.
[Blood Baptism]
A vivid red glow flashed across his gel surface, then a wave of green life energy burst forth from his round body like a spring tide waking up, quickly spreading outward.
It formed a verdant field with a radius of about nine meters around him.
Inside this field, any unit possessing bloodline-type talents would receive blood-energy amplification.
When a unit inside the field used a Blood Bat talent, it would no longer need to consume its own blood;
the field's blood energy would substitute instead.
This perfectly solved the drawback of Blood Bat talents requiring self-blood consumption.
The only drawback was it taxed his own life-energy quite heavily.
Chen Yu retracted the field and pondered.
So, if he could find a monster capable of storing large quantities of fresh blood and make it the army's blood-energy reservoir...
could he then form a Blood Legion that didn't depend on actual bloodkin yet could unleash full vampiric magic?
It sounded plausible.
This meant his Poison-stinger Wasp legion was due for a major upgrade.
From now on, the legion could take a magic fountain with them, which would make things very difficult for their enemies.
Thinking this, he immediately fetched Little Flower and summoned all the Poison-stinger Wasp queens. They held a small roundtable in the tree house to discuss the possibility of establishing a Blood Legion.
The eldest queen approached, rubbing her slender forelimbs along Chen Yu's gel surface in a few respectful strokes to show the highest honor.
"Respected King... in the northern, bitterly cold forest... our kin... like to drink the blood of large creatures, and will store excess blood in abdominal blood sacs..."
Vampire wasps?
Chen Yu's interest spiked.
However, he was about to head to the Dryad domain to prepare for the arriving Stone Descendant envoy, so the task of locating vampire wasps had to be delegated to Little Flower and the Poison-stinger Wasp legion.
Little Flower solemnly bobbed her gel body up and down to indicate she understood, then hopped away to organize scouting teams.
The other queen wasps were carefully carried back to their nests by worker wasps to begin preparations for the legion's upcoming births.
Chen Yu had intended to head to the Dryad domain immediately, but he suddenly sensed Yano from Gore Stone Fortress calling him from afar.
"What's the matter?" he asked in confusion.
A few seconds later, Yano's voice crossed the distance and reached him clearly:
"Boss, bad news. Those goblins used some method to occupy the Ice Elemental Plane behind the fissure. We can't get through at all now."
They occupied an elemental plane?!
Chen Yu's heart jolted.
What were those goblins trying to do?
When did they acquire this ability and ambition?
They couldn't possibly have taken to becoming plane pioneers out of boredom, could they?
Regardless of their motive, the planar fissure next to the Dryad domain had to have its defenses strengthened immediately.
He couldn't allow the goblins to slip through the fissure and sneak around the fortress to stage a rear attack.
He was the one who did the sneaking, not the other way around.
...
Time rewound to one day earlier, Riftrock Pass.
Since repeatedly losing to the Slime Kingdom—even the ogre mage Grumg had been driven back—the entire Goblin Army had fallen into a long lull.
Even the Bugbears, who usually swaggered and patrolled their territory, mostly hid inside the fortress made of piled boulders and rarely showed themselves.
Except for one Bugbear—Hammerbone.
Outside the fortress, in the crude slave-keeping camp, Hammerbone was in a good mood, humming a tune as he stroked the spiked hammer held in his arms.
He even had the leisure to tap the hammerhead against the bald, green skull of the trembling goblin shaman in front of him, as if pondering where to strike.
The goblin shaman clutched a bone staff, teeth chattering, voice cracking as he pleaded, "Master Hammerbone, you know me. I've always been loyal to the legion, to you... you won't really bring it down, will you?"
Hammerbone made a low, throbbing hum from his throat.
"Can't promise. My hand's been a little itchy today."
Those words made the goblin shaman tremble even more, nearly collapsing to the ground.
Seeing the shaman's cowardice, Hammerbone chuckled, "I'm not like some ogre who eats his own."
"You coward, get out. I'm in a good mood today."
"Y-yes, thank you, Master Hammerbone, thank you..." The goblin shaman scrambled away, crawling and rolling until he vanished behind a pile of rubble not far off, afraid that any slower move would change Hammerbone's mind.
Hammerbone ignored him and resumed humming, swinging his spiked hammer, imagining another enemy skull cracking on the battlefield.
The sight of blood spraying delighted him even more.
Ever since Grumg's humiliation at the hands of those seemingly weak slimes, the goblins in the legion had come to realize that those green little creatures were not as easy to deal with as they once thought.
From then on, looks of scorn and contempt directed at Hammerbone had largely turned into awe and fawning, which had quietly elevated his status within the legion.
Who said those slimes were hateful?
They were treasures.
Hammerbone even found himself oddly fond of the slimes whose antics had made Grumg such a fool.
If not for them, how could he have exposed Grumg's blunder so publicly?
Now he secretly wished there would be even more of those green brats, the rowdier the better.
That way, he could win more favor with the army commander and perhaps attract some attention from the unseen patron backing the legion.
As he luxuriated in that thought, a wave of terrified screams and commotion rose from the camp's perimeter.
"Mo... monsters, so many monsters!"
"Black ones with wings—are they demons?!"
"Run—!"
Hammerbone frowned at the disturbance, strode out of the camp, and barked toward the chaos in Goblin tongue, "What's all the noise? Want me to make jerky out of you?"
"Ma, master, something's wrong..." The voice of the goblin shaman who had fled earlier came from down the slope, but before he could finish, a grim voice interrupted.
"Oh? Isn't this Hammerbone, the hero of Riftrock Pass?"
"Knowing that the great Grumg has returned and still coming out to greet him—how touching."
From where the voice came, Grumg's massive, bloated ogre form gradually appeared.
As if to provoke Hammerbone, he extended a long purple tongue and licked the goblin shaman dangling in his hand like a chick.
That sight instantly fainted the poor goblin.
Hammerbone snorted coldly, "Grumg, the army commander sent you back to Golden Radiance Valley to request reinforcements. How come you're skulking back alone?"
Grumg chuckled and tossed the unconscious goblin aside among some rubble, then leaned on his staff and stepped to the road's edge, bowing slightly in a mock-humble greeting.
"Hail the Filth Scythe, Lord Ea's arrival." His tone carried an unusual reverence.
As soon as he spoke, Riftrock Pass fell into a deathly silence.
From the deep end of the pass came a sound that made every hair stand on end: a rustling that began faint but rapidly swelled.
Then the witnesses, Hammerbone included, watched a scene that chilled their blood.
At the mouth of the formerly empty canyon, a black tide surged up in an instant.
It was a flood of creatures with black feathers, beating greasy, obsidian wings and shrieking harshly, leaving behind a stench of filth and biting sulfur—as if they had just crawled from the abyss and now surged toward the fortress.
They came in numbers impossible to count, dense and overwhelming, darkening the canyon sky like night.
Wait—they weren't ordinary monsters.
Hammerbone suddenly realized.
These were Filthy Descendants!
The legendary demon spawn known for infinite numbers and spreading plague—creatures that had once brought disaster across the continent and were a goblin's nightmare.
Damn—how had the Filthy Descendants' spawn shown up here?
Hammerbone fixed his gaze forward.
Leading the charge, the Filthy Descendants spat acid and flame, instantly turning the rubble and any slaves who couldn't dodge into pus and char, laying down a blackened path of embers through the gorge.
At the path's end, a colossal Filthy Descendant far larger than its kin hovered down like a royal mount, lowering its bulk.
On its broad back stood a dark figure.
A tall demon, with curved ram-like horns on its head.
Its skin was as hard as obsidian. In its hand it held a grim dark-red scythe.
When its burning crimson eyes looked at Hammerbone, he felt his mind "buzz" as if countless blasphemous whispers and twisted malice flooded into his head.
They tried to plunge him into a pit of desire and madness, to shatter his will.
That corrupting, beguiling power...
The being before him was undoubtedly a true demon.
And a powerful demon with a true name at that.
Hammerbone swallowed and hurriedly gave way on the path, bowing his head.
"Lord Ea, welcome to Riftrock Pass."