Riftrock Fortress.
The morning sky had been clear and blue, like a gem washed by water, but just after noon the scene changed in an instant and thick black clouds rolled in.
Soon, a light rain began to fall, a steady curtain that soaked the oak forest semi-encircling the fortress with ample water.
Green branches swayed and thrust toward the rain, wetlands echoed with frog calls… it should have been a scene bursting with verdant life.
Yet at that moment, a bare bony foot slammed down, its heel pressing into the mossy ground.
With a hiss, the moss at the point of impact instantly blackened and withered, releasing an ominous aura.
On the fortress walls, the Slime guards stood unfazed by wind and rain, faces resolute as they held their small iron spears, still bouncing along the slick pathways as they patrolled dutifully.
In the patrol line, a Metal Slime suddenly stopped mid-hop as if it had seen something, its tiny eyes peering through the hazy rain toward the Riftrock Pass that lay ahead like a strip of black ribbon.
Confusion showed in its gaze.
"Glurp?"
"Un... undead?"
The Metal Slime emitted a puzzled hum.
Though it didn’t understand what was happening, it instinctively sensed danger, immediately hopping over to the bronze bell and ramming its gel body against it several times.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!"
The urgent bell tolls pierced the rain, reverberating above Riftrock Fortress. In an instant the whole fortress felt like a roused beast coming to life in the downpour.
The buzz of Poison-stinger Wasps rose from the watchtower nests, and Slimes of various kinds lined up neatly, hopping along the inner wall passages to quickly return to their defensive positions.
"What’s going on?"
A shadow tore through the rain and glided down, landing on a battlement.
It was Chen Yu, hastily arriving while riding Little Ka.
The Slime guard that had first noticed the anomaly immediately hopped forward, trying to puff its round gel body upright, extending a gelatinous hand in a salute.
It trembled as it spoke, "Your Majesty, undead, so many undead."
Chen Yu listened, then with a soft plop jumped onto the battlement, stretching and elongating his gel body to peer into the distance.
Through the misty rain, the reed bed that had once been lush was now devoured by a black mass.
As the distance closed, swaying soulfires gradually became visible, and skeleton soldiers in tattered clothes and clutching rusted weapons emerged, one after another.
They shuffled through the mud with no clear purpose, showing no interest in the fortress walls looming within arm’s reach.
Rather than an aggressive undead scourge, these undead resembled a lot of lost, pitiable creatures.
Their destination clearly was not the Slime fortress.
Chen Yu’s puzzlement deepened.
Strange.
So many undead appearing here, in such numbers—they probably poured out from the Dark Realm.
Could it be that the vampire clan had clashed with the Goblins, and the conflict spilled into these ancient undead-haunted ruins?
He immediately ordered the Slimes on the wall to stay vigilant and monitor the aimless undead below, then connected his consciousness to the Slime split that was far off at Stone Fortress.
The instant his awareness descended, violent jolts and shaking hit him, blurring his vision—seemingly Nilly was holding him and running, desperately dodging something.
"W-what’s happening?" Chen Yu asked groggily.
Startled by the sudden voice in her head, Nilly darted into the shadows and appeared in an empty clearing.
After confirming the area was safe, she patted her chest with an annoyed breath.
"My lord, next time at least warn me before you speak like that. You scared me half to death—I thought some Undead Monarch had come chasing after us."
Chen Yu gently patted her with a gel hand, "So what’s actually happening in the Dark Realm lately? So many undead have poured out and ended up at my fortress gate."
"And what exactly were you hiding from just now?"
"Undead pouring out of the Dark Realm?"
Surprise flashed across Nilly’s face—she clearly didn’t know this.
She crossed her hands on her hips, "As you can see, these bone skeletons have been driven like headless flies toward Gore. I’m trying to lure them off somewhere else."
"If they get into the Fluorescent Forest near Stone Fortress, they’ll trample every plant flat, not to mention those cave-dwellers’ little wooden houses."
"As for why these undead would escape in such numbers..." Her expression turned grave.
"If the intelligence is correct, it looks like the vampire clan and the Goblins have formed some kind of collaboration, standing on the same front."
"Vampires working with Goblins?"
Chen Yu thought he’d misheard. The vampires who prided themselves on elegance would team up with Goblins?
And Casimir only recently traded gold coins for gel and even asked him to help make trouble for the Goblins—how could they suddenly be allied?
Damn, these vampires are spineless.
Why surrender so easily? At least put up some token resistance, show a little of the ancient nobility’s backbone.
And they didn’t even bother to inform him, their ally—treating him like he wasn’t the Slime King at all.
He was so angry his gel nearly bulged.
Nilly seemed to see through his thoughts and mused, "It doesn’t seem like the vampires decided to surrender willingly. Word is the mage backing them actively reached a deal with the Goblins."
"Although the visible negotiator was only an apprentice, that still represented his master’s will."
"Strange…" Chen Yu felt even more baffled.
Oh, right—his stubby little hands couldn’t actually scratch his head.
Nilly poked him and added, "Rather than guessing the mage’s motives, my dear lord, you should worry about your own lands first."
"I’ll bet my treasured Shadow Dust that the Goblin Army drove the undead out of the Dark Realm not for a leisurely stroll. They were probably aiming at you."
"Why? Do undead have some advantage over Slimes?" Chen Yu asked, perplexed.
He’d never heard of that.
He’d beaten Goblins to a pulp before—what’s so scary about these undead?
Nilly shrugged and explained, "After the Thorn Outpost battle, the Goblin Army—or the demon behind them—seems convinced, because of that Silver Oak, that some mysterious Elf force supports you."
"Driving these undead, who hate natural breath, into the swamps might be a probe, or simply a direct attempt to target that supposed Elf faction."
"But tell me honestly, do you really have some elf force backing you, like a member of the Ancient Tree Council?"
She poked Chen Yu again, waiting for his answer.
"No." Chen Yu answered plainly, with a hint of regret.
If some powerful elf faction really were backing him, he couldn’t imagine how arrogant he’d walk around—he’d be bouncing around like he owned the place.
He wouldn’t be polite to Goblins or demons at all—open the domain, Abyssal Big Belly! Devour them all.
But on second thought, the misunderstanding wasn’t entirely bad.
At least the phantom elf force made the demon behind the Goblin Army cautious about launching full-scale war, forcing them to test the waters by driving out the undead.
"Need help?"
Nilly drew a dagger and twirled it nimbly on her fingertip.
"To strengthen ties with our allies and to thank the little ones who are laboring to dig tunnels for us, the Belmont Family is happy to lend a hand."
"And this time, no charge."
No charge?
Chen Yu’s eyes lit up.
Free help? Great—he’d take as much as they could spare.
After quickly arranging cooperation details with Nilly and setting a time, Chen Yu’s consciousness returned to Riftrock Fortress.
Below the walls, the skeleton undead still wandered tirelessly;
some had already penetrated into the swamp forest behind the fortress and vanished into the vast woods.
Chen Yu thought, "As long as we don’t actively provoke these skeletons, there shouldn’t be a major problem for now..."
Of course, the World Tree inside his gel body constantly emitted natural breath;
to the undead, that scent was as repulsive as putrefaction to ordinary people, and might stir them.
"Keep a low profile..."
He instinctively withdrew, hopping back to a safe spot on the wall, resolved to wait for the undead horde to disperse on its own.
But night fell, the rain eased, and the mass of undead under the wall showed no sign of thinning;
if anything, in the darkness their soulfires burned brighter and their numbers tightened.
They seemed to gain a sliver of awareness and began to show interest in the barrier blocking their path.
They started to gather toward the fortress wall, and some skeletons even reached out, futilely scraping cold stone surfaces with their bony hands.
Still, nothing major was triggered.
But under the cloak of darkness, a group of sneaky Goblin scouts had already slipped silently into the undead outskirts, attempting to approach the fortress wall.
"Boss, why are these brainless bones just circling the wall? Why don’t they attack the castle?" one thin Goblin asked, puzzled.
The burly leader hissed, "Idiot. These undead have no brains;
there’s no sign of life here, so of course they won’t attack the fortress."
"Then what do we do? If we fail the mission, Lord Ea will toss us to feed the Filthy Descendants!" another Goblin fretted.
The burly Goblin unfastened several small jars wrapped in beast hide from his waist, "What do we do? Make a surprise."
"Throw these alchemical charges under the wall, blow a bit of noise—see if the bones don’t move."
"Oh, is that so? That sounds like a surprise."
At that moment a voice drifted from the shadows behind them, light and tinged with curiosity.
"Who’s there? Who’s over there?!"
Several Goblin scouts jumped, about to turn, when a flash of cold steel streaked through the dark.
"Pft—"
Several Goblins’ eyes widened, a line of blood appeared at their throats, and then they went limp, collapsing quietly beneath a tree.
Nilly’s petite form in a black cloak emerged from the shadows. She glanced at the Goblin bodies, flicked the blood from her dagger, hummed an unidentifiable tune, and melted back into the darkness.
Stone Descendant assassins finally arrived under cover of night and began cleaning up the rats that had sneaked in.
Similar scenes soon repeated around Riftrock Fortress—now and then a Goblin lost its life in the dark.
Shortly after, a shadow stretched like flowing water beneath a Gray Gravel Crystal torch on the wall;
Nilly revealed herself and signaled to Chen Yu, who was crouched over the battlement observing the enemy.
"Good evening. Quite a few Goblins are sneaking close underneath. I suspect they’re preparing to act."
She joined Chen Yu at the edge, looking down at the sea of undead. In the darkness the burning soulfires clustered into an ocean that seemed endless.
"So, have you decided how to deal with so many undead?"
Chen Yu’s gel body swayed slightly, as if pondering.
With the Kingdom's Shield guarding the fortress, unless high-tier undead capable of casting death magic or possessing powerful physical attacks—like a Death Knight—appeared, even a vast number of low-level skeletons would be hard-pressed to breach the defenses.
After all, there was a passage beneath the fortress that led straight to the Eastern Swamp dungeon, allowing steady supplies to be sent up.
As long as the thirty-two Goblin Rippers on the fortress kept firing and the Slimes coordinated, holding the fortress against this disorganized undead tide wouldn’t be an impossible task.
Moreover, the demons behind the Goblin Army seemed to be probing rather than launching a full assault, testing whether the Elf forces behind the Slime Kingdom would intervene.
Given that, he certainly shouldn’t disappoint the demon’s expectations.
He quickly contacted Eserin in the Dryad domain via the gel network;
after a brief exchange he received good news.
Three Oak Guards had, with the help of an alchemical ritual, transformed into Arcane Ancient Tree saplings.
Though they lacked silver blood and were nowhere near Fardoern’s strength, they had begun to acquire basic spellcasting and the ability to reinforce nearby plants.
Stationed on the walls they could hold the line like a small mage team.
Not to mention that when driven to extremes, their branches could smack Goblins into the air in a single swing—quite effective.
"Excellent."
Chen Yu decided to dispatch the three newly born Arcane Ancient Tree saplings to Riftrock Fortress, so the demon hiding behind the scene could get a proper lesson in the power of nature.