There were two mountain villages and a small town on the edge of Greenland Forest. He had only taken down Colca Village. If the hunters or adventurers from the other village or town broke into the battlefield and found something, their efforts to conceal the truth would have been for nothing.
Coincidentally, the batch of carcass beetles he had just bred needed a large amount of blood to grow. This time, Acteon had already planned on conquering the remaining village and town. He could snuff out all sources of information getting out while also increasing his own strength; why wouldn't he do it?!
…………
It took four days before Greem finally woke up from his deep slumber!
He didn't want to wake up so early, but the odd energy flux by his side made it hard for him to sleep, so he had to wake up ahead of time.
He had just opened his eyes when he felt a strong and intense flux in space.
This space flux was so familiar, and so hard to forget, that Greem could determine what it was immediately.
Interplanar ultra long ranged teleportation!
The last time their group had been brought over from the Sarubo clan's pseudo-plane platform was through such a ultra long ranged interplanar teleportation. The teleportation that time was a painful and torturous experience for Greem, so he remembered it very clearly!
But even though he understood the nature of the space flux, more questions surfaced in Greem's mind.
According to Adept Keoghan, the second batch of adepts should be arriving one month from now! But now… Greem checked the notification on his chip- they had only been on this knights' plane for no more than 18 days, 11 hours, 33 minutes, and 31 seconds.
The question had just surfaced in Greem's mind when he revealed a cold grin.
As expected of a Sixth Grade Adept that could manipulate and toy with others!
He had said it would be one month, but in truth he only needed 18 days to send the reinforcements over. Thus, even if there were traitors among them, or if any of them had been captured by the natives of this plane, the information they would reveal would be inaccurate and hardly cause any impact on the following actions.
That projection of Lord Sarubo probably tricked even Keoghan!
Chapter 187
When Greem removed the defenses on the door, unsummoned the Lightning Giant, and walked out of the stone house, he realized that several adepts were also standing outside of their respective doors, looking at the crude tower.
The expressions on their faces were varied.
Seeing that Greem had come out, everyone nodded and greeted him, then went back to staring at the tower.
Just then, shockwaves caused by the spatial flux could be seen!
Several spatial folds, that looked like ripples on water, started to spread out in all directions. When the ripples reached the defensive array, the two forces clashed and sent out more ripples in other directions. There were already plenty of spatial shards all over the place.
Fortunately, the previously set up defensive array managed to prevent the spatial flux from spilling over, and prevented the shockwaves from spreading beyond the illusion barrier. Otherwise, with the intensity of the spatial shockwaves, the most powerful beings of this plane would have been able to detect the fluctuations of this area through the planar laws they had mastered.
The spatial flux became even more dense.
Finally, the rippling spatial folds collapsed into one spot within the tower, and following an explosive ripping sound, a teleportation door slowly opened.
No one in the base was able to get any information about the teleportation this time, and so no one knew about the size and quality of the reinforcements. Everyone had lost their interest in talking at that moment. They just silently waited on the spot for the final result.
An hour after the teleportation door had disappeared, the entrance to the tower gradually opened. Groups of adepts walked out from within, with Sir Fügen at the lead.
The ones that had arrived were Second Grade Adept Sir Fügen and twenty three other Sarubo clan adepts.
These clan adepts were clearly veterans that were usually stationed in all the lesser planes. Therefore, they needed no instructions. Already they were flying about, doing simple surveys of the adepts' base, and making adjustments based on their observations.
Sir Fügen, on the other hand, walked towards Keoghan and the rest, and began to ask detailed questions about the situation around the base.
Robotic beasts, voodoo beasts, and stone golems were summoned to clean up the buildings within the base. The pockets and bags of the clan adepts were all filled to the brim. It was obvious that they came prepared, and so their movements were especially crisp and swift.
Just as the few of them were speaking, several buildings on the edge of the camp had been demolished. The robotic beasts waved about with their metallic arms and grabbed the bricks and stone, sending them to the outside section of the base. The stone golems were quickly flattening out the ground.
Looking at what they were doing, it seemed as if the reinforcing adepts were unhappy with the original layout of the base, and it seemed as if they wanted to demolish everything and start over. More of the adepts were gathered near the crude tower, pointing and gesturing here and there, like they were discussing the construction of a new adepts' tower.
Keoghan and the other veterans who stayed in the base stood respectfully beside Sir Fügen, carefully answering each of his questions. When Fügen heard that two adepts had gone undercover outside the base and had successfully taken over control of the villages around the forest, as well as a small human city, a satisfied smile appeared on his usually cold face.
As they were speaking, a few adepts commanding a group of stone golems had appeared before Keoghan's voodoo beast lab. When he saw them about to use their stone fists to demolish the lab, the native teenager ran out while screaming, flailing his hands as he stood before the lab.
An adept floating in the sky waved his hand, and a huge bush of thorny, dark green man-eating flowers appeared from beneath the ground, restraining the teenager in an instant. Then, the adept flew in front of the teenager and used his black fingertip to cut open the teenager's skin. He took a little blood and tasted it, nodding in satisfaction.
The next moment, the adept laid out a soul array on the teenager's head, looking as if he was about to squeeze out all of his soul's memories.
The edge of Keoghan's mouth twitched a little as he turned around and explained to Adept Fügen softly, "Sir, this native youth has a bit of casting talent. I was thinking of raising him to be our eyes and ears, as well as our puppet. Don't you think……"
"There's no need!" Sir Fügen didn’t seem to care about what his subordinate was doing, "It's just a lowly native anyway! We can arrange for such things once the situation of this base has settled. Absorbing his soul's memories will help the newcomer adepts to more quickly understand the situation and this world, and greatly increase their work efficiency. This is beneficial for the base's development!"
Keoghan stuttered for a moment, took some deep breaths, and didn't say anything more.
In the time they used to speak, the soul array that the adept was drawing had been completed. Following the pulses of white light that gathered in the array, the native teenager slowly stopped moving. His entire soul's consciousness had been extracted by the array, gathering into a white bead.
The adept put the bead to his head for a few seconds, then opened his eyes and nodded in satisfaction. He then tossed the bead to the adepts beside him, and soon everyone had used their Spirit to inspect the teenager's memories stored in the bead, quickly understanding the basic situation on this plane.
More talented adepts could already fluently interact with the native's language and words. For these adepts who possessed powerful Spirits, browsing through another soul's memories took just a matter of seconds.
Perhaps the entire life story of that native teenager took only three to five second
s of their time to understand!
The voodoo beast lab had finally been demolished, and the voodoo beast ‘material’ that took great efforts to obtain was exposed. A few interested adepts flew over and started rummaging about, taking away with them the few surviving witcher-knights and the withered spellbreaker knight corpses.
As for the rest of the ‘trash’, they were thrown out, along with the bricks and stone.
"Sir, what should we do?" The smile on Keoghan's face didn't go away as he bowed and asked respectfully.
"The adepts' tower in the base needs to be constructed quickly. There's nothing for you to do here in the meantime. I'll send two adepts to take over the human city. You will follow after them and help them with their jobs. Be careful, don't let the forces and organizations here disturb the base. That's all I ask of you!" Finished speaking, Adept Fügen turned around and left to gather his subordinates.
The stiff and unnatural smiles hung on everyone's faces. They had lost the desire to talk to each other, and just silently lowered their head to think. The atmosphere was tense and sombre.
…………
When night had arrived once more, the seven people, including Greem, had arrived in Blue Hillock City.
The group consisted of five veterans of the base here, and two adepts that had just been sent over.
Everyone hid their silhouettes and silently floated through the night sky, three hundred meters above the ground, looking down upon this boisterous human city.
Blue Hillock City was a tourist spot famous throughout the country after all. Moreover, it bordered the resource-rich Greenland Forest. Added together, all of these geographical advantages caused the city to have a very large concentration of the rich and noble. They were the leaders of commercial chains, or nobles that came here to play, or artists that have long heard of the beauty of this place…
Regardless of which they were, their presence in this city brought about a lot of liveliness and activity, causing the city's nightlife to be colorful and extravagant!
Without letting them wait for too long, a scrawny creature of darkness rose from the shadows of the city, batting its wings and swiftly flying before them.
"Sirs, this one has come to fetch you under my master's orders. Please come along with this one……"The bloodsucking bat instantly transformed into a well-dressed young noble, bowing respectfully before the adepts.
Before he could finish speaking, the adept leading the group raised his left hand and a stream of flame hit the youth's shoulder instantly, burning him and causing him to screech in pain.
"From now on, I am the master here! "The adept coldly said, "Bring me to Adept Mary!"
Everyone's gaze jumped for a second. They clearly didn't expect this Adept Muret that Sir Fügen sent over to so boldly rob Mary's position of leadership here before he had even met Mary. Even though Sir Fügen had told them to aid this Adept Muret, the reckless and rude manner in which he was treating Mary had exceeded everyone's expectations.
Keoghan snuck a look at Greem.
However, Greem was still smiling and looking at the night scene of the city below, as if he wasn't aware of what was happening.
The youth that had come to welcome them was only a vampire spawn after all. His position was even lower than those blood servants that Mary had personally Embraced. Faced with the wrath of a powerful adept, he didn't dare to argue or struggle, instead begging for mercy with all his might.
Adept Muret waved his hand and extinguished the fire having, relieved some of his anger.
The vampire spawn didn't dare to delay. Immediately, it endured the intense pain and turned into a bloodsucking bat, flying down towards a spot in the small city below.
The others followed along.
The place Mary ‘received’ the others was still the same hidden bedroom as last time.
The well-dressed young nobles in the shadows of the garden, corridors, and corners gathered together to gossip, curious as to the identity of these mysterious guests that arrived all of a sudden.
Mary used her Embrace to turn the more powerful and influential people into her subordinates. The other group of vampires comprised mostly of young nobles were ones she created through other means. As for the vampire spawn with even inferior status, they didn't even have the right to enter this hidden area!
The adepts entered under the watchful gaze of the numerous vampires, walking into the terrifying pool of blood Mary had specially ordered for herself.
The opulent and extravagantly large bed had now disappeared, replaced with a large, five-meter square blood pool. Mary comfortably rested in the pool, enjoying the service of four beautiful vampire girls around her.
One was softly massaging her arms, while another was holding a golden cup, waiting for her to take a drink. The last two were using toothpicks to send peeled grapes straight into her mouth……
It wasn't spring water that was rippling about the pool, nor was it a warm and comfortable hot spring, but thick and viscous blood!
Chapter 188
The arrival of the adepts did not affect Mary's enjoyment of her blood bath.
Keoghan and the rest were not fazed.
However, Muret and Latour, the two adepts that had been assigned here, had a grim and sour expression on their faces. They were so black they was practically dripping ink!
The two had already felt the anger and resentment of the other adepts on the way here. But as veteran adepts of the clan, they only had disdain for this bunch of fresh blood in the clan.
A bunch of adepts that had never experienced a plane war were no different from a chick that had just learned to walk. So what if they were full of resentment? Did these people dare to oppose the clan's orders?
Yet what surprised them was that even though several more experienced adepts hadn't confronted them, a tiny vampire that hadn't advanced for even half a year had appeared and was publicly challenging them.
"You must be the newly advanced Adept Mary! You should have received Sir Fügen's message. From now on, Blue Hillock City will be managed by the two of us. You must hand over all the puppets and spies you control immediately!" The two adepts looked at each other, and Adept Latour, who was the assistant, went forward to talk with Mary.
Mary lazily stretched her body in the blood pool. Her snow white skin and the blood red water contrasted with each other, making her even more mysterious.
"Blue Hillock City is right here. Take it if you want to! I'm too lazy to think about all that! But some of the people here are already my blood servants. Their existence is part of my power. You wouldn't want to take away my wings and fangs, would you?! Mmm? ……"When she finished speaking, Mary snorted and looked upon the two adepts with contempt in her scarlet eyes.
"How bold! You dare oppose Sir Fügen's orders?" Adept Latour was a gloomy person by nature, but his face was flushed after being provoked by Mary's patronizing attitude.
"This is considered opposing orders? Sir Fügen wants me to cooperate with you; I am very cooperative! As long as you don't touch my subordinates, you can do anything you want with Blue Hillock City. I have no objections! Unless you are saying that the two of you added together are not enough to control this small city full of normal humans? If that's really the case, then I can't help but laugh…"
"You……" Latour's gaze suddenly became extremely threatening.
They had already gotten ahold of the basic information about the city before they arrived. Objectively, Mary had done a very good job, seeing how little time she took to completely gain control of Blue Hillock City! When it came to the authorities, she controlled the ruling nobility of the city; when it came to the underground, she controlled the head of the thugs and all the other shady figures. It could be said that most of the critical positions in Blue Hillock City had already been replaced with Mary's subordinates.
In such a situation, how were they supposed to control and manage Blue Hillock City while still avoiding her subordinates? Were they supposed to g
o and take control of the city guards and thugs in the streets one-by-one? Ignoring how counterproductive and time consuming this method was, even if they did manage to do it, wouldn't that make the puppets they controlled the subordinates of Mary's own underlings?!
Latour was enraged when faced with such explicit provocation. He was still under the effects of the planar laws' suppression, but he didn't want to just endure the scorn of a female vampire adept.
Latour roared as his scrawny face started to stretch forward, turning into a snout that resembled a canine animal. Thick and heavy black hair quickly grew out, instantly covering his entire body.
Fangs, claws, black hair, green eyes……
These were all classic traits of wolves, and exposed Adept Latour’s identity. He was a Bloodline Adept. The only thing that was yet unknown was which magical wolf was his chosen bloodline path!
But before Latour could complete his transformation, a fountain of blood came crashing down. The next moment, a crimson silhouette cut through the blood and started to fight with Latour, weaving about like a phantom as it did so.
No one in the room was fazed. Everyone put up an energy shield and kept out the blood that was splashing everywhere. It seemed they had no intention of interfering in this conflict.
The fire on Adept Muret's body had just ignited when he turn his head and looked at Greem, who was giving him a wide smile. Two clusters of flames burned in the eyes of both adepts. Two silent streaks of flame clashed with each other, leaving sparks in the air as they shot towards each other.
Just as quickly, the fountain of blood had fallen back into the blood pool.
Mary stood proudly above the blood with her snow white feet exposed. The crimson armor on her naked body only covered her chest, her shoulder and the parts below her navel, leaving most of her elegant white skin exposed to the air.
There were five terrifying claw marks that went straight to the bone on her right arm that were still giving off a black smoke that wouldn't go away. This was clearly the special effect of Latour's claws.
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