007 A Fancy Way to Throw One's Life Away

Although the Market of the Dead was built by Kaelen and located within his territory, he was not the one responsible for its management. Kaelen was accustomed to delegating specialized tasks to professionals. Among his subordinates, Flor and Cliff were the experts in such matters, but they were already occupied with their own duties and could not spare the time to oversee the market. Furthermore, for various reasons, Kaelen preferred to keep them out of the public eye, so he dumped the responsibility onto Ogoren.

With Ogoren handling the market affairs, Kaelen led a remarkably leisurely life, rarely having to show his face. Particularly during the period following the upgrade of his territory, he felt no urge to flaunt his increased strength. Instead, he remained quietly within his domain, busy planting a new batch of "Whispers of the Dead."

However, he had not been sequestered for long—barely a day after the upgrade, with the new batch of roughly 150,000 "Whispers of the Dead" just sown—when trouble broke out in the Land of the Dead. A magical beast had attacked the mine formerly belonging to the Black Iron Ore tribe. Over a hundred first-tier undead responsible for excavation were slaughtered, and Iron Bone, who had been overseeing the mining operations, had gone missing during the assault. Upon hearing this news, Kaelen was incensed.

Almost at the same moment Kaelen received the news, a group of people lurked outside his territory. This group was a five-member adventurer squad. Every member was a fourth-tier adventurer. More interestingly, while they possessed human-like builds, they had furry dog-like heads—or rather, they were wolves. These were the legendary werewolves, a wandering adventurer squad hired by Wenge and his two companions to target Kaelen. The attack on Kaelen's mine was their handiwork, intended to lure him out.

"Boss, isn't he just a third-tier necromancer? The intel said there were no fourth-tier undead in their territory. Do we really need to be this cautious? Why don't we just charge in and grab that two-legged beast?"

While they waited, the fourth member of the group expressed his impatience. The werewolf leader slapped him across the face. "What do you know? This is called tactics! I learned it from a human, and it works like a charm!"

"Boss, those undead are coming out!"

As the leader was scolding his subordinate, a vast, imposing legion of undead marched out from Kaelen's territory. Seeing this, the werewolf leader immediately perked up.

"Pay attention. If that mage is among them, we'll tail them and wait for an opportunity to strike. If he isn't, we'll wait for them to leave and then attack!"

"What a hassle!" the fourth member muttered again.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing, nothing. It's just... it's all bones in there. It seems that two-legged beast isn't among them?"

The werewolf leader didn't have time to discipline him. He stared intently at the undead ranks, his pupils contracting as a faint glow of battle aura emanated from his eyes, as if activating a skill to scan the enemy. As he looked, the fur on his tail stood on end.

"Something's wrong. The strength of this undead army doesn't match the intel the goblins gave us. There are fourth-tier undead in there—more than one! Retreat!"

No sooner had the words left his mouth than the "Wings of Death" screeched from above. Simultaneously, the marching undead legion halted, and the five werewolf brothers were instantly exposed. Before they could react, a barrage of spells from the undead army descended upon them.

*Nether Fireballs, Earth Spikes, Wind Blades.*

Over a hundred various spells rained down, the sheer force of which terrified the werewolf brothers into tucking their tails and fleeing. It must be said that as fourth-tier werewolves, their speed was indeed terrifying. However, Kaelen's undead army possessed its own speed specialists.

Over the past three months, Kaelen had successfully developed undead cavalry. The combination of goblin skeleton warriors and skeletal green demon wolves was inherently fast, and with the green demon wolves activating "Swift Wind Force," their burst speed was actually faster than that of the fourth-tier werewolves. With the "Wings of Death" diving down periodically to disrupt them, the werewolves found themselves being caught just minutes into their flight.

What these five unlucky werewolves did not know was that while they were being chased by Kaelen's army, another team had already infiltrated his territory. This team consisted of only three individuals: three fourth-tier goblin assassins.

In truth, the tactic of luring the tiger away from the mountain was not exclusive to the werewolves; the goblins were even better at it, and their scale was even grander. The five werewolves were merely the bait used to draw out Kaelen's main force.

"Those undead have been lured away by the foolish werewolves. They’ve bought us fifteen minutes, and we must take down that human necromancer within this time," said the leading goblin assassin.

The remaining two chuckled. "Fifteen minutes? We don't need nearly that long to deal with a human necromancer!"

In fact, all three goblin assassins had been present on the day Kaelen's territory upgraded, and they believed they knew his strength better than anyone. They did not think it would take much effort to deal with a third-tier necromancer whose main army had been lured away.

With confident smiles, the three goblin assassins stepped into Kaelen's territory and immediately locked their sights on the Bone Tower.

"The human necromancer should be inside this mage tower. Shall we assault it directly, or lure him out?"

"I've seen the defenses of this tower; they aren't very strong. Even that fourth-tier magical beast was able to break through easily once it exhausted its strength. My dagger is a masterpiece forged by dwarves, incredibly sharp. I can shatter this door in a moment!"

As he spoke, one of the goblin assassins approached the entrance of the Bone Tower, brandishing his dagger. He swung the blade toward the structure. As the dagger struck, the goblin assassin curled his lips into a smile, as if he could already see the door shattering and the terrified human necromancer hiding behind it.