Chapter 92: Mastery Over the Goblin Forest

Sometimes war is just like this—when one side's morale collapses, they are left with no strength to resist. No matter how many of them there are, no matter how powerful they might be, it makes no difference. Especially so for the goblins; aside from their numbers, they could not possibly match the strength of Kellen's undead army.

And so, a massacre unfolded in the Iron Ore Goblin Tribe. Four hundred undead relentlessly hunted down twenty thousand goblins. The slaughter began at midday and continued into the night, pushing the battlefield from the Iron Ore Goblin Tribe all the way to the edge of the Goblin Forest, nearly reaching the Silver Hand before finally coming to a halt.

Over ten thousand goblins fell during this massacre; the survivors either scattered throughout the corners of the Goblin Forest or fled outright. As for those remaining goblins, Kellen had no intention of pursuing them further. On the one hand, it was unnecessary; on the other, he simply lacked the time.

The slaughter had already reached the borders of the Silver Hand. It was certain that those on the other side were now fully aware of the upheaval in the Goblin Forest. If all went as expected, Kellen would soon face the Silver Hand himself. Under such circumstances, he could spare no time for the goblins. What he needed to do now was to strengthen himself as much as possible before confronting the Silver Hand.

After all, he knew nothing about the Silver Hand; although Cliff had assured him that they would not use force against him, Kellen understood it was always wise to maximize his own strength.

This day and night of slaughter not only secured the Goblin Forest for him, but also caused his original reserve of seventy thousand territory energy to soar to three hundred ten thousand. It sounded like a lot, but Kellen knew very well that, barring unforeseen circumstances, he would not be able to amass such large amounts of territory energy in the near future.

There were only a few ways he could gain territory energy. The [Large Tomb] yielded three hundred a day, which was just enough for the consumption of one hundred and twenty [Small Graves]. As for slaughtering goblins for energy, the forest now held few goblins; even if he hunted them all down, it might not amount to one hundred thousand territory energy.

As for the last method—[Whisper of the Dead]—Kellen had been quite pleased earlier when he obtained some from the specters and Moon Worship City. Yet, after collecting them, he realized that both the Goblin Forest and Moon Worship City's supply of [Whisper of the Dead] had likely been exhausted. Though he had instructed Cliff to use his wealth to gather more, [Whisper of the Dead] was not something one could simply find growing by the roadside; it only grew in graveyards and did so exceedingly slowly. A graveyard a decade old might yield barely a hundred flowers. Moon Worship City had already harvested theirs aggressively, so unless Cliff extended his reach beyond Moon Worship City, Kellen would not be seeing a large influx of [Whisper of the Dead] anytime soon.

Given this, Kellen had to carefully consider how best to use the three hundred ten thousand territory energy now at his disposal. Still, regardless of the specifics, it was always right to upgrade his territory as much as possible.

Thus, after annihilating the goblins, Kellen began to act. He mobilized his undead to transport all the goblin tribe's resources and corpses back to his own territory. As for the bodies, he only gathered those above the second tier, since his territory could expand. If he managed to upgrade his territory to level four, it would encompass most of the Goblin Forest, allowing him to directly convert the dead without the need for laborious transport.

Yet aside from corpses, Kellen left nothing else behind in the goblin tribe. Whether it was ores, mining tools, or even clothing—anything with value, he moved to his territory. His next goal was border trade, and though he had not yet established control over the specter channels, it was always wise to accumulate wealth in advance.

To clear out his spoils, Kellen even organized a transport brigade, mobilizing thousands of first-tier undead as laborers. Of course, Kellen did not do this himself; he entrusted the task to Little Green, while he focused solely on ferrying corpses.

Since the battle for his territory began three days prior, Kellen had barely slept. After the territorial battle, he spent a day and night exterminating the goblins, then another day combing through the entire goblin tribe, collecting all corpses above the second tier and carrying them back.

Several days of sleepless exertion nearly exhausted him completely.

Yet, gazing upon the corpses he had brought back, Kellen felt his efforts had been worthwhile. From the Iron Ore Tribe alone, he had retrieved five hundred second-tier corpses, twenty-three third-tier, and one suspected fourth-tier body. Including the spoils from other tribes, he had amassed a total of six hundred eleven second-tier corpses, thirty-one third-tier, and one suspected fourth-tier.

If Kellen were to convert all these into undead, his power would surge dramatically, and his territory might even ascend directly to level four. So, after bringing the corpses back, he began working on converting the third-tier undead.

Currently, his territory held thirty-one third-tier undead; apart from Little Green, who had advanced naturally, the rest were converted. This meant that Kellen needed only twenty more third-tier undead conversions to fulfill one of the upgrade conditions for the [Large Tomb]. However, since the other requirement was to convert a [Mutant Undead], he did not convert all the third-tier corpses, but instead selected twenty different third-tier bodies for conversion.

Spending forty thousand territory energy, his territory's third-tier undead reached fifty-one, and he fulfilled one of the upgrade conditions for the [Large Tomb].

Yet at this point, Kellen found himself stymied. He had no idea what a so-called mutant undead was; the system provided no detailed explanation, leaving him quite vexed.

Fortunately, luck was on his side. After much trial and error without success, he suddenly recalled his [Bloodclaw Eagle]! The creature had been fatally wounded and was now near death. Kellen wondered if he might repair its body through corpse fusion. Unexpectedly, this very notion led to a stroke of luck—he inadvertently created a [Mutant Undead]...