Dave was sweating figurative buckets; the situation was already dire and now it became much worse. With the Minghocao chasing after them, it only added to their problems. Dave hoped that the skill would be over soon and the creature would disappear back to wherever it came from before it caught up to them, but as it turned out, the Minghocao skill had improved once again and now lasted longer.
The Worm Emperor was moving like a tidal wave, cras.h.i.+ng through all the trees and rocks in its way as it moved, slithered toward the party.
Dave cringed away when he saw the incommoding train-terror.
"I could use demonic ascension, and take the air, this way Onixya will be safe. But, everyone else will become easy picking for the monsters," Dave thought to himself. He was debating the best course of action to take in this situation, he wasn"t willing to give up, not now not ever.
Just as he was about to transform, thinking that he might get lucky and draw all the monsters toward him, the Minghocao roared and dove through the dirt.
"Where did it go?" Lone questioned.
"Has it left?" Flanker asked.
Before Dave could answer in negative, the ground under the whole party shuddered.
"f.u.c.k!" Dave cursed. If the Minghocao rose up, they"ll end up in its belly.
But unlike the usual emergence of the Minghocao, it didn"t rise with fangs aiming to tear its enemy apart. It had slid under the entire party and emerged from the ground, causing all the dunlords, and the Forest p.r.o.ng fiend to stumble and stop. The Minghocao was currently carrying the entire party on its back.
Dave was dumbfounded for a second, he didn"t understand what was going on. The Minghocao didn"t try to eat them up, it was currently helping them. Carrying their weight and going through the Wilds with more speed than they could have ever moved with.
"It"s helping us," Flanker said.
"Why is that?" Ralph asked.
"I don"t know man," Dave said and opened his logs to inspect the skill [Double Edge]
The notification screen was still the same as it was before with a few changes in the Lore
***
Lore Addendum:
This particular Minhocao defeated and consumed a Chaos Centipede, a highly evolved creature from a different monarchical lineage of deep-earth dwellers. Consequently, the Worm King has defied the limitations of G.o.ds and nature and evolved into an Emperor Worm.
Extra:
The Minghocao had recognized you as a temporary ally after a.s.sisting it in fighting the abyssal Knight Deadra.
The Minghocao has become less aggressive to its owner, the chances of turning its fangs against the caster had lessened by 25%
***
"Oh, this is a good deed that I didn"t get punished for." Dave laughed, "Everyone relax, The Minghocao is helping us." Dave said.
The rest of the players calmed down their mounts, but they were still wary of the monster they rode upon.
"Are you sure about this Dave? I mean every time this guy comes up, it"s chaos." Lone said. She had seen Dave use this skill many times, and whenever he used it, he himself was not sure of what was going to happen. It was better to always be safe and prudent when facing anything that could easily backfire against the caster as it could a.s.sault a foe.
Dave calmly sat on Stinger; the rest of the players calmed down when they saw how Dave was acting. A good leader"s behavior is contagious and the situation soon turned form mayhem and an escape from monsters to a stroll on the Death Train that was the Minghocao, through the wilds.
The Minghocao made quick work of the distance between it and the chasing monsters, winding the gape with ease. Dave didn"t even need to point out the direction, the gigantic creature subconsciously knew where Dave wanted to go and went there.
In a few minutes, the monsters had disappeared in the distance, if not for the echoes of their m.u.f.fled howls, one wouldn"t even know that they were being chased still.
"How far until we get to the boyz?" Perfect Shot asked.
"The Minghocao doesn"t care for the obstacles in our way, he"s just bulldozing through them. We should make it in less than an hour at this rate."
The Minghocao didn"t disappear at the party, it kept moving through the wilds carrying them on their back for an entire hour. And the moment the first member of the legion was in sight of the Minghocao, the creature halted its advance. It stopped and wiggled its way underground disappearing back to where it came from.
When the undead at the backline of Dave"s army noticed the Worm Emperor, they sent a platoon over. an undead captain along with a dozen or so other elite tier undead came rus.h.i.+ng toward Dave"s party.
"Your lords.h.i.+p, Death Knight Singund has some matters to share with you," said the undead captain.
"Take me to him," Dave said.
"As you command, please follow me," the undead said, turned and moved in a half sprint.
Dave nudged Stinger to move forward, the rest of his party followed after him.
Rows upon rows of undead stood on attention as Dave moved through them to the head of the army.
Dante was whistling in awe as he saw the numbers of the undead surrounding them.
When Dave noticed it he smiled. He felt proud of having such an army under him and felt more thrilled when others saw it.
Once he arrived, Dave noticed a tent pitched in the middle of a clearing. Undead captains were standing guard to the tent, once they noticed Dave coming in, they gave him a salute and let him inside.
The tent wasn"t too big but was enough to accommodate all of Dave"s party members. It had a few animal pelts on the ground and a large round table where there was a map of the Wilds drawn on it.
"Commander!" Singund spoke in a hearty voice. He was inside the tent and was in the process of drawing the next course of action for his next move.
"Singund, good to see you, I heard you had something to tell me," Dave said.
"Yes, I wanted to show you this," Singund said. he hunched under the table in the tent and pulled a crate and dropped it on the table with a clattering sound.
It was a square wooden crate that was about a foot in length and width. It was filled with several spheres.
Dave recognized these spheres, there were at least a dozen of them.
"Where did you get these dungeon cores?" Dave asked.
"From all and any dungeon we encountered. We couldn"t modify them ourselves so we brought them over for you. Spark had just finished conquering the last dungeon in the area and he should come with the last core."
"Great job Singund," Dave said in a proud sounding voice.
"What are those?" Dante asked.
"These are dungeon cores, I can change them so the dungeons will start sp.a.w.ning undead related creatures instead of the basic monsters they create," Dave said.
"And that"s good?" Dante asked.
"Yeah, it will generate a currency I need to supply my undead and keep them in functional order, and also will further improve the Undead Legion"s might," Dave patiently explained to Dante.
Dave touched the first dungeon core and began reprograming it. It didn"t take him much time to change the dungeon layout it was related to it and changes the monsters it sp.a.w.ned. He did so for all of the cores, talking him a few minutes to get done with all the cores.
Spark arrived with a purple dungeon core that he handed to Dave immediately. The pyromancer was heavily wounded but he brimmed with pride as he gave Dave the core.
"Was it difficult?" Dave asked.
"Nothing is too difficult when you have a thousand undead that could bombard the enemy to nothingness," Spark said in a smile.
"Great job guys, really great job."
"We have discovered a lot of material that your lords.h.i.+p could use to crafting and construction. Because it was too much, I personally ordered a brigade to take them back to Urburg. They should arrive within a day."
"Great job Singund. Now, I have some bad news," Dave said.
"What"s the matter, your lords.h.i.+p?" Singund frowned.
"The boss-monsters of the Wilds are all coming our way, we need to move quickly to the Qin borders," Dave said.
"Oh, we have noticed such activities. Thankfully because of the disappearance of such creatures, our raids and pillaging had come to great fruition without being caused much damage." Singund said.
"Right, now, order the rest of the army to move. We need to breach the Qin borders within the day."
Singund frowned saying, "but sir, we"re already at the Qin borders,"
"Huh? What do you mean?" Dave questioned.
"The Qin Kingdom, it starts from here, we have camped just a mile away from the first city. We were waiting for your arrival before starting our a.s.sault.
"Oh, I didn"t think we"d get here this fast." Dave nodded. "Okay, this is good," Dave said.
"What"s the plan, Davey?" Lone asked.
"Simple, we"ll do it the same way the guildies tried it, only better," Dave said.
He removed the crate from the table and took a look at the map. They were pretty much on the borders of the Qin Kingdom. Next to their location were a couple of cites. One of them was just a mile away, probably the one Singund was talking about.
"Okay, first of, we"ll need a foothold. How many of the dungeons around the borders have you conquered?" Dave asked.
"We captured ten of them. They are positioned here," Singund began pointing on the map. The location of the dungeons were close to the borders. They weren"t high difficulty dungeons but they were useful to what Dave had in mind.
Looking around the map Dave smiled and said, "Keep raiding the dungeons. Singund, take half the army, and capture any and all the dungeons along this area." Dave said drawing his hand all over the borders of the Qin kingdom.
"Why is that sir?" Singund asked.
"I have a plan. For now, just do it, I"ll take the rest of the army and raid the cities. We"ll be covering for you. Your mission is imperative, you can"t fail and you have one day to capture all the dungeons."
"As you command sir," Singund said and went out shouting command and gathering the army.
"What are you planning Dave?" Samuel asked.
Dave smiled in his draugr smile, In his hand was the purple dungeon core that Spark just gave him. "It"s gonna be a nasty surprise, you"ll see."