>---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Surprisingly, summoning that archer took up a lot less mana than I had expected; it only ate up 20 units of my mana. I guess the next thing to do is to test out its strength.
I ended up choosing a guardsman to stand in as a target dummy for this weapons test. As he quietly stood there, 50 meters away with his shield raised, I got the newly summoned skeleton archer to fire off an arrow at the shield.
The archer reacted nearly instantaneously to my command and drew out a bone arrow from an unknown source. It swiftly nocked the arrow onto its bow and with a resounding tw.a.n.g of its bow, let loose the bony projectile.
The arrow whistled through the air at nearly the speed of a bullet. In just a blink of an eye, it crashed into the raised shield, staggering the guardsman slightly. However, before it could knock him further back, the guardsman came to his senses and with a firm grip of his feet, steadied himself without giving up an inch to the arrow.
Overall, the shield successfully blocked that arrow but there was an obvious scar on its bony surface.
To think it was actually able to leave a mark on my refined shield...it"s power is pretty decent. For a one-star skeleton to possess such an offensive power was impressive in its own right. With such power, it should be able to penetrate the hides of those ratmen easily.
However, these archers required a certain number before they could truly show off their offensive powers. Given that I currently possess a maximum of 83 units of mana, I can summon three archers a day with some mana leftover as an emergency. If that"s the case, crafting weapons will have to be put aside for now.
Recently, we"ve had to deal with a myriad of creatures which was to be expected. The ecosystem of the Prison of the Dead was much more complicated than the Blood Sea and the Land of Dead combined. As such, getting this long range squad ready took precedence over reinforcing my melee squads.
Absorbing souls would replenish my mana quickly but at the same time, I needed them to hasten my evolution...ah...so many problems, where should I even begin...forget it, I"ll just focus on creating a 30 man squad first.
"Is everything ready?"I decided to put it aside for now.
"It"s ready, Master." One-eye respectfully replied.
As always, he turned out to be a capable and reliable subordinate. He was in charge of managing all my subordinates and this included the half-orcs who I had just a.s.signed to him.
As instructed, the half-orcs formed up in a neat formation in front of them, their bone clubs resting in their hands as always but instead of their usual ferocity, a sense of lethargy emitted from them.
I guess this low morale was to be expected. After all, they had just been subjugated and they weren"t even the same race as us. Thankfully, I only needed a bunch of cannon fodder so I had no plans to groom them into proper subordinates. Their lack of morale was fine as long as they were able to soak some hits without fleeing.
Upon confirming that Violet Snow and the h.e.l.lhounds were ready as well, I gave off a lionhearted shout: "Set off."
"Yes Master!"
The devils roared in unison. A moment later, the bony hallways were filled with the thunderous sounds of a hundreds strong army marching through its cramped pa.s.sageways.
The journey didn"t change much from yesterday"s; all we encountered were a bunch of wandering undead. While these patrols were frequent, each patrol wasn"t too large and so I decided to dispatch the half-orcs. Despite me labelling them as fodder, I still didn"t want to risk their lives unnecessarily.
Upon entering combat, these half-orcs immediately showed why they were the one of the foremost combat races in Abaddon, their lackadaisical att.i.tude took an immediate 180 as they charged into battle, their clubs waving wildly in the air as they roared.
These guys were even faster than my guardsman, it was as if a fire had been lit under them as they fearlessly plunged into battle. Their unexpected ferocity even gave me a scare the moment they started roaring.
However, as soon as the hundred over skeletons were defeated, I discovered a major problem: half-orcs weren"t able to consume souls.
In the Prison of the Dead, souls were an important source of sustenance for us devils. In terms of numbers alone, the undead formed the bulk of the population here and was naturally the most common food source. Next came the other races who were thrown here or had climbed up from the Blood Sea.
If these half-orcs weren"t able to feed on souls, that meant that they only had one means of feeding themselves: killing other life forms for their meat.
The problem facing me now was why didn"t these skeletons have any meat on them...wait...
The real problem was that on top of hunting the undead for souls, I now needed to hunt down some other life forms in order to feed these half-orcs…
No wonder these half-orcs didn"t create a nest of their own aftering entering the Prison of the Dead but instead chose the life of bandits.
Given that before meeting these half-orcs we went through two consecutive days of nothing but eating, sleeping and hunting undead, that meant that these half-orcs had to have starved themselves for at least two days before meeting another source of meat. I guess this was the only silver lining in the cloud right now; they were accustomed to starving themselves.
Which brings up the next question, did the Abaddon Rodents have this same problem as well? If they weren"t able to feed on souls, how did their thousand strong clan survive? And how did they maintain or perhaps even increased their numbers?
Looks like there"s a lot more for me to learn about this place. Asking Violet Snow was definitely an option but she probably omitted this because she thought this information was unnecessary. Of course, it could just be that she forgot about it...or that she simply felt that I was too stupid and thus couldn"t be bothered to do so…
After we managed to ama.s.s roughly 500 hundred soul, I distributed a portion of the souls to the elites in my army, in other words, the devils who were most likely to evolve into two-star. They numbered roughly 20.
Surprisingly, one of them managed to evolve after eating these souls.
Upon finishing his evolution, the newly evolved head imp stared at his hands in wonderment, he then gave his new horn a feel before looking around in a daze. As he took in the envious gaze of his peers, it finally dawned on him that this wasn"t a dream and that he had really evolved.
His mouth broke into an excited grin before letting forth a boisterous laugh.
"What are you laughing about! Get your a.s.s over here and thank the Master for his generosity! Don"t you know that these high- quality souls are normally reserved for the Master"s own consumption. Feeding you guys these souls is such a waste!"
Seeing the silly grin on the imp, an irritated Nine-finger swiftly slapped the imp on the back of his head, stunning the imp for a short while.
"Which b.a.s.t.a.r.d actually dared to hit me, I"m going to…" The elation of evolving had left him a sense of superiority which got instantly disrupted by that sudden sneak attack on the back of his head. Feeling exceptionally irate, he turned around intending to give the culprit an earful.
However, the moment he did so, he came face to face with the equally irate Nine-finger. The sudden turn of events coupled with Nine-finger"s seniority left the poor imp stammering for a reply.
"You...I...me…"
"Cut the c.r.a.p and go thank the Master." Having not vented his anger sufficiently, he gave the imp another slap on his head. Seeing that the imp merely shrink back in fear without daring to speak up, he finally experienced the pleasure that he was looking for; the pleasure of bullying another. And so, he strutted off, extremely proud of himself as if he had just won a battle.
The head imp didn"t wait for Nine-finger to leave before immediately running up to me. He kneeled and said, with tears of grat.i.tude in his eyes: "Many thanks for the Master"s gift, I will forever be your most loyal slave. May your beauty remain as unchanging as the Blood Sea itself…"
Putting aside the matter of my gender, I had to admit that their eloquence had experienced a significant boost after evolving. Even their flattery had reached a new tier.
The fact that they treated me as a l.u.s.t demon was just as exasperating as ever but I knew that there was no point explaining this as long as my pee pee didn"t grow out.
And so, I simply went along with it: "Since you"ve evolved into a head imp, I"ll bestow a name upon you. Not having a name for my two-star henchmen would be too much of a bother after all."
His excitement reached new heights as the words sunk in. He stared up at me with an expectant look on his face, the drool practically flowing from the corners of his mouth as he did so. I suddenly had the urge to kick his disgusting face but I suppressed it in time.
Without bothering to cover up my lack of thought, I came up with a fantastic name for him: "From now on, you"re Big 5, got it?"
"Yes Master, Big 5 understands your words. I have a name...I"m Big 5...I finally have a name…" He muttered to himself, leaping into air several times as he did so. He was in every way, a gullible child celebrating after having received a simple gift.
This continued until he finally noticed the darkening look on Nine-finger"s face, only then did he realise that he hadn"t been given the permission to rise. His face paled and immediately fell to his knees once more.
Perhaps it was out of fear of having his name rescinded but the newly christened Big 5 continuously kowtowed, not daring to look up, any trace of a head imp"s dignity, gone with the wind.
"It"s fine. I"m not angry with you, you may rise first." After finally settling this issue, I suddenly realised that he was the same fellow who was riding that h.e.l.lhound.
Even though he has gotten bigger since then, it seems like he was still able to ride that h.e.l.lhound. Having received my forgiveness, he gleefully hopped onto his h.e.l.lhound and rode around with a wide grin on his face.
While all this was happening, Nine-finger stood there staring uncomfortably at the pair. I don"t why but he seemed to detest this imp and constantly tried to cause trouble for him.
How should I say this...truth be told, I found his personality rather... unique, but then, all my devils had a rather unique personality as well...