CH 24

Zhang Nu was watching the whole thing unfold from the top of the mountains.

When active, the Tower of Grudges cost over 20 gold each.

However, the Towers are also very powerful.

Each one can control a hundred grudge ghosts.

The moment a grudge ghost dies, the Tower will resummon more, creating an infinite, endless stream.

Unquestionably, the Tower of Grudges is a very good defensive structure, effective against both ground and air targets.

While grudge ghosts aren't all that strong, being only a level 1 Normal unit, they're not actually easy to deal with in reality.

First of all, they can freely fly around in the air, making them hard to hit. Second, as ghosts, their physical defenses are extremely high. Then adding in their self-destruct ability, they're practically a warrior's nightmare!

When fighting against a Tower of Grudges, the right tactic is to go directly for the towers themselves.

The moment a Tower of Grudges is destroyed, all the grudge ghosts will also naturally disappear.

However, where could those minotaurs have known about Towers of Grudges beforehand?

Plus, the Towers were also all constructed on high ground, where they can't climb up to. Thus, even if they did know the right way to deal with them, the minotaurs would still lack the ability to actually carry that out.

With five Towers of Grudges, that makes 500 grudge ghosts.

That's ten times the number of their opponents.

Adding in the fact that they simply will not decrease in numbers, how are the minotaurs supposed to deal with them?

As for retreat? It's too late! Both the paths ahead and behind have already been sealed off.

The minotaurs tried several times to break the encirclement and failed, falling one after another. All of them fell into despair, with no other option beyond struggling worthlessly to draw out their deaths longer.

"Demon King!"

"You coward!"

"Hiding away like this?"

"Come duel me one on one if you have the guts!"

Zhang Kai let out angered roars.

To fall before even seeing the Demon King? That's way too worthless!

Who the heck could accept such a thing?

If he has to die, then he at least has to do so fighting the Demon King!

Zhang Nu just completely ignored him though.

He rather likes the scene of bugs struggling in despair and collapsing in rage.

As for the Hero's taunts, rather than getting angered, Zhang Nu instead just found it funny.

One on one duel huh?

Like that useless shit is even worthy?!

[You've slain a minotaur. Gold +9!]

[You've slain a minotaur. Gold +9!]

[You've slain a minotaur. Gold +9!]

[...]

[You've slain a minotaur Hero. Hero's Soul+1!]

[You've slain a minotaur Hero. Hero's Soul+1!]

[You've slain a minotaur Hero. Hero's Soul+1!]

The three Heroes have all been killed.

The minotaurs were nearly all dead by now as well.

Zhang Nu was quite satisfied with the results of this test.

50 some minotaur warriors were all completely crushed!

Thus, the Towers of Grudges are very much enough to keep the vast majority of pests out of his territory.

That said, although the Towers of Grudges were indeed very effective at defense, they're also extremely fragile.

Thus, Zhang Nu decided to set up ten skeleton soldiers, two skeleton commanders, and one skeleton mage near each of the Towers.

It's to both strengthen the overall defenses and to protect the Towers of Grudges.

The minotaurs died off one by one and were on the verge of complete eradication.

However, Zhang Nu didn't kill them all. He started taking active control of the Towers to purposefully leave an opening, so as to allow a couple of minotaurs to escape.

Based on his appraisal information, those minotaurs came from the nearby Bloodhoof Tribe.

If he remembers correctly, then those goblins who came to join him a few days ago had their village destroyed by the Bloodhoof Tribe and thus were forced to wander the forest, homeless.

The Bloodhoof Tribe is nearby.

They're basically a powerful and tyrannical faction.

Just their adult minotaurs number around 900 or so.

Minotaurs are also skilled in blacksmithing along with their mighty strength and endurance. They would make very good laborers indeed.

The Mine of Sorrows is also on the verge of opening up as well, so wouldn't it be perfect to nab some minotaurs to toss in there as miners?

After all, comparatively, while draconians are better at construction and forging, Minotaurs are stronger when it comes to raw strength and endurance.

Thus, Zhang Nu purposefully let those couple of minotaurs go.

He did so in the hope that those minotaurs would go back home and report.

The Bloodhoof Tribe is well defended and built with quite a number of defensive structures. The minotaurs themselves are also well equipped, so losses would be inevitable if he tried to just attack head on.

Plus, if he were to attempt to openly conquer the Bloodhoof Tribe, it would end up causing far too much of a commotion and will end up exposing far too much of his true might and armies.

Zhang Nu's territory has grown day by day, and it can likely protect itself by now. However, he would still rather not expose too much. Thus, it would be best if he could lure the minotaurs to come attack him instead.

Afterwards, Zhang Nu had his minions take care of cleaning up the battleground while he headed back to the Castle.

He then sacrificed the Hero's Souls.

[You've sacrificed a Hero's Soul. Talent point +3!]

[You've sacrificed a Hero's Soul. Talent point +3!]

[You've sacrificed a Hero's Soul. Talent point +3!]

The previous time, he had received 11 talent points. After activating the Dragon Flame talent, he had 1 point left. With his newest addition, he now has 10 talent points in total.

He can activate a new Talent then.

The Talents that Zhang Nu has left are: Dragon Fear (Inactive), Lightning Control (Inactive), and Beginner Anti-Magic (Inactive).

Abyssal Dragon Talents are all very powerful.

Dragon Fear has an intimidation and crowd control effect. Lightning Control is a long distance attack and Beginner Anti-Magic is a defensive Talent.

All of them need to be activated, it's just a matter of sooner or later.

Zhang Nu decided on activation Lightning Control.

[Lightning Control], Talent skill. Summon a bolt of abyssal lightning able to strike any target within a radius of 1000 meters. The power of the lightning scales directly with the MP usage. Each attack costs a minimum of 10 MP.

After unlocking this newest Talent, Zhang Nu clenched his fists and watched as bolts of lightning flashed all around him. Those bolts of lightning were not only bright, but also scarlet in color.

Scarlet lightning.

This is the lightning of the abyss!

It also carries a curse effect, allowing it to ignore a portion of resistances and cause more damage along with a paralysis effect!

Zhang Nu spent some MP and a scarlet bolt of lightning blasted down several hundred meters away, instantly blasting a huge boulder to smithereens.

Not bad!

Dragon Flame is good for short to medium range and causes continuous, large area of effect damage.

Lightning attacks can hit at mid to long range, and is more suitable for single strike burst damage in a low to medium area of effect.

The two basic attack abilities of the Abyssal Dragon each make up for the other's shortcomings. With both, it's enough to deal with the vast majority of enemies.

T/N: I don't know... Personally, I might have gone for the Dragon Fear instead if it was me. Massive AoE CC seems more valuable in general compared to single target snipe, especially with the upcoming battle that's anticipated to come. That's my opinion as a long time D&D player anyways. What do you guys think?

Editor's note: Seeing that he is anticipating the battle with minotaurs, I'd have gone for Dragon Fear as well and force them into submission. But oh well, maybe the author has some flashy using for the Lightning Control (yes, pun intended)

Challenge Counter: Goal - 22/30 votes on the NovelUpdates page.