I planned to create an outer ring of shields surrounding the deeper zone. For a first, this would create a buffer zone to stop any incoming locusts. I didn't want these mad dogs to find their way here to my scrap gathering army.
And a second, I'd protect my forces against any incoming attack from my shield offensive skill.
As I did this, I returned back to the frontline again and started working over the places I left behind.
The shield offensive attack was strong enough to kill all the locusts there. However when I returned, it was expected to see lots more of them there.
This wouldn't end. And the enemy would keep throwing them like they were nothing in return for stopping me from getting more gears.
So this time I left those locusts to my warriors inside the shields and started to move towards zones I didn't cover before.
I copied what I did before, covered the entire land with bubbles of my shields with warriors without any stat points inside to lure the locusts around.
No matter how much he tried to throw at me here, all the locusts were getting sucked dry by the densely packed bubbles of shields and warriors inside.
I didn't take any stat maxed warriors for hours, kept using the normal and weak warriors to lure the locusts and allow my shields to store up damage.
And after doing this for an entire day, it was time to wipe out all the locusts. They'd give me dark realm bones, which was something not easily found outside of here.
So even if he kept his precious fiends away, I still managed to secure lots of lands and prevented his forces from taking much of the fiends away.
I saw lots of Silences working at the edge of the region I arrived at. That announced the end of my work here, and the start of killing everything.
This was the first time for me to witness lots of Silences in one place like that. Their number was in millions if not more. And they were picking up the dead bodies of the fiends from the outer regions away from my reach.
As they dared to step so close to me, then why would I let them move away? I never tested a Silence before and didn't know what these folks would give me.
Not to mention many of them were carrying dead fiends away, and these were my most treasured loot in the entire war here so far.
As everything was more ready than the first time I did it, this time the offensive attack from my shields came to sweep away lots of land and lasted for half a day.
This meant this attack would reach places far from here, where lots of enemy forces might be present there unguarding for anything coming like this.
Should I go out there and claim their bodies or what? This was the question!
"I should be satisfied with what I gained so far," I muttered to myself, trying to control my endless greed.
I got enough to keep me busy for days. And it was much better to secure the entire zone out using a ring of shields than going out there and claiming the possibly scattered dead bodies of the enemy.
If I was sure about the presence of friends among them, and if I knew where they were, then my decision would be totally different.
However it was better to secure the bird in hand than going to hunt the ten on the tree.
I spent the next three days flying around and creating shields that merged together. After one day, the enemy seemed to not learn their lesson and sent tons of locusts to stop me.
However this wasn't something that could annoy me. I simply let these locusts pass through my incomplete ring of shields, and didn't even activate the offensive skill until I got done from laying down this ring.
And when I finished, I got to know how huge the silver ground ability was! It spanned even further than what I could cover up using the ultimate speed of my chariot for a three day flight!
After I got done, the thought of going out there and seeing if there were dead bodies around to claim didn't even cross my mind.
It was a lost case to do so. Three days was enough time to make the enemy retrieve anything of value he might have left behind.
And so I simply activated the offensive attack of my shields and watched the entire world shine brightly before the deadly wave swept the hordes of locusts and killed them.
The locusts were gathered outside the ring once done, and I scattered my forces around to keep all of them near my ring.
As the attack ended, I took out more warriors and asked them to freely gather all the gears from the fiends in the entire zone.
Then I used my staff and jumped back where I left tons of fiends for Lucas and my warriors and soulers to kill.
"Lord… You have returned…" When I arrived back, all I saw was just a silent land that was filled with dead bodies and standing warriors and soulers of mine.
There was no trace of any fiend found anywhere at all! And from the tone of Lucas, I got that this battle ended a long time ago.
But that wasn't all! Just during the time I took to take down the locusts and secure my loot, the silver ground from far back already reached here.
It seemed I flew at a lower level as the silver ground was hundreds of metres higher than my head. I looked up at the silver ground while eleven chariots appeared and headed towards me once I arrived.
"Good job," I said in encouragement, "go and gather up all the gears from them."
As they started to do their task, I waited for my generals to arrive.