They walked for 12 hours before seeing the first sign of life. Well, not life as there were no humans in the empire anymore, but buildings.
It was a small village with plantations that had already rotten with disease. No one was there to take care of it.
All the houses were woody, and it looked exactly like an ordinary human village.
A slightly bigger house, presumably for the person in charge, and another one with the same size as the village’s merchant.
At first glance, everything looked normal within that village, but Arthur quickly noticed a corpse near one plantation.
“They killed everyone here… bastards!”
The entire village was dead, and their corpses were scattered all over the place without a proper funeral.
Arthur did not have the time to bury everyone from the Dragon Scale Empire, but he could not let their bodies there to rot.
Bugs were already crawling inside the corpses, eating it. A sad scene.
With a hand move, Arthur burned every corpse he found, turning it into ashes. It was the best he could do, and he hoped the humans did not mind his actions.
They looked inside all the houses, and just like they guessed, corpses were in it. Arthur asked them to move all the corpses out of the houses to burn them.
A group of 4 people left the small village with sad and angry faces. All that killing was because of the dark races, and the elves present imagined that happening to their own people.
It could not happen. They would not let it happen.
After witnessing what happened with that village, they were more determined to get as much information as they could, return, and then launch an attack and wipe out the dark creatures.
“These bastards will pay.”
“Of course they will. Why did they come out of the dark lands? Why couldn’t they stay inside that place forever?”
“Who knows?”
They chatted along the way. Arthur was not fond of that idea as it could attract enemies, but walking for so long saying nothing was not something he wanted either.
~~~~
The roads of the Dragon Scale Empire were made of cobblestone, way better than the muddy roads they used to get there.
“Look what we have here.”
A hoarse voice echoed through the forest, followed by the appearance of lots of enemies coming from behind the trees.
Some were vampires, others trolls and orcs. A mix of the dark creatures.
Arthur had not noticed them beforehand, and as he swept his gaze through them, he saw a succubus. He guessed she was the responsible for casting a spell that made everyone their stealthy.
The person with the hoarse voice was a skeleton, and apparently, he was the leader behind that group of creatures.
“What do you want? A hair transplant?” Arthur mocked the bald skeleton in front of him.
“Shut up, insects. Why are elves here? Are you looking to die just like your humans friends?”
While talking, Arthur looked with the corner of his eyes to see how many enemies were there?
Based on what he could see, there were at least 20 enemies. A number more than enough to kill his squad, but with him there, that was only a pipe dream.
Arthur was not scared. The level of these creatures was similar or lower than his, but the difference in attributes was game changing.
With a have of his hand, Arthur cast a magical barrier on their squad members, and said, “don’t worry. Even if all of them attack together, they can’t break the barrier.”
After that, he returned his gaze to the skeleton in front of him. Arthur did not mutter a word, but went directly to action.
Using his new sword, he dashed towards the skeleton, who reacted quickly, waving its staff, casting a barrier made of earth.
The mighty of Arthur would not be stopped by a meager muddy barrier, so with a slash, he cut the barrier in half, creating a hole in which he passed, though, appearing right in front of the skeleton.
While that was happening, the others did not stand still and tried to attack Arthur’s squad.
Vampires sending blood magic, trolls and orcs slamming their weapons on the barrier, yet it did not move or dimmed.
The skeleton saw that and remembered the words Arthur had just said.
“Was he saying the truth? What kind of magical barrier is that?”
Arthur’s attack did not stop after cutting the earth barrier, but kept going, aiming towards the retreating skeleton who feared the Elven monster in front of him.
It was impossible for the skeleton to dodge, but that did not mean it was impossible to survive.
An attraction force came, pushing one troll that was attacking the barrier. At an astonishing speed, the troll flew towards the gap between Arthur and the skeleton.
“A meat shield!”
The sword attack cut through the troll, sending guts and blood everywhere. It was an enemy killed, but not the one Arthur was looking for.
“Hahaha. Did you like that?”
For a moment, the bald skeleton laughed, proud of his accomplishments, but that only made Arthur angrier.
A mere skeleton was playing with him? No way he would let that pass.
“Die, pile of bones!”
Arthur was not playing around anymore as he instantly cast his teleport.
He vanished from the skeleton’s sight, appearing right behind it slashing his sword down, cutting the skeleton in half.
All the other creatures that were attacking the magical barrier were also keeping their eyes on the fight, and the moment their leader died, they were scared.
Arthur was completely pissed, and he cast his teleport spell again, and again, and gain, vanishing from all parts of the battlefield, and every time he appeared, one creature would die.
The amount of mana Arthur had allowed him to cast multiple teleports, even more considering these were short distance ones, so none of the creatures stood a chance as they perished by Arthur’s sword.