The situation erupted without warning.
The skeleton boss, for reasons I couldn’t fathom, commanded its minions to launch a ferocious assault.
Snapping to attention, I ordered my remaining Dark Bats and the forces behind me to intercept the skeleton warriors.
But the level gap was brutal.
Coupled with the elite skeleton warriors joining the fray, my bats were no match.
They fell back under the onslaught, their fragile defenses crumbling.
“Colluding with the enemy faction? Face judgment, you trash Demon King!” the boss taunted, its jaw clacking.
“Personal attacks are uncalled for! Keep talking, and I’ll bring two thousand Dark Bats to raze your hideout!”
I stomped my foot, fuming.
“With that strength? Don’t make me laugh,” it sneered.
As its words echoed, a deafening rumble shook the open-pit mine.
From every crevice and tunnel, countless skeleton warriors poured out, their bones clattering in a dense, white sea.
A rough count put them at around 800.
My face paled.
I ordered my bats to retreat, but the skeletons’ numbers had already encircled us.
“Uh, Syl… does the dark faction treat prisoners well?” I swallowed hard, only to feel my body suddenly lift off the ground.
“Not particularly. Skeletons tend to turn their enemies into more of their kind,” Syl said, scooping me up.
A magic circle flared beneath her feet, and blinding white light enveloped us.
When my vision cleared, we were back in the Demon King’s castle.
I’d forgotten—Syl couldn’t fight for me, but she’d always ensure my safety.
Still, the loss of nearly 10 energy’s worth of Dark Bats stung deeply.
Worse, the skeleton problem remained unsolved.
Syl’s gray eyes turned to me, her voice calm.
“According to my count, there are over 1,200 skeleton warriors, 20 elites, and a level 5 boss. Eliminating them with your current strength is nearly impossible. What’s your plan?”
She was right.
Even throwing all my Dark Bats at them would lead to catastrophic losses.
Sacrificing most of my resources to clear one mob cluster?
Unacceptable.
“We need to deal with them quickly,” I muttered, chewing my thumbnail.
After that humiliating defeat, the skeletons’ arrogance would only grow.
They’d keep snatching my sprites, making my situation dire.
But before I could dwell further, a system message popped up.
System: New Task Unlocked [First Battle of the Great Conquest]
Task: First Battle of the Great Conquest
Description: This is the Demon King’s first step in conquering the dark faction. No matter how formidable the foe, use every method and means to overcome them.
Objective: Capture the Grove Open-Pit Mine (0/1)
Rewards: 100 Energy, 8,000 EXP, Special Building Blueprint [Dark Cathedral], Black Crystal ×300, Stardust Fragments
The task seemed daunting, and I nearly dismissed it—until the description’s words caught my eye: Use every method and means.
“What am I doing?” I smacked my forehead, a grin creeping across my face.
“I’ve been playing inside the box, and my thinking’s gone rigid. I already know Epoch’s true nature.”
In a typical strategy game, capturing the mine would boil down to raw troop numbers, maybe with hero buffs, unit counters, or terrain effects.
But Epoch wasn’t typical. Its freedom was unmatched, practically a second world.
Army battles here had as many possibilities as real-world conflicts.
“Let’s see… what are skeletons’ weaknesses?”
No need for past-life knowledge—the earlier fight made it clear.
Their stiff, clunky bodies were their biggest flaw.
The question was how to exploit it to handle this many skeletons.
Dark Bats were a poor fit.
Even with the skeletons’ sluggish movements, their raw combat power remained.
A head-on clash would still bleed me dry.
So, how could I minimize losses?
“Syl, do we have terrain data for the mine?” I asked, testing a hunch.
“I’ve already compiled it,” she replied, presenting a detailed map of the area.
Studying the map’s annotations, a bold idea sparked.
The conditions seemed perfectly aligned.
“To the control room—now!”
Though the Heart of Herentis was bound to me, allowing remote commands, precise operations required the control room’s functions.
Better safe than sorry.
Once there, I acted swiftly, recycling the 600 Dark Bats I’d spawned earlier, converting them back into 30 energy.
With my remaining reserves, I had 90 energy total.
I spent 60 to build a Slime Nest and a Goblin Nest—both with spawning conditions similar to the Dark Bats, so material shortages weren’t an issue.
Pouring all my energy and dark elements into the nests, they soon churned out two groups of monsters.
One was a cluster of squishy, jelly-like slimes, their translucent bodies so bouncy I half-wanted to dive into them.
The other was a gang of goblins, dressed in tattered rags like pint-sized forest gnomes, wielding crude weapons.
Their dopey expressions hardly screamed “threatening.”
Why did the dark faction’s aesthetic lean so cute and harmless?
I sighed, hoping higher-level monsters would look more “mature.” For now, these would do.
“Syl, take them and follow my plan.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”