On the outskirts of the subsidiary space, the workers of Fungus Castle were directing the Cow and Horse Puki, moving away all kinds of experimental tanks that Lin Jun had transferred out, while hauling in large quantities of ritual materials.

In the end, the reason Lin Jun went through so much trouble to shift this subsidiary space here was so he could enjoyably play... ahem, research dangerous Abyss Magic.

As for those information cubes inside, they were just unexpected bonus loot.

And even calling it loot was generous; in reality they didn’t provide much concrete benefit, at best topping up some historical knowledge.

To actually make use of that information, he’d still have to wait until he took Blood Calamity back.

While his subordinates were busy as bees preparing the Abyssal Magic Laboratory, on the other side, Lin Jun had found the perfect place to train his [Soul Touch]—the area sacrificed by the Hand of Death!

Now there were countless souls wandering there, separated from their bodies.

Lin Jun discovered that for the [Soul Touch] Skills he was currently tempering, these drifting souls were practically perfect XP sources.

He’d just been worrying that his own D Level personnel weren’t enough; these undead were basically free XP drops!

Even better, because vengeful spirits rampaged across this area, the Empire Army, after clearing out the remaining Cultists, no longer took the initiative to enter and only set up a cordon on the outer edge.

So Lin Jun’s Puki didn’t have to bother hiding themselves; they just had to focus on swinging tentacles to poke any wraiths that floated close.

You could say he was reluctantly acting as a janitor helping the Empire with environmental Purification.

And then there was that Duke called Eugene.

He’d originally planned to march on Fungus Castle, but the Red Dragon disrupted his plan.

He was extremely worried that his massive army, marching across the open Northern Territory, would become an eye-catching prey in the eyes of that overlord of the sky, so he kept delaying and didn’t dare dispatch troops.

Now, with more than a month gone and the Red Dragon showing no sign of retracing its path, this seemed to give Eugene some confidence. After weighing it over and over, he finally launched a formal offensive!

Of course, he didn’t send out his entire force. The first wave was a vanguard of fifteen hundred Demon Race soldiers.

This unit was well-equipped and led by a seasoned commander under his banner.

In fact, he felt that just this vanguard would be enough.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t know about what the Empire Envoy did back then, rallying two tribes to crusade against a Demon Tribe. That time, the several-thousand-strong Tribal Army got beaten into a complete rout; the Demon Race Duke Dean had already shared all that intel with him.

But that was back then.

Ever since that cold wave swept through the Northern Territory, even his own lands had taken heavy damage, and more than ninety percent of the vitality on this land was wiped out.

Even if a few lucky leftover tribes barely huddled together for warmth, how much Power could they still muster?

Besides, the vanguard he’d dispatched this time was not something those tribes’ rabble could even be compared to.

And behind this vanguard, Eugene himself and his ally Dean were standing by with a combined main force of six thousand troops.

You could say Eugene simply did not take the Northern Territory seriously.

The reason he sent so many men in layers was mainly to later split them into small squads and sweep through each region of the Northern Territory, which required manpower.

As for the tribes blocking the way that had actually dared capture his Scouts earlier, they’d just get crushed under his wheels if he happened to run into them.

Amid the soldiers’ low grumbling, the vanguard set out.

Almost immediately, Lin Jun noticed the movements of this Empire vanguard.

Facing these somewhat overdue visitors, Lin Jun still decided to stick to his original plan: display a middling level of strength, block their advance, yet not present too great a threat.

Of course, things were different now; for skirmishes of this level, Lin Jun no longer needed to personally take the field.

After routing the live feed of the Empire vanguard’s movements straight into Little Pig’s head, Lin Jun focused his attention back on stabbing undead to grind Skills.

"They’re finally here!" In the command room of Fungus Castle, Little Pig’s eyes lit up with excitement as she received the live footage, and she slapped the wooden table just hard enough.

She’d been waiting for the Empire to come so long she was about to grow mold!

Even if they had to hold back this time, having an opponent was still better than having no opponent at all!

Under Little Pig’s arrangement, a thousand-strong Fungus Castle unit set off from the castle only three hours later than Eugene’s vanguard.

"A thousand-strong," but if you counted the Puki, the total actually exceeded twenty thousand.

From the air, looking down from high altitude, this force looked like a moving sea of mushrooms.

Of course, Little Pig soon split this army into five units, each blocking one of the key routes from the Northern Territory to Fungus Castle.

That way, no matter which road the Empire vanguard chose, they would run into at least one blocking force made up of over four thousand Puki.

The number four thousand was carefully calculated.

Although the Puki were numerous, the Puki commanded by ordinary soldiers were definitely inferior in individual strength to the Empire’s regular troops.

According to Little Pig’s expectations, four thousand was just enough to cause trouble for this vanguard, while still being at a disadvantage.

And if she’d misjudged the vanguard’s strength and the four-thousand-strong Puki force got wiped out quickly, nearby squads could still rush in to support in a short time.

You could say the preparations were watertight.

However, on the battlefield, accidents always show up uninvited.

...

An ordinary advancing Puki was tangled up in combat with a fully armed Demon Race soldier who was roaring as he Charged.

The soldier’s Longsword came slashing down with the sound of slicing air, but the Puki dodged left and weaved right with great Agility, and when the soldier committed to a big, clumsy move, it knocked aside the heavy blade just right.

Immediately after, the Puki bounced past the soldier in a cross-over, and its Tentacle Blade slipped through a gap in the Demon Race soldier’s armor from a tricky angle, heavily wounding him.

The injured soldier dropped to one knee, and in the next moment, a Self-destructive Puki rolled out from the cluster of Puki and got a point-blank contact with his now-immobile body.

Boom!

Watching this scene through the Fungal Network, Little Pig couldn’t help licking her slightly dry lips.

You had to know, that was just a normal Elite melee Puki!

And that Demon Race soldier opponent, in Little Pig’s eyes, was a fully competent Empire regular.

And two Puki actually managed to kill him?!

Did Boss secretly come out to play himself?

That possibility had barely surfaced in her mind before Little Pig immediately denied it.

Setting aside whether Boss even had this level of movement skill, this wasn’t just a one-off; this kind of thing was happening all across the entire battlefield.

Four thousand Elite Puki were pushing this vanguard of fifteen hundred back step by step.

Realizing something was wrong, Little Pig hurriedly issued a retreat order.

They couldn’t keep fighting; if they did, this Empire vanguard was going to be annihilated!

Little Pig even ordered the soldiers to deliberately feed some Puki to the enemy so they could rack up more kills, lest the post-battle casualty ratio look too outrageous.

But even so, it could only be called "damage control."

"How? How are these four thousand Puki this strong?" Faced with her own command error, Little Pig anxiously tried to find the reason.

"Um... could it be because of the new [Combat Instinct] I added?"