Chapter 319 – Wolf Head Mountain Base

Since the Nine-Headed Thunderflame Dragon bloomed across the plains, the Featherfolk Queen had come to realize that she had somewhat underestimated this human faction before.

The human Lord might be reckless, but there was method to his recklessness.

He was both fierce and meticulous.

She couldn’t help but place the human faction on equal footing with her own kingdom.

“Humans possess a trump card that, if deployed effectively, could even annihilate a Legendary Realm existence on the spot.”

The Winged-People Kingdom also had their own trump cards.

After all, they possessed an extremely long history, being the inheritors of the glorious ancient Featherfolk Dynasty.

Yet even so, they could only barely survive in the cracks between numerous monster factions.

In the Queen’s view, whether the human Lord seized the momentum to exterminate the Kobold Tribe, or found a way to ambush and kill another Gnoll Legend, further weakening Jackal Fang, neither would surprise her.

Of course, during this process, human experts might also fall into counter-ambushes, be caught by Jackal Fang’s powerhouses, and perish on the spot… these were all plausible scenarios.

But what she never expected was that the human Lord would choose to occupy the Gnoll Tribe at Wolfhead Mountain.

What was the human Lord thinking?

Indeed, Wolfhead Mountain possessed abundant mineral resources… the Queen was well aware of this.

However, their kind of mortal factions could only survive in the gaps between powers, completely lacking the capability to occupy external Treasure Lands. Her own Winged-People Kingdom was also severely lacking in various mineral resources, and she too coveted those mineral deposits, but did she dare occupy them? She did not.

They could eliminate one monster tribe, but they didn’t have the ability to defend resource mining sites.

Once you occupy a mining site, you essentially expose yourself to Jackal Fang’s gaze, placing yourself in dangerous territory.

There would be no more room for maneuver.

You’d be forced to confront Jackal Fang head-on.

Did the human faction have the capability to directly confront and defeat a Monster Overlord? Of course not.

If the human faction were powerful enough to directly confront and defeat a Monster Overlord, they wouldn’t be unknown, nor would they need to use trump cards to eliminate a Legendary Realm existence.

One must understand that such trump cards, such foundational resources, diminish with each use.

The Queen truly couldn’t comprehend it.

“Perhaps the human Lord only intends to destructively mine a batch of resources before quickly withdrawing?”

…

“Our goal isn’t destructive mining, but to transform the entire Wolfhead Mountain into a frontline fortress. It will serve as both Mining Area No. 1 and our designated Battlefield.”

Soon, Deadbone led a contingent of elite undead forces on an expedition.

They didn’t travel in a straight line, but relied on the Stealth Orb and magic Scrolls for concealment, first heading east for two hundred miles, then detouring north. After several such detours, the elite undead forces arrived before Wolfhead Mountain.

Here, Deadbone stored the Stealth Orb in his spatial equipment.

Before coming, Mu Yuan had used the Heavenly Eye to scout Wolfhead Mountain and found no traces of Legendary Realm beings hiding there.

However, over the past few days, the ownership of the Gnoll Tribe at Wolfhead Mountain had changed hands multiple times.

First, a group of troglodytes emerged from somewhere, gathering two to three thousand of their kind by calling on friends, repelling numerous competitors, and occupying the entire tribe.

They began digging pits and tunnels in the mountain, simultaneously starting to mine the black iron ore and Red Copper Ore.This group of cave dwellers even knew how to smelt ore and forge weapons.

Within just two days, many cave dwellers had upgraded their weapons, replacing them with arms crafted from black iron ore. Then, they were defeated by a band of lizardmen coming from the north.

The newly established cave dweller tribe was declared annihilated, replaced by the lizardmen tribe.

“According to reconnaissance, there are over 420 lizardmen on Wolfhead Mountain, among which about 30 are suspected to possess dragon bloodline. Their leader is a dragon-blooded lizardman chieftain with Red Dragon Bloodline.”

Deadbone conducted thorough reconnaissance before systematically eliminating this lizardmen group.

Tianyuan Territory officially occupied this area.

…

Within the ruins of the Gnoll Tribe, buildings lay collapsed and corpses were scattered everywhere.

Just days ago when they left the gnoll settlement, they had cleaned and swept the area, clearing away all remains. Yet now, the stench of blood, rotting flesh, and various waste odors assaulted the senses, while faint red and yellow mists vaguely permeated the air, creating an unsettling atmosphere.

Lord Mu wasn’t particularly fastidious, but he had no desire to wade through filth and waste.

Fortunately, he had many capable skeletons at his disposal. The skeletons showed no aversion to dirt, stench, or disorder, possessing seemingly endless energy. To thoroughly clean the entire Wolfhead Mountain for constructing a frontline fortress, Mu Yuan brought numerous skeletons with only low to medium intelligence from the main base.

He fully leveraged the advantage of skeleton numbers.

Every skeleton proved to be a skilled worker. Refuse to work? There were always other skeletons willing to take your place. They even began competing with each other.

Skeletons with basic intelligence handled simple tasks following clear instructions, while the older skeletons that had achieved self-awareness took charge of guiding the new recruits and managing more complex assignments.

In just half a day, they had nearly completed cleaning the entire Wolfhead Mountain.

The structures here had been dismantled, with usable materials collected and piled aside by the skeletons;

The scattered corpses were systematically sorted – lower-grade remains were discarded into the Sacrificial Black Coffin, while higher-grade specimens were handed over to transport teams for delivery to the Soul Shrine; a few rare ingredients received approval from Chef Dolai and were preserved.

Tianyuan Territory fully embodied the spirit of thrift and efficiency, never wasting any monster remains.

After the skeletons had largely finished cleaning Wolfhead Mountain, Dolai clasped its hands together, “Water Spell, Torrential Rain!”

Boom—

The sky suddenly darkened, gathering clouds obscuring Wolfhead Mountain’s sky as arcs of lightning flickered. Within seconds, bean-sized raindrops began falling, quickly transforming into a pouring downpour.

The roaring rain enveloped both sky and earth, covering the entire Wolfhead Mountain and surrounding areas.

Heaven and earth seemed to turn pure white as the white rain curtain washed over the land, cleansing the ground of stains and blood scabs while washing away the ominous atmosphere permeating the area.

Half an hour later, the storm ceased, and gentle sunlight broke through the clouds to bathe the earth.

Wolfhead Mountain experienced its Rebirth.

Hovering mid-air, Dolai looked around and couldn’t help nodding, “As expected of me~”

The might of a legendary being was indeed formidable, easily influencing vast territories with casual movements that commanded cosmic power. Yet this rainstorm covering Wolfhead Mountain and its surroundings wasn’t even Dolai’s limit. Water magic wasn’t Dolai’s specialty either.Wolfhead Mountain had become much cleaner, and Mu Yuan began the great construction of the base.

He had once built an outpost in the Shrine Land, but the construction of that outpost was very rudimentary, and they did not have the ability to defend it during the Crimson Mist disaster month.

In fact, most Lords, even Great Lords, would not seriously develop external bases.

For one, they did not possess treasures like the Lord’s Heart, Watchtower, or Advanced Watchtower; for another, Lords might not have the strength to defend external bases.

Most Lords with mines chose to establish simple outposts during peacetime to extract minerals, and when the disaster month arrived, they would recall all miners and soldiers, abandoning the outpost.

This was the situation in the peaceful lands within the Taixuan Alliance.

If a Lord was in the Wilderness like him, or located in border areas or neutral zones, establishing external outposts would be even more difficult. However, if a Lord in chaotic lands wanted to mine minerals and build mining areas, they had to establish bases with genuine defensive capabilities that could withstand powerful enemies. Otherwise, rudimentary mining areas could be destroyed by external enemies at any time, and the miners would die tragically there.

Monster factions were similar.

Only dominant forces like Jackal Fang dared to extend their sphere of influence, occupying various Treasure Lands to mine minerals and plunder resources.

Tianyuan Territory wasn’t quite qualified.

But their Tianyuan Territory didn’t possess the ability to seclude itself like the Winged-People Kingdom, and he didn’t want to keep hiding forever. Since the Gnoll overlord would discover them sooner or later, it was better to turn passivity into initiative.

He already had the legendary General Dolai!

There were several advantages to fighting at Wolfhead Mountain.

First, they still had a retreat path; second, the generals wouldn’t need to protect the rear and could fight with full strength; third, if they were at a disadvantage, Lord Mu could still hold several Nine-Headed Roaring Thunderflame Dragons in hand and directly drop them over Wolfhead Mountain.

This was a last-resort ultimate move.

Mu Yuan also conducted some tactical drills.

At least at Wolfhead Mountain, he could potentially deploy nuclear spells, which was almost impossible outside his own territory.

On the mountain, Mu Yuan surveyed the surroundings and selected the location for the base core.

He took out the Miracle Blueprint ‘Advanced Watchtower,’ while Dolai pulled out a large batch of pre-prepared construction materials from its dimensional pocket.

The old skeleton construction workers swarmed over, beginning their clanging work.

In just a few hours, the outstanding structure of the Advanced Watchtower stood on the half-mountain platform of Wolfhead Mountain.

The watchtower was over thirty meters tall, wide at the top and bottom but narrow in the middle, spiraling upward in overall shape. The circular ring at its top emitted waves of invisible ripples, scanning the surroundings.

This was the additional ability of the Advanced Watchtower, possessing alert effects like scanning and anti-stealth.

The moment the Advanced Watchtower was completed, the territory map also unfolded in this area, dispersing the fog. From now on, Mu Yuan could use the Lord’s vision to overlook the surroundings and build various Miracle Buildings within this range.

“The coverage range of a level four Advanced Watchtower is approximately… the size of a level one territory. The area isn’t large, but it’s sufficient.”He didn’t need the entire territory range to cover the mining sites; he only needed the range of defensive buildings to radiate the surrounding areas.”

Mu Yuan began arranging construction projects.With a grand sweep of his hand, thirty ethereal blueprints of Arrow Towers materialized one after another, lining up in sequence. Following them emerged ten more magnificent Thundercoil Towers, along with phantom segments of Blackrock Wall.

This was the advantage of possessing permanent structures!

As long as materials were sufficient, he could construct as many of these Miracle Buildings as he desired.

“What a pity that the Rank of my Tianyuan Territory is still too low. If it were at Rank 7, defensive structures alone could repel or even slay experts of the Legendary Realm.”

Defensive structures of Rank 7, with their exceptional quality, could pose a threat to Legends!

Thus, the status of a Great Lord was no lower than that of a wandering Legend—in fact, it was often higher. After all, the wealth controlled by a Great Lord far surpassed what a solitary Legend could amass.

Mu Yuan, Deadbone, and Lu Liu were planning the defensive layout at Wolfhead Mountain.

The territorial scope here was relatively small, and the visual range of the Lord/Hero sight was insufficiently far. They had to ascend the mountain peak to survey the area. Just as Mu Yuan prepared to activate the Heavenly Eye for observation, he suddenly realized…

“The detection range of the Heavenly Eye has expanded?!”

The scouting Heavenly Eye had two modes of operation.

One allowed for ultra-long-range observation but consumed one ‘Heavenly Eye’ charge—only one charge was restored per day, with a maximum reserve of three.

The other did not consume any ‘Heavenly Eye’ charges but was limited to a detection range within a sixty-kilometer radius of the territory.

Now, the range of the latter had extended. It could not only be used around the territory but also around Advanced Watchtowers.

The Miracle Territory served as an anchor point, enabling the Scepter of Heavenly Authority to extend its immense power.

Truly worthy of an Epic building!

“The range for unlimited Heavenly Eye activations isn’t as vast as the main territory, limited to about ten kilometers around the Watchtowers, but…”

However, the Heavenly Eye’s inherent detection range spanned a full twenty kilometers in radius.

Even if he could only position it at the Watchtowers, it would still be more than sufficient—let alone the fact that he could shift it ten kilometers in any direction.

“Now that the Energy Well is also constructed, I can maintain a ‘constant Heavenly Eye’ around the clock to guard against sneak attacks by the Gnoll Legend.”

“Not only that, with a sustained Heavenly Eye detection zone, it will be much easier and more convenient for me to deploy large-scale spells in the future.”

Thus, his confidence in confronting the Gnoll overlord head-on increased yet again.

…

As days passed, the Jackal Fang in the uncharted northern lands seemed to remain inactive.

Apart from the Kobold Tribe under Mu Yuan’s observation, which remained exceptionally calm, no Legendary Realm experts had appeared.

However,

the Domain Jammer still hummed into operation from time to time.

The Asuns and ghosts sent out for reconnaissance had also discovered some unusual traces.

“About four hundred kilometers to the north, there is another large Gnoll Tribe, likely another subsidiary of the Jackal Fang.”

Mu Yuan used the Heavenly Eye to scout but found no Legendary Realm presence. Instead, he observed the tribe preparing for war, with war machines emerging one after another from the Blood Pool.

By this time, the main structure of Base One was nearly completed.

Dolai shuttled back and forth between locations, transporting Thunderflame Cannons to mount on the City Walls and various fortresses.

The transport teams also periodically returned mined minerals to the territory.

Meanwhile,The first trade between Tianyuan Territory and the Winged-People Kingdom had also commenced. The trading location was set at the foot of Wolfhead Mountain. Mu Yuan neither wished nor could afford to reveal the coordinates of his own Tianyuan Territory.

Young winged people gazed into the distance at the faintly visible city walls and towers shrouded in mist, their hearts surging with emotion.

They too yearned to boldly venture beyond safe zones and expand their territories, just like the human factions!

They too possessed the courage to confront the monstrous creatures.

However, the elder winged people who had survived the tragedy of the Winged-People Kingdom decades earlier wore grave expressions. They seemed to foresee a future where countless human experts would fall in battle, and the entire Wolfhead Mountain would be razed to the ground.

They too had once been so ambitious and determined.

(End of Chapter)