On the periphery of the subsidiary space, the workers of the Mushroom Fortress were directing the Burden Puchis, moving away the large and small experimental jars that Lin Jun had transferred out while transporting in a large amount of ritual materials.
Ultimately, Lin Jun went through all the trouble to transfer this subsidiary space here to play to his heart's content... ahem, to research dangerous abyssal magic.
As for those information blocks inside, they were just incidental unexpected harvests.
Moreover, calling it a harvest, there wasn't actually much substantial benefit; at most, it just supplemented some historical knowledge.
To truly utilize this information, he had to wait until Lin Jun retrieved the Blood Calamity.
While the subordinates were making intense preparations for the abyssal magic laboratory, on the other side, Lin Jun found an excellent place to exercise [Soul Touch]—the area sacrificed by the Hand of Passage!
There, countless souls detached from physical bodies were wandering now.
Lin Jun discovered that for the [Soul Touch] skill he was tempering, these wandering souls were simply perfect sources of experience.
Just when he was worrying that he didn't have enough D-class personnel to use, these undead were like experience picked up for free!
What was even better was that because this area was ravaged by dead souls, the Empire's army, after clearing out the cult remnants, no longer actively entered here, only setting up cordons on the periphery.
Therefore, Lin Jun's Puchis naturally didn't need to hide carefully; they just needed to focus on waving tentacles to poke those approaching undead.
Could be considered reluctantly acting as a cleaner helping the Empire purify the environment for once.
Finally, there was that Duke named Eugene.
He originally planned to pressure the Mushroom Fortress with troops, but the Red Dragon disrupted his plan.
He was extremely worried that his massive army marching in the open Northern Territory would become a conspicuous prey in the eyes of that overlord of the sky, so he hesitated to dispatch troops for a long time.
Now, over a month had passed, and the Red Dragon showed no signs of returning along the original route. This seemed to give Eugene some confidence. After weighing the pros and cons repeatedly, he finally formally attacked!
Of course, he didn't march out in full force. The first batch sent out was a vanguard unit of one thousand five hundred demon soldiers.
This troop was well-equipped and commanded by an experienced general under his command.
In fact, he felt that just this vanguard unit was enough.
It wasn't that he didn't know about the Empire's envoy gathering two tribes to crusade against the Demon-kin tribe back then. In that instance, the tribal army of several thousand people was beaten into a complete rout; Duke Dean of the Demon-kin had shared all this information with him.
However, that was back then.
After that cold wave sweeping across the Northern Territory, even his territory suffered heavy losses, and the vitality on this land of the Northern Territory was less than one in ten.
Even if the sporadic tribes fortunate enough to survive barely huddled together for warmth, how much of the power they could condense would be left?
Not to mention, the vanguard army he dispatched this time couldn't be compared to the rabble of those tribes.
And behind this vanguard, there was still the combined main force under Eugene himself and his ally Dean, totaling up to six thousand, sleeping with weapons in hand, ready for battle.
It could be said that Eugene didn't put the Northern Territory in his eyes at all.
The reason he sent so many troops one after another was mainly for the manpower needed later to split into squads and investigate various areas of the entire Northern Territory.
As for those tribes blocking the way who dared to capture his scouts previously, if they bumped into them, just crush them to death in passing.
Amidst the low complaints of the soldiers, the vanguard army set off.
Almost immediately, Lin Jun noticed the movement of this Empire vanguard unit.
Facing this group of somewhat late guests, Lin Jun still decided to act according to the original plan, displaying a balanced strength, blocking their advance, yet not showing too great a threat.
Of course, times had changed. For this kind of minor friction-level battle, Lin Jun no longer needed to personally take action.
After directly transferring the real-time surveillance of the Empire's vanguard army into Piggy's brain, Lin Jun focused his attention on the work of poking undead to practice his skills.
"Finally here!" In the command room of the Mushroom Fortress, receiving the real-time footage, Piggy's eyes lit up with exciting light, slapping the wooden table neither lightly nor heavily.
She had waited so long for the Empire to come that she was almost growing mold!
Although she had to hold back her strength in fighting this time, having an opponent was better than having no opponent!
Under Piggy's arrangement, a Mushroom Fortress troop of one thousand people set out from the Mushroom Fortress just three hours later than Eugene's vanguard army.
Said to be one thousand people, but if Puchis were counted, the actual total number exceeded twenty thousand.
Looking down from the air, if looking down from a high altitude, this troop was like a moving sea of mushrooms.
Of course, this large army was quickly split into five troops by Piggy, stationed near several key paths leading from the Northern Territory to the Mushroom Fortress respectively.
This way, no matter which route the Empire's vanguard chose, they would inevitably encounter at least one interception force composed of over four thousand Puchis.
The number four thousand was also carefully calculated.
Although Puchis were numerous, the individual strength of Puchis commanded by ordinary soldiers definitely couldn't match the Empire's regular army.
According to Piggy's expectation, the number four thousand was exactly at a point where it could cause trouble for this vanguard unit, yet remain at a disadvantage.
Moreover, if she misjudged the strength of this Empire vanguard army and the four thousand Puchis were rapidly eliminated, the other squads nearby could still arrive to reinforce in a short time.
It could be said that foolproof preparations were made.
However, on the battlefield, accidents always arrive unexpectedly.
...
An ordinary melee Puchi was entangled with a fully armed demon soldier roaring and charging.
The soldier's longsword slashed down with the sound of breaking wind, but the Puchi agilely dodged left and right. When the soldier used a large downward cleave movement, it unbiasedly parried the heavy blade edge.
Immediately after, the Puchi crossed past the soldier with a bounce. A tentacle blade slid through the gap in the demon soldier's armor from a tricky angle, inflicting heavy damage on the opponent.
The injured soldier half-knelt on the ground. The next moment, a Self-Destruct Puchi rolled out from the Puchi swarm in the crowd, having a zero-distance contact with him whose movement was impeded.
Boom!
Watching this scene through the mycelial network, Piggy couldn't help but lick her somewhat dry lips.
One must know, that was just an ordinary elite melee Puchi!
And the opposing demon soldier, in Piggy's view, could be said to have strength fully qualifying for the Empire's regular army.
Actually killed by just two Puchis?!
Did the Boss couldn't resist coming to play personally?
This possibility was directly denied by Piggy just as it surfaced in her mind.
Setting aside whether the Boss had this kind of movement skill, this phenomenon wasn't an isolated case, but was playing out across the entire battlefield.
Four thousand elite Puchis beat this vanguard army of one thousand five hundred into a steady retreat.
Realizing something was wrong, Piggy hurriedly issued a retreat order.
Couldn't fight anymore. If they kept fighting, this Empire vanguard army was going to be wiped out!
Piggy even ordered the soldiers to deliberately feed a wave of Puchis to let the opposite side chop out some more battle results, lest the battle damage ratio compiled afterward looked too ugly.
But even so, it could only be considered a "remedy."
"How could this be? How could these four thousand Puchis be so strong?" Facing her own command error, Piggy was somewhat anxious to find the reason.
Lin Jun: "Um... could it be because of the [Combat Instinct] I newly added?"
(End of Chapter)
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