Foreign Land Reclamation By a Vegetable-growing Skeleton

 

“We’re here.” Facing the tree core, Ange sent out a thought.

“I’ve located the big bug. It seems to be immune to my attacks. Help me kill it. It’s eaten so many things. My forest is being devoured. Save the forest,” proclaimed the God of Life.

Listening to the God of Life’s rambling words, Gailard and Aistolia looked at each other. They had never seen the God of Life behave so human-like before. The God of Life they knew was everywhere like the spring breeze, but never so close to them before.

Kael’danil sighed quietly to himself: As expected, in the heart of the God of Life, we are no different than birds, animals, and plants. So the idea that ‘the World Tree belongs to the elves’ is merely our own fantasy.

Nobody had time to deal with the feelings of loss in the hearts of the elves. After pinpointing the position of the Insect God, Ange put Negris back, summoned his Soul Armor, and was about to rush outside.

“Wait, I’ll go with you,” Gailard said.

“I’ll clear the way for you,” said Aistolia.

Before Ange could refuse, Aistolia left the protective shield. Her body was surging with endless Magic Power as she stepped out of the shield.

The moment her toes touched the ground, a ring of fire spread out from under her feet, igniting all the weeds and dead insects in its path into a half circled line of fire.

“O spirits of flame, hear my voice. Come, come to my side, become a river of flame, and flood what’s ahead.”

Whoosh… whoosh… whoosh… The rapidly gathering Fire Elementals let out whooshing sounds as they converged in front of Aistolia, burning toward the front, like a river made of flames, rolling forward.

Negris took a sharp breath: “The Art of Flame River!”

As expected of the God of Truth and Law, her first move was to cast arcane magic, the Art of Flame River – a progressively amplifying Forbidden Spell. Its initial power is not great, but once the flames have spread over a large area, burning more materials and creating more flames, it becomes infinitely powerful and unstoppable.

Given enough combustible material, it can reduce a city to ashes. If combined with another arcane magic, the Art of Hidden Flame, the resulting hot wind can dry out an entire forest.

But here, Aistolia simply wanted to clear the path with it. She gathered the flames in front of her, paving the way with a carpet of fire.

Gailard followed the flames out of the protective shield and plunged into the swarm of bugs. Looking back, she saw that Ange hadn’t followed her.

When she returned, she saw Ange’s gaze fixed on the ashes on the ground, refusing to move.

“Sir, what’s wrong?” asked a puzzled Gailard. “Is something off?”

Negris was frantically persuading him in his soul: “I’ll save it for you, I’ll save it for you. I’ll have them leave all the bug corpses and ashes for you, okay? Hurry up, let’s save the old tree first. Don’t get distracted. Don’t worry about the fertilizer at a time like this!”

Gailard had a puzzled expression. It never occurred to her that Ange could be stopped by the insect ashes on the ground.

Ange tilted his head and suddenly asked, “Do bug corpses contain skeletons too?”

“Huh?” This sudden question stumped Negris, but he was used to it because Ange’s thought process is different from others and often asks strange questions.

But he didn’t stay puzzled for long. At the same time as Ange asked the question, he firmly stepped on the ground. With a strong swipe and a slide of his feet – King’s Arrival.

What Ange meant by asking ‘do bugs also have skeletons’ was, could he summon the bug corpses?

The countless insect corpses on the ground surged like a wave, but Ange was instantly forced to the ground.

One corpse is one strand of the soul network. The billions of bug corpses in the area immediately tangled up Ange’s soul network.

Luckily they were bugs. If these had been normal corpses, this amount could have exploded Ange’s soul network.

Ange steadied his mind, trying hard to stand up.

The bug corpses around him surged again, and a ripple spread out like a wave.

No, it’s too much, he can’t stand up. Despite the small size of these insect corpses, their quantity is excessive, surpassing the number Ange can control. Ȓά𝐍𝘖ᛒÊṦ

A Golden Skeleton normally has a limit to the number of corpses it can control. Three to five hundred is a lot, one to two thousand is the norm, and over ten thousand is overloading.

It’s unknown how many the Lord of Mourning can handle. Even if it were a hundredfold, it wouldn’t exceed a million, practically filling the entire area that can be covered by the King’s Arrival spell.

Yet, within Ange’s skill range, there are at least several hundred million insect corpses – a totally different order of magnitude.

“Are you mad? Are you intending to summon all these insect corpses with the King’s Arrival spell? Everything has its limit. With so many nodes, how are you going to connect them all? It will burst your soul!” Negris was shocked.

“And, what are you summoning them for? A pile of insect corpses, to feed them to the living bugs?” Negris commented cynically.

The living insects are nimble, but the corpses summoned by the King’s Arrival spell are absolutely not as agile as they were when alive.

If they were human corpses, they might overwhelm their enemies by sheer numbers and total fearlessness. But the problem here is that their enemies are insects, their numbers greater than that of the corpses. What other uses could there be besides feeding them?

Ange ignored him, and a huge ball of fire suddenly erupted above his head. The flames shot up several meters high, like a huge, blazing torch, but its color was a dark blue.

Uncontrollably, Negris exclaimed: “Are you insane? Why are you flaunting your Undead Godhood? I understand now, Kvada, you don’t plan to summon the corpses, you want to collect the insect corpses, not wasting even a speck of insect ash!!”

Using the Godhood as a node, the Soul Network spread out. Ange, with his ‘giant torch’, managed to slowly rise to his feet.

Finally, the insect corpses around them started to move, gradually getting up and clumping together.

Then Ange, utilizing the Boundary-crossing Hand, shoveled them into the Resting Camp.

Negris ran out of words to say, all that effort for a bit of insect ash? Couldn’t he aim for something higher!

But considering Ange’s nature, he was too lazy to scold any further, weakly suggesting: “Hurry up, leave the rest for later. Let’s save the Tree of Life first.”

However, Gailard misunderstood: “The master is collecting insect corpses? I understand, the insects feed on their own corpses, which leads to their evolution, right? Elves, follow my command, burn the corpses!”

Immediately, several elves cooperated. Some cast Tornado, some Fire Tornado, and together they fused the two, creating the composite magic — the Stormfire Dragon.

Wherever the Stormfire Dragon passed, the insect bodies were swept up, then incinerated within the funnel, finally transforming into ash that sprayed into the sky and scattered evenly back down.

Ange tilted his head, murmuring: “They stole them…”

Not only have they taken the corpses, but their efficiency is also high. Never mind, let’s save the old tree first.

Taking strides forward, Ange rushed towards the Tree of Life, diving headfirst into the pile of insects. Flying and crawling in all directions, nothing but insects. More insects clung onto the bodies of plants and animals, ripping and gnawing in frenzy.

As living creatures were devoured, the number of insects grew exponentially.

However, the insects couldn’t gnaw on Ange’s golden bones. Some blinded insects flew onto him, gave a mighty bite, and then spat out their shattered teeth with a “krak” sound before angrily flying away.

As he continued to run, he arrived at the stump of a gigantic tree. Looking up, he realized that all that remained of this mighty tree was a stump, the trunk and crown gnawed into a honeycomb pattern.

“Isn’t this the World Tree we sold to the elves? Oh God, they gnawed it down to this? Where is the Tree of Life? Please, don’t tell me it has been gnawed away too,” Negris exclaimed.

Ange continued to charge on, but suddenly noticed a white fog began to accumulate around him, growing thicker and thicker.

After a few more steps, Ange abruptly stopped, looking at the ground in front of him. Now, many of the insect corpses were covered in white ‘flowers’.

Negris applauded, “Fungus, it’s a fungus. This white fog isn’t fog, it’s fungal spores killing the insects. Good method, as would be expected from the Tree of Life.”

As he continued to press on, just about to break through the fog, a black vine suddenly whipped over. Judging by its metallic luster, it was definitely no ordinary plant.

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