Chapter 74: Cleanup Work of the Psychic Towers

In the temporarily established command post full of gnoll style, Jiske was listening to his subordinates report on pre-battle preparations. This time, he intended to dispatch an eleven-member gnoll scout squad to clean up the Psychic Towers, which were signal towers used by the high-level necromancers to control low-level undead creatures. Such buildings were spread throughout the entire plane.

Genuoer stood in front of a wooden table covered with a map, his body standing straight. He held a thin wooden stick as a pointer, reporting the positions and combat plans of each squad. He wore leather armor specially made for the Duke's territory, but behind him, he wore a military cloak of a human officer, and he also carried a standard military hand-and-a-half sword at his waist. This extremely awkward combination made it obvious at a glance who he was imitating.

"Report! Marshal Jiske! Regarding... uh... the pre-battle preparation and deployment plan for the Psychic Tower area cleanup operation, it has now been... uh... drafted!"

He paused for a moment, seemingly recalling the rehearsed words, and then pointed the wooden stick at several points marked on the map: "According to preliminary... reconnaissance and... intelligence analysis, there are three main Psychic Towers in the target area, in a... triangular formation. Undead activity on the periphery is... frequent, and there are signs of elite units stationed. We plan to conduct... cleanup first, and then carry out the next step of action based on the... battle results."

"For this reason, the subordinate plans to commit... three full-strength combat squads to execute this... cleanup and suppression mission."

He puffed out his chest, trying to make himself look more authoritative:

"The first squad, commanded by veteran Gelei, is equipped with standard... mixed professions, responsible for attacking Tower No. 132. The second squad, led by... my deputy Motake, who is skilled in assault, is responsible for Tower No. 130. The third squad, as a... mobile reserve, will support at any time and be responsible for cleaning up the wandering threats in the area between the towers. After cleaning up the first two, Guluo will be responsible for leading the team to clean up No. 131."

While reporting, he secretly glanced at Jiske, who was smoking a cigar. Seeing that the other party had no indication, he continued to describe the work.

"All squads have been issued additional... holy water, anti-magic arrows, and limited negative energy resistance potions provided by the Armament Department. The soldiers' morale is... high, eager to use the fragments of those bone frames to prove your excellent command ability and... the value of us soldiers!"

Jiske slowly put down the cigar and moved his legs wearing military boots off the table, seriously looking at the intelligence about the three squads in his hand, and said: "Not bad, proceed according to the plan. Open the observation crystal. The Duke said that this cleanup operation is a rare opportunity for actual combat, and all soldiers must seriously learn from the experience."

"Report... Marshal, the crystal ball is already prepared. Please follow me!" In a room next door, there was indeed a group of gnolls surrounding a crystal ball, watching the content inside with full attention.

Led by the battle-hardened veteran Gelei, the squad had arrived at the periphery of the target Psychic Tower. This tower was located in the center of a destroyed small town. These buildings had once been the residences of human inhabitants, but now only broken walls and ruins remained, providing excellent cover for the defenders.

Broken bones and rusted weapons were scattered on the ground, and the air was filled with the pungent smell of ozone and dust. A dried-up negative energy pool with dark stains remained in the center of the plaza, emitting an uncomfortable chill. The Psychic Tower itself was pitch black, the tower body was covered with cracks, and the windows were like hollow eye sockets, with ghostly fire flickering faintly inside.

The squad entered the ruins plaza in a standard search formation. Two rangers as vanguards keenly sensed the unnatural arrangement of bones under their feet. "Ambush!" Just as the ranger issued a warning, a dense "clatter-clatter" sound immediately came from the ruins all around.

More than thirty skeleton warriors swarmed out from under the rubble and behind broken walls! They were in groups of three or five, trying to split and surround the squad. Captain Gelei and two warriors immediately moved to the front, forming a solid triangular defensive line, using shields and broadswords to block the skeletons' hacking, creating space for the rear.

Two elemental mages also cast spells quickly. One summoned a scorching wall of fire, temporarily blocking the skeletons rushing from the left; the other cast frost to freeze the ground, causing the skeleton group on the right to slip and pile up together, their actions hindered.

The priest of the War God Church held the holy emblem high and chanted prayers. A red light filled with awe-inspiring justice spread out with him as the center. The skeletons illuminated by the holy light became noticeably sluggish, the soul fire in their eye sockets swayed violently, and they were resisting this positive energy they detested.

Thieves and assassins roamed the edge of the battlefield. Using daggers engraved with the church's purification inscriptions, they precisely stabbed into the connection points of the skeleton soldiers' cervical spines, killing them with one blow. The battle was short and intense. Under the squad's skillful coordination, more than thirty skeletons were dismantled into fragments in a few minutes. However, before they could catch their breath, the door on the bottom floor of the Psychic Tower slid open silently, and heavier footsteps came.

Four skeletal guards with tall, sturdy bodies and thick bones, holding rusted giant axes, stepped out with heavy footsteps. Behind them followed more than a dozen skeleton archers holding bone bows, quickly occupying the shooting positions on the high points of the ruins.

"Raise shields! Defend against arrows!" Buleike roared.

Bone arrows fell like raindrops, clanging against the warriors' shields. The rangers began to shoot back at the skeleton archers. Their archery was more precise, and the arrows with added piercing effects could easily shoot through the skeletons' skulls, but the opponent had the advantage in numbers, forming fire suppression.

A mage began to chant a powerful ice ray, precisely sniping at those skeletal guards. Extreme cold made their bones fragile and their movements sluggish. The priest's holy light prayer played a role again, weakening the undead while also providing light healing and mental encouragement for the front-row warriors. The assassins and thieves took the opportunity to bypass the rear and solve the remaining archers.

Just as the battle fell into a stalemate, the real threat arrived quietly. A giant, nearly invisible soul spider web spread out behind the squad without warning! It was the Skeletal Weaver! It had been lurking at the top of the tower, observing the battlefield through the "eyes" of its low-level servants.

The priest felt his connection with the deity gradually become blurred, and the holy light dimmed instantly. The magic flow of the two mages also became sluggish, as if their thinking was entangled by a sticky spider web. This was the characteristic of the soul spider web, specifically targeting mage groups whose willpower was not strong enough.

The druid, seeing that the situation was not good, transformed into a ferocious brown bear, roaring and rushing toward the skeletal guards in front, using his massive body and claws to temporarily block them.

The two elemental mages endured the splitting headache, each casting area spells. Giant fireballs and rain-like ice cones appeared between the skeletal guards and the skeleton archers, instantly clearing a large area and creating an opportunity for the assassins to pull away.

The assassin passed through the battlefield like a ghost, using the chaos caused by the lightning to quietly climb up the outer wall of the Psychic Tower, trying to sneak in from the window to find the main body of the Soul Weaver. The Skeletal Weaver inside seemed not to have expected the squad to react so quickly and decisively after suffering a mental blow. When it realized the danger and prepared to move, it was already too late.

The moment the assassin's dagger, carrying the light of anti-magic, stabbed into its soul hub, the Soul Weaver emitted a shrill soul scream filled with anger and mockery. Its form did not collapse as expected, but instead suddenly decomposed itself, turning into countless gray-white, screaming soul threads, shooting in all directions like an exploding spider web!

Most of these soul threads were decoys, aimed at interfering with vision and mental perception. However, its core, carrying its consciousness, its soul origin, was like a slippery poisonous snake, moving along the area where the shadows inside the tower were thickest, at a speed invisible to the naked eye, toward a pre-set escape rune. That was a short-range teleportation point it had arranged long ago, connecting to the wilderness.

"Hey, everyone, look at what this is." The gnoll thief held in his hand was exactly the bone engraved with the escape rune. It turned out that at the critical moment, he activated a displacement skill, placing an ordinary skull there.

The soul origin, sensing that its backup plan had been discovered, was just about to slip away, but was shot by a special arrow and instantly dissipated completely. Without a commander, the skeleton soldiers, facing the well-trained gnoll squad, no longer had the ability to resist and were quickly slaughtered.

On the other side, a similar scene was playing out. The strength of the Soul Weaver could not be compared to a professional killing squad. After a night of fighting, when the sun rose from the horizon, only bones remained on the Psychic Tower, along with scattered, rusted weapons. Of course, the sun could not be seen in this plane.

"Your subordinates performed well. You can proceed to the next step. I want you to clean up the three hundred Psychic Towers spread throughout the plane within three days. Can you do it?"

"Report Marshal, absolutely no... problem. My people will perfectly solve this... mission."

"That's good. Genuoer, you must understand that these Psychic Towers are the contact points for our comprehensive cleanup of the plane. If the battlefield is large, all kinds of accidents will happen. We must ensure complete coordination functions to deal with this problem at any time."

"Understood. That... Marshal, the next step mainly involves the lizardmen. Is there anything for us gnolls? Is our mission a bit too little?"

"The combat mission is still yours. The Duke said that the ogres have poor discipline and are easy to mess things up. The lizardmen are mainly responsible for transforming the plane. You must know that the plants here can eat people. If you send that group of goblins, I'm afraid they would be thrown in and not even bones would be left."

"I knew it, the scout team is always the Duke's best soldiers." This young gnoll warrior actually jumped up with excitement. Their desire for slaughter was already carved into their souls.

"Don't be happy too early. If you mess things up, you'll see what happens. If you dare to delay my return to the Duke's territory to fight demons, see how I deal with you." ===== CHAPTER 75 =====