Chapter 75: Preparing to Build

"Phew... that should be fine now."

Watching the players in the tavern joining in the grand event and feeling quite satisfied with one another, Li Ang let out a sigh of relief.

Of course, it was impossible for him to have the ability to manipulate players across time and space.

To be precise, he did have it, but the consumption was at an unimaginably high level. It would require setting up a ritual to madly drain the Winds of Magic and blow up a continent just to add some excitement.

The players' arrival mode was currently a mystery to Li Ang; brute-forcing it was strenuous and not very effective. All he could do was descend into this world himself while simultaneously hypnotizing and brainwashing them in the real world, playing on the time difference between the two sides to pretend he was very useful and convince them.

And the players' duplicity and greedy behavior were also within Li Ang's expectations.

Players could never be restrained. Even if their lives were limited, they would have a mysterious kind of confidence, believing they would absolutely never run into trouble. Cutting corners was just a minor issue.

Therefore, this kind of action to establish authority was necessary. Players were frivolous and unreliable; Li Ang could certainly choose to use killing to establish authority or issue forced commands, but that would not be optimistic for subsequent developments. Only by giving them a slap to make them believe he could influence them, while also giving them some good things, could he get them to move.

Thus, Li Ang specifically crafted a unique Rune system for their physical bodies.

Killing a Chaos Demon—as long as they killed a Chaos Demon, the Runes on their bodies would simulate the operation mode of Stonehenge, extracting a portion of the Chaos Demon's Soul Fragment and irrigating it into their bodies to strengthen their physical forms.

The effect, of course, could not be compared to the way Li Ang killed Chaos Demons to explode technology, and in reality, there was a cap. But the number of Chaos Demons one would need to kill to reach that cap was an astronomical figure, a value impossible to reach even within the current length of Human history. For players, it was absolutely sufficient.

With this three-pronged approach, plus some appropriate Magic guidance and the use of the Skaven's surface tunnels, the material problems of Tartarus were considered solved.

Li Ang had never intended to haggle over the gains or losses of a single city or territory. While individuals like players—who were spread all over the world, sturdy, durable, and greedy by nature—were certainly not liked by all Order races, for Li Ang, it was precisely because these guys walked the paths of the lower classes and had many connections that he could break the deadlock.

Oh my, thinking about it this way, he was still quite strong and quite humane—

Just as Li Ang was sitting in the Observatory, beginning to savor his exquisite Magic manipulation, a series of red characters interrupted his self-amusement.

"Warning: Your fleet is being attacked by Sea Elves!"

"The Sea Elves have been counterattacked by your escort fleet!"

"Your fleet lost fourteen units of supplies and successfully wounded three sea beasts! Returning in triumph!"

"..."

Damn those Sea Elves; what a shitty triumph this is.

Looking at the dragon ships appearing on the ocean with mottled cracks, and all the basic supplies that had been thrown overboard to reduce weight, Li Ang felt his teeth itch with hatred as he watched the Sea Elves wandering outside the bright sea area.

These blue-skinned monsters drove sea beasts, wandering outside the range covered by Stonehenge, cautious and absolutely avoiding contact with that bright seawater. The tall Sea Elf in the lead, whose gaze shone like the morning star, was looking at the World Scar with a look of hatred, as if he wanted to kill Li Ang from within it.

It was almost impossible for them to reach a peace agreement. Both sides were very clear about this. Because two weeks ago, when Li Ang completely lost patience, he had once lured a team of Sea Elves to arrive around the Stonehenge sea area. As a powerful mage, Li Ang not only deployed the Pale Army of the Path Brand, but even drained a large amount of Magic himself to begin hunting the Sea Elves' sea monsters and hunter squads on the ocean. Golden flames covered the sea, almost setting the entire ocean on fire.

And after killing more than seventeen hundred Sea Elves and over twenty sea beasts, these bastards finally understood that the clear, transparent seawater around Stonehenge was a forbidden zone that must absolutely not be touched.

Since then, these Sea Elves had begun their own effective harassment tactics.

However, this kind of harassment tactic would not last much longer.

Greedy Skaven, for the sake of more Warpstone and treasures, handed over a portion of their Underground Kingdom's tunnels, allowing players and Star-Bearers to use them for caravan trade.

Once the entire trade route was opened, these bastards in the water would be like grasshoppers after the frost; they wouldn't be able to jump for much longer. Furthermore, the Sky Battleship was being built in closed-off conditions in the shipyard. This kind of ship that was not in the water would naturally not be harmed by sea beasts and Sea Elves.

Built from the wood of the Era Oak, with the arrays personally inscribed by Li Ang himself, he believed it would absolutely bring some surprises to those Sea Elves.

"System Prompt: The Sea Elves are signaling you!"

"System Prompt: The Sea Elves are using light signals to express a message that is elegantly worded yet highly insulting. They claim that the ocean will always be their territory, and as long as they exist for a single day, they will never let the Star-Bearers' fleet leave the ocean by even a single step. Even if it is to fight against Chaos Demons, it is the same."

"System Prompt: A list of thirty insults from the Sea Elves has been accumulated previously, and it has now been collected and organized for you. If you need it, you can view it yourself."

"System Prompt: You might be able to communicate with the Sea Elves; conveying messages to each other is a good premise."

"..."

Communicate? Let me show you what real communication looks like.

Watching those Sea Elves who were fiddling with their Runes and loudly insulting the World Scar, Li Ang didn't say much. He just silently rolled up the Sea Elves and sea beasts he had killed earlier from the seabed.

These pale monsters that had lost their Souls were dragged by Li Ang, rising from within the clear, transparent sea area. The bloated corpses and ravaged bodies were stiffly posed in various gestures, expressing some body art to the Sea Elves outside. In return, they received even more angry curses from the Sea Elves.

From the moment these Sea Elves intended to kill his old, weak, sick, and young, it was destined that things could not end well.

It wasn't that they didn't have emotions; they just didn't treat people as lives.

"Fix the arrays... must get the Sky Battleship out. These damn Sea Elves must pay the price for what they have done..."

Coldly watching the young Elf in the ocean who was gnashing his teeth and pointing angrily at a corpse of an Elf wearing a crown, Li Ang's response was to manipulate that luxurious-looking corpse to raise a middle finger.

Launching on Friday! I will strive to get through the transition chapters quickly and show everyone some good stuff! I will explode with updates!

(End of chapter)