Damon was presently putting into action a plan to scare the wits out of the brats so thoroughly
that they would never set foot here again. His experience in Northwood played the greatest role in it.
“That method should do. Once they’ve gone through it, they’ll be so traumatized they’ll never even
think of this place again, will they?”
For the sake of a perfect production, Damon had laid out the Illusory Miri Formation (幻想彌璃陳) here.
The Illusory Miri Formation, a peerless formation unique to the Central Plains that made it impossible to
distinguish friend from foe, had been infused with ample magical effects, greatly increasing its power.
On top of that, to heighten the effect of the illusion, Damon had even concocted a Dream-Soul Drug
that muddled consciousness and made the brats ingest it. A trinity. The three arrangements had been
perfectly combined, and Damon’s underground plaza was now perfectly recreating the environment of Northwood.
“Oh, dear.”
Damon, who had been watching leisurely, suddenly rose to his feet and immediately fired a Magic Missile.
He had witnessed one fellow knock another down, sit astride him, and begin strangling him.
Of course, the fellow was probably acting under the assumption that his opponent was an undead, but if things went on like that,
it would put Damon in a difficult position.
If even one of them died, there was no telling what sort of repercussions might reach Damon. In any case,
their actions were being controlled by him, so he had to be careful in all matters.
Thud.
The fellow who had been strangling the other fainted on the spot. Of course, the one who had fallen had no strength
left to get up either. He had exhausted every last bit of his energy in the bloody battle that had lasted a full day.
The grand melee in the underground plaza was nearly over as well. Even those whose skills were somewhat better
and who had been beating down their comrades at random were collapsing one after another, completely spent.
After the last one sprawled out, the underground plaza grew quiet once more. Only after seeing that
did Damon slowly rise.
“Shall I start cleaning up now? If I make them suffer like this for just a week and then let them go,
they’ll never set foot here again, right?”
Damon descended into the underground plaza and began treating the battered knights as he moved among them.
Wherever his hand passed, the bleeding stopped and broken bones returned to their proper places and fused again.
As it was an extremely high-level healing spell, its effect was certain. After finishing the treatment, Damon surveyed
the ruined plaza as though appreciating it, then gave a bitter smile.
“Now that I think about it, this is exactly what that bastard Berkis did to me, isn’t it? Breaking me down and then
healing me, over and over again.”
Shaking his head, Damon sprang upward. Above, Winslet was rolling his eyes with a huge sack
slung over his back. Now it was time to go out to the village and buy provisions. If he intended to make the bastards
suffer for a week, he would have to feed them first. An enormous amount of food would be needed.
“I’ll have to hurry. But how am I supposed to make food for sixty people?”
Shaking his head, Damon moved off as if he had no choice. It had been enjoyable to watch the brawl,
but the thought of preparing food for them was already making his head ache.
“No helping it.”
Damon and Winslet soon vanished from that place.
For a full week, Damon truly moved without rest. He was frantic, both punishing the brats who had barged into his residence
and preparing the food they would eat. Since it was food for as many as sixty people,
Damon had to work without even a moment to catch his breath. But a week was not very long.
Once the work was over, Damon had Winslet drive every last one of them out of the residence.
“Th-thank you.”
The thoroughly chastened fellows ran off in a daze, exhilarated that they had survived. Judging by their reaction,
it seemed they had never dreamed they would return alive. They went back to Sebain Village looking like utterly defeated soldiers.
Watching them, Damon roared with laughter as if deeply pleased.
“Those bastards. Now they’ll never set foot in my residence again, will they?”
Having finally caught his breath, Damon immediately headed to the place where the sealing sphere was. When he opened the door
and entered, Helbertron greeted him with an expressionless face.
“Is the task of punishing the brats finished now?”
“Of course. From now on, those bastards will shudder at the mere ‘Se’ of Sebain.”
“I cannot understand. Why go to such trouble over something that would have ended simply if you had killed them?”
At Helbertron’s retort, Damon grimaced. Of course, he had wanted to do just that,
but he could not.
“I have my reasons, so keep quiet. More importantly, how much mana has gathered?”
Damon examined the magic circle where the sealing sphere rested and frowned.
“Well, well. I gathered it for a week, and this is all? This is a problem.”
There was naturally a strict limit to how much magical power could be drawn in using a magic circle. Of course,
it was not that there was no way at all to forcibly suck in magical power, but he could not rashly attempt it.
If, by any chance, Naidelhark were to awaken, that would be an even greater disaster. Therefore,
he had to gather the power of darkness as much as possible within a range that did not disturb the balance of the magic placed upon it.
At present, he had no choice but to scrape together only the magical power that naturally flowed out, but Damon
was not one to be satisfied with that.
“At this rate, finishing the work before the dragons awaken will be a distant prospect. Isn’t there
some good method?”
Frowning, Damon sank deep into thought. Only by strengthening the Death Knights somehow
would he be able to fight a decisive battle against the dragons. As he thought and thought,
one possible method came to Damon’s mind.
“If I were to do that, perhaps……”
It was his own idea, but it was so absurd that Damon gave a wry laugh. He had
thought up a truly outrageous method. But after considering it carefully, it did not seem entirely
impossible.
“No. It might actually be possible. If I do that, I can significantly increase the efficiency
of absorbing magical power while leaving the balance of the magic unbroken.”
Damon was now entertaining the utterly outrageous idea of absorbing the mana of the sealing sphere through energy circulation.
Originally, he had been a master who had skillfully used advanced internal energy arts, and he had perfectly mastered
the technique of circulating inner power along the acupoints and meridians.
Although this was not the body he had originally possessed, every pathway through which inner power flowed
was clearly remembered in Damon’s mind. If anything, the possibility might be even higher precisely because this body
had never learned martial arts at all. He would use the power of darkness in place of inner power.
“Will it truly be possible to activate the major acupoints using the magical power of the sealing sphere?
That will be the key point.”
The internal power control techniques of an internal arts master belonged to an indescribably delicate realm.
This was because energy circulation had to be performed only within a range that did not disrupt the body’s balance.
Since the breaking of that balance was the shortest path to qi deviation, masters who had learned internal energy
focused above all on maintaining the body’s balance no matter what happened, and Damon too had engraved that method
deep in his mind.
As such, if this method succeeded, it seemed he would be able to draw out far more magical power while maintaining
the balance of the magic acting upon the sealing sphere. Damon’s eyes shone silently.
“If that happens, I won’t need to stay holed up in this cave gathering magical power. If I remain
in one place for too long, there’s a chance those dragon bastards will track me down……”
Having organized his thoughts, Damon immediately set to work. He was thoroughly experienced in circulating inner power
through the four limbs and hundred meridians in one heavenly cycle before storing it in the dantian,
and he also possessed the internal cultivation method suited to it. This time, it was time to perform circulation
using the magical power of the sealing sphere instead of inner power.
“If my guess is correct, the work of strengthening the Death Knights should be finished in at least under a year……”
Damon’s eyes, having found a new solution, gleamed with a certain expectation.
In the southeast of Truvenia lay a vast, dense jungle. Even in the past,
when humans ruled Truvenia, it had been so untouched that no human hand had ever reached it.
Thickly grown primeval forest and unknown exotic flowers and strange grasses covered the place so completely there was barely room to set foot.
It was an area that could truly be said to preserve the mysteries of primordial times intact. At the very center
of that jungle was a vast swamp.
Bubble, bubble.
Black water boiled up continuously, and thick sulfurous smoke blanketed the swamp.
The swamp was so deep that its depth could not be guessed. Moreover, both the swamp water and the sulfurous smoke
were filled with poison, to the point that even most beasts dared not come near.
As if proving this, the bones of beasts that seemed to have died of poisoning lay scattered here and there around the swamp.
A place worthy of being called the Swamp of Death.
At the center of this swamp stood a large stone mountain. Like a castle surrounded by a moat,
the stone mountain had long stood there, blocking the approach of all things around it.
But no one knew that a dragon’s lair existed beneath this place. No one but
the Black Dragon, the master of the swamp, and his guardians……
Grrrrrrr.
The place from which irregular breathing sounds could be heard was an underground cavern located in the center of the stone mountain.
The enormous underground cavern not only had smooth ventilation, but also maintained a very pleasant environment
with an appropriate level of humidity. It was an extremely vast cavern, appearing to be roughly one hundred square meters in area.
At its center, a single enormous black silhouette lay asleep. Its entire body was covered
in pitch-black scales, and the identity of the silhouette sleeping with its body coiled by a huge metallic tail
was none other than a Black Dragon. Its black scales, buried in darkness, were particularly hard to distinguish.
Judging by its uneven breathing and the faint trembling of its body, the Black Dragon
seemed likely to awaken soon. The Wakeening Sound, rapidly growing rougher, proved it.
“Kwaooo.”
The Black Dragon, which had continued to breathe harshly, at some moment let out a single strange cry and snapped its eyes open.