บท 20: Encounter with Gnolls

Days passed quietly as Samiel, together with Yvraine, remained at the cave, either training in close combat or he was practicing spells. Contrary to the past, practicing spells right now was a relatively easy thing for him due to his ridiculously large mana reserves upon racial change to the Old Deus and becoming partial Eldritch.

Even Yvraine envied him a bit for his high Mana, and that was from the point of view of a Silvermoon Elf, one of the species that were considered blessed by Mana. Silvermoon Elves were on the same level as Dragons with their affinity for mana handling and magic.

He was already beginning to grasp some basics of combat and weapon usage, and his proficiency in spells significantly increased. At least now, he wouldn't have a problem actively casting during a battle.

Casting spells during the battle required a lot of practice, as even the slightest mistake could lead to an explosion or another unsavory ending. That was why most of the magic casters preferred to be protected during the casting process, and only those skilled enough would do something like he was doing.

In truth, he didn't have skills like other casters that could cast actively during the battle, but Samiel had a pretty unique condition; a combination of Superior Species together with special Classes allowed him to achieve this feat without that much mastery over the skill itself.

Soon enough, more than ten days passed as they were in the cave, and the Extermination Thunder Storm had passed. At the same time, both of them could observe the march of the enormous Ork Warhorde that marched through the entire continent to somewhere in the Eastern Area.

"We can now depart towards the Lambrean Mountains."

Said Yvraine as she looked at the sky, as the rain stopped, and it was good weather, at least currently. They didn't want to go when it was still raining as that would make their journey more dangerous than it already was.

They were going to cross around three hundred kilometers to reach the mining outpost of the Nesser Dynasty, which was their target. There they could hopefully obtain some rare metals to stop the deteriorating process of the Holy-Grade Armor Rao's Vengence.

Partially Samiel cursed at the piece of metal because if it the Ego didn't wake up and attempted to possess Samiel, his patron wouldn't have destroyed it, and which in turn would not start the deteriorating process once more.

A journey to the Lambrean Mountains would require them to pass through a large part of the Darkwood Forest, meaning passing through all hostile species, countless magical beasts, and god knows where. For sure, there were even more terrifying creatures than just Rock Trolls there.

Lambrean Mountains were a hell dangerous place, where Samiel would, under normal circumstances, never set his foot. Unfortunately for him, he didn't really have a choice in this. However, he wanted to return here after he reached Gold-Tier, to search through the place and obtain some treasures.

Fortunately, Yvraine chose the pathway through the Outskirts, where the strongest lifeforms were just of a Steel-Tier. Maybe some lost Bronze-Tier would appear from time to time, but nothing they, together with his Undead Army, could not deal with.

And thus, their journey to the Lambrean Mountains has begun.

***

After they had been walking for some time already, both of them heard some weird sounds in the woods and bushes.

"Did you hear that?"

Asked Yvraine as they suddenly stopped after walking for more than ten hours, as her ears perked up. Elves as species had very sensitive hearing abilities, and in the forest, they were basically unbeatable, as it was their natural environment.

Similarly, like dwarves were strongest underground because it was their natural environment, or Blood Raced under the shadows of night. And Elves were stronger in the forest, while for the ordinary Elves, it was not that notable. Still, for the Silvermoon Elves, being in their natural enviroment, it made a significant difference.

"Gnoll Pack."

She said shortly after, as Samiel quickly summoned his Undead and readied himself for the combat.

Contrary to Orks, Gnolls were species that lived in the forests, or more specifically, they lived in the cave systems underneath the forests. As expected, it was no surprise that some type of monsters ambushed them, and this time it were Gnolls.

Gnolls were feral humanoids that looked like a hybrid of hyena and human, often ferocious, brutal and bloodthirsty monsters that attacked smaller settlements, slaughtering and eating their victims.

They also cleaned battlefields, as they were essentially scavengers, picking up weapons, armor, or even corpses for them to eat. Gnolls often appeared after huge battles and collected weapons, armors, corpses to eat, and shiny things.

The origin of Gnolls was largely unknown, but many theorized that they were failed experiments of Daemons to create another species like the Beasmen, but failing ultimately. In truth, many Monster races were failed experiments of Transcendents or very mighty Legendaries.

Still, Gnolls were pretty dangerous, as they attacked in huge numbers and coordinated manner. They were a wolf-like monsters, so they utilized the same tactics as the wolf-type magical beast.

Though if you kill the Gnoll Pack Lord, the entire pack will break apart, as nobody will command the other Gnolls. In this aspect, Gnolls were very similar to wolf-type magical beasts who, if they lost their Alpha, would instantly fall back and regroup.

Same with Gnolls, though they would retreat because if their strongest got killed, they would escape, as Gnolls were cowards at their core. This was the nature of an entire Gnoll species, bully the weak, fear the strong, and try to kill anyone with numbers, and if it fails, then just run.

"Roar, roar."

Both of them heard the roaring of the Gnoll Pack that was surrounding them, as suddenly all Gnolls started attacking them. There were around 250 of them, but all of them, aside from a few, were Iron-Tier, while only the Gnoll Pack Leader was a Steel-Tier Gnoll, with few others. Other Steel-Tier Gnolls were likely some sub-leaders or mutated individuals who reached higher tiers.

Unfortunately for the Gnolls, Samiel's Ork Undeads rushed ferociously at the Gnoll Pack as they cleaved the Gnolls apart with their huge axes and sword. Undead Orks were bigger and stronger than the Gnolls.

Meanwhile, Samiel was using [Winter Ruler] to freeze any Gnolls that managed to get close to me, as there were already six or seven frozen gnolls around him. In truth, he wouldn't resurrect them as Undead even if he could, as gnolls were just so inferior species to the Undead.

When creating Undeads, the simple rule was in effect.

Stronger base, stronger the Undead. Because of that, Necromancers searched for powerful creatures that could be resurrected by them as Undead. Many Necromancers had basically no bottom line when it came to their purse of material, as grave robbing and stealing corpses were on the daily schedule. Even Samiel was no different from this.

Meanwhile, Yvraine was jumping from one gnoll to another, as she plunger her jade blades to their necks, killing one after another, as she soon enough arrived at the position where the Gnoll Pack Leader was barking commands in their language if it could be even called language and not just senseless roaring.

Just as, Samiel was freezing more gnolls to their death, as none of them were capable of withstanding just a bit of the frost from the [Winter Ruler], Yvrained brandished her jade twin blades as she rushed at the Gnoll Pack Leader, appearing next to him, and with a cross slash, she separated his pathetic head from even more pathetic body.

After the other Gnolls felt that their Pack Leader was killed, they howled as they decided to retreat. Unfortunately for them, his Undeads were not that keen on that intention and surrounded the surviving gnolls and started killing them one by one, as he began to quickly collecting their souls while occasionally shooting some Ice Weapon or freezing some stupid gnoll to death.

After short twenty minutes, everything was over, as Samiel had 276 souls in his possession altogether. He was pondering about what to do with them because he was pretty tempted to increase the strength of his Undeads by feeding them with Souls.

Hopefully, at least half of them will advance to the Steel-Tier. Having more than 100 Steel-Tier Undeads at his command sounded appearing.

Before anything, he salvaged the gnolls' usable weapons, as they had some excellent weapons in good shape. They probably found them abandoned after the original owner was killed, or they went through some battlefield lately.

As they collected everything that was usable by his Undead, Samiel told Yvrainme he was going to advance his Undeads as he started distributing them the souls of deceased he had in his possession, as Soul Fire of his Undead glowed in shining light, as their strength increased.

In an entire process, 57 Ork Undeads advanced into the Steel-Tier, while the rest remained at the Iron-Tier.

He looked at the Iron-Tier Undeads, thinking about what to do with them before he gave them the command to start fighting and assimilate each other's Soul Fires to advance into the Steel-Tier.

Meanwhile, as everything was happening, Yvraine was observing with great curiosity as to Samiel's ignorance, his method of handling souls was something that even Lengedaries would envy him, and this method of advancing the strength of Undead was done only by mighties Necromancers and similar occupations.

In truth, the most common method was the second one, and that was to obtain a large number of Undead and let them fight each other, assimilating the Soul Fires and advancing their collective strength.

When the entire process, as a whole, Samiel had 72 Steel-Tier Undeads, all of them being Undead Ork Warriors, which was a very good thing. He always preferred to have quality at first and then cultivate the quantity with quality as the base.

"We can now continue our journey."

He said as he recalled all of his Undeads.

With 72 Steel-Tier Undeads, their journey would be much safer, and fate would present more opportunities to them. More Undead the Necromancer had, and stronger they were, made a powerful Necromancer.

And Samiel had way more Undead than average Necromancer of the same Level, which made him even more dangerous.