Chapter 72: Chapter 64: Now, I Too Am a King of Tactics
[Heroic Unit: Ashes (Shadow)]
[Race: Demon Beast]
[Talent: Spiritual Body (Cannot be locked onto by any tracking skills), Killing Intent Perception (Detects an enemy’s attack one second before it is launched), Magic Immunity (Ignores all magical damage, control, curses, and skills)]
[Profession: Special Boss (Level 1)]
[Life Value: 90/90]
[Strength: 11 (22), Agility: 30 (60), Spirit: 25 (50), Constitution: 13 (26)]
[Weapon: None]
[Equipment: None]
[BOSS Skills: Invisibility (Can be toggled freely, silent and traceless), High-speed Movement (Consumes a large amount of stamina to increase movement speed by 500% for a short period), Soul Sentinel (Consumes one-third of Life Value to summon a Spiritual Owl. The two can act separately and share a Field of View. When in danger, the main body can instantly teleport to the owl’s location. A maximum of two Spiritual Owls can exist at the same time.)]
[Power Assessment: Zero-star (Green)]
[Description: An extremely fearful nature has granted this Divine Chosen Creature powerful reconnaissance and escape abilities. These are its innate, destined talents, difficult for any other creature to replicate.]
Holy cow!
’Just how scared of being kicked to death is this little owl?!’
’To actually awaken such heaven-defying Talents and skills?’
’Untargetable, precognitive, capable of high-speed movement, immune to magic, and able to shift its form and shadow... It’s as if it was born for the sole purpose of being unkillable!’
’Can’t kill it!’
’It’s completely unkillable!’
’Not unless I use a massive, physical AOE on the level of a nuclear bomb!’
’And I’d have to catch it off guard, when it hasn’t sent its two other spirits far from its main body, to be able to wipe it and its spirits out in one go!’
"HOOT HOOT! HOOT!!!"
(Wow! Lord! I got stronger! So strong! And I can even make two other little owls! This is so fun!)
As it spoke, Ashes flapped its wings, spiraled into the air, and activated its newly acquired "Soul Sentinel" skill.
Two owl spirit bodies, azure like spectral fire, swiftly materialized before Qin Feng. Guided by Ashes’s command, they landed steadily on Qin Feng’s shoulders in a symmetrical formation. They resembled a pair of Profound Ice Stone Lions guarding the Gate of the Netherworld, wreathed in an ethereal and sharp aura of energy.
Qin Feng reached out and gently brushed the two owl spirit bodies on his shoulders. As his fingertips passed through the glowing blue halos, he felt a solid, tangible sensation, like cold jade.
’Hm?’
’They’re solid?’
He looked up at the sky and asked Ashes, who was circling above:
"Do they have independent thoughts?"
"Hoot hoot hoot... (I don’t think so... But they understand my commands, and they can share what they see with me!)"
Hearing this, Qin Feng nodded slightly. He didn’t look disappointed, as this was clearly within his expectations.
’It’s fine.’
’Puppets are puppets.’
’It doesn’t stop them from being perfect Scouts and Messengers, anyway.’
’Next... with these two owl spirit bodies, I can also be like those Kings of Tactics who wield the Eye of All-Seeing, secretly hiding in the safe rear lines and Commanding from the Headquarters over vast distances.’
’That’s the most crucial part...’
With that thought, Qin Feng turned to Diablo and said:
"Diablo."
"The plan has changed."
"Take half of the Desert Giant Wolves and Ratman Warriors and go to the Wolfman Tribe. Act as diplomatic envoys and communicate with them."
"I’ll take the other half to the Golden Deer Tribe."
"Once I’ve dealt with the Ratmen of the Golden Deer Tribe, I’ll rendezvous with you at the Wolfman Tribe."
"If anything unexpected happens along the way, use the Spiritual Owl summoned by Ashes to send a message remotely. It will relay the detailed information to me through Ashes’s main body..."
After informing Diablo of Ashes’s new abilities and carefully instructing him on a few key points, Qin Feng led several dozen Desert Giant Wolves and set off toward the Golden Deer Tribe’s village to the east.
Diablo, in turn, led the remaining Desert Giant Wolves and Ratman Warriors straight for the basin area to the northeast of the territory, searching for traces of the Wolfman Tribe.
In addition, Qin Feng had Ashes’s other owl spirit body remain in the territory to continue monitoring the southern forest for any signs of a sneak attack from Zhao Chuan’s player allies.
...
Deep within a larch forest stained by twilight, a settlement of several hundred Ratmen looked like a giant mushroom growing from the humus-rich soil.
Row upon row of hovels were built from withered branches, moss, and mud. Their roofs were covered in half-rotted spruce bark, and occasionally, a few clusters of fly agaric mushrooms pushed through cracks in the roofs, their scarlet-spotted caps looking like splattered bloodstains in the twilight.
The settlement’s perimeter was encircled by three intersecting trenches. The bottoms were filled with sharpened birchwood stakes, their tips hung with the desiccated remains of night owls, whose mottled feathers rustled in the wind.
Beyond that, two lopsided arches built from giant wolf skulls marked the entrance. Burning pine-resin torches were stuck in the skulls’ eye sockets, and thick smoke carrying the pungent smell of tar rose into the canopy, startling a flock of bullfinches resting on the alder branches.
Qin Feng gazed at the Ratman residential buildings scattered among the ferns. His eyes swept over the outer defensive works—which could barely be called trenches—and he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.
"Huh?"
"This is the Golden Deer Tribe?"
"They have a population of over five hundred, and their overall strength supposedly far exceeds the Poison Arrow Tribe, which suffered heavy losses in a civil war, yet they don’t even have a decent wall?"
Meikai, the new chieftain of the Withered Leaf Tribe, rode his massive Desert Giant Wolf over and pointed a withered claw at the crooked hovels: