Soon enough, all three portals that had been pouring out soldiers, beasts and explosives ceased every and all activities, they flame-like form vanishing as they returned to the perfect invisibility and intangibility as before, countless invaders had been slaughtered- Their spirit life recycled into the Emerald Realm, same for the beasts, once the flood stopped and the native creatures took their fair share, all of them exploded into dazzling, compact mass of spirit life as well, the sudden influx allowing for any and all damage to be fixed, even making the realm that much more vibrant.
The cycle of life and nourishment was inundated with more energy than ever before, and without even a single of the worshippers having perished, this entire operation seemed like a big win for them, having only lost a little bit of their time in exchange of their entire world growing that much more vibrant.
Though no one was foolish enough to actually claim victory, the portals were still there, they all knew it, but their positions had all been located, once more the talented architect went to work and constructed three chambers to seal these portals inward.
The real threat was the fourth however, the one that had successfully escaped their vigilance, many had cleared spotted the direction and rough area it was landed in, but closer inspection had revealed no signs of invaders, or of the portal, Iliz, thanks to her being in possession of yrztul ears, led the searches within the steaming regions all around, but there was nothing to be found, no suspicious sounds, no sighting, no trails- Nothing.
This was all rather worrying, so people were patrolling around the area constantly, it was only obvious that the undead hadn't just done nothing with this portal, they had clearly been prepared to make use of multiple of them from the very beginning, the firing of explosives and onslaught of beasts couldn't have just been thought of on the spot, especially when they had begun nearly instantaneously after the portals had landed.
After a few days passed, the leader of the small troop of living soldiers could breath in relief, their countermeasures seemed to be working, though, he felt fairly certain that only as they remained scooped in this rocky protuberance would they successfully escape detection.
Now that he and his soldiers had come so far, no mistakes could be allowed, they had been granted valuable and powerful items to remain concealed, objects mere livings like themselves shouldn't normally be allowed to wield.
For now, their mission was simple, now that they had sealed the gap leading to the outside and put in place the items hiding their existence from others, they were to test every minute way of power and energy to see which worked in this realm, and which did not.
When it came to energies, mana was already known to work in basically the same way, it was just that the manner in which it behaved was completely different here, meaning that any spell caster had to adjust themselves to it before trying to do anything.
Some energies were wholly absent, which was good news, actually, as General Loimos had already thought of the possibility and devised a plan to shake the realm by introducing them en masse, all in an efforts to make the cycle of life and spirit life buckle enough to forcefully insert the truest of death.
Though, such decisive plans could only be enacted once all possible intel had been gathered.
So despite the soldiers being safe and having unlimited provisions thanks to the portal, it was taking a long time to test everything out, as one should know by now, the number of ways of power was enormous, and so was the sheer amount of different energies, this wasn't even counting the different types mechanisms Gharl and Tiloh had come up with.
'Objects powered by batteries filled with lightning? Or electricity as they call it? Absolute madness, that had to be incredibly complex wizardry' he grumbled to himself, a quarter of the things he was testing, he hadn't even suspected the existence of, and why would he? So many seemed to be perfect copies of one another, the differences and advantages so awfully precise or small that it called into question why anyone would specialise in them rather than just learn how to wield mana.
Basic things like the universal system were still working as per usual, so not doing much for most, and most importantly, innate abilities worked just as well as they would outside, of course, when it came to undeads, who would probably be subject to restrictions even when they figured out how to walk this realm, everything would be thrown into jeopardy, especially things that deeply related to them, and thus, to their undeath.
It took them a long time, too long to their fanatical tastes, it felt like they were slowing down their superior overlords, but when they went to report the conclusion of their first mission, there was no reproach from the general, colder than ice as per usual, simply immovable, it always felt as though he had already known everything in advance with the utter lack of reaction showed in every possible situation.
"The more complicated part of this operation starts now, as livings, you were not only selected based on your skills, but also based on how much you resemble the livings that escaped to this realm" he explained.
"Your mission is simple, infiltrate the cities and towns of the enemy and hide portals within them, that is all"
After all, it was clear that none of the living soldiers could stand up to the inhabitants of that realm, their strength was simply on another level compared to theirs, all they could do was take advantage of their status as livings and hide amongst the crowd long enough to plant at least one portal.
The leader knew, that the beginning would be the most crucial point, once a single spy was found out, the security and vigilance would increase by leaps and bounds, they had to place as many portals as they could before that happened, whilst the possibility of intruders walking amongst the refugees wasn't confirmed.
'They probably already thought that it could happen though…' that was the problem, enemy agents infiltrating your ranks was a tactic anyone could think of, and which one of the four portals going missing, that idea had certainly crept up in the minds of some.
"General Loimos, how many should we strive to plant?"
"At least one per city in the best of cases, realistically, you should aim to locate and focus on areas without strong defenders"