Chapter 1140: 353. Arrogant Cooperation_2

Noland Lee stealthily cast a “sense tampering” on himself, manually blocking out those nauseating things to trade for a clean and tidy view.

Once done, it indeed felt much more comfortable—Noland Lee completely covered all the filthy sights he witnessed with thick mosaics.

There’s no need to elaborate on the process of meeting with Lophi.

Noland Lee took out the contract personally penned by the Queen, made clear his intentions, and confirmed his identity as the Sea Monster Emissary.

Lophi responded with enthusiasm. noveldrama

But, the servile performance from the Spider Mother Monks was quite nauseating to Noland Lee, who had the psychology of a normal person; nonetheless, he had to play along with it.

...

According to Lophi, ever since the Queen sent a trusted envoy with great fanfare two days ago, the Spider Mother’s impression of sea monsters had done a complete 180.

After Lophi conveyed the intentions of the secret messenger to the Spider Mother, she immediately agreed to meet personally with the emissary to discuss a deeper cooperation between the Undead Cult and the Sea Monsters.

When Noland Lee heard he was going to meet the Spider Mother, he was slightly startled but then calmed himself down.

Based on the intelligence he’d collected, the Spider Mother was likely Nine Rings, close to Ten Rings in strength, capable of easily seeing through spells like “Breath of the Dead” and “Sea Monster Form.”

Fortunately, with the Assassin Angel assisting him from the shadows, his disguise was not likely to be exposed by the Spider Mother.

Noland Lee steadied his mind and followed Lophi towards the cave’s back entrance.

Outside the entrance lay a ten thousand cliff, with paths made of cobwebs connecting both sides of the cliff.

After asking for Noland Lee’s consent, Lophi shot out spider silk, entangled him, and placed him onto the back of a giant spider monster.

The spider monster wasn’t high-level—the size of a tank and its appearance was terrifying.

Sitting on it, Noland Lee could feel the whooshing wind by his ears as the spider monster carried him swiftly.

After crossing the clifftop via the cobweb pathway, there was a dark plain as flat as a calm sea with numerous tomb bundles scattered across it.

“This is our corpse-raising land, esteemed guest,”

Lophi ran beside the spider monster, chattering and introducing the Undead Cult to Noland Lee.

The so-called corpse-raising land was a place for strengthening corpses.

Each mound was a culture tank, filled with foul fluid that was indescribable.

Using a method similar to “fermentation,” the Undead Cult strengthened the corpses in the enclosed environment of tomb bundles, endowing them with specific features.

Past the extensive corpse-raising land lay the Hanging Death Forest.

This was the place where the essences were extracted from the segmenting of corpses, keeping the essence and discarding the dross, with low-rank acolytes as the butchers and mid-rank acolytes as supervisors.

Noland Lee noted that within the Undead Cult, the division of labor was very clear.

The monks and acolytes of the Spider Mother primarily handled transportation, loading, and reception duties.

Members of the Frost Demon Bone faction were mostly skeletons skilled in frost and death magic, mainly responsible for freezing corpse materials and constructing ice caves.

Other factions, like the Steel Faction of metal skeletons and the War Spirits Faction, had their own intelligences as well.

So, who did such a vast undead group answer to?

During their conversation, Noland Lee and Lophi shared information about their respective forces, and Noland Lee seized the opportunity to ask this question.

“We decide on major issues by holding meetings.”

Lophi showed Noland Lee what he thought was a beautiful smile:

“The leaders of each faction meet regularly to discuss past and future matters and to define the work for the next half-year. This is significantly different from your kingdoms.”

“Too much discussion only hinders progress, you should change the way you do things,” Noland Lee said with a touch of aloofness and superiority, mimicking a true Sea Monster Emissary.

Actually, he was imitating the manner of speech of the Sea Monster Emissary right now.

Lophi’s face became stiff, maintaining the smile with effort.

Had it not been for the prestige established beforehand by the Queen’s trusted envoy, Lophi would have had little desire to converse with this short and arrogant Sea Monster Emissary before him.

Noland Lee glanced at Lophi’s expression and inwardly chuckled.

The tone he had just used was that of the Sea Monster Emissary.

With such an attitude to further the cooperation between both parties, that would indeed be strange.

Is this the arrogant manner all Sea Monster Emissaries have?

Noland Lee pondered over this.

Hmm, indeed.

The sea monsters he had seen on the sea surface before all had this same arrogant air about them.

Tsk, tsk, tsk, if it weren’t for him masquerading as the Queen’s trusted envoy to meet with Lophi, perhaps the sea monsters and the Undead Cult would never have established cooperation.

Noland Lee reflected briefly in his heart, chatting with Lophi in a somewhat disengaged manner.

After passing through the Hanging Death Forest, another dark plain came into view, but this time, the plain was no longer dotted with tomb bundles, but with countless glowing pyramids.

The vast pyramids stood on the vast underground plain like hills, extending towards the endless distance.

The edges and the seams of the stone bricks of all the pyramids overflowed with a rich dark green radiance, illuminating the entire underground space.

Lophi, looking at the astonished expression of the sea monster emissary, said with a smug smile:

“Guest, this is one of the core areas of our Undead Cult, a sight seldom seen by outsiders. Can you guess what these pyramids are for?”

Noland Lee snapped back to reality, glared at Lophi and said proudly:

“Don’t play coy, that will only affect our cooperation.”

A hint of annoyance flashed in Lophi’s eyes, but he maintained a forced smile on his face as he spoke:

“This is our Soul Factory. It can be used to store soul energy, as well as to mass-produce blank souls, or to generate ethereal troops.”

Noland Lee nodded:

“So that means the soul energy you’ve been collecting is stored here.”

“Exactly,” Lophi said, waving a spider limb, signaling the Spider Monster to continue moving forward.

“You intend to use the soul energy to create ethereal troops and counter-attack the Tatis Empire, don’t you?” Noland Lee asked.

“No, we have other plans,” Lophi said with a mysterious smile:

“Perhaps you’ve heard from a talkative low-rank acolyte, we will soon have powerful foreign support. We are preparing the soul energy for them.”

“Who are ‘they’?” Noland Lee asked again.

He had thought the other party would continue to be secretive, but unexpectedly, Lophi raised his arms high and let out a long call towards the ceiling hundreds of meters above.

“Ah~ That’s an extraordinary power from Outer Space, guest. We have expended great effort to establish contact with them.”

Lophi lowered his arms and gave Noland Lee a mocking smile:

“It’s precisely because we have such powerful support in advance that we have repeatedly declined cooperation with you. But now, you are also worthy of our Undead Sect’s attention. You should thank the queen’s confidant for showing us the strength and foundation of the sea monsters, otherwise a weak sea monster emissary like you could never gain our favor.”

Along the way, Lophi had been berated by Noland Lee many times; now, he finally found an opportunity for a comeback.

Noland Lee glared furiously, his face showing outrage as though insulted.

But before he could retort, the pyramids around suddenly lit up with a burst of intense light, followed by a pervasive, intense shaking.

“Buzz—” The light flickered.

“Rumble—” The earth shook, dust billowed.

“Buzz, buzz, buzz—”

After the intense light, the pyramids’ glow began to alternate.

Noland Lee fixed his gaze in the distance and noticed that on the far horizon, a Black Tower gradually brightened.

Every time the pyramids flickered a few times, that tower would become a few degrees brighter.

Noland Lee released his Deconstruction Technique, scanning the pyramids, and he roughly understood what was happening.

The soul energy within the pyramids was rushing through the energy pipelines laid underground towards that tower at breakneck speed.

Every second, tens of millions of Points of Soul Energy shuttled through the pipelines.

But don’t ever think the number of tens of millions is small; this is soul energy, not some other magic energy.

Soul energy can be converted into other types of magic energy at a high ratio.

Ten million Points of Soul Energy, if converted into Death Energy, would be an astronomical figure in the billions.

Such a scale of energy flow occurring around him gave Noland Lee the illusion of being in the midst of a super-powerful magic circle.

As for the tower on the horizon whose glow was gradually brightening…

Noland Lee expended ten million Energy Points to obtain its Deconstruction Results.