Chapter 20: The Untamed Forested Mountains
Even though the King of he Elves Adun said that it would be only a matter of time before the Eastern Cultivator alliance crumbles to internal fighting due to the lack of blood harvested for the blood sacrifice to repair the dragon veins, it would still take at least 50 years before the actual first dragon veins to deteriorate to such a degree that it would go dormant for several million years by rough estimates.
Even with 50 years General Yohmu is still feeling the extreme pressure of not being able to harvest enough blood within the allotted time. 50 years might sound far but for the Eastern Cultivators who dubbed themselves Immortals 50 years is quite short when most of them can easily live through 1,000 years of casual Cultivating.
It also did not help when the denizens of Continental Isle has been put on the defensive most villages in the region have been evacuated and have become refugees scattered at different Kingdoms and domains like the Dwarves Mountain Strongholds.
Currently General Yohmu is forced to gather all manner of animals that could be harvested for blood and have them force breed so that they could at least present something in the following decades. The destruction of Kaladia City was a mistake after he reviewed the whole scenario.
“At this rate we will lose too much of our forces should we strike at the enemies fortified position. Kaladia’s defence is formidable enough and yet it was only a City State not even a formal Kingdom”
General Yohmu could only lament at his current situation thinking on how could he solve this problem that would haunt the entire Continental Isle in the near future.
Untamed Forested Mountains
The flying fortress is currently floating high in the skies as it survey the nearby region and it was a lot at 10,000 meters above in the sky only an ocean of trees and mountain valleys could be seen. Sera did not want to alert the local wildlife nor did she want to announce that her flying fortress is somewhere around this region.
At midnight she had the flying fortress down a particularly small valley to hide from prying eyes but the valley is a little bit small to fit the fortress.
“well… there’s a solution for that”
Sera opened fire at the valley to “open up some space” for her flying fortress to park over it took around 10 minutes of Rail Gun bombardment to chip away at the valley to have just enough space for her fortress to fit in without looking out of place like a sore thumb.
After “landing” though the flying fortress is still floating albeit a few meters above the ground, Sera ordered 5,000 Knight Golems to clean up the mess the Rail Guns did and start establishing stone castle in this area. She wanted to start mining operations and harvest materials for her experiments in this region of the forest to prepare herself of an intercontinental war that could last several hundred years. Of course little did Sera know that this war could be over in just 50 years due to the nature of the unstable dragon veins on the Eastern Continent.
Quick scans shows that there is a small iron and copper ore veins within the valley that could help her produce around 100,000 Knight Golems which would be a substantial help to her defence as the current state of affairs right now she did not want to have anything to do with the Eastern Cultivators without any proper protection.
The few manuals from different Sects from Eastern Continent would have to do at this point of her experimentation as more advanced knowledge is currently beyond her until she managed to make a breakthrough to the foundation establishment stage which she has been stuck at the 9th layer of QI refining for several months now.
According to the manuals and corresponding to Narud’s personal research notes inside the Library the level called foundation establishment stage could extend ones lifespan for several hundred years varying from sect methods. Just thinking of this makes Sera Hawke excited, imagine living for another several hundred years.
But with the intercontinental war going on she might not even live up to her 70’s if she could not muster enough force to even defend herself. Despite being in this world for almost a decade Sera Hawke barely knows anything about this world outside of other peoples personal experience most of which she took with a grain of salt.
It was only natural for her to be skeptical of what others says and only believe half of what she see until she can prove it beyond any reasonable doubt that it was in fact the truth. Complicated as it may be she led a complicated life where most people around her saw her different because of her talents and she in turn made a complex defense mechanism that she herself barely even notice.
After several months Sera Hawke managed controlled the Knight Golems into creating this wrecked valley into a mid size stone city this place would become her base of operations as she gathers resources from this ancient place. Despite being only on the outskirts of the Untamed Forested Mountains even Grand Wizards would have to tread carefully and watch out for what lurks in the shadows something Narud could not have a chance to research and note down in his library.
Danger always lurks everywhere in some form one way or another Sera knew this and so only chose to be in the outskirts of the Untamed Forested Mountains to temporarily take refuge. The Knight Golems are coming to and fro from the stone city like ants in an orderly fashion hunting monstrous beast and harvesting materials that may have been lying around for potentially hundreds of thousands of years undisturbed.
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The repairs of the Sentinels are being slowed down due to the lack of proper materials that needs to be fabricated from scratch and it became more complicated that she also needed to fabricate a machine to create that particular set of component to fix some of the Sentinels, her fabricator is for quick fix and general purpose only she wasn’t exactly planning to get transported to another world where cutting edge technology does not exist.
Magical creatures flesh, blood, bones, organs and even random grasses and rocks lying around did not escape the harvesting of the Knight Golems as Sera put them all under a microscope and have a detailed scan on each and every one of them.
The next morning Sera saw through the eyes of her Knight Golems and saw a monster tide forming up. “hmmm this is most likely from the slaughter my Golems have made as they sweep the area”
The blood and the corpses of the slain and harvested monsters have indeed attracted a beast tide to the stone city the monsters on this area have lived a brutal life, literal survival of the fittest even if some of the species are not that powerful none of this creatures are weak in combat.
Most of them survived through being hunted by powerful predators and eventually lived up to became the predator themselves. By rough estimates this beast tide would be around 50,000 though not big compared to the other beast tide in records 50,000 can actually overwhelm the newly constructed stone city.
Had it been guarded by ordinary people the entire city would be in panic by now but it was guarded by unemotional Knight Golems along with the support of several hundred Rail Guns facing the incoming beast tide this event did not even cause a worry for Sera Hawke and on the contrary it was a welcome one.
With a sigh she said “well… at least I won’t need to make an expedition in the deeper reaches of the Forest to harvest materials” as she looked at the fierce creatures highly evolved for combat
Their corpses would definitely contain precious material that could speed up the process of her research and experiment.
Creatures like winged tigers moving in a pack, an army of scaled baboons, giant alligators with a near impenetrable hide, eagles that swarmed the skies with steel like feathers as sharp as swords and a more familiar monster in Sera Hawke’s eyes.
“incredible! Even a T-Rex is in this world but they are in a pack like raptors. I guess its not exactly the same as on Earth? But then again there really was no concrete evidence that the T-Rex was a solo hunter like a Tiger… truly fascinating”
As the creatures for up by their species Sera did not allow them to take the initiative. Sera unleashed a barrage of Rail Guns at the beast tide over a kilometer away as the Knight Golems formed up on top of the walls.
Varying sizes of the Rail Guns made a destructive first strike, without waiting for the others the offensive of the beast tide began. Powerful as the Rail Guns are they could not penetrate the monsters body to kill those at the back. With that Sera frowned at the sturdiness of these creatures.
The tigers were the firs to arrive on top of the walls and made contact with the Knight Golems. The Knight Golems activated their auras to cover their bodies empowering them and making their swords sharper and more deadly but despite that the monstrous tigers meters in size are also capable with magic.
The tigers cried a devastating howl that would otherwise have killed any other Magic Knight if caught even slightly unprepared. Despite being staggered by the howl the Knight Golems counterattacked with a slash at the nearby tigers. They did bleed but the strike was not enough to kill them at one strike.
Luckily for Sera not every monster are actually capable of magic even though they were still tough most of them fell at the barrage of Rail Guns, some were even crushed by the fallen giant mamoths and T-Rex that have fallen over.
The eagles with blade like feathers on the other hand did not actually attack the stone city, they just circled around the skies and dive bombed at the unfortunate monsters that got too injured to protect themselves or got separated from their respective groups.
The tigers were indeed intimidating but eventually they did not have enough strength to fight the Knight Golems aside from several deep scratches there was nothing serious that the tigers could deliver.
The scaled baboons on the other hand are quite troublesome this creatures actually have weapons from dead adventurers or soldiers that made an expedition in this place in the past. The only good this is that most of the weapons are crudely made from monster bones.
Sera found it really creepy that these scaled baboon almost acted like the primitive humans. Despite them waving their hands and screeching there is some kind of pattern into it that could be the makings of a primitive language of a primitive society.
They are very nimble and very tough. Because of their tough scales even with just their bare hands the baboons dented the Knight Golems body even though it was covered with magic aura. If there was any bright side to this its that there is nobody to be harmed even if the stone city falls.
For 5 hours Sera micro managed the entire battle which left her with only 2,300 badly damaged Knight Golems. The scaled baboons actually did the most damage since they were not big enough of a target for the Rail Guns most of the casualties from the Knight Golems came from them.
Crumpled metals. That’s what the Knight Golems looked like right now it’s like they were fighting a jackhammer and hammered they did. The beast tide was too much and Sera recalled all of the remaining Knight Golems along with the resources they have gathered .
“aww come on!! I just built that, can you believe this shit!!” she lamented while pointing at the screen as Lydia served Sera her late lunch as she was too busy micro managing the battle.
“at least the damage is repairable” said Lydia in a nonchalant manner clearly confident that her Lady Sera would make a comeback from this setback.
“on a serious note, it’s no wonder this place has yet to be fully explored. This small size beast tide alone is already quite formidable on the outskirts I can only imagine how powerful the monsters are in the deeper reaches of the forest”
Lydia has a worried look on her face when she said to her Lady Sera “ my Lady please don’t actually go any deeper into the forest, even multiple Kingdoms allied together and sent dozens of expeditionary forces in the Untamed Forested Mountain with not a single result! None.. not a single soldier made it back!”
Sera replied with a smirk “Relax! I would not go to dangerous places. We are just here to wait for this war to be over or at least calm down. The people has gone crazy and started this war implicating innocent people, all we can do is just to stay down and keep a low profile”
After the last monstrous creature left the stone city, most structures were damaged if not trampled especially the warehouse where most of not every materials harvested were stored and documented before being teleported back to the fortress.
With a defeated sigh Sera could only say “well.. at least indeed it could be repaired” as she shook her head
The recent beast tide was indeed quite average and yet it easily destroyed a mid size city. Considering her defense it only highlighted how terrifying the Untamed Forested Mountains truly is more so that this is just the outskirts, what terrifying things that could be lurking deeper within the forests .
“i just hope that this is not going to be a regular event”
Though it took several days the stone city was eventually fixed back in pristine condition as if the entire stone city was not trampled by a horde of monstrous creatures a few days ago. But with the destruction of several thousand Knight Golems slowed Sera Hawke’s progress on harvesting materials.
Despite the shortage of Golem workers she resolved it easily within a weeks time by manufacturing more that 10,000 Stone Golems a rather common Golem spell model in which this valley is currently rich in terms of stone.
Unlike Sera’s previous works the Stone Golems are more robust in design with a height of 5 Meters tall weighing 30 Tons it is considered to be a lumbering hulk of a Golem. But in the end they were created as a stop gap just in case another beast tide emerges from the forest.
The Stone Golem are quite slow and bulky even though the Stone City can accommodate them they were designed to spend their time outside of the City and replace the Knight Golems from doing menial tasks.
Meanwhile the state of current affairs about the Eastern Cultivators’ invasion of the Continental Isle has become a hot topic to the Kingdoms and powers of the continent specifically to those who were not reached by the bloodshed.
The so called Eastern Immortals have been put in quite an awkward position as the invaders they could not proceed in the invasion properly due to lack of manpower and resources. Resources as in essential supplies to feed the troops, heal the injured and materials for their cultivation.
Unfortunately the deep riches of precious mineral deposits of the Former Kaladia City could not be converted to consumable supplies as nobody wanted to trade with them.
Problems with resources, manpower, time and pressure from the alliance for immediate results threaten to make this invasion crumble. Even back at the Eastern Continent around half of the owners of unstable dragon veins did not approve of this invasion, primarily because they have not recovered from the last war 800 years ago second is that due to the sudden instability of the dragon veins these passive factions decided to find an alternative answer without spending a significant fortune on the invasion which is currently looking more like of a gamble as the days passed by.
Many Sect Leaders and Clan Heads could not help praising their own judgement as they opted out of the invasion that is threatening to become a disaster on its investors.