Chapter 265: Raw ores
Han Shuo immediately ducked behind a lush bush upon leaving the valley. He used his mental strength to contact the earth elite zombie and the little skeleton.
Whoosh! A thin white light gleamed under the moonlight, whizzing from within the valley to settle beside Han Shuo. This was obviously the little skeleton holding his bone knife.
The seven bone spurs had returned to the little skeleton’s back. He held the bone knife very leisurely, like a child touring a flower garden, not caring at all about the chaotic happenings in the valley. What a veteran!
After establishing contact with his mind, Han Shuo could sense the earth elite zombie swimming towards him from the depths of the valley. Ten seconds later, the ground beneath his feet loosened and the honest earth elite zombie clambered out.
“Where are they?” Han Shuo hastily asked upon seeing the earth elite zombie return.
The earth elite zombie was taken aback. He scratched his head dumbly in a moment of thought, then sank again down to the ground, going back to the valley using the same way. However, his speed was a little slower this time. Han Shuo focused his eyes and discovered that the earth elite zombie had drilled a tunnel that one person could fit in.
It seemed that the earth elite zombie had thrown everything to the wind and returned to Han Shuo when his master had called him just now, so he’d completely forgotten Trunks and the others. Only after Han Shuo’s inquiry did the earth elite zombie remember that he’d been in charge, so he used his natural talent to dig a tunnel again.
The earth elite zombie could swim freely within the earth, but Trunks and the others didn’t have this miraculous talent. Thus the tunnel was essential. The earth elite zombie was using his talents to create a passage in the valley, and thus his current speed couldn’t compare to his usual flying through the earth.
The three yin demons were quite a distance away. One was following the Cairo mercenary band’s chief Laureton. Laureton had returned to his twice berserk state now and was escaping towards the Valley of Sunshine along with the rest of the remaining Cairo experts.
The Cairo mercenary band had taken severe damage after the intense battle in the valley. A dozen experts had been killed, incensing Laureton. However, he understood that it was simply impossible for the Cairo mercenary band to win against the three other forces outside the Valley of Sunshine. He intended to return with full effort to the Valley of Sunshine and take revenge at a later time.
Another yin demon remained in the valley. Since Han Shuo had beaten Ferguson to death, Florida had suffered a major blow. He was currently holding Ferguson’s corpse and letting out earth-shattering wails. He’d simply forgotten about leading the pursuit of Laureton.
Ferguson had dearly spoiled his grandson, paving a great and easy path for his growth. It was due to Ferguson’s identity, as well as support from the Church of Light, that allowed Florida to have the confidence in contesting Laureton for the position of leading power in the Valley of Sunshine. However, since the grandfather who’d nurtured him had been beaten to death by Han Shuo, it’d be hard to say if he could borrow the force of the Church of Light from now on.
To Florida, his grandfather’s death was emotionally unbearable and also threw a great wrench into his practical benefits. Even the sinister leader of the Rainbow Sickle mercenary band couldn’t help but burst into tears under this double blow.
The House of Menlo’s group wasn’t very far from Florida. Adam Menlo’s was covered in injuries. When taking that sky-shattering blow from Han Shuo, Adam Menlo had first circulated his fighting aura for a full body defense before wrapping himself firmly in the great roc. That was how he’d barely escaped the grasp of death.
Although he’d avoided heavy injury, his partner for decades, the golden-winged roc hadn’t shared the same luck. It had almost been scraped bald by the little skeleton’s bone knife, and more than half the feathers on its golden wings had been snapped. When it’d faced Han Shuo’s heaven-shattering blow, the roc had protected Adam Menlo out of instinct, using its enormous body to withstand the attack. Its injuries were extremely serious.
In this moment, even though Adam Menlo’s heart was dejected, he was also extremely furious. He shakily caressed the roc’s bald, bloody wings and screamed with rage, “I want to kill him! I must kill him!!”
Several small powers lurking in the valley had witnessed all of the heaven-shaking changes that had taken place thus far. Han Shuo’s crazy atrocities were engraved in their minds and made the name of Soul Destroyer famous. Since Han Shuo’s performance tonight demonstrated his close relationship with the Soul Destroyer mercenary band, no one would dare to look down on the group’s strength again.
Han Shuo used the three yin demons to observe their surroundings. After a while, the earth elite zombie leapt out from the ground again. He pulled on Han Shuo’s sleeve and pointed his finger to the underground tunnel, as if waiting for praise.
Patting the earth elite zombie’s shoulder, Han Shuo said with a smile, “Not bad, you did it right this time!”
“Did what right!?” Trunks followed up as he jumped out of the tunnel with a loud laugh.
Gilbert also climbed out with a large hemp sack. Grant and the others followed behind, each also carried a large sack, their faces shining with excitement.
“How were things?” Han Shuo asked with a smile, knowing from their expressions that they must have had some generous gains.
“It was hard to advance inside. There were rocks as sharp as knives. I’m afraid it’d have been simply impossible if it wasn’t for your friend’s help. There were several Rainbow Sickle mercenaries, we casually killed them all and took the raw ores that they harvested. We also mined some more and brought them here.” Trunks seemed especially happy as he narrated with a carefree laugh.
“Looks like the Rainbow Sickle mercenaries used the advantage of geography to gain a head start. Florida had actually dared announce that after killing Laureton, they would give up the mithril mine. How shameless! Oh right, how big was the mine? How much did we harvest?” Han Shuo scorned at Florida’s pledge then continued questioning.
Shaking his head, Trunks said helplessly, “I’m not sure. We only came in contact with a limited area. What we brought back are a few raw ores with small amounts of mithril within. We need someone in the know to confirm what we’ve harvested today.”
If the metal elite zombie was refined, its natural talent could be used to scope out the size of the mine. With his ability to control metal and metal ores, the metal elite zombie could easily gather all of the resources in the entire silver mine within a short amount of time, leaving not even a piece of mithril behind.
Unfortunately, the place of extreme metal was the most difficult to find out of the five extreme areas. He was unable to refine the metal elite zombie before locating it. With the metal elite zombie, Han Shuo simply wouldn’t have to worry about lacking any ores. When the ability of the dwarves and the metal elite zombie’s natural talent to sense metal was combined, a steady supply of weapons would become a simple matter.
Sighing for a bit, Han Shuo suddenly noticed some movement from Janet’s bandit group. He immediately cursed, “Alright, let’s leave first. The valley is engulfed in chaos, so we shouldn’t stay here for the time being.”
“You guys put down the ores, I’ll put them into my space ring.” Han Shuo urged Gilbert and the rest.
Only Trunks wore a space ring amongst this bunch, even Grant and the mercenaries used bags tied around their waists. Space rings were famously expensive. These mercenaries naturally didn’t have enough gold coins to buy one.
However, Grant and the mercenaries didn’t act immediately upon Han Shuo’s instructions. They looked to Trunks, as if waiting for him to express his opinions.
“Listen to him. From now on, his commands are my commands. You guys should remember this well!” Trunks had a strict face as he carefully instructed.
“Understood!” Grant’s folks were relieved of a great burden after putting their sacks down. They hastily took the large sacks off their backs and placed them in front of Han Shuo.
The weight of these large sacks loaded with large and small broken rocks were such that an ordinary person wouldn’t be able to tolerate them. Even for these mercenaries, the way back to the Soul Destroyer mercenary base would be an unlucky, painful errand.
One white light flashed after another. All of the large and small sacks disappeared into Han Shuo’s space ring. After all was done, Han Shuo waved his hand saying, “Follow me, we’ll block Janet’s escape route. This time, we shall be the bandits and capture Janet.”
“Let’s do it like that then. I must get some clear answers!” Trunks immediately remembered Annie’s matter when Han Shuo mentioned Janet. His happy mood turned sorrowful as he shouted with a darkened face.
Two of the three yin demons had returned while the last was closely following Janet’s bandit group, paying close attention to their every move. The Soul Destroyers took a shortcut to block Janet’s way under Han Shuo’s directions, suddenly discovering some suspicious behavior from these people. Unexpectedly, Janet’s gang was laying an ambush where the House of Menlo would pass.
It seemed that Janet intended on taking advantage of the House of Menlo’s heavy losses, and make out like bandits!