The twenty warriors moved simultaneously.
The warrior who had been kneeling on the ground suddenly snapped his head up, his amber eyes bloodshot.
He grabbed the hunting bow beside him and charged toward the village entrance.
And then,
He stepped on the Seed Bomb planted at the entrance.
An emerald-green light exploded beneath his feet.
Boom.
Wooden spikes shot out in all directions from the center of the explosion.
Dark green wooden splinters—as thick as a thumb and as long as a finger—pierced through his calves, thighs, abdomen, chest, throat, and eye sockets with a sharp whistling sound.
His body was thrown back by the shockwave, slamming onto the gravel ground three meters away. He was riddled with wooden spikes, and pale green blood gushed from dozens of wounds simultaneously.
The Sentinel's pupils shrank violently.
"Retreat—"
Before he could finish, the second Seed Bomb exploded.
Then the third.
The fourth.
The fifth.
By the haystacks at the village entrance, in the shadows of the wooden houses, within the cracks of the well's stone slabs, and beside the thatched piles on the back hill, bursts of emerald light ignited one after another. Wooden spikes shot out and intersected throughout the village like a torrential rain.
Nineteen warriors were instantly swallowed by the storm of wooden spikes.
Pale green blood erupted from countless wounds, flowing freely over the gravel ground.
The Sentinel reacted the fastest. He kicked off the ground, retreating backward while his right hand gripped the hilt of his bone-white longblade.
But there were too many spikes.
One splinter pierced his left shoulder, another his right leg, and a third transfixed his forearm.
He gritted his teeth, his amber eyes filled with ferocity.
His right hand snatched a dark red crystal from his waist and crushed it in his palm.
The crystal shattered.
A blood-red light shot from his palm into the sky, exploding mid-air and transforming into a lingering cloud of blood-red smoke.
In the next instant, over a dozen wooden spikes pierced his chest simultaneously.
The Sentinel's body collapsed heavily to the ground.
Silence returned to the village.
Twenty more corpses, riddled with wooden spikes, now lay on the gravel.
Pale green blood spread from beneath the bodies, mixing with the already dried bloodstains, staining the entire village entrance a mottled shade of dark brownish-green.
The blood-red smoke cloud in the sky drifted slowly, appearing exceptionally piercing against the blue sky and white clouds.
"Heh, people really don't look where they're going, do they? My Seed Bombs were so obvious. Anyway, it's time to get down to business and stir up something bigger. I'm close to the next passive."
A day later, Ethan leaned against a pine tree.
After a day of hard work, his Life Energy had finally reached 16,488.
"Excellent. It's time to unlock it. Unlock passive."
【Consume 16,384 Life Energy to unlock the 15th passive?】
"Confirm."
【Energy deducted: 16,384 points. Current energy: 104 points.】
【Generating passive...】
【Generation complete. Acquired passive: Goddess of Life's Favor.】
【Goddess of Life's Favor: Vitality increased by 100,000%, recovering 5% of maximum Vitality per second. When dealing any damage to a living being, extracts their origin for personal use, converting it into an equivalent amount of Vitality.】
Ethan's pupils shrank slightly.
One hundred thousand percent.
A thousand-fold increase in Vitality.
Coupled with the 5% maximum Vitality recovery per second and the life-steal effect that converted damage into Vitality...
"Isn't this just putting a lock on my health bar? I'm basically unkillable now."
A slow grin spread across his face.
"Objective achieved. Now I can play it safe."
Ethan picked a random direction and continued deeper into the mountains.
After running for about a hundred kilometers, Ethan came to a halt.
"One head, two big heads, I'm your father, I'm your dad."
As he spoke, Ethan casually pointed in a direction with each word.
When the last word fell, he was pointing toward a stretch of woodland.
"Heh, this place is perfect."
Walking to the riverbank, mana surged within his hands.
Countless vines intertwined, wrapping Ethan in a cocoon.
Then, the vines at Ethan's feet intertwined and churned, forming a drill.
Under Ethan's control, the drill spiraled downward with manic intensity.
Soil, gravel, and tree roots were ground up by the vine drill and pushed to the sides.
The vine drill carried Ethan deep underground.
The hollow Ethan left behind was plugged by countless vines. From the outside, those vines blended perfectly with the surrounding vegetation, their roots digging into the soil and their leaves stretching out under the sunlight.
The river continued to flow.
Birdsong drifted from the distant canopy.
It was as if no one had ever been there.
Three hundred meters underground.
The vine drill came to a stop.
The vines surrounding Ethan slowly unfurled, propping up a spherical space about three meters high and five meters in diameter.
The vines wove into a net-like structure, firmly supporting the surrounding soil and gravel to prevent a cave-in.
Above his head, the vertical tunnel had been completely filled with vines.
"Yeah, this position is about right."
Mana surged in Ethan's hands.
Vines extended from the ground, their tips piercing into the soil layer above.
The soil instantly became soft, and large chunks of earth and stone peeled away from the dome.
Wizard's Hand caught the falling soil, stuffing it clump by clump into his storage ring.
The vines continued to excavate the surroundings while Wizard's Hand constantly retrieved the debris.
Ethan stood in the center of the spherical space, his mental power split into dozens of threads, simultaneously controlling the vines to loosen the soil, Wizard's Hand to grab it, and the ring to store it.
When the storage ring was nearly full, the soil was transported directly to the surface.
As the soil was dumped out, several vines would sprout from the ground, coiling around nearby grass seeds and shrub branches to plant them into the new earth.
The seeds sprouted, and the shrubs took root.
Within a few breaths, the new soil was completely covered by vegetation, merging seamlessly with the surrounding hillside.
The spherical space grew larger and larger.
Five meters, ten meters, fifteen meters, twenty meters.
Vines wove into a mesh across the dome and walls, firmly supporting the surrounding earth.
Wizard's Hand sorted the excavated earth and stone into piles, using gravel for the base and fine soil to fill the gaps, tamping the ground flat and firm.
Ethan stood in the center of the space, his mental power outputting continuously. Loosening soil, grabbing, storing, dumping, and covering with plants.
The five steps cycled repeatedly, like a precision alchemy production line.
Days passed.
When the space expanded to a radius of ten thousand meters, Ethan finally stopped.
This was enough.
This space was more than enough to house five sets of Wizard Towers and teleportation arrays.
Bone-white foundation stones, dark silver runic plates, emerald-green energy cores, and a dense array of components appeared.
Every piece was numbered, and every piece had its position marked according to the blueprints.
Ethan glanced at the blueprints.
The construction instructions were very detailed. Which foundation stone went where, which runic plate connected to which energy circuit, and which component corresponded to which node—everything was clearly labeled.
He stomped his foot.
Countless vines surged from beneath his feet like a green tide, spreading in all directions.
The vines coiled around the materials on the ground, categorizing them by number.
Bone-white foundation stones in one pile, dark silver runic plates in another, emerald-green energy cores in a third, and components arranged neatly by size and shape.
Ethan opened his right hand.
A pale green light surged from his palm, condensing into emerald-green points of light throughout the space.
The points of light hit the ground and grew rapidly, vines intertwining until wooden forms took shape.
One by one, they stood up from the points of light.
One hundred.
Three hundred.
Five hundred.
One thousand.
Two thousand.
Three thousand.
Ethan withdrew his right hand.
Three thousand.
This was his current limit.
Any more, and the precision of his mental power control would drop. These guards were meant to be construction workers, not cannon fodder.
Rate on N.U.
