There were four barbarians in the small group and Liam tackled them without summoning the soul minions. He wanted to see just what strength were the elves talking about.
The black dragon sword in his hand thrummed in resonance as he dashed forward and sliced the toughened up skin of the barbarians.
SLASH. SLASH. SLASH. SLASH.
His body nimbly moved as he evaded all of their attacks and slashed at them relentlessly. The huge barbarians were completely helpless as their bloodthirsty eyes locked onto Liam wanting to tear him apart but they couldn't even touch him.
From the beginning to the end, Liam was in control of the entire fight. The fight started and finished in the blink of an eye.
"Level 45, Level 54, Level 49, and Level 30." Liam kicked around the corpses, observing their level and picking up the loot that dropped, some silver coins.
"Hmmm… these guys weren't that strong. Maybe I need to target more higher-leveled guys, but just to be safe..." He grabbed hold of one of the three barbarians' souls and started forging it quickly.
It took a few minutes but Liam was done soon. He had selected the Level 54 barbarian and the final soul minion turned out to be Level 51.
"Not bad." He nodded in satisfaction at his creation.
Unlike the necromancy class, he needed some time to raise each undead in his command but the plus point was that… he could still talk to them and access their memories.
Liam forged this guy for this exact purpose. He waited for the soul minion to fully activate and then stood up to face the undead barbarian, coming straight to the point.
"What is so special about you guys? How do you have such high physical strength and defense?"
The barbarian immediately revealed a disgruntled expression, looking at Liam and then at himself, unable to accept his new reality. He stared down at the enemy unwilling to answer any of his questions.
However… his mouth opened on its own and he was already talking. "Barbarians are tough. Raised tough. We are engaged in constant combat since birth."
The undead soul then continued talking about all the combats he had participated in since his birth. Liam listened to him ramble on for a while scratching his head, but then he dismissed the new guy. Clearly, this was not the information he was looking for.
"I will go ahead and search for some more I guess." He entered [Stealth] and started looking for the next prey. Not long after, he met another group. These guys were also Level 50 something and they were about ten in number.
Liam did not take any unnecessary risks. This time he summoned some of his minions and attacked the small group along with this party.
However, once again the fight was underwhelming. The group of barbarians was easily overpowered and the fight also ended without any surprise.
Liam saw the corpses littered on the ground and tried creating another soul minion. He interrogated the guy just like the one before without getting any solid answers. Once again, they were not able to learn anything new.
"Hmmm… this is going too slow." Liam clicked his tongue and silently retreated back. From what he had seen, sure the barbarians were a bit tough but the elf's words were definitely misleading.
They did not have any special strength that he needed to be wary of. He looked around sighting another group not too far away but he did not engage with them.
He had wasted enough time at the border like this. It was time to cross over the place seriously. Liam returned to the spot and took Luna from where he had hidden her.
He then glanced at the elves who were nearby. They seemed to have somewhat settled down now but no one looked interested in moving from that hiding spot.
"Fuck this. What a waste of time!" Liam decided to ignore the group for now. They were not the only ones who were capable of showing him the path ahead.
He summoned the newly forged barbarians and proceeded inside the territory with the help of information from these guys and his map.
"So the easiest path here should be through this small village." He dodged the heavily defended areas and tried to pass through the small villages that were scattered around.
With the undead barbarians in the lead, the first village was crossed just like that. "Alright, now where do we go?"
"There forest in this village is very dense. Grraa. Easy to cross here." One of the soul minions answered even though he clearly did not want to.
Liam nodded and sneakily crossed the second village also. However, this time the journey was not so peaceful. They faced a few mobs of beasts which were quickly taken down by the soul undead.
As he bent down to pick up the drops grumbling that the rabbit was not doing her job properly, Liam noticed a few familiar faces from the corner of his eyes.
It looked like the elves were quietly following him from a distance. "Hmmm?" Liam turned to look at them.
Lyana and the other elves immediately bent their heads down.
Liam was speechless. Wouldn't it be better to just come along with him instead of doing this roundabout thing? He couldn't understand this strange behavior.
"Well, whatever." He was already here so he continued moving forward using his methods. After the second village, the group silently snuck through the third and the fourth village as well.
Everything almost felt too easy when suddenly one of the undead barbarians stopped moving. The others also followed suit and all of them stopped moving.
"What happened?" Liam frowned, "Which is the safest path from here?"
However, none of the undead answered him this time. "Hmmm?" Liam paused for a moment and then asked a different question.
"Is there no safe path from here?"
Immediately, the five newly forged undead bobbed their heads. "Yes."
