In the blink of an eye, five barbarians stood guard near each of the injured elves, and Crawford was already near Luna, right in the face of the dark elf, which looked very unsightly at the moment.
Then something even more unbelievable happened as Luna's figure blurred and she instantly appeared next to Liam, well away from the dark elf. This time, even Liam was shocked. It looked like the little fox had unlocked a new ability!
As if this was not enough, the several other remaining soul minions were now rushing towards the dark elf. "Curses!" Dimitri dropped the potion he was holding, which began to give off a dark violet vapor, and ran for his life.
This was a top-tier poison potion that he had personally developed, so he confidently believed that this was going to buy him some time. However…
Not caring one bit about the poisonous miasma, the weird-looking creatures were chasing after him. What the hell are these things?
He looked around in a panic to see that at least the poisonous miasma had prevented the fox and the human being from following him.
Hmph! He made a snap decision as he took out another potion bottle. This time the bottle was golden in color and the potion inside looked more like a vapor than a normal potion.
The dark elf menacingly eyed Liam again as he unwillingly swallowed this potion, and the next second, his figure disappeared.
Crawford's attack only landed on empty air. The soul minions searched the area for a while but the dark elf was nowhere to be found.
"That's enough." Liam's voice sounded from the back. He knew that they had lost him.
"Master, who is that?" Luna growled. "He threw something stinky at me!"
Liam couldn't help but snap out of his thoughts and laugh loudly. "That's right. You don't recognize him. You were still an egg when we met him. Ha Ha Ha Ha. But I am pretty sure he is here right now because of you."
Kyu? The fox innocently cocked her head.
"Do you still remember all the fire fragments you swallowed?"
Kyu?
Liam was speechless, but he wasn't all that surprised. After all, Luna had eaten all three flame fragments while she was still an egg, and he did not even want to go into the issue of whether she had consciousness then or not.
"Anyway, I think that the dark elf is not gone yet. He is definitely hiding somewhere around us." Liam thought out loud in a low voice. Luna immediately turned serious as she looked around as if meaning to sniff him out. However, she was only drawing a blank.
"It's fine. Let's keep going. Maybe he is gone." Though Liam said this, he already knew that the dark elf wouldn't leave them alone this easily. The guy was a poison master and a very crafty one at that.
He should have seen that his own strength doesn't compare with Liam's, so he should be lying in wait for an opportunity to fight dirty, or at least until he crossed the Forest of Echoes.
Beyond that, he would no longer be under the watch of the elves, so that's when he was probably planning to strike again.
"Master, what about these guys?" Luna snapped at one of the elves who was secretly trying to inch away from the group.
"Oh them? Right. Thanks for reminding me." Liam revealed a big smile. "I was thinking we should add some new friends to our group."
Huh? All the captured elves were confused. What the hell was he talking about? Friends? Perhaps he was going to let them go?
Only the one elf had a terrified look on his face. Since he was from a noble family, he had had the chance to come across an undead before and the beings in front of him were all undead.
So what Liam said didn't make him feel relieved one bit. Instead, he only became even more nervous. Something told him that he had made a very bad decision by coming here.
And he was not wrong.
An hour later…
Five elves stirred awake from their eternal slumber. They looked around to see the familiar forest and the familiar faces of the villain and his fox, but there was something different.
"Hello, welcome to the group. By the way, I was wondering if you guys still remember how to craft weapons?"
Liam knew that at least one of the five, the noble family's son, was an apprentice to a forging grandmaster. So he hoped that the guy had some decent knowledge of the subject matter even after his death.
Logically, he should have because only Crawford's soul was split and not whole. Unlike him, everyone else's soul was whole, so they should retain memories completely?
Liam looked expectantly, and the elf also nodded in admission, though he seemed as if that was the last thing he wanted to do.
"He He. Your name? Saevel or Baevel something right?"
"Lord Saevel!" The soul minion immediately snapped back with attitude and arrogance, to which Liam simply laughed. He couldn't care less about it.
Next to the new recruit, Gorak and Gu Donghai also shook their heads pitifully. Poor guy. There was a time when they were also full of attitude like this. They knew that the noobs would mellow down sooner or later.
For the next few minutes, Liam busied himself interrogating the new recruits, particularly Lord Saevel.
What weapons can you forge? What recipes do you know? What grade is your mana core? He asked the group of five all the questions that he could think of, and it looked like they were not completely useless.
If things go as planned, he might be able to make them non-stop forging machines, and these five elves might in fact turn out to be the most valuable assets!
"I need to learn more recipes from the elves before leaving." Liam made a mental note. However, that had to wait. For now, his path was toward one and only place.
He flipped open the system interface and looked at the map, which was getting more and more detailed as he progressed in that direction. At this rate, he would reach that place by the end of the day or maybe even sooner.
He looked at the cute and cuddly fox who was already making herself comfortable around his neck and scooped her up by her neck.
"Your highness Luna, if it is not too much trouble, may I ride you this time?" Liam shook his head helplessly at the lazy idiot. After revealing a skill like that, she still wanted to sleep around his neck all day?
