All while Danny replenished his origin energy, he received several reports about the situation at the three other gates.
Everyone had already noticed that Danny and his army had finished their fights, and the three Lords were slowly getting nervous. They began to use their trump cards to change the tide of battle in their favor. The Bone Giants, the Anubirats, and the Kleshabits died miserably, leaving only the Necrosphinx and some weaker Undead to kill.
There were still stronger forces amongst the 'weaker' units of defense, but the three Lords focused on the Necrosphinx. That was only obvious, after all, the Necrosphinx had eliminated more than a tenth of their combatants. In front of each of the gates more than 30,000 bodies were scattered, all reaped by the Guardian Statues and the Undead of the Sacred Desert.
Danny enjoyed the reports quite a lot. They were interesting to listen to, and they gave Danny enough reason to enter the Primedival Pyramid through the southern gate once he and his army had caught some rest.
He fastened the three messenger crystals to his belt after he forwarded a few additional commands. Afterward, he entered the Primedival Pyramid through the humongous gate with slow and careful steps.
His decision to enter the Primedival Pyramid before the others could be considered reckless. The other Lords could just stop attacking the remaining gates and force their way through Danny's army in order to follow him inside the Primedival Pyramid through the southern gate, after all.
However, Danny made sure that his army followed him inside the Primedival Pyramid where most guarded the entrance of the Pyramid from within.
Danny had retrieved various large-scale artillery weapons such as the boulder catapults, large-scale ballistae that used armor-piercing bolts, and magical Scorpio capable of releasing more than 60 bolts within a minute.
With ample preparations, Danny could ensure that no one would dare to charge inside the lengthy hallway of the southern entrance.
He didn't want anyone to bother him as he paved his way through the Primedival Pyramid. Distraction would inevitably lead to mistakes…and mistakes led to death, usually. At least, that was the case in the Origin Expanse most of the time.
All in all, the inside of the Primedival Pyramid was quite dangerous. It had quizzes, traps, and various guardians protecting the innermost areas of the Primedival Pyramid. Nonetheless, Danny survived all of them quite easily.
While the other Lords struggled with killing the Necrosphinx and the other Undead, Danny was already inside the huge labyrinth and found the first treasure room of the Primedival Pyramid.
He had been quite fast with using his Reinforced Sword Qi to trigger most traps and killing the Guardian Statues with long-range Qi Swords even before they had been activated.
Danny used his Soultrait to an advantage while conquering the Primedival Pyramid, but that was only normal. Why wouldn't he use his Reinforced Sword Qi?
Using all of his means was necessary to ensure a safe conquest. Thus, Danny did just that.
After stepping inside the first treasure vault, Danny didn't immediately charge toward the gold coins, the glowing artifacts that were hovering above the sockets, forget about the Fortune Summoning Scroll that seemed to be smiling vibrantly at him, trying to pull Danny toward it. Instead of being blinded by the fortune that unveiled itself in front of him, Danny released his Reinforced Sword Qi in the form of an expanding sphere.
Releasing his Reinforced Sword Qi like that drained his mental power and energy rapidly. Nonetheless, it was necessary to expand the Sword Qi sphere to determine the location of enchantments and traps.
Most traps were split into two versions -- Enchantment Traps and Common Traps. The prefix 'common' suggested that common traps were not dangerous, however, they were the leading cause of death in most of the ancient ruins. Common Traps were hard to locate because the origin energy permeating the air and ground equally covered the traces left behind by the common – mostly energyless – traps easily.
Meanwhile, enchantment traps, as the name suggested, were traps that had been created with the help of enchantments. They were mostly a lot more complex, and it would be a hassle once they were triggered. Fortunately, it was much easier to detect them as long as one paid attention to the surrounding area.
Most Lords would notice that something was wrong with the first treasure vault. They wouldn't charge toward the Artifacts and the Fortune Summoning Scrolls greedily and would inspect their surroundings first. However, there were always fools who acted before thinking. Some fools would be consumed by their greed, rush forward, and trigger a wide variety of complex enchantment traps at once.
The foolish men and women blinded by greed would burn alive before they were frozen to death. Then they would be consumed by corpse devourer enchantments – their bodies used to reanimate the defense forces of the Primedival Pyramid.
Danny wasn't very knowledgeable about enchantments, but he was aware of some basic enchantments. He could also tell what effect some slightly less known enchantments could have. However, that was already it. He didn't know the full effect of most enchantments filling this room. Thus, instead of vigilantly moving around, Danny did something most would consider foolish.
He risked losing all the rewards by filling the entire treasure vault with his Sword Qi Sphere. Then he left the vault to return to the hallway where the Lamia Queen and some other Summons and Awakened were waiting for him. Once Danny left the treasure vault, he released a burst of energy through the Sword Qi Sphere. The sphere burst open, scattering the sword qi all over the treasure vault, which triggered all enchantments inside the vault at once.
From one moment to the next, the treasure vault was set ablaze. It was flooded with water a minute later. However, the water didn't leak out of the treasure vault. It seemed as if an invisible barrier was restricting it from leaving the treasure vault. Daniel stood less than a meter in front of the treasure vault's entrance which was now completely filled with water. The water froze within the blink of an eye, causing cracks to spread all over the vault's walls.
Danny frowned seeing the sudden changes occurring in front of him. However, the most interesting thing was that the ice in front of Danny disappeared all of a sudden as a black pentagon formed on the ground, devouring the ice at once.
A few more enchantments had been triggered, and their effects didn't disappear until ten minutes later. When everything went still, Danny could finally enter the treasure vault and collect the treasures that had survived the blazing flames, the flood of water, the transformation of water to ice, and the consumption of ice.
The gold spread all over the surface of the treasure vault had disappeared, which caused most Awakened to curse silently. However, Danny was mostly focused on the Fortune Summoning Scroll and the Artifacts. They were creations that could easily survive some flames, a little bit of water, and ice.
Danny collected the Artifacts and the Fortune Summoning Scrolls. He then heard the Lamia Queen slithering slowly toward him. She was holding a green messenger crystal in her hands.
"It looks like the other Lords finished off the Necrosphinx. They rested for a while and are now leaving the Primedival Pyramid. It seems like they had a change of heart…and they joined hands for the rest of the battle. The desert scouts saw the three Lords come together," The Lamia Queen reported, hissing in anger.
"So they broke the oath we made? Seems like verbal oaths in the name of the Will are not worth much to these people," Danny said with a shrug. He added lightly, "Seems like it was a wise decision to expect their betrayal beforehand and make some preparations."
His territory was void of people, totally unprotected at this moment. It was obvious that Danny expected a betrayal from the Lords. Unfortunately, all three Lords had joined hands against him to defeat him. That was a little bit annoying – but it was also something Danny took into consideration beforehand.
The report of the three Lords charging toward his territory wasn't too weird. Danny retrieved the three messenger crystals from his belt, cleared his throat, and channeled energy inside them to forward his next command.
"Strike, and bring back the Summoning Cores!" Danny ordered through the messenger crystals.
"To your command, My Lord!!" Three loud voices rang out from the messenger crystals, followed by the shouts of thousands of people resounding in the background.
Daniel nodded his head in response. He put the messenger crystals back to the belt and took a look at the treasure vault. Even if the three Lords attacked his base, Danny didn't even consider the possibility of leaving the Primedival Pyramid and rushing to save his territory.
Instead, he had just given an order to the assassins stationed near the territories of the enemy Lords. The assassins had been hiding in the same spot for several days now, waiting patiently for their Lord's command.
Danny had been carefully observing everything for the past few days. He had used the information of his Desert Scouts to accurately determine the number of combatants in the three Lords territories, and how many warriors they left behind in the territories when they left to conquer the Primedival Pyramid.
That was only possible because the Desert Scouts of Danny's territory were more than 500. They had created a perfect network system across the entire hidden area of the Sacred Desert at this point.
The network system allowed him to know everything that happened the instant it occurred thanks to the messenger crystals in their possession. This also allowed the hidden assassins to attack the territories of the other Lords when they were at their weakest, oblivious to the terror they had inflicted on themselves by breaking the oath of the Will.
Daniel valued promises a lot. Thus, he didn't want to attack the other Lords while they were busy dealing with the Undead of the Sacred Desert. However, now that they attacked his territory, thereby breaking the oath, there was no reason to hold back.
Danny tapped the messenger crystals, inserting some energy inside them before he lightly added.
"Don't leave anyone alive. Kill them all!"
[A/N: The author is back in the game! What is your opinion of this lovely snippet of the past? Is it as lovely as I described it, or is it disappointing? Did you expect Danny to be the Overlord of a huge region, or did his strength and actions meet your requirements? Is he as responsible as Michael, or is Danny a little bit sloppy? Does he meet your standards as the protagonist's brother?]
