Even though Michael was not sure if Lesser Elementals were intelligent enough to understand the language of the Origin Expanse, he gave them a fair warning. If his words were not enough, the ring's dragon might was certain to be threatening enough.
Furthermore, Michael and his people were the ones who had freed the Lesser Elementals. That should be more than enough reason for them to feel gratitude and not come to them for revenge. They were the Elementals' benefactors, not their enemies.
The Fire Elementals flared up, the flames shrouding their bodies reaching the ceiling high above their heads before they returned to their former appearance. They turned to the deeper parts of the Elementals cave and rushed inside, ignoring Michael and his people.
"It seems like we have some new scouts. Though…I doubt that they're harmless scouts with those bright flames," Michael murmured, spreading out his origin energy as he stepped toward the security post of the Kitsun. He stored the corpses of all Kitsun inside his storage space to extract them later.
Whether it was Memory Orbs, SoulStar Fragments, Soultrait Symbols, Summoning Scrolls or something else, Michael wanted to gain as much as possible from the Kitsun Lord. That was also why Tiara, Lilica and the others had been out hunting in the main settlement to lure the Kitsun Lord by acting as bait. If they were already in the main settlement hunting Awakened and Guards and risking their lives to distract them, they might as well take their corpses with them.
Why wouldn't they take everything if their enemy was giving them the opportunity to strike it rich? Wouldn't it be stupid to leave behind the corpses and everything else of value?
Instead of following closely behind the Lesser Elementals to join their forces, Michael entered the security post. It was a small barrack where the products of the Elementals cave were supposed to be stored until the couriers from the main settlement would come to bring them outside the Origin Expanse for sale.
The goods were stored in a secret vault. Fortunately, Michael found the vault at once, and opened it with ease putting in the password he had obtained from the Kitsun that Tiara brought him before the war began.
Being one of the oldest Kitsun Awakened in the Kitsun Lord's territory, he knew most of the Kitsun Lord's secrets – including his vaults' passwords.
Michael didn't spend a lot of time studying the goods he retrieved from the vault, but they were mostly elemental spirit seeds and elemental crystals. That was exactly what Michael had been hoping for. He stored the crystals and seeds in his storage and left the barracks with his unit, following the Lesser Elementals he had freed earlier.
At the same time, Michael retrieved a few smaller communication crystals to stay updated about the situation in the four other tunnels.
["Mylord, we completed your order. The surprise attack against the first security post allowed us to free a handful of Lesser Elementals, and kill two dozen Kitsun Summons. Following the second and third barrage of Pieckers, we were able to break two dozen chokers, resulting in an overwhelming victory against the Kitsun.
The Fire Elementals helped us avenge the three Warriors, who sacrificed themselves to protect the rest of the group against a Tier-2 Kitsun Awakened. They died an honorable death. We will always be grateful for their sacrifice. The Lesser Elementals moved deeper into the cave. We think that they're either after the lives of the Kitsun or that they want to rescue their brethren."]
Three reports stating similar events followed the second scouting team's report. Michael felt that a few Links of Loyalty had been cut earlier but hearing the same through the communication crystals hit differently. It made him nauseous.
'Will I ever get accustomed to the death of my people? Death is common in the Origin Expanse. War is normal. So why do I get so affected? Am I that weak-minded?' Michael wondered, shaking his head in frustration.
He considered moving back to the cavern intersection to store all corpses and loot the vaults in the other security posts, but he decided against it. Michael was not in a rush to collect the corpses and empty the vaults full of resources. There was no need to run around like a headless chicken. Instead, he should focus on the battles that lay ahead of him.
They had yet to reach the bottom of the Elementals Cave.
"Let's get moving," Michael ordered through the communication crystals before he gestured to his people to follow him.
They entered the next cavern tunnel and went deeper inside.
As their group ventured further into the Elementals cave, the path moved downward like a winding staircase. Their steps resounded through the cavern tunnel as they moved ahead, and the origin energy around them intensified. Vigor filled their bodies as the origin energy, altered through the elements of the Elementals swirled around them.
The element-attributed energy grew denser and heavier, making Michael feel that he and his units were approaching the secrets of the Elementals cave. The walls around them spread out further, and the air was growing heavier. The dimly lit crystal torches were hung on sconces on the walls at regular intervals across the Elemental cave, casting eerie shadows on the rocky walls. It revealed small, sparkling crystal deposits that glimmered brightly in the darkness. Michael considered harvesting some of the crystals for a moment to analyze them as they moved downward, but he ignored his inner insatiable greed and moved ahead.
Every step took them deeper into the hidden world of the Elemental cave, following the twisting trail as it led them further beneath the surface.
More than half an hour passed before Michael realized, and he checked up on the other units with his communication crystals. However, nothing special happened. They encountered small intersections that had been dug to harvest the elemental crystals in the Elementals Cave, but other than that there was nothing special.
It felt like hours passed until bright lights appeared at the end of the cavern tunnels.
At last, they reached another cavern hall, where the five units of Michael's army emerged near-simultaneously.
The cavern hall was even bigger than the hall with the first security post or the entrance hall. The ceiling was more than 20 meters high, and it was several hundred meters long and wide. No matter where Michael looked his vision was either filled with crystals sprouting out of the ground, hanging down ceilings, or growing out of walls, or Elementals pinned down to the wall with thick crystal chains.
These Elementals were much larger than the Lesser Elementals and their natural presence was stronger as well. However, they were weakened and their energy levels, which Michael could perceive were faint as well. Even if they used to be much stronger than the Lesser Elementals, their current power level was likely to be lower than that of the Lesser Elementals.
Other than the elemental crystals, and the larger Elementals, Michael also found a much larger security post. It resembled a thick pillar that was located in the center of the humongous cavern. Close to a thousand Kitsun Summons, and a few dozen Kitsun Awakened stood in front of the pillar-like security post, their full attention cast on the thousands of Lesser Elementals, who had been forced to attack a smaller group of Lesser Elementals – the group of Lesser Elementals Michael and his people freed earlier.
Michael wanted to rush to help the Lesser Elementals he freed earlier, but charging into a battlefield filled with Fire Elementals that erupted every now and then, creating an inferno that filled most parts of the battlefield for a few seconds would do more harm than good. Michael couldn't act recklessly.
He scanned the humongous cavern hall once again and noticed that the Kitsun didn't pay much attention to them. They were either too focused on the fight of the Lesser Elementals to realize that something was wrong, or they had already sensed that Michael and his people had infiltrated the Elementals cave and dismissed them as a lesser threat.
Michael turned to the other Scout team leaders when he thought about the latter.
"Any news about the Awakened that moved out of the Elementals cave earlier? Did anyone enter the cave after we invaded?" Michael asked them before he retrieved a few communication crystals from his War Rune.
"How is the situation? Did they return?" Michael asked into the first communication crystal before he moved on to call Tiara and Lilica's troupe.
"Move back and surround the Elementals cave. Look out for our scouts. Something might have happened."
He then moved on to the third communication crystal, the crystal that connected them with their home, and ordered, "Pay attention to your surroundings. I am probably just overreacting but send the Forest Whisperers out, and order the Nature Spirit to halt all tasks to scan the surroundings as far as possible. Increase the danger sense level of the Orb of Hostility as well. I don't care how much it costs, just make sure that you can find the Kitsun if they dare to invade our territory."
Michael was actually pretty certain that the Kitsun Lord hadn't predicted his attack. The reaction of the guard and Awakened had been genuine when he sent out the decoy at the main settlement. No Lord would deploy hundreds of Awakened and thousands of combat Summons to trick a 'nobody' like him.
If he wanted to trick him, the Kitsun Lord could have attacked Michael when he was outside the Origin Expanse instead of revealing his existence by sending a few Kitsun Summons and Lesser Elementals close to his border.
Despite that Michael's gut feeling kept telling him that something was wrong. Therefore, he told his people to increase their vigilance and up their guard in his territory. Sun Demos, his Demon Monkeys, the Greater Eagles, and the Heavy Armored Elephant were already on their way back home as well. His territory would be fine, leaving merely his task in the Elementals cave to be completed.
The communication crystal belonging to the scout that had followed the Guards and Awakened outside the Elementals cave rang out a moment later. However, the content brought up more questions.
["The Guards and Awakened the Elementals cave security deployed is…resting, and drinking beer… They entered the settlement half an hour ago and have been drinking since then. It doesn't feel like they're vigilant, let alone worried that the settlement might be attacked again."]
After the scout's communication crystal lit up, Lilica sent him a message as well.
["We've entered the Elementals Cave, and will guard it. The Golden Stinger Wasp stung us and will return to the territory. In case someone attacks, we can swap places with the Wasp at any time. Don't worry and finish your mission. Becoming the benefactors of the Elementals could prove even more important than annihilating the Kitsun Lord!"]
Michael nodded his head in agreement with that. The Elementals in the cave had been subdued if they were too weak-willed to resist the submission of the crystal chokers, or they had been pinned to the walls. But even then, their natural properties grew elemental crystals in the cave. Having the Elementals on their side would prove extremely valuable in terms of combat power and in terms of financial gains.
The warriors and fighters around him were also unwilling to leave. On the contrary, their eyes were vibrant, overflowing with the desire to defeat their enemies, grow stronger through their energy influx, and support Michael in the expansion of his territory by all means.
"Report immediately when something goes wrong on the surface okay, Lilica?" Michael asked. He received Lilica's affirmation not long after, which was everything Michael needed to get moving.
He split his army into two groups that moved around the battlefield. They kept close to the walls and slowly inched closer toward the cavern center where the Kitsun Summons and Awakened began to move as well. It might look like they were fully focused on the fight between the Lesser Elementals, but some of the Awakened further in the back rows decided to pay full attention to the movements of Michael's people.
However, Michael had long since noticed that. He split up from his groups and moved to the battlefield, releasing Glacicles to cover his entire body with tiny glacicles to keep his body cold even after the temperature around him increased.
He condensed an arrow and pulled Zark back all while approaching the battlefield.
Michael released the arrow that cut through the air, shattering one of the crystal chokers, and thereby freeing another Fire Elemental.
In the next moment, the 210 Archers Michael brought to the battle released their arrows simultaneously.
But they didn't aim at the Lesser Elementals to shatter their chokers. No, Michael's army focused on the Kitsun Summons and Awakened.
Meanwhile, Michael was given a few minutes to unleash his power to turn the tides on the battlefield.
**
[A/N: Today a little longer chapter than usual. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Finally, we're back at wreaking havoc in the Origin Expanse. What do you think will happen? Will the Kitsun lose miserably, or will Michael face his first big challenge(other than the Zentika Empire)?]
