The moment Violet Sword Blaze passed through the 10 meter marks of the kobold’s cave, they could see a wide room for agricultural purposes. The fields were plowed to promote growth of underground flora such as mushrooms, brambles, or some kind of carrot variants.

Mushrooms might be able to grow only relying on minerals and water below ground but brambles and carrots could not. They require some level of light to grow properly. However, in this environment, they were altered to a certain degree with blood magic. The brambles and carrots were fed with fresh blood, mutating them into a lifeform that couldn’t be found normally in Thunderpeak Mountain.

“These are… profound blood-path life-alteration methods!” Sakuya muttered in amazement.

Certain paths have a close relation with other paths due to various reasons, such as earth-path with metal-path, water-path with blood-path or blood-path with necro-path. With that said, it wasn’t weird for necromancers to have blood-path methods under their sleeves.

Although cultivators usually cultivate one main path and a sub path, the majority often look for other paths to derive some methods or for inspiration. Therefore, even if Sakuya did not cultivate blood-path, she could recognize the profundity of these life-alteration methods.

In Sumire’s point of view, things weren’t that simple. These altered plants managed to survive under hostile conditions to feed the population of kobolds. It needs to be said that kobold’s main diet is mostly meat, not vegetables or fruits even if they contain magical energy. By forcing them to change their diet, the kobold will experience various consequences. It is simply unfit for kobolds to consume non-meat.

Still, the necromancer forced their kobold to change diet while mitigating the damage by grooming Fleshberry Brambles. These brambles produce fleshberries, they need to be irrigated by fresh blood to thrive. Although it seems simple, it wasn’t actually so.

To alter the original brambles into a Fleshberry Brambles, it requires profound knowledge and experience of transfiguration. In other words, transformation-path methods.

Though in reality, transfiguration methods are not exclusive to transformation-path. Transformation-path is merely a path that is highly specialized in transfiguration and alteration of lifeforms. However, when Sumire considered the strict requirement for common brambles to mutate into fleshberry brambles, this became complicated.

Fleshberry is a blood-path material which can be used for activating several well-known blood-path magic spells or cultivating blood-related abilities. When this uncommon rank 0 material is used to feed kobolds, it feels like ordering fine food to feed beggars en masse.  

However, thinking about the resources available in the environment, it was actually very logical to groom fleshberry brambles because of the influx of beasts. Thanks to the quality of their diet, the kobolds have grown even better compared to the ones that lived in Magnur city. Though, it seems like the time was too short as the lair have yet to produce blood-path mutant kobolds.

This implies that the necromancer was experienced in grooming resources for different purposes. Sumire inferred that the necromancer should be someone who once possessed a [Secret Plane] before they become an undead. After all, only within the safe boundary of a secret plane does taboo methods like blood-path and necro-path could be researched deeply.

With that said, Sumire started another round of deduction. Only legendary mages possessed the right to own a secret plane personally. In this case, the necromancer should be a former rank 3 before they become an undead due to various reasons. “Legendary” was the cultivation base required for one to refine a lesser plane into a secret plane! 

Without the immediate access of historical records regarding the local rank 3 legendary mages, Sumire could not pinpoint the true identity of the necromancer but she could determine that the former legendary mage have yet to recover their cultivation base into rank 1 yet. After all, there were a lot of rank 1 beasts in Thunderpeak mountain, and there were none of them in the cave.    

She guessed that the necromancer was recently converted and at most having a late-stage rank 0 cultivation base due to certain reasons. Although it is higher than any Violet Sword Blaze members, it wasn’t to the point of overwhelming so. It is still possible for her team to snatch the tempered mana crystals and for her to understand what happened here a while back.

“Most likely, the necromancer’s power evaluation is at 9 transparent stars?” she muttered.

Just as Kurogane was about to pick a fleshberry for a taste, Sumire noticed the eerie silence that permeated the cave. There should be sounds of rain from outside and other sounds from within the cave but she couldn’t hear any background noises. Sumire had a bad feeling and immediately took command, “We’re under attack!” With her words, Violet Sword Blaze members ignored the fleshberries to gather up in a defensive formation. 

Just as Sumire finishes her words, armored kobolds reveal themselves one after another, surrounding them in a tight formation.

After a brief count, there were 10 kobolds on each side, totaling 40 armored kobolds. The armor and weapons on their person was uniform, as if they were an army of elite kobolds. In front of them, the 10-man kobold team was led by an Ironscale kobold variant while behind them were guarded by a team led by a red goblin.

“It’s a goblin converted using a blood-path life-alteration ritual known as Bloodguard. It has… unnaturally strong regenerative factor. Now we know why they grow fleshberries… Let me handle it.” Sakuya faced the team of kobolds led by the red goblin as she shared her knowledge.

“Shirogane will handle the Ironscale variant. Yamamura, Kurogane, you two will guard our flank. Ramiel and Seraphina will support whichever side is lacking. Alanis and I will handle any that passed through your defensive lines.” Sumire paused briefly, “Oh, unless it’s absolutely necessary, don’t kill.”

Sakuya immediately charged towards the red goblin without waiting for others. Fire-path magic caster typically possessed their own personal ‘fire’, the best example of this was Izanagi’s Heartblood Crimson Fire. With that said, she also has her own fire, the passive fire-path radiation she withheld are now released in full power. The cold underground cave becomes noticeably warmer the moment her body bursts out like a solar flare. 

Her martial prowess was higher than her magical spells, but she always strives to learn magic due to her interest.

The red goblin, Kor, felt challenged. Sakuya’s fire-path radiation was powerful enough to burn dried leaves, but it couldn’t deal effective damage to Kor. He used his durable body aided by Mordred’s [Wisdom Amplification: Martial Will] to fight toe to toe with Sakuya.

The two traded a punch. Unsurprisingly, Kor was sent flying towards the armored kobolds, sending some of them back a few steps. In that encounter, Kor’s arm was broken but it regenerated at the speed visible to the eye.

“Tsk, annoying.” Sakuya produces a few pinches of powders and sprinkles them on her glove. The glove then ignites in bright red-gold fire. “Rank 0 fire-path magic spell, [Scorch Grasp 1st Seal: Release].” The glove gained a layer of magical fire. Every touch applies burning damage as it ignites the target, while every magic spell receives several passive amplifications. However, she did not stop there as she activated a [Fireball] spell as her finger pointed towards Kor.

The Fireball was accurate as it hit Kor in the chest. His body ignited in sticky napalm fire while the kobold hunters beside him managed to get away from the area of effect as they released him from their arms. Napalm fire is extremely hard to get rid of, but it’s not extremely hot like the Heartblood Crimson Fire or the Azure Dragon Fire.

“Eat this… Rank 0 fire-path magic spell, [Double Cast: Dual Ignition], [Fireball]!” This time, the fireballs that manifested from her finger were two at once. These fireballs were modified by lowering the damage potential by half, but resource expenditure was reduced to a third. The fireball was modified to bombard large numbers of weak enemies and ignite them in napalm fire.

Boom! Boom! Multiple fireballs exploded amongst Kor’s kobolds, but their armor protects their vitals. Although wounded and burning, they managed to survive the dozens of fireballs hurled at them. Sakuya advances towards Kor as she uses her fist to beat Kor into a pulp but Kor’s tenacity allows him to regenerate even with a broken heart, ribs, and skull. The kobolds around him didn’t let her do as she pleases, they tried to pierce her with their bone spears.

Unfortunately, they could do nothing to Sakuya.

The radiation that her body emits is a special ‘invisible fire’ that burns fire but it’s effective range is extremely short. Outside its effective range, she merely radiates heat but when flames get too close to her, it will be burnt. In this case, the napalm fire on the kobold’s armor was being burnt at an extreme rate.  If the damage potential of the napalm fire was 100 over the course of 25 second (4 damage per second), due to the radiation, the potential damage was delivered in less than 1 second.

Of course, the efficiency is not 100%, the total damage is probably even less than 40 but it’s still a damage the kobolds couldn’t resist.

In other words, the kobolds and their armor immediately turns into ash.

“Oops… I might’ve overdid it.” She recalled the fire-path radiation back onto her body as she held over the charcoal which used to be Kor’s ‘undying’ body. Even at this state, the ‘charcoal’ was trying hard to free himself from her grasp. “Please, do endure my methods. I have yet to find a new toy.” She muttered as her fingers started a surgery on the poor red goblin.

While Sakuya dealt with Kor, Kurogane and Yamamura defended the team’s flank. Due to the lack of special kobolds, they progressed seamlessly. Kurogane dealt with his opponent by relying on his large size, superior strength, and durable body while Yamamura showcased his deftness with his two swords.

Yamamura’s battle style was more like an assassin instead of a warrior. That being said, straightforward combat might not be his forte, but the opponents are common kobolds. Furthermore, he was being supported by Ramiel’s crossbow bolts and Seraphina’s supportive spells, he managed to disarm the kobolds and then applied some paralysis poison to them through his weapon. He managed to deal with his side after Kurogane did his.

At the main battle stage, Shirogane fought against Grem and his best team.

Of course, there wasn’t even a struggle. She steamrolled Grem’s team without much effort. This was the logical conclusion due to the difference of various aspects. Shirogane is an elite human augmented with multiple body runes, equipped with superior weapons and also having a stupidly strong body. The average physical attribute of the kobolds is hovering around 1-to-2 while her lowest physical attribute, which is perception, is at 4.

The sword force she generated sliced through the bone armors, sometimes maiming kobold limbs, sometimes gouging muscle and tendons. As a result, the kobolds could not resist her advances.

As Grem saw his subordinates being obliterated in a span of a few seconds, he mentally sighed. He released a few screeches before retreating into the darkness of the cave.

“Oh, the Ironscale variant was smarter than the ones from Magnur city. Well, it doesn't matter.” Sumire recalled her teammates. “Sakuya… was there a reason that you’re still playing with that thing?” she pointed towards the ‘charcoal’ whose torso had become hollow but still trying his best to free from Sakuya’s grasp.

“Alright, the churches wouldn’t like what I’m doing anyway.” She tossed the ‘charcoal’ like a common trash before it ignited in an intense golden red flame, turning him into fine ash. In this encounter, not even Kor’s soul survives.

Sumire nodded, not blaming her for the ‘accidental’ kobolds kill that she wanted to capture. “Tie them up before we proceed deeper. When we fight against the Ironscale variant again, don’t kill him. He is very useful to me.”

“Roger that, captain!”

After tying up the defeated kobolds with grass-like ropes generated from Seraphina’s magic spell, Violet Sword Blaze prepared themselves to delve deeper. The fleshberries and the carrot-like plants were left aside for later as their priority is set on getting the tempered mana crystal and to kill the necromancer.    

The next hall-like room was a large residential area, where various glowing mushrooms and other light sources brightened the area. Violet Sword Blaze raised their weapons when they saw the hundreds or so kobolds, but the kobolds were running around to the corner in fear. Some of them laid down with their white belly on top, signaling surrender. It was a chaotic situation where every kobold for themselves.

“Captain, should we kill them?” Kurogane asked. “It’s strange that they don’t use swarming tactics on us. With these numbers… they might have a chance.”

Sumire touched her chin, “These are the non-combatants, probably the farmers and miners who maintained, procure and process resources. Their master seems to have taught them the value of their lives. The fact that the Ironscale variant abandoned them meant he’s like a cornered rat who can’t think of anything else other than saving himself. Don’t kill them for now, capture them so they can’t ambush us later.”

Seraphina exerted herself more to generate more grass-like ropes, but it wasn’t a problem for wood-path cultivators like her. The kobolds that surrendered were treated nicely, prompting other kobolds who incessantly screeched from the corner to voluntarily give themselves up. Of course, there are also those who wanted to fight back, but Kurogane’s fist demonstrated what happened next cull down their emotions.

Soon, the 400 hundred-or-so kobolds were captured, lined up neatly in the room.

Sumire then led the team to further down deeper with Kurogane spearheading to avoid potential ambush.

The next ‘room’ they found was filled with resources like food, beast bones, minerals, herbs and others.

“This place is usually guarded the most, but the guards have left. Captain, we can get them for ourselves, right?” Yamamura saw a few interesting herbs and minerals that he could use to refine poison.

“Not now. We can always take them later.”

With that said, they decided to take head deeper. However, when Kurogane took the first step on the next room, two 0.5-meter-long pure white bone spikes penetrated his chest armor. The ambush was completely silent, even Kurogane’s [Survival Instinct] could not detect the attack. The bone spikes pushed him back three steps, but he managed to react before the next spikes arrived by raising his shield.

“I can’t see the attacker and the spikes are completely silent. Captain!” Kurogane roared as he coughed blood. He then charged forward with his shield raised.

Sumire and Sakuya acted swiftly, Sakuya sent forth small fireballs to light up Kurogane’s path while Sumire swept the area with her telepathic thoughts. As black ‘dust’ spread around the room, several bright fireballs pushed back the darkness that concealed a dozen of kobolds manning two siege weapons.

“It’s a siege weapon! Kurogane, destroy them as soon as possible!” Just as Sumire finishes her words, a large number of creatures emerge from the flank.

These grey-skinned child-like humanoid creatures were protected by white bone plates and bone spikes all over their body. The spikes were dripping with corpse poison, while the bone plates were covered with a dark aura. Their mouth was covered with white fangs and black tongue, the saliva that dripped to the floor sizzled. There were over 30 of these creatures in total.

Sumire’s expression changed as she recognized the new arrivals, “Bonelings! Sakuya, burn the air! We have to cleanse this place from corpse poison.”

Sumire inherited a necro-path inheritance that put her into the path of a magic caster. Within, there was an effective method to refine a necro-path army. In truth, this necro-path army consists of various lifeforms that bordered on life and death such as zombies, ghouls, specters and bonelings. Although bonelings are not the best necro-path cannon fodders, they harbor corpse poison in their body.

If a sufficient number of bonelings stayed within a location for a prolonged amount of time, the area would be saturated with corpse poison: one of the most troublesome yin poison. Cleansing them properly requires a proper yang method. Since Sakuya is an experienced hunter, she knows what to do. From her pouch, she produces several materials at once.

“Hold your breath. Rank 0 fire-path magic spell, [Triple Cleansing Solar Wave]!”

As Sakuya activated her spell, a wave of heat pulsed towards the room centered around her, burning the very air that they breathe. After the first, it was followed by the second and the third before the heat wave subsided. Although the spell was not strong enough to completely vacuum the area, it was sufficient to handle this level of corpse poison concentration. Then, a gust of wind enclosed upon their location to fill up the gap of air pressure.

The potential corpse poison in the air was taken care of before it could become a problem.

Unfortunately, [Triple Cleansing Solar Wave] could not burn the siege engine. During the spell activation, the kobolds attacked with their bone spikes three times but Kurogane managed to deflect them all with his shield. While he was occupied with the spikes, the bonelings encroached to their position.

“Burn them all, purge this place from these undead!” Even without Sumire’s order, Sakuya has already prepared the next spell.

The team blocks the approaching bonelings and the kobold’s bone pikes, while Sakuya prepares the spell. At this time, Sumire used her dark-path moth to produce large amounts of dark-purple balls made out of black dust. “Rank 0 enslavement-path magic spell, [Dark Matriarch’s Requisition]!”

Sumire’s telepathic enslavement-will and the dark moth’s telepathic malicious-will are the primary catalyst for this spell. The dark purple balls exploded amongst the bonelings. Immediately, they turned against each other as their weak minds were dominated by Sumire’s will.

However, Sumire frowned when she saw the effect was lower than she’d expected. “I merely enslaved four of them?”

The frontline was getting pushed back because Kurogane was focused on defending against the bone spikes while the rest couldn’t fight against the bonelings directly. Sumire’s method should be able to convert at least a third of the total bonelings in the field and reverse the tide but somehow, it simply doesn’t work.

Just as the corpse poison began accumulating on the combatant’s wounds, Sakuya finished her spell. “Rank 0 fire-path magic spell, [Napalm Artillery Strike]!”

A large ball of liquid fire was thrown into the midst of the undead. Unlike the [Fireball] spell that was augmented by napalm fire, this was a magic spell whose main material consisted of napalm fire. When it explodes, the liquid fire smears all over the room, igniting everything it touches. Sakuya was adept at controlling the spell’s area of effect so that bonelings, kobolds and only Kurogane were hit by the burning viscous liquid.

“Oi, friendly fire!” Kurogane complained but he used the opening created by the spell to rush towards the siege engines. Breaking them didn’t take long because the kobolds manning the weapon could not offer effective retaliation. They were panicking due to the viscous liquid fire sticking on their body. After the siege engines were broken, they were effectively useless in battle.

The rest of the bonelings were also panicking. They were creatures that bordered on life-and-death, their nerve endings are supposed to be dead. However, Sakuya is aware of this and thus augmented the [Napalm Artillery Strike] spell with a catalyst refined from Bright Sun Gold, a yang-type fire-path material used in purification of negative energy. It was also the primary material to cast [Triple Cleansing Solar Wave].

A magic caster might not possess the greatest body, but they have the greatest minds. Any qualified mage should be prepared for most situations and Sakuya showcased her capability as one.

This causes the bonelings’ dead nerves to feel pain once more as this fire didn't merely deal physical burn damage but it also burns the very negative energy that they rely on to survive. Squirming in pain, one boneling struggles violently as his negative life-force dwindles.

“ROAR!” it was Ymir, the former goblin second-in-command. He might not be alive anymore, but seeing his family of bonelings incinerated under yang-type fire, his heart bleeds. In a desperate attempt to retaliate, he disregards any defensive measures to launch a suicidal attack at Sakuya.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t aware that Sakuya was also a martial artist. With a fist art from her, his skull cracked open, his brain matter splattered all across the room, and his soul burnt severely.

During its dying moment, Sumire, who cultivated necro-path, secretly detected the special boneling’s soul managed to escape into the cave’s depth. ‘That soul was marked?’ she touched her chin. ‘This necromancer might be more dangerous than I’ve anticipated…’

After the last obstacle died, the burning kobold variant, Grem, was captured effortlessly. Despite having great close combat skills, Kurogane could overpower three Grem at once due to his overwhelming physical strength, therefore it wasn’t even worth mentioning.

“What should we do with the variant?” Kurogane asked.

“After healing some of the serious wounds so that he wouldn’t immediately die, bind and then bring him with us deeper. I want to see what necromancer can subjugate and rule over the kobolds.” Sumire answered.

Just as they progressed deeper, they began smelling the stench of death and rot. At some point, they found a wall of bones.

“Shall we break it down?” Sakuya asked as she cracked her fingers in anticipation.

“The wall is designed to block investigative methods. It’s going to be a boss fight soon, let’s prepare first. Alanis, please activate [Group Chat].”

“Understood, captain!”