Chapter 315: Search Party Mobilizes After slipping away from the site of the battle, Liam circled around, entering the enemy’s premises. These lands were actually still within the borders of the Gresh Kingdom. However, at the moment they might as well be the dark elf territory. For all he knew, there could be more dark elves here, perhaps waiting for an opportune moment to attack or perhaps not even planning to engage in battle because they had other reasons to be there. Liam intended to scout about these things as well to make his plans accordingly. Irrespective of what laid ahead of him the fact that they had successfully managed to deal with a significant portion of the dark elf camp would not change. Liam steadied himself and slowly looked around. There were still a couple dozens of dark elves in between the human NPC soldiers from the other Kingdom, fighting fiercely on the battleground. Now that Liam was on the other side of the war, he was able to get a better look at the overall status. He took a moment to observe everything from this side and then his lips curled up into a small grin. Yup! They were definitely winning this battle! He sighed slightly and then continued to move further out, now away from the scene of the intense struggle and fight. The black mist also thinned out and slowly by slowly, the smoke, the dirt, the shouts, and the shrieks from the battle also died down. He had finally managed to leave the area of destruction. The battle had utterly devastated the landscape and made it unrecognizable. Trees, forests, all the greenery, and even small hills had been blasted into nothingness and now only a barren land was present instead. Not that this side was any better. Since the dark elves already had time to do whatever they want in this territory, these lands also resembled the site of the battleground. They were barren, dull, and dreary as if life had been sucked out of them. Liam paused for a moment and stopped his advance. Instead, he started looking around a bit more in the same area. This was because other than the site of the battle, there were surprisingly no more dark elves. He moved around with as much speed as possible and combed through the entire area but he couldn’t find any dark elves or even other human beings for that matter. Whoever was here was already participating in the battle. There wasn’t even a single soul apart from that anywhere around him and definitely not any more dark elves. “That’s it. This confirms it.” Liam came to a conclusion from the facts he observed. There were no big units of dark elves or NPC soldiers or other players for that matter lying in wait to ambush them right after the battle was over and their team was exhausted. When the dark elves had brought out the main Generals and the NPC soldiers that was the last of their backup. This felt a bit unusual to Liam. “Shouldn’t there be at least more players in the vicinity?” He pensively looked around. A battle of this scale was bound to draw the attention of the other players no matter what. But surprisingly, no one was there. Not one wandering pest. “Maybe the other players did not notice because this is in the middle of a high-level zone?” Liam concurred. “Or maybe some other event is happening in the city?” Irrespectively, he did not think too much about this. He sent a message to Berat who was still back at Yleka city taking care of the gold farming and the market manipulation. They were short on men right now so he had to act as an intel gatherer as well, but the person had been reliable until now. So Liam sent him a message asking him if there was something unusual or significant happening at the moment. “Check in the taverns and the inns.” He added as they were the best places to get random information and gossip. After that, he did not linger on this thought any further and quickly moved on to the next target. Alex! He needed to find her! Liam circled the area for a few more minutes and then began systematically combing the nearby forests, towns, and villages. Unfortunately, the dark elves had already laid waste to more than a dozen places so the area he had to search through was considerable. Moreover, Alex could be held hostage anywhere, even someplace like the underground tunnel back at the necromancer’s hideout. Thinking about all of this, Liam stopped moving again. The task in front of him was definitely not simple and it was going to take him more than a few minutes to accomplish all this if he had to do it by himself. Also, he might not have that much time. If the dark elf assassin or thief came to know that the battle was coming to an end and their side was losing, he might take drastic actions. If he kills her, then that’s good because it would simply result in a graveyard spawn saving everyone the trouble. But seeing that he hadn’t killed her for so long, Liam knew that the chances of this happening were slim. That and probably the person was deaf? Otherwise, he was sure that the hot-headed woman would have chewed his ear off and made him want to kill her. Liam shook his head helplessly and chuckled. He only had half a mind to search for her. The woman was more trouble than she was worth it. He had only been tolerating her actions for the sake of the other person close to her. After having delved into the nether realm, at least to the extent that he had, he knew one thing for sure. It was that SSS-affinity to any element was not a joke! It could mean the difference between a powerhouse and a mediocre player! With that being the case, he couldn’t bring himself to let go of a precious ally like Mia, especially when she had the affinity to the element he was probably weakest against. This was the one and the only reason why he had been patient all this while. Not to mention, when the woman stopped talking, she could also be a big asset. Alex’s combat skills were not a joke. Perhaps if he actually managed to rescue her this time around, like a typical damsel in distress rescued by the heroic prince… she might soften up? Just a tad it? Liam chuckled helplessly, shaking his head at this thought. “I must be tired. I am thinking of impossible things!” He let out a deep breath and the look of seriousness returned to his face. He already decided to rescue this hot-headed damsel. So even if he did not feel any pity for her, he was going to do the task properly and not half-ass it and the best way to go about it was… “Come out,” Liam muttered. And the next second, his small personal army of chickens and rabbits appeared in front of him. He had lost about 10 of them in the battle and there were still 20 remaining, 13 chickens and 7 rabbits to be more precise. Apparently, these weaker soul-forged pets were only able to last for a while especially when they took a lot of damage. In this aspect, they were very much similar to a live pet. They also had a specific ‘health’ and an ability to withstand damage. After that their soul strength shrunk into the soul bead from which they were originally forged. When this soul bead rested for a while and gathered mana again, the soul pet was able to materialize again but… not always. After a couple of deaths, the soul bead was simply not able to handle the process and everything disintegrated completely, thus permanently losing the follower. Liam already thought about this problem and he also thought up a dozen ways to stabilize this soul bead more and forge stronger followers, but all that had to wait. For now, he wanted to quickly finish this Kingdom quest and claim the rewards before deciphering the next plan of action. He coldly gazed at his small troop of ghosts, all of them emotionless and blank, and commanded. “Attention everyone! Team C and Team R, you guys are all on search duty! Go forth and search these lands without leaving any stone unturned.” Even though the words coming out of his mouth sounded cool, Liam knew that the truth was far from it. He smiled wryly looking at the undead fauna and gave more specific directions to his small not so cute followers. “Team C go left.” “Team R go right.” “I will take the center.” “Always remain within 50 feet radius from me and keep a low profile. Don’t start any fights with other beasts or monsters.” Liam spelled things out as best as he could and then the search began. He watched the bunnies and the chickens scrambling about and the sight was… “I really need to create some stronger undead followers.”