Chapter 913: Slow and Steady

Just like there were no two people with the same identical mana, mana fluctuations, and frequency, it was the same for alchemists. Different alchemists would also have small differences. These differences would greatly affect the success rate at the final stage, and even if it was successful, the power would be affected.

But Grey Beastmen were different. A puppet could be made by multiple Grey Beastmen at the same time, and there wouldn’t be any difference. Sometimes, the puppet manufactured from their cooperation could be stronger than if it had been made by one person.

The most frightening part was that the Grey Beastman race had a special strength. Not only could they work together, but they could also craft things that exceeded their own rank.

A group of Alchemists could manufacture something that would normally need a Great Alchemist.

And it wasn’t impossible to make something even stronger!

This ability was the greatest strength of the Grey Beastmen.

Thus, Lin Yun didn’t care that there were a few dozen ordinary Alchemists as long as he had enough people to do repairs and enough people to do research.

On the next day, Lin Yun dispatched even more puppets to do a thorough search, acting as if he was searching for all the entrances.

That day, he once again destroyed a passage he’d “discovered”, and once the passage was blocked, another water source within the fort was no longer supplying the Grey Beastmen.

This time, it made the Grey Beastmen panic even more, but the previous battle was still vivid in their minds. They had left the fort under the cover of the night in order to discreetly open up the blocked passages. But they ended up being discovered and failing to accomplish the mission, and they had no way of opening another passage.

The next day, Lin Yun blocked another passage, and the Grey Beastmen were unable to endure it any longer. They took advantage of the darkness of the night to send more than a hundred mechas piloted by Beastmen. They completely gave up on sending the cannon fodder puppets and only sent over a hundred Level 30 elite puppets.

Once again, Lin Yun didn’t immediately attack. Instead, he waited for those Grey Beastmen to open a water passage before sending the mage army and the puppet army after them.

Another battle occurred, and over seventy Grey Beastmen were caught, while he let forty go.

The captured Grey Beastmen were directly delivered to the Radiant Fort.

Lin Yun took the time to take a trip to the Radiant Fort to resupply his sword puppets. In the past few days, he had lost several dozen sword puppets, the majority of which had been lost in order to lure the Grey Beastmen into traps. If these guys weren’t given any benefits, and if they couldn’t see any hope, why would they keep dispatching people?

After eight days, Lin Yun still didn’t thoroughly block the water sources. Someone else wouldn’t have had the means to find all those secret entrances in such a short time, but Lin Yun was exceptional with arrays, and his computing ability was even more formidable.

Just by standing on the riverbank and letting out mana fluctuations, he could figure out the path of the stream, and he could sense if the flow even slightly decreased, unless those passages stopped drawing water altogether. The path of the water was as clear as day to Lin Yun.

He had closed off a passage the previous day and lured the Grey Beastmen once again. So far, he had captured close to four hundred Grey Beastmen, most of whom were common Alchemists, while only ten of them were Great Alchemists.

Due to so many clansmen being captured, and all of them being at least Alchemists, the Grey Beastmen grew somewhat worried and completely gave up on sending people.

Lin Yun also still didn’t close all the passages. Doing so would mean forcing the hands of the Grey Beastmen. He wasn’t planning on eradicating them.

If it had been another Beastman Tribe, he would have just swept through all of them, but the Grey Beastmen were different. They weren’t natives to the Raging Flame Plane, and they were alchemists. Getting rid of them would be a loss.

No Beastmen came out for the next three days, and Lin Yun knew that trying to lure them at this point would be impossible, so he decided that he might as well make the mage army and the puppet army start the siege.

As the siege officially started, the power of the Grey Beastmen’s fort was truly displayed.

Every single hole in the city walls exposed the mouth of a mana crystal cannon puppet. There were also box-like alchemy weapons and fortifications crafted from magic metals.

When the fighting started, the cannon-like mouths started blossoming with glaring rays of light, loudly firing out their huge fireballs.

After hitting the ground, they exploded and formed craters that spanned twenty to thirty meters, while the flames swept everything around.

Those strange casting puppets on the city walls walked to the sides of the walls, and countless flaming rays flew out, forming a rain of red lasers that shot downward.

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As these Fire Bolts fell onto the puppet army, they covered the fastest sword puppets in black burns.

As for those strange, box-like weapons with eight legs, numerous array patterns shone on them and a terrifying mana fluctuation rose up as a large number of small holes appeared at the front of a box, just like a honeycomb.

In an instant, brilliant light spread out as awl-like alchemy bombs shot out of each and every hole.

Several of these unknown alchemy bombs exploded on the ground and immediately turned the ground in front of the fort into dust.

A sword puppet happened to be close to the area, and within a second, over a hundred alchemy bombs burst against that puppet.

The concentrated flaming explosions instantly sent the components of the Level 30 puppet flying, with its arms and head shattered into pieces.

And from another box-like metallic weapon, a four-meter-long tube as thick as a thigh appeared. As it buzzed, a thick Fire Bolt shot out and hit a casting puppet over two hundred meters away.

In an instant, that casting puppet’s head turned crimson and melted like butter.

Facing such circumstances, Lin Yun remained unperturbed. He completely didn’t care about this kind of loss.

Ever since those few hundred Grey Beastmen were delivered to the Radiant Fort, the efficiency of the puppet base had rapidly increased. The rather lacking research and development had been bolstered by the few hundred Grey Beastmen, and some of the defunct places producing important components had been restored to working order.

Along with the improvements of the Grey Beastmen’s alchemists, the underground base’s efficiency had sharply risen. Sword puppets would be produced every day at a speed two to three times as fast as before, and that speed was still slowly increasing.

Lin Yun completely didn’t care about the costs of that battle. Those Grey Beastmen would be sent to the Radiant Fort, and once they were sorted out by Shawn, they would have to sign slave contracts so that even their souls would continue to work for Lin Yun after their deaths.

If there was any sort of reincarnation, these Grey Beastmen would still be Lin Yun’s subordinates in their next lives.

After resupplying with a large number of puppets, Lin Yun didn’t have to worry about losing too many.

The large hordes of puppets fearlessly attacked the fort in front of them, frantically assaulting the entrance with no care for the Grey Beastmen’s counterattack. It looked as if they planned to use numbers to forcibly squeeze the entrance open.

Sure enough, the Grey Beastmen eventually couldn’t handle it. Their city walls were very strong, but the entrance was the only weak point of the city wall.

And the only places that the Grey Beastmen needed to focus their defenses on were the gates. Now that their gates were attacked, how could they not worry?

Soon, two box weapons on the city walls threw a large number of alchemy bombs in front of the entrance. Then, two mana crystal cannon puppets turned their bodies and shot two huge fireballs onto the entrance.

A large area in front of the entrance was cleared out, but at the same time, the gates were opened.

A large number of cannon fodder puppets rushed out, followed by over three hundred Grey Beastmen outfitted with mechas and over three hundred elite puppets.

The hordes of cannon fodder rushed at Lin Yun’s puppet army, followed by the three hundred elite puppets and the three hundred mechas.

Lin Yun smiled and glanced at the incessantly sighing Xiuban.

“Xiuban, go. Do your best to capture as many as possible.” After pausing for an instant, he added, “Or you can throw those mechas to the rear.”

Xiuban couldn’t help sighing in relief as Lin Yun said that.

Those Grey Beastmen were too fragile for Xiuban, truly too weak. With any of the Black Iron Beastmen, a slap would only stun them and make them puke a bit of blood, but the same slap would actually obliterate the head of a Grey Beastman.

Not killing them was too bothersome.

Now he didn’t have to worry about it, he only had to throw those mechas to the back. That would be very easy.

Xiuban lifted Carnage and laughed mischievously before charging out.

Xiuban dashed through a pack of wolf puppets, but these cannon fodder puppets didn’t even have the qualifications to stall him.

Soon, Xiuban reached the ranks of the Grey Beastmen. He swung Carnage and simply ignored those Grey Beastmen’s magic attacks.

Regardless of what spell it was, it was ineffective once it touched Carnage. In fact, they even collapsed into the most basic elemental power.

A Grey Beastman controlling a mecha was hit by Xiuban’s hammer, and his six-meter-tall mecha weighing 2,000kg was like a ball sent flying after being struck. Half of the mecha fell apart in the air while the Grey Beastman inside puked blood and fainted.

After he fell, a few puppets quickly tore apart the mecha and took away the fainted Grey Beastman.