190: Chapter 190 Thornmail Enchantment

This treant legion is indeed formidable.

If it were switched to another Tier 2 Star Lord, they might be able to hold out for a long time.

But the problem is...

What they are facing is a swarm of insects.

And it is even the undead version.

This is simply being hard-countered.

I saw that around every treant,

there were hundreds of beetles surrounding it.

They kept biting at the tree trunk nonstop.

When a treant smashed a beetle to death,

the beetle would explode.

After the explosion, a large area of treants was directly shattered.

The beetles that lost their target directly pounced towards the nearest treants.

In front of absolute numbers, high defense had already become meaningless.

What is more, the beetles also carried [Armor-Splitting Lunge].

Every time they took a bite, they could ignore 40% of the defense.

Therefore, the actual damage value dealt was much higher than Xu Qin had anticipated.

One minute later.

The frontline treant phalanx directly vanished.

Xu Qin was just preparing to adjust the formation,

when from deep within the opposite continent came a cracking sound.

Snap!

The ground exploded.

I saw a giant ancient tree of war standing up to thirty meters tall,

rising from the ground in the direction of the opponent's territory core.

Its crown blotted out the sun and sky,

and its root system extended across the ground like giant pythons.

[Forest Guardian · Lord's Personal Guard · Tier 5]

[Attack Power: 1750]

[Defense: 3860]

[HP: 280000]

Beside it,

a humanoid creature wrapped all over in bark armor

stood on the shoulder of the ancient tree.

Tier 2 Star Lord · Wilde.

After reading the reconnaissance report, Xu Qin slowly shook his head.

"That's it?"

He turned his head to look in another direction.

He saw that the 14,400 Soul-Eater Battle Skeletons led by Tian Ming had already arrived at the flank of the battlefield.

But Xu Qin couldn't even be bothered to let them join.

"Forget it, there's no need to waste time."

He clicked open the command panel and directly transferred one million beetles.

"Kill!"

The moment the order was given,

the beetle clusters on the east and west sides

began to rush towards the north at an extremely fast movement speed.

Five minutes later.

More than one million Necro-Beetless directly submerged the land around the ancient tree of war.

Tier 2 Star Lord Wilde, standing on the giant ancient tree,

looked at the overwhelming grayish-black insect horde, a look of despair appearing in his eyes.

He believed in elite supremacy,

so what he cultivated were all large-scale elite soldiers,

thus the total number of soldiers was only 150,000.

Yet letting 150,000 face one million self-detonating Necro-Beetless...

is completely seeking death!

"Surrender! I surrender!"

When the battle losses reached 30%, Wilde

hurriedly opened the interface and sent a surrender request to Xu Qin.

[The opposing Star Lord "Wilde" requests to surrender!]

[Do you accept?]

Looking at this prompt, Xu Qin snorted coldly.

"Only know to be scared after getting beaten?"

"Reject!"

[The opponent's surrender request has been rejected.]

This is the Star Lord rule.

Surrender means the territory is annexed.

But after being annexed, the opponent can still stay alive.

Xu Qin needed vassals, but he didn't need a lumber wholesaler.

"Kill them all!"

Xu Qin issued the combat order once again.

Rumble!

More than one million Necro-Beetless

completely submerged Wilde's green continent.

...

Five minutes later.

The last treant fell.

Wilde's territory core building

shattered into powder under the gnawing of the insect horde.

Clang!

[Battle Victory!]

[Settling loot...]

[Battle Evaluation: A (Annihilated the enemy completely, own battle losses 3.2%)]

Seeing the A-grade evaluation, Xu Qin nodded slightly.

Very reasonable, the opponent was a Tier 2 Star Lord, too weak.

Being able to give an A-grade was already the upper limit for a crushing match.

[Talent "War Gift" upgraded!]

[Loot multiplier increased: 27]

Shortly after, the settlement panel popped up.

[Targets killed: Forest Ancient Guard × 83200, ...]

[Talent "War Gift Level 26" triggered! All loot quantities × 27!]

[Final acquired: Plant Essence × 2246400, ..., Lord Core (Plant Clan) × 27]

[Territory area increased: + 4200 square kilometers]

[Current territory "Boundless Domain" total area: 15476.6 square kilometers]

Looking at this settlement sheet, the expression on Xu Qin's face became increasingly speechless.

Plant Essence, Living Pith, Life Bark...

Everything dropped was materials.

Sigh~

Xu Qin irritably closed the settlement panel and shook his head repeatedly.

To be honest, the only thing that made him slightly content

was those 378 high-tier magic energy crystals and 27 Lord Cores,

which could all be hetero-smelted into Star Lord essences.

"It can barely be considered not fighting in vain."

Xu Qin opened the command panel

and found the pile of plant-type materials in the treasury.

Over two million portions of Plant Essence,

over 900,000 portions of Living Pith,

and over 800,000 portions of Life Bark.

"These things..."

He touched his chin and began to ponder.

For undead troop types, things like the power of life and natural essence were all invalid materials.

But...

the myriad race spirit furnace could do it.

Xu Qin walked directly into the Forging Area

and came before the smelting furnace exuding deep blue flames.

"Let's see what kind of things can be hetero-smelted."

Beep!

The interface popped up.

Xu Qin took out three types of materials from the treasury.

[Plant Essence × 100000]

[Living Pith × 100000]

[Life Bark × 100000]

They were all materials of the same race.

Considering that the troops were all undead, he then checked a batch of [General Bone].

[General Bone × 10000]

[Execute Hetero-smelting?]

[Confirm.]

Hum!!

Inside the spirit furnace,

the deep blue flames suddenly surged.

The four types of materials were simultaneously sucked into the core of the furnace.

Thirty seconds later.

[Hetero-smelting complete!]

[Output: Vine-Armor Bone Crystal × 4200 (Rare · Blue)]

Bone crystal!

Seeing the keyword 'bone', Xu Qin instantly perked up.

He clicked on the item.

[Vine-Armor Bone Crystal (Rare)]

[Type: Hero / Lord Enchantment Material]

[Effect: Consume Vine-Armor Bone Crystal × 100 to attach the permanent passive 'Thorn Counter-Armor' to 1 hero unit or lord.]

[Thorn Counter-Armor (Passive · Permanent): When receiving a melee physical attack, automatically rebounds 8% of that damage to the attacker. The rebound damage type is 'Nature · Piercing', ignoring defense.]

Xu Qin's mouth instantly opened into an 'O' shape.

"Rebound 8% damage?"

"And... ignoring defense?"

He hurriedly opened the hero list.

Tian Ming, Manniu, Blade Guard, Jackal Hunter, Chuan Yun, Shadow, Tietang, Jiafeng, War Rhino, Longgu, and Python Emperor,

a total of eleven heroes.

Coupled with him as the lord...

only 1200 pieces were enough.

"More than enough!"

Xu Qin directly selected 100 [Vine-Armor Bone Crystal] and clicked to use them.

Beep!

A list popped up.

He directly clicked on himself ranked in the first row.

[Consume "Vine-Armor Bone Crystal × 100" to attach the "Thorn Counter-Armor" passive to Lord · Xu Qin?]

[Confirm]!

Hum!

A layer of pale green patterns spread out from Xu Qin's chest,

quickly diffusing across his whole body and finally hiding beneath his skin.

[Enchantment successful!]

[You have acquired the permanent passive "Thorn Counter-Armor".]