41: Chapter 41 The Enemy's Advance, Just in Time

"Enemy attack—!"

A shrill alarm echoed throughout the Underworld Fortress. Zhang Hao scrambled into the command room, his pants heavily soiled and his voice trembling uncontrollably.

"M-Master! Outside... it's full of people outside!"

Lin Chen slowly set down his teacup and walked to the edge of the city wall to look out.

Good grief.

A sea of enemy troops stretched from the horizon right to the front of the fortress, numbering at least a hundred thousand. The Thousand Faces Cult believers wore black robes and various eerie masks; Wang Kun's Deformed Legion was even more diverse, with three-headed werewolves, Corpse Monsters covered in pustules, and vengeful spirits floating in mid-air.

The most terrifying was the five-meter-tall Eight-Armed Corpse Demon at the very back of the procession—it was the resurrected Wang Kun. Each of his arms held a different weapon, and he emitted a thick, foul stench.

"It's... it's over..." Zhang Hao's legs gave out as he knelt on the ground. "Master, should we run?"

Although Su Qingyu remained relatively calm, her face was pale. "Lin Chen, their military strength is twenty times ours."

The survivors on the city walls were in complete chaos; some fainted from fright, while others were crying as they wrote their wills.

Only Lin Chen smiled.

He pulled out his phone, tapped away on the calculator, and his eyes grew brighter and brighter.

"Eighty thousand from the Thousand Faces Cult, sixty thousand from the Deformed Legion, totaling one hundred and forty thousand. That's thirty percent more than expected!"

Zhang Hao thought he had misheard. "M-Master? It's a bad thing that there are so many of them!"

"What the hell do you know?" Lin Chen was in a great mood. "I was just worrying about where to find so many laborers, and now, they've delivered themselves right to my door."

He turned and gave orders to the Yin Soldiers:

"Go, clear out the dungeon and lay down more straw mats."

"And prepare one hundred and forty thousand sets of work uniforms, make sure they have ID numbers printed on them."

Su Qingyu was dumbfounded. "You... you're going to capture them all to use as laborers?"

"Otherwise?" Lin Chen said righteously. "What a waste it would be to kill them. Building materials are scarce right now; it's perfect to send them to the mines."

The more he thought about it, the more satisfied he became, even starting to plan:

"The young and strong will build buildings, the old and weak will farm, and those with special abilities... Hey, that one who can breathe fire can be a boiler operator."

Zhang Hao was completely stunned.

At this moment, Wang Kun beneath the city could wait no longer.

He brandished his eight arms, his voice like thunder:

"Lin Chen! Get out here and face your death!"

The sound waves shook the city wall so hard that dust fell, and several survivors literally wet themselves in fear.

Lin Chen unhurriedly walked to the edge of the wall and pulled out a megaphone.

"What are you shouting for? Can't you see I'm doing the accounts?"

He cleared his throat and began to address them through the megaphone:

"Listen up, everyone down there!"

"Surrender now, and room and board will be provided. You'll work twelve hours a day with two days off a month!"

"Those who resist will be sent to clean out the septic tanks without exception!"

Total silence fell over the army.

Even the Thousand-Faced Sect Leader was stunned, his expression beneath the mask must have been quite a sight.

Wang Kun trembled with rage, one arm pointing at Lin Chen.

"You... how dare you..."

"You what?" Lin Chen interrupted him. "For someone like you, you'd be a mid-level laborer at best. If you perform well, I might let you be a foreman later."

*Pfft—* Wang Kun was so enraged he spat out blood.

He violently swung his arms and roared:

"Full army, attack!"

The army of one hundred and forty thousand surged forward like a tide, making the very earth tremble.

Zhang Hao fled in a panic, holding his head. "Master! They're really attacking!"

Lin Chen, however, leisurely opened his system interface and selected the [Battlefield Rental] option.

[Do you wish to purchase temporary usage rights for 'Plains of Despair'?]

[Price: 1,000,000 nether talismans/hour]

[Privilege: Customizable battlefield rules]

Lin Chen clicked 'Yes' without hesitation, then entered the rules in the settings:

[All enemy units will lose 1% of their health per second upon entering the battlefield]

[All enemy units' attack power is reduced by 50%]

[All enemy units' movement speed is reduced by 50%]

Settings complete.

The moment the first wave of enemy troops stepped into the battlefield's range—

Something bizarre happened.

The Thousand-Faced Cultists at the very front suddenly collapsed en masse, as if their strength had been drained. The Deformed Legion behind them fared even worse; the pustules on those Corpse Monsters burst one after another, filling the air with a foul odor.

"What's going on?!" Wang Kun shouted in shock and fury.

A Thousand Faces Cult Elder reported tremblingly:

"Sect Leader! We... we seem to have been cursed!"

To their even greater despair, a cold system notification sounded within everyone's mind:

[You have entered a toll battlefield. Deducting 'entry fee'...]

[Health -1%]

[Health -1%]

[Health -1%]

In just that short time, the vanguard forces had already collapsed in large numbers.

The survivors on the city walls watched, dumbfounded.

Zhang Hao rubbed his eyes and asked stutteringly:

"M-Master... do they have mass food poisoning?"

Lin Chen glanced at the system's income log and nodded with satisfaction.

"Not bad, I've already earned two hundred thousand nether talismans in 'ticket money' just at the start."

He turned to the Yin Soldier General and said:

"Go, drag back all those who have fallen."

"Send the lightly injured to the construction site, and the heavily injured... throw them into the septic tank to use as fertilizer."

Su Qingyu looked at the enemy troops falling in waves on the battlefield, then at Lin Chen, who was leisurely sipping tea, and suddenly felt...

Being this man's enemy was truly the stupidest thing in the world.

Meanwhile, Wang Kun, watching his soldiers continuously fall, finally understood what was happening.

He roared toward the sky, his voice filled with despair and rage:

"Lin Chen—! I will tear you into ten thousand pieces—!"

Lin Chen took a sip of tea and replied nonchalantly:

"You've got a loud voice. You'd be perfect for shouting at the workers to wake up."