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After taking a wide detour and making sure they had completely shaken off the bizarre Oil-Slick Monster, Gu Su finally returned to the Graveyard Demon with his skeletons, carrying the Harpy corpses they had collected.
All along the way, Gu Su had kept a wary eye behind him, afraid the Oil-Slick Monster might catch up. Sometimes he would rather take a detour than put the Graveyard Demon at risk.
As soon as he approached the Graveyard Demon, Gu Su froze. The scene before him was completely different from how it had looked when he left.
The Graveyard Demon, which had been quite small, seemed to have grown significantly. Inside its dilapidated walls, several trees had sprung up—but they were withering at a visible speed.
Looking at the rapidly dying trees, Gu Su immediately understood what was happening. The Graveyard Demon was expanding its territory in its own peculiar way, quietly encroaching on the surrounding land.
Those trees had been swallowed up along with the land.
Though he had no idea how it worked, this was obviously a good thing.
Gu Su's mood lifted considerably. He no longer dwelled much on his failure against the Oil-Slick Monster or the frustration of the Skeleton Squad's heavy losses.
He wasted no time and immediately ordered his skeletons to drag all the Harpy corpses into the Graveyard Demon's territory.
Once that was done, Gu Su carefully counted the bodies:
There were the twelve Harpy corpses they had hunted at first, plus the five killed alongside the leader. They had brought back seventeen Harpy corpses in total.
He had taken one spellcasting skeleton and ten Elite Skeletons with him, then summoned five more skeletons on the battlefield to reinforce them.
But only the spellcasting skeleton, three Elite Skeletons, and two ordinary skeletons had returned. Ten had been lost.
They had made up for some of their losses, but this had still been a costly venture.
With a sigh, Gu Su wasted no time. He tossed seven of the corpses onto the Grave Mound to replace the Elite Skeletons he had lost.
He threw the remaining ten bodies into the ordinary grave pile, adding them to the ranks of its skeletons.
As soon as he had put the corpses in place, the system notification rang out right on time.
[The Empty Grave automatically used your Raise Skeleton (Level 1), obtaining Skeletons (Level 0) * 17. Raise Skeleton proficiency +17.]
In the next instant, seventeen skeletons pushed through the soil covering the Grave Mound and grave pile and climbed out of the ground.
Looking at the seventeen new skeletons, Gu Su felt a little better. The Skeleton Squad had regained some of its strength.
The heaviness brought on by his earlier losses eased a little, but a new problem soon surfaced.
How was he supposed to deal with that bizarre Oil-Slick Monster and avenge the Skeleton Squad's heavy losses?
After losing so many troops, he couldn't just let it go. Failing to fight back was simply not Gu Su's style.
But he also knew all too well how strange the Oil-Slick Monster was.
Its entire body was made of viscous black oil. Ordinary blades and weapons couldn't hurt it at all; attacking it was like scratching an itch through a boot, completely ineffective.
As for magic and other such attacks, Gu Su couldn't use them yet, so he had no way to turn the tables with magic.
He had no other means at his disposal, and he didn't know who he could ask for help.
Just as Gu Su was at a loss, with no idea what to do, a thought suddenly crossed his mind:
What if... he used fire?
As soon as the idea occurred to him, Gu Su's gaze turned involuntarily toward the Netherfire Pile that burned constantly inside the Graveyard Demon.
A thoughtful look came over his face as he considered whether a fire attack might work.
Fire might work against something like oil, but a single torch would be far too weak. It couldn't hurt the Oil-Slick Monster's core, let alone defeat it.
As for setting the mountain ablaze and using a raging fire to surround the Oil-Slick Monster, the fog and humidity outside were simply too heavy.
In such conditions, a fire couldn't catch, let alone grow large enough to threaten the Oil-Slick Monster.
It wouldn't work to bring wood along to start a fire, either. He couldn't exactly toss some logs in there before setting them alight.
Gu Su had also considered the fact that the Oil-Slick Monster was attached to the abandoned gas station.
But using the gas station's fuel to feed a fire was out of the question. Nobody knew whether the Oil-Slick Monster was even made of oil. If it was ordinary black mud, it wouldn't burn at all.
One idea after another flashed through Gu Su's mind, but every one of them had a flaw, no matter how he looked at it.
Nothing worked, whichever way he turned.
Just as he was once again stumped, unsure what to do, he suddenly heard a muffled whoosh from outside the Graveyard Demon.
At the sound, Gu Su hurried over to the nearby section of wall and looked outside.
He saw the Graveyard Demon launching shopping carts filled with white Corruption Mycelium. The carts shot rapidly into the distance, trailing faint traces of mycelium behind them.
Gu Su froze at the sight. Now he understood where the Graveyard Demon had been sending its shopping carts.
He also understood how those extra trees had appeared in the graveyard: the Corruption Mycelium was devouring the surrounding land and expanding its territory.
Just then, a brand-new idea for defeating the monster suddenly came into sharp focus in Gu Su's mind.
Perhaps he could try a two-pronged approach, combining torches and Corruption Mycelium to defeat the bizarre Oil-Slick Monster.
He planned to bring both torches and Corruption Mycelium and give them a try. If the fire caught, he would use it to attack the Oil-Slick Monster and burn its core.
If it didn't, he would use the Corruption Mycelium instead, sending it into the gas station.
Gu Su had thought it through carefully. If the fire attack didn't work, he would use the Corruption Mycelium to ensnare the Oil-Slick Monster and seize the abandoned gas station it was attached to.
He suspected that the Oil-Slick Monster's core was probably inside the abandoned gas station. That was its vital point.
As long as he could destroy that core, then no matter how powerful the Oil-Slick Monster seemed, it surely wouldn't survive without its source of support.
Of course, even if the plan failed, Gu Su would only lose two skeletons. That wouldn't affect him much.
At worst, he simply wouldn't go over there again.
At the thought, Gu Su's eyes brightened.
He turned to the Elite Skeletons and said, "Go prepare your weapons. See if there's any new material. Get ready to fight for your lives."
Then Gu Su turned to the ordinary skeletons and said, "Go prepare torches. I need one... No, three.
"And the Graveyard Demon, give me a cart of Corruption Mycelium.
"Hurry up. I'm... hungry?"
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