Drive the Tiger to Devour the Wolf

When expanding territory, the first priority is to have a sufficiently stable stronghold.

The completion of Kurd City District satisfied this requirement.

With a stronghold secured, the next step was outward expansion.

"Lord Medivh, there is a Minotaur Tribe in this mountain forest. They have lived here for a long time..."

Inside the central castle tower, Suixin relayed the intelligence gathered by the Skeleton Assassins to Medivh.

Dissatisfied with the bones excavated recently, Medivh had long since dispatched the Skeleton Assassins to search for ancient battlefield ruins across the Odyssey Region.

The target reported by the Skeleton Assassins was a Minotaur Tribe in the forest directly south of Kurd City.

The Minotaur Tribe was not far from Kurd City. A combat squad had once attacked the Armory Camp, making them a latent threat to Kurd.

The Skeleton Assassins had lurked in that forest for a long time, thoroughly investigating the Minotaur Tribe's information.

Minotaurs were a race that valued burial customs. Unlike Goblin tribes that devoured their own dead, deceased Minotaurs were interred in designated areas.

A latent threat to Kurd, combined with their emphasis on burial—these two factors made them the most suitable target for attack.

"Time to stretch these bones."

Medivh was satisfied with this target. After confirming the Minotaur Tribe had no second-order transcendents, he immediately ordered the skeletons to assemble at the city gate.

He intended to personally lead the campaign, launching a night raid on the Minotaur Tribe.

The skeletons moved swiftly, completing their assembly in no time. Under the twilight, they marched in a vast column out of Kurd's southern gate, advancing silently toward the Minotaur Tribe.

The mountain forest was not quiet at that moment. Angry roars could be heard from time to time.

To probe the Minotaur Tribe's trump cards, the Skeleton Assassins had been infiltrating the tribe to carry out assassinations over the past week.

Due to the frequent assassinations, the Minotaur Tribe's alertness had recently been heightened, making a sneak attack unfavorable.

Countering schemes with schemes, Medivh played along. He had the Skeleton Assassins launch preemptive strikes to provoke the Minotaur Tribe's guards.

At that moment, nearly half of the tribe's warriors had been lured out by the Skeleton Assassins, chasing them through the forest in a game of cat and mouse.

To firmly hold their aggro, the Skeleton Assassins periodically leaped out to assassinate a few Minotaur warriors before fleeing under the Minotaur Chieftain's enraged roars.

Blinded by fury, the Minotaur Chieftain never realized the Bone Spirit Assassins were leading them farther and farther away.

Time Skeletons were not puppets; they possessed intelligence.

Two Bone Spirit Assassins worked in tandem. One continued leading the Skeleton Assassins in their game of hide-and-seek with the Minotaur warriors, while the other quietly slipped into a Magic Beast's territory, stole a few eggs, and fled.

When the returning Magic Beast tracked the scent to the scene, the two Bone Spirit Assassins exchanged glances through their hollow eye sockets before hurling the stolen Magic Beast eggs at the Minotaur Chieftain.

The eggs whistled through the air. The Minotaur Chieftain, assuming they were more hidden weapons from the Skeleton Assassins, swung his great axe to cleave them.

With a crack, the eggshells shattered. The partially formed Magic Beast embryos splattered together with the egg fluid across the Minotaur Chieftain.

Drenched in egg fluid, the Minotaur Chieftain froze for a moment, then his expression shifted drastically.

These cunning Skeleton Assassins were even more insidious than he had anticipated.

This tactic of using a tiger to drive away a wolf was extremely disadvantageous to him.

Sure enough, the next breath, the Minotaur Chieftain heard an utterly enraged roar.

Rows of trees snapped at the waist under wind blades as a second-order wind-attribute Magic Beast leaped out.

Seeing the remains of its unformed offspring on the ground, the Magic Beast's eyes instantly turned bloodshot.

"Fight!"

Given the scene—the Minotaur Chieftain covered in egg fluid, with bits of Magic Beast flesh stuck to his axe—he couldn't clear his name even if he jumped into the Yellow River.

Objectively, he had no such intention, but the fact remained that he had shattered the Magic Beast eggs.

The enraged Magic Beast would not listen to his explanations.

This grudge was irreconcilable. This provoked second-order Magic Beast had to be killed as quickly as possible.

Otherwise, if the beast calmed down and launched hit-and-run attacks on the Minotaur Tribe, it would spell their doom.

The Minotaur Chieftain's eyes burned red. He knew that killing this second-order Magic Beast would come at a bloody cost. Most of the Minotaur warriors who had followed him out would not return.

And that was the best-case scenario. More likely, they would all die here, after which the beast would continue its vengeance against the tribe.

"What a talent!"

Medivh maintained a faint connection with his skeletons, giving him a general idea of their actions.

When he discovered the Bone Spirit Assassin had used a borrowed knife to kill, luring a second-order Magic Beast to attack the Minotaur warriors, he couldn't help but praise.

He had to admit, they were specialists in assassination—true talents when it came to stirring up trouble.

The victor is king, the loser a bandit. Medivh saw nothing wrong with the Bone Spirit Assassin's underhanded tactics.

They were skeletons, after all. Did they expect them to be paragons of moral virtue?

The Skeleton Assassins had exceeded their mission. The Minotaur warriors who had been lured away would find it difficult to return and reinforce the tribe.

Seizing the golden opportunity while the Minotaur Chieftain and his warriors were locked in a bloody battle with the second-order Magic Beast, Medivh's skeletons launched their assault on the Minotaur Tribe.

Most of the Minotaur Tribe's warriors had been taken by the Minotaur Chieftain to hunt down the Skeleton Assassin.

The warriors left behind, focused on the pursuit in the mountains, didn't even notice anyone approaching from beyond the hills.

By the time they reacted, the skeletons had already scaled the village walls and killed quite a few minotaurs.

War knows no mercy. Under Medivh's command, the skeletons swung their blades without hesitation, slaughtering every minotaur they encountered.

"Earth-Splitting Slash!"

A few transcendents remained in the Minotaur Tribe.

But they were no match for the transcendent skeletons. Under safe conditions, Medivh used the minotaur transcendent warriors to test the earth-type combat skill he had mastered.

The minotaurs were bulky and thick-skinned; Medivh's Earth-Splitting Slash couldn't even shake him, only achieving the effect of a Sword Qi slash.

After a few rounds of practice, Medivh didn't waste time.

He had no intention of a fair duel with the minotaur warrior. He called a group of transcendent skeletons to gang up on him and beat him to death.

Under the siege of over a thousand skeletons, the defenseless Minotaur Tribe didn't hold out long before falling silent.

The skeletons quietly cleaned up the battlefield, while a large group of logistics skeletons rushed to the minotaurs' ancestral burial ground to excavate.

Whether the Minotaur Chieftain could hold off the rampaging second-tier Magic Beast was uncertain.

If those minotaurs all died, that second-tier Magic Beast might very well come to the Minotaur Tribe for revenge. So Medivh had to hurry with the excavation.

The Minotaur Tribe's treasures could be left behind, but the bones from the minotaurs' ancestral burial ground had to be taken. That was Medivh's main purpose in starting this war.

The logistics skeletons worked efficiently; one by one, the bones were dug up, loaded onto carts, and transported to Kurd City District.

The Minotaur Chieftain was quite resilient. By the time Medivh had finished excavating here, the battle on the other side still hadn't ended.