"If we refuse, will there be a war next?"
The Spirit Cat Tribe's middle-aged chieftain and his people couldn't accept being asked to surrender outright.
With the Skeleton Army bearing down on them, things probably wouldn't go as smoothly as Suixiang and the others imagined.
If they refused to surrender, war and slaughter were likely.
"No. We'll leave immediately. Just pretend we were never here."
The Spirit Cat Skeleton Warlock received Medivh's order and stepped forward to answer the Spirit Cat chieftain's question.
Medivh had no intention of starting a war. He was simply giving the Spirit Cat Tribe a chance to choose. It didn't matter whether they surrendered or not.
"Grandfather?"
After the Spirit Cat Skeleton Warlock stepped forward, Riddle's eyes, dull as rotting wood, suddenly lit up. She hurried over to the skeleton and asked in confusion.
She sensed a familiar presence from it.
"Perhaps part of me is."
The Spirit Cat Skeleton Warlock glanced at Riddle and answered calmly.
The Spirit Cat Skeleton Warlock was made up of six parts, each forged from the bones of a Spirit Cat Warlock.
From the looks of it, one of its parts had been made from Riddle's grandfather's bones.
"Wasn't he blessed by the God of Light? How could a Necromancer desecrate our ancestor's bones?"
Riddle's grandfather had died in battle during the migration. The situation had been urgent, so they had buried his body where he fell instead of taking it with them.
Because of the God of Light's blessing, Necromancers had already fallen into decline. So how had this Necromancer still managed to revive their ancestor's bones as undead?
"Riddle, look at this!"
Suixiang hurriedly revealed the Inheritance Spirit Rune on her forehead and demonstrated the lost Cat Clan Combat Technique.
Suixin also demonstrated the spellcraft she knew.
They were worried their people might fight the skeletons over their ancestors' bones being forged into undead. That would cause trouble.
"What a complete Inheritance Spirit Rune!"
The Cat-men's attention was drawn at once.
The Spirit Cat Tribe had fallen into decline because so many Transcendents had died during the migration. On top of that, their inheritance stone tablets had been destroyed, so many traditions had not been passed down.
"Did you pass this inheritance on to them?"
Riddle looked at the skeleton warlock before her, then at the other skeletons that seemed to be their Cat-men ancestors.
The Cat-men's lost traditions must have come from these skeletons.
"Sometimes, knowing too much isn't a good thing."
The Spirit Cat Skeleton Warlock bluntly conveyed Medivh's intention.
They had only come to ask the Spirit Cat Tribe whether they would move to Kurd City. They hadn't intended to use force.
But Riddle had recognized the skeleton warlock's identity and learned how these skeletons had come to be.
That was a serious problem. Medivh wasn't afraid of people learning that there was a Necromancer in the Odyssey Wasteland. What worried him was that they might discover he could revive the dead by bypassing the God of Light's blessing.
The Spirit Cat Tribe had stumbled upon this secret. To keep it from spreading, if persuasion failed, the next step would be war.
"The Cat-men belong to Kurd City."
Riddle understood the unspoken meaning. She had learned what she needed to know, and the Spirit Cat Tribe's future lay in Kurd City.
"The Cat-men belong to Kurd City!"
After Riddle made her decision, the middle-aged chieftain and the Spirit Cat Warriors joined in, agreeing to surrender.
One path led to death, the other to revival. The Cat-men knew which to choose.
After that, the skeletons and Cat-men got along peacefully. They dismantled the settlement on Spirit Cat Hill, packed up everything that could be moved, and destroyed what had to be left behind.
At Riddle's command, the Cat-men brought their ancestors' bones out of the cemetery and carefully packed them for transport.
Now that they knew skeletons could pass down knowledge, the Cat-men didn't object to their ancestors becoming skeletons.
Riddle had already decided that, when she died, she would guard the tribe as a skeleton, just like her grandfather.
"Lady Riddle, the Gnolls are back!"
During the migration preparations, a Cat-man sentry rushed back to report the enemy's return.
In the battle a few days earlier, Riddle had driven off the Gnoll leader, but she had also revealed her own condition.
Since then, the Gnoll Tribe had occasionally sent Warriors to harass Spirit Cat Hill, testing whether Riddle was dead.
"Keep packing. We'll take care of the Gnolls."
The Spirit Cat Skeleton Warlock had the sentry lead the way, while the Skeleton Army sent hundreds of Green Bone Skeletons to hunt down the Gnolls.
"Amazing!"
The Gnoll Tribe was the Spirit Cat Tribe's longtime enemy. The two tribes had fought for years.
The Cat-men knew how savage the Gnolls were. They worried whether the Skeleton Soldiers could hold their own, since skeletons were now synonymous with weakness.
But the savage Gnoll Warriors were slaughtered by the Green Bone Skeletons as easily as chopping vegetables.
The Green Bone Skeletons fought in a plain, no-frills style. You could slash one and barely hurt it; one slash from them, and you'd probably die.
The Common Skeletons fought in a plain, no-frills style, while the Transcendental Skeletons fought beautifully.
Spirit Runes appeared across the Spirit Cat Skeleton Warriors' bones as they unleashed various Cat Clan Combat Techniques and chased down the Gnoll Transcendent Warriors.
The Spirit Cat Skeleton Warlock swung its Bone Staff, trading spells with the Gnoll Warlock.
The Ancestor Skeletons' performance in battle stirred the Cat-men who had followed along. They couldn't help looking forward to the day when they, too, could fight with such flair.
The Gnolls had only come to harass them, and there weren't many. They were quickly wiped out by the Green Bone Skeletons, who outnumbered them several times over.
After returning, the Cat-men who had watched the battle described everything they had seen to their fellow tribespeople in vivid detail.
The Cat-men kept sneaking glances at the skeletons. Who would have thought those skeletons quietly hauling their belongings were so powerful?
The Cat-men worked efficiently and finished preparing for the tribe's migration in just half a day.
Under the cover of night, the Skeleton Caravan left Spirit Cat Hill and headed back to Kurd City along the same route.
The Cat-men had good night vision and moved nimbly, so they could keep pace with the Skeleton Caravan.
Having experienced a great migration before, the Spirit Cat Tribe knew the longer they spent on the road, the more dangerous it became. They gritted their teeth and pressed on without asking to make camp and rest.
"Lord Medivh, we've confirmed it. That mountain path is passable."
As the Spirit Cat Tribe migrated, a Skeleton Mage reported their findings to Medivh.
Under brutal torture, the Slave Hunter Group's captives had revealed information about a hidden mountain path leading to the Gewalt Federation.
The captives' accounts differed somewhat, so Medivh sent a Skeleton Mage and several Skeleton Knights to investigate. They found the correct route.
It was an important smuggling route. Medivh could use it to enter the Gewalt Federation without passing through Winter Fortress and buy the things he needed.
"They're no longer useful. When the Cat-men arrive, give them to the tribe as a welcoming gift."
Medivh had no interest in the slave merchants' ransom money.
He didn't execute the slave merchants outright. Instead, he planned to put the captives to further use and win people's favor.
The Gnolls discovered that the Spirit Cat Tribe had migrated as a whole several days later.
They pursued them for a while, but when they saw that the Cat-men had already gone far, they gave up the chase and occupied Spirit Cat Hill.
On the return journey, the Skeleton Sentries escorted the migration party, and they encountered no serious danger.
The Cat-men were flesh and blood, after all. They couldn't compare to tireless skeletons.
So even without dragging their feet, it still took them fifteen days to complete the journey.
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