The residents of the territory reacted the most after the battle ended.

They had witnessed with their eyes that Richard created the Flame Sandstorm like a natural disaster.

Their eyes were burning as if they were looking at a god!

“Gods above, this must be the power of a god…”

“I, what did I just see?! The Lord single-handedly killed thousands of monsters more powerful than the dragon!!”

“Great gods, is the liege your savior?”

Discussion continued…

During the heated discussion, the residents’ pride almost overflowed from their chests.

This was their liege! Their guardian!

Praise the Twilight City, praise the Great Lord!!

Xina, who was holding her longsword tightly, took a deep breath. The emotions in her eyes become more and more complicated.

If it were her, she wouldn’t be able to escape that terrifying attack…

Richard turned to look at the corpses of the poisonous vultures around him after he fell from the sky.

“Put these corpses away…”

Although the poisonous vultures were covered in poison and couldn’t be eaten, they could be kept to recruit mummies or sold in exchange for urgently needed resources.

When he thought of this, he felt a little better. But he was no longer as relaxed as before.

These wild monsters seemed to have entered an uninhabited land. He was exceedingly annoyed.

Wasn’t this bullying an honest person?

“After Gray returns, arrange for two teams of dark gargoyles to temporarily guard the Russian olive forest.”

Fortunately, the Desert Crown Bee was not injured.

He felt some lingering fear in his heart. If he were not in the territory today, even if there were two mummy heroes and dark gargoyles, he would still suffer heavy losses.

Desert Crown Honey was the future pillar industry of Twilight City. It would be a tremendous blow to his plan if something went wrong.

‘I would have to consider the territory defense, especially the long-range damage…’

While he reflected on this battle, the venom vultures on the battlefield quickly gathered together.

Karu immediately reported after he finished making all the statistics.

“Lord Richard, twelve residential buildings have been damaged, and three burned down. A total of 45 people were injured, and no deaths occurred.

“In terms of harvest, we have obtained 141 poison vultures. All of them have died in battle…”

He said in a solemn tone after hesitating for a moment.

“Lord, we might have to consider building defensive measures such as arrow towers and siege crossbows.”

Richard nodded slightly.

First, go to the residents and count the talents in this area. If there are any suitable ones, arrange for them in the blacksmith’s shop. Once Adele is done with her work, immediately start building them.”

“As you wish.”

Both arrow towers and siege crossbows needed construction blueprints… Now, they could only see if Adele, this talented blacksmith, could come up with any ideas.

The foundation of the city of darkness was too shallow. It lacked everything, so they could only take it gradually.

Richard didn’t struggle over this. He looked at the poisonous vultures piled into a mountain of flesh in the sand and frowned slightly.

These behemoths with more than 12 meters of wingspan could easily hunt bison and lions. Ordinary arrows could not penetrate their iron-like wings.

However, the problem was if the residents could not eat them. It would reduce their value.

However, it was too wasteful to use them to recruit mummies. Right now, he was in dire need of resources…

After Richard thought for a moment, h opened the [Trade Market] to take a look.

As the Lords quickly integrated into the world of light, the food gradually stabilized.

Among them, the price of meat had dropped to 1 unit for 15 units of resources.

The sand barley was 1 unit for ten units of resources.

Unfortunately, the poison vultures couldn’t sell at this price, or else this wave would be rich…

With a different mood, he opened the reward area.

The undead mostly issued the bounty for the corpses of soldiers. And the price of rare soldiers was..? Ten thousand units???

Richard was pleasantly surprised after he ensured it wasn’t a mistake.

He had 141 venom vultures. Does it mean he could sell them for millions of resources?!

How could that undead be so generous? How could they offer such a high price?

If he remembered correctly, he could not sell the soldiers’ corpses at a high price. And the rare ones were only a few thousand units.

Richard only understood after he looked at the posts on the [Forum Chat].

The dungeon was about to open, and the lords’ confidence in getting loot shares held back their energy to prepare for the violent soldiers.

Meanwhile, the resources that could increase the troop’s strength rose along with the tide.

He looked at Gunter beside him and did not remember selling them.

“Gunter, what level can these venom vultures recruit?”

Gunter made a slight estimation and said.

“Two stars at most…”

Richard immediately gave up on using venom vultures to recruit mummies.

Rare 2-stars, that was too low.

With over a million resources, he could purchase a new branch and recruit a few squadrons of rare troops. Why bother?

Moreover, after Twilight City’s troop lair respawned, there was still no recruitment…

Without hesitation, he directly exchanged all these corpses for resources.

He purposely sold them in batches to avoid nurturing a powerful undead lord.

In the end, he earned a total of 1.41 million units of resources.

His stats panel has filled to the brim like never before.

Richard looked at the series of numbers and was in a great mood.

This exchange swept away his gloominess from before.

Although the process of the venom vultures’ ambush made him unhappy, the result was still pretty good.

Instead of waiting for Gray to go after the venom vultures in the Russian olive forest, Richard returned to the Lord’s mansion with some anticipation.

The first thing he did was to recruit all the troops that had spawned in the troop lairs.

Elite 3-stars, guardian mummy, before recruitment: 120→ after recruitment: 150, cost: 3,600 units

Rare 3-stars, bandaged mummy: 20→51,25,000 units

Rare 3-stars, scorpion warrior: 27→34, 8400 units

Rare 3-stars, curse pharaoh: 5→10, 6000 units

Rare 3-stars, undead soldier: 20→250, 60,000 units

Rare 3-stars, dark gargoyle: 40→60, 240,000 units, 200 units gemstones.

A total of 340,000 units of resources had been consumed after all this work, not counting the change.

Richard could not help but sigh. War had always been about economics.

However, it was all worth it. The troop had become more powerful than ever.

This was only the recruitment of troops. There were still two more troops that it did not count — 29 Rare 1-star Rotten Cavalry led by D-rank hero Baal Sharpclaw and 30 Glorious 2-stars Heavy Sword Warrior.

With these two troops, they could still be powerful even though it excluded the mummified guardians used to protect the territory.

Richard’s troop also reached 239 people.

Including Gray, Gunter, Baal, and the other heroes like him and Xina.

The total force was close to two and a half squadrons.

Moreover, these were extremely powerful elites, not trash randomly assembled.

The lowest level of troops was all rare, and the highest level had reached the glorious 2-stars.

A few A-rank and even a Beyond A-rank hero, Richard, led the team.

Their battle power was strong enough to dazzle any lord-tier player.

Even though more than half a month had passed, elite soldiers were still the main force of lords.

Only top-tier lords could possess rare soldiers.

As for rare soldiers… If one wanted to obtain rare-level soldiers, one had to attack the gathering grounds of rare-level soldiers and occupy the lairs of these wild monsters before they could recruit them.

With this step, who knew how many lords would fall?

Put aside whether or not they would be able to find a rare-level troop lair.

Even if they did, just think about how much a lord would have to pay to attack troop lairs guarded by dozens of Axe of the Dead soldiers.

‘As for glorious-level troops..? What was that thing???’

Most of the troops they had seen before were already ten meters tall…

But these troops were now neatly arranged in front of Richard like cabbages. They were almost dreamy in the eyes of the other lords… At his disposal.