Chapter 48: Battle in the Jungle (Part 2)

Actually, even without these summoned creatures by his side, Donald could complete this mission alone.
In this dense mountain forest filled with trees and vegetation, which was the domain of the elf race, the natural forces surrounding him created an excellent fighting environment. Although it couldn’t compare to the active enhancements provided by the natural barrier formed by the Tree of Life, such an environment still granted him and his elf troops, who inherited the heroic traits of the night elves, at least a 30% boost in strength!
However, completing the mission alone would take much longer. He didn’t have time to waste. Now that Uther had joined and his strength had increased further, it was better to use the summoned creatures to finish the task quickly. After all, another major battle awaited him!
The group headed in the direction from which the orcs were coming. Soon, a loud noise came from where the troll shaman had set up traps—apparently, something had triggered them.
“Hurry, let’s go take a look!”
Donald led his warriors to the scene immediately and saw three orc spearmen spinning around dazedly.
“Haha! Well done, guys!”
The effectiveness of the static traps and the sentry guards filled Donald with joy, and he praised the troll shamans greatly. He never expected that two skills he had found rather useless in the game could have such a powerful effect in reality.
The static traps were basically ineffective against professionals at the black iron level and above. Although orcs were numerous, an untrained adult orc’s overall strength was only comparable to that of a mid-tier human black iron warrior. Though human soldiers were generally weaker in physique, they could rely on weapons, equipment, and tactical wisdom to win.
These spearmen, though briefly trained, were semi-ranged units whose close-combat strength wasn’t much better than that of ordinary adult orcs. Compared to human armies, they were nothing but a ragtag bunch.
At this moment, the orc vanguard, affected by the static traps, would remain dazed for at least half a minute and take some time to fully recover. This was the perfect opportunity for Donald to strike while the iron was hot.
War was cruel—nothing more than a struggle for survival. There was no room for mercy on the battlefield. Moreover, in Donald’s eyes, these orcs were nothing but savage, bloodthirsty monsters, not even worthy of being called humans. It was like killing monsters in a game, so he felt no moral burden killing them.

Eight archers and hunters fired in unison in just one round, turning the three orc spearmen into quails on a stick. Donald, who had already ended the battle, did not immediately clean up the battlefield or collect the orcs’ heads to take back as a reward. Instead, he stood frozen in place. The reason was that after dealing with those three orc spearmen, he suddenly received a message from the Book of Truth in his mind. “Soul fragment detected. Should it be absorbed directly or exchanged for equipment to absorb it?” “What does this mean?” As Donald pondered, the Book of Truth promptly granted him divine vision, allowing him to see souls. He saw faint black smoke emanating from the bodies of the slain orcs, gathering into several blurry orbs. Within those orbs, the distorted faces of the orcs could be seen screaming in pain. “So this is what the soul fragments of intelligent beings look like!” Soul power could only be collected and used for summoning creatures once it reached a certain intensity. These soul fragments were the smallest unit; the soul imprints within them could summon ordinary first- or second-level creatures. He hadn’t received any hints when hunting magical beasts before because their souls were already weak, and their remaining soul fragments were fused into their magic cores. The stronger the soul power, the more powerful and intelligent the summoned creatures would be. To summon permanently existing creatures, one needed to accumulate numerous soul fragments to reach the level of a complete soul. Summoning powerful heroes or beings required even more powerful, perfect souls than ordinary ones. Unlike previous attempts to destroy immortal creatures, the Book of Truth was not a divine artifact specifically designed for souls, so its range for collecting soul power was limited. That’s why it recommended that the user exchange for equipment specifically designed to absorb and store soul power. Following the Book of Truth’s guidance, Donald found the desired item on the exchange list and obtained a fragment of a soul sphere as a container for absorbing and storing soul power. Though called a fragment, it was actually a transparent crystal ball the size of a walnut; a complete soul sphere was as big as a fist. Despite its small size, this crystal ball had immense power—it could absorb all soul fragments within a radius of about a hundred feet, leaving none behind, regardless of whether those souls came from creatures killed by Donald himself.

After obtaining the fragments of the Soul Ball, Donald waved his hand toward the glowing orbs appearing on those orcs. In just that short while, the orbs had already shrunk slightly, showing how fast ordinary soul energy dissipates. After doing this, he glanced into the crystal ball and saw a faint, misty black smoke emerging within the originally blank and transparent sphere—likely the soul energy stored there. By activating the function of the soul fragments and transferring that soul energy into the Book of Truth, he found that only a mere five units had been added. This was also why he didn’t have specialized skills related to souls. Unlike hunting demons, the abilities granted to Demon Hunters allowed them to seize any demonic energy, including their souls. But after killing other types of enemies, this ability became ineffective, as most of the soul energy would dissipate quickly; otherwise, the gains could be several times greater. A complete, blank Soul Ball was a sub-legendary artifact that required the energy of tens of thousands of lower-tier elemental crystals to obtain. Even these incomplete fragments were lower-tier legendary items, requiring fifteen medium-tier elemental crystals to acquire. Ten fragments of the Soul Ball were needed to assemble a complete one, and the synthesis process itself was costly. Given these factors, it was less economical to obtain the fragments separately rather than the whole ball. However, Donald’s energy reserves were still limited, and he had many other needs, so he decided to summon a fragment for temporary use first, planning to address the rest once he had more resources. Moreover, each fragment of the Soul Ball could hold at least tens of thousands of units of intelligent beings’ soul fragments, meaning he would need to kill thousands or even tens of thousands of orcs to collect enough soul fragments to fill a single fragment of the Soul Ball. With the powerful Soul Ball to help gather soul energy, Donald knew he could now kill freely.