Chapter 188: Three-Sided Battle

After eliminating all living beings in the city, Donald had no interest in admiring its exquisite decorations. Instead, he headed straight to the family’s treasure hoard.
The last bronze-level dark elf mage he killed turned out to be a coward who, upon slight intimidation, spilled out everything he knew. This was typical of dark elves—they were inherently skilled in intrigue and betrayal, extremely selfish races with hardly any loyal individuals willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of their family.
According to that dark elf mage, each of the four major families possessed vast wealth hidden in treasuries within their main residences, and he happened to know the location of his own family’s treasury.
Upon obtaining the exact location, Donald went to the courtyard behind the castle. The dark elves had unoriginally chosen to hide their treasure underground. After breaking through the treasure’s protective barrier, it became as defenseless as a fragile maiden before Donald.
How rich could a dark family’s accumulated wealth be over thousands of years? If asked earlier, Donald might not have known the answer. But seeing the sheer amount of treasures, equipment, and rare materials before him, he would say it was enough to buy an entire city.
In fact, the most valuable items in the treasury weren’t the large quantities of gold and silver, but rather the few rare and precious materials stored in sealed magic boxes. Donald immediately spotted several pieces ofmithril and electrum, and when the old mage opened one of the boxes, he exclaimed, “These are phoenix feathers!”
Materials capable of crafting legendary equipment were nearly extinct in the main material world, with even the smallest scraps being extremely rare. Yet here, they had discovered three such materials in one go.
“As expected, no horse grows fat without night grass, and no one becomes rich without unexpected wealth. Although infiltrating Scorpion Tail City was a bit dangerous, compared to these gains, I’d endure ten times more danger!” Donald uttered a sigh from his past life before casually sweeping everything in the treasury into his storage space.
After finishing, looking at the now-empty treasury, Donald and his teacher laughed heartily. “Let’s go! To the next family!” Then they called back their remaining summoned creatures and vanished from the castle in an instant.

As Donald and the others left, a short man in black led several skilled assassins and thieves to the manor castle. Seeing the ruined castle hall and the empty treasury, the short man touched his nose and said, “Damn it, I seem to have arrived too late. Who could be so powerful as to capture the Harris family’s castle so quickly?”
He quickly understood the situation.
“Let’s go and join the leader!”
With that, the group of assassins and thieves, all specializing in agile skills, left the manor and headed north.
By then, Donald had already plundered the treasure vault of a second family, reaping a hefty bounty. Aside from a silver-level dark elf mage in that family who activated magical defenses and caused some trouble for Donald, there were hardly any major obstacles.
Even that silver-level dark elf mage was quickly defeated when combined forces of Miesel and his disciple Donald, both silver-level mages.
When Donald arrived at the lair of a third dark elf family, he found another group attacking the castle there.
Due to intense internal conflicts, even though the lairs of all four families were in the city, each had built their core areas like castles with strong defensive fortifications.
The leader of this group was a dark elf mage in a black robe, accompanied by warriors of various races. Together with hundreds of rebellious slaves, they had invaded the manor, forcing the inhabitants to activate magical defenses and retreat to the main house waiting for rescue.
Of course, Donald wouldn’t miss the treasure in this family’s vault, so he attacked from another direction. With Donald and his allies joining forces, the castle’s magical defense barrier soon collapsed.
Before the slaves could react, a group of fearless summoned creatures rushed in.

All the subsequent defensive fortifications and temporary traps inside the castle were destroyed by the summoned creatures, and nearly half of those creatures were lost. Donald wasn’t reluctant to use those low-grade magic cores to summon dozens more to make up for it. Then he glanced at the dark elf mage before strode into the castle. The dark elf mage felt a chill at Donald’s glance. Though both were silver mages, Donald gave him the impression of a fierce dragon, leaving him seemingly without any chance of resistance. So he immediately made up his mind and reluctantly led his subordinates to leave that place and head toward where their leader was. As for those slaves, those who had achieved their goals no longer cared about their lives. The stronghold of the third family wasn’t too far away either, so taking the opportunity to weaken their strength would also eliminate potential threats ahead of time. Thus, Donald and his disciples fought with great enthusiasm, without any psychological burden. After looting the stronghold of the Three Arrows Family, only the most prominent Spider Academy in the north of the city and the most magnificent dark elf manor remained. It was Sord and his two companions who had inspected and attacked the stronghold of the first family using owls, along with many helpers, who were now rushing to launch an attack. The stronghold of the first family was even more magnificent and strongly defended than those of the previous three families. Despite Sord and his two companions, along with a powerful warrior wielding a great sword and his subordinates, having spent so much time, they had only managed to break through the outer defenses and reach the main castle. Besides the first family’s strength far surpassing the other three families, it was also because their Banrei family’s martial arts master was a gold-level warrior. Although this gold warrior was slightly inferior to the peak-tier magic swordswoman Carlisle, Carlisle, in order to conserve his strength, didn’t dare to exhaust himself completely to defeat his opponent. Thus, the two sides remained in a stalemate. As the top figure under the head of the first family, Adele naturally prioritized rescuing her own family’s territory. When she returned with her people, she found that her family’s first two layers of defenses had already been breached by the enemy’s attack. As one of the renowned gold-level warriors in Scorpion Flower City, and the leader of the Blood Battle Mercenary Group—the two major forces other than the four great families—Carlisle was well-known to many. His extraordinary appearance also left a deep impression, making it hard not to recognize him.

As planned… after freeing the slaves and inciting them to riot, the three strongest men under him led their teams to attack the strongholds of the other three major families. As for the tough nut to crack that was the first family, the Banry, it naturally fell to him, the strongest one, to handle it. Sord and the other two also didn’t want to reveal their identities so quickly, so they followed him to the first family’s manor, the closest to the Spider Academy.

“Magic Sword Carlisle, it’s really you!”

The eldest daughter of the first family cried out immediately.

“Who gave you the audacity to attack the territory of our great Banry family? Do you think just because you’re a Golden Warrior, you’re immune to the punishment of the great goddess?”

“Hehe, I’ve already taken over this bunch of cruel scum to rule Scorpion Flower City. From today on, this city should have a new master! Let these black women experience what it’s like to be enslaved too! Right, everyone?”

Carlisle’s words caused a fierce reaction among the crowd, especially among the slaves who had been enslaved for a long time, who all started shouting in agreement.

Adèle turned pale at the filthy words of these men. She wasn’t sure whether what they said was true or not and thought they really intended to stage a coup to seize control of Scorpion Flower City!

Just as she was about to order her men to attack and then join forces with those inside the main house, two human mages suddenly appeared from another direction, along with a large group of various magical beasts.

“Lord Baron, weren’t you supposed to be covering the rear? How did you end up here too?” Sord said, both surprised and delighted.

Donald smiled slightly and replied, “Of course, I’m here for the wealth of those dark elves. Those things are probably useless to you guys too. It’s better to leave them to me!”

Sord and his companions exchanged a glance and then said with a smile, “Of course! As long as Lord Baron helps us deal with these evil forces and the Banry family’s treasures, you can choose whatever you want!”

“Good! It’s a deal. Except for those Golden Warriors, the rest are ours!”

Carlisle was somewhat dissatisfied with Sord’s agreement to the conditions set by these two new mages. But thinking about the reward he had been promised, he paid less attention to the Banry family’s wealth. Moreover, he didn’t believe they could take everything; he would still get some wealth, which he could use as severance pay to leave this underground world. Once he reached the surface world, he could live freely.

The others were unaware of Carlisle’s schemes, but his plans were doomed to fail. Even Sod and the other two wouldn’t have imagined that Donald possessed an incredibly vast storage space—large enough to hold an entire mountain if his ability allowed it. Meanwhile, Adèle, upon seeing a new force arrive that was also on the opposing side, grew worried about her family’s situation. She immediately took out a cylinder from her bosom, activated it, and it emitted a sharp sound in midair, creating a continuous stream of flames. “Hehe! The Banrui family is sending a distress signal. We should get serious and finish off these dark-skinned guys quickly! Otherwise, if those four matriarchs show up, things will get bad!” “Let’s start then!” “Kill them!” And so, the three factions engaged in a chaotic battle within the manor.