Volume One: Hell-Tier Lord World Chapter 135: Military Strength

The situation with Kebas and the new hero’s squad mirrors that of Chen Gu’s own forces. Both are hybrid formations consisting of original units supplemented by Chen Gu’s synthesized troops.

Kebas’s primary forces remain swarms of mosquitoes and burrowing worms, which dictates that his combat style is centered on rapid, frontal assaults. Within his ranks, there are 13 units of mosquitoes, each with distinct attributes. This is the result of Chen Gu helping Kebas synthesize them using various pieces of equipment. Due to the properties of this gear, each unit of mosquitoes possesses a unique combat style, yet Kebas can easily control them, utilizing them effectively as specialized swarms.

Beyond these elite troops, Kebas commands 71 units of standard mosquitoes (each weekly production cycle yields 50,000 insects), 176 burrowing worms, 79 illusion archers, 106 illusion sword dancers, and 70 jungle sprites. The core of this force is undoubtedly the mosquitoes. After Kebas’s processing, all mosquito swarms have been standardized, with 50,000 individuals per unit. With 71 units, he commands a staggering 3.55 million mosquitoes. Should anyone encounter this in the wild, they would be drained of blood until death in an instant.

However, these swarms have a drawback: they possess no levels. Only the 13 specialized units can gain experience and level up; the ordinary mosquitoes cannot. When they fight, experience is awarded only to Kebas. If they are killed in battle, Kebas can only replenish them through his own methods, as there is no formal training process for them. The burrowing worms are the same batch Kebas has led from the beginning. Throughout his recent battles—particularly over the last ten days of continuous combat and scavenging—he has had no opportunity to return and replenish his numbers, so the current count is a testament to his efforts.

The illusion archers and illusion sword dancers are the result of illusion elves taking on those professions. While elves generally lean toward archery, illusion elves are better suited for roles like sword dancing, which is why there are noticeably more of the latter. Jungle sprites are the small beings wearing green caps, known for their hobby of collecting gold and gems. While their combat prowess is not particularly high, most elven legions cannot do without them. This is partly because they are best suited for scavenging battlefields and performing miscellaneous tasks, and partly because their presence boosts the legion's luck. In larger armies, they would be accompanied by satyrs to bolster morale, effectively pushing both morale and luck to their maximum levels before battle.

If Kebas were a full legion rather than a single individual, Chen Gu would have assigned a dedicated hero to lead these support units. For now, this is all that can be arranged for him. Other units—whether standard sprites, flower sprites, dryads, or synthesized arch-sprites—would offer no tangible benefits to Kebas’s specific force, so they were omitted.

Unlike Kebas, the other hero is a true combat-oriented leader.

[Hero Attributes]
Name: Lister
Quality: Purple (Level Cap: 15)
Race: Elf
Level: 1
Talent: Offense (Provides an additional 5% bonus per level to the Offense skill)
Combat Stats: Strength 12, Agility 11, Constitution 9, Perception 8, Intelligence 8
Campaign Stats: Attack 4, Defense 0, Magic 1, Wisdom 1
Initial Skill: Offense Level 2
Legion: Arch-sprites (200), Elven Archers (80), Elven Sword Dancers (150), Pegasus Riders (18), Wild Wolves (500), Biochemical Dryads (200), Empty Slot

Lister’s abilities are focused entirely on attack; his Offense skill boosts the combat effectiveness of all his troops. Normally, Level 1 Offense increases melee physical damage by 10%. Level 2 raises this to 20%, and combined with his talent—which grants an additional 5% per level—his troops receive a 30% attack boost, even without factoring in his base 4 points of Attack. Consequently, most of his force consists of melee units. Had he not required some ranged support, he likely wouldn't have included the 80 elven archers at all. These archers and sword dancers hail from Longfeng City. Since Chen Gu has not expanded the illusion-based units to that region, they provide the purest form of elven troops.

Arch-sprites are synthesized from sprites, retaining the sprite’s ability to attack without triggering a counterattack, a trait Lister values. The wild wolves, while lacking the lethality of blade-wolves, are capable combatants, and since Longfeng City currently produces them in bulk, Lister takes what is available without complaint. The Pegasus riders were hard-won from the Forest Garden; pegasi are rare, and he has scraped together 18, with the hope that numbers will increase later. Biochemical dryads are the product of synthesizing dryads with other dryads. Similar to the arch-sprites, their main distinction is their name, but their immense strength makes them valuable in Lister’s eyes. While flower sprites have a synthesized variant called "hundred-flower sprites," they lean toward magic, which offers no benefit to Lister’s melee-centric force, so he left them behind.

Lister left one slot in his legion open, not by accident, but by design. He believes that keeping a slot empty leaves room to recruit or acquire new units in the wild—a common practice among most elves.

These two squads, combined with the forces Chen Gu keeps by his side and the *Vine-Light* which is set to deploy, constitute the entirety of Chen Gu’s current military strength. While the total number may not reach the size of a full legion, when one considers that Chen Gu entered the Lord’s World alone and started with nothing, the progress is remarkable. With these forces, Chen Gu can confidently face one or two Level 5 cities, and should he encounter a swarm of corpse-eating insects like before, he would no longer be helpless. Starting anew, Chen Gu is filled with confidence, certain that he will carve out yet another new territory.