31

The Witcher: The last King of the elves

Chapter 31 – Preparations

"Your Majesty!"

In the border area where Thranduil had gathered with his soldiers, an elf who seemed to be in charge of the vanguard army said:
“During this hunt, we killed more than 100,000 magical beasts and collected over 87,000 magic crystals, as well as some energy cores.”

As was customary, the elves placed the resources in front of him.

They did not ask what their king did, nor how he discovered the magic crystals. In truth, Thranduil himself did not know.

He could only think that all of this was due to the appearance of the World Tree. The nutrients it needed to grow and give life to thousands of elves did not come from nothing.

All of this came from nutrients, which in this case were the magic crystals—the lives of beings that had been slain. Thus, life was born and the power of nature expanded.

A unique order, something Thranduil believed was a necessary evil.

"Good work." Thranduil nodded to all the elves who looked at him with eyes full of admiration.

This was not only because of his recent victories. No—the Thranduil from before had earned that respect when he sacrificed his magic to keep this place as safe as possible.

Therefore, the Thranduil of now knew that he still had a long way to go before he could raise his head with the pride of being a king.

“Any casualties in our ranks?” Thranduil raised his gaze, taking his eyes away from the magic crystals, and then focused on the elf soldier named Erian, who was a captain of the hunter corps.

“Your Majesty, no elf died. There were some injuries, but they recovered quickly after drinking the Water of Life,” Erian replied respectfully.

"That is a relief!” A smile appeared on Thranduil’s face, for he did not want to suffer losses—not until that day.

To be able to slay more than 100,000 monsters without suffering a single casualty—this record could be considered perfect.

The main reason was that his elven troops were simply too strong. They were all ultimate weapons, warriors any army would wish to have.

Along with rich combat experience and extremely sophisticated magical equipment, it was natural that ordinary monsters could not stand against them.

Looking at his soldiers, Thranduil said in a calm tone:
“I have improved the magical spring in our territory. It can now condense high-grade elven spring water. Instruct everyone to bring some whenever they go out hunting.”

High-grade elven spring water had far better effects—far superior to the spring water of low-level elves.

Even if an elf was gravely wounded, they could recover quickly by drinking the Water of Life. As for unfinished low- and mid-level elven spring water, it could be stored and used for other purposes later.

“Praise be to His Majesty, the Great Elven King!” the elf mage at the front responded quickly.

Thranduil nodded slightly. He gestured with his hand, signaling the beautiful elf mage to leave.

Then he went to the Ancient War Tree and opened the training panel for the elven troops.

“On my own I also obtained crystals—a great number. Including the ones the Elven Legion brought back this time, I now have a total of more than 94,000 magic crystals.”

“There are still many elves without a class in the territory. If I assign them all, I would still have around 50,000 magic crystals left.” Thranduil suddenly wanted to improve the level of the Ancient War Tree.

Currently, the level of the Ancient War Tree was intermediate, and it would take exactly 50,000 energy crystals to upgrade it to the advanced level.

“I must choose carefully.”

After midnight, he would use the remaining energy crystals to train the newborn elves and turn them into elven soldiers. That way, they could kill more undead creatures tonight.

“I will think about how to improve the Ancient War Tree tomorrow.” Without another thought, Thranduil immediately began training the elven troops.

About half a minute later, a dense crowd of elven archers and elven swordsmen appeared before him. Each of them was fully equipped and looked heroic.

“Praise be to His Majesty!”
“Swear loyalty to the great Elven King until death!”
“Everyone, rise!”
“We are the ultimate weapons!”
“Glory to the elves!”

Thranduil raised his hand.

Looking at the exquisite, beautiful faces before him and the countless eyes full of respect and fervor, a bright smile appeared on his face.

In just a few days, he had gone from being a solitary man to a lord with an elite army.

This speed of development was not slow.

From now on, the number of elves under his command had surpassed figures not seen since ancient times.

Such a legion gave Thranduil absolute confidence to deal with a possible tide of rats.

…

After dinner.

Except for some elves who stayed behind to continue building the wall, the rest of the elves regrouped to go out hunting again.

After drinking the high-grade elven spring water, their physical condition had long since returned to its peak.

Thranduil did not remain in the territory either.
Holding the Sun Elven King’s scepter, he entered the ruins shrouded in darkness alone.

The night was a paradise for undead creatures. And as he expected, not long after leaving the territory, he encountered groups of undead creatures. Most were low-level undead, and only a few had reached the intermediate level.

Manipulating his elemental magic, Thranduil unleashed a torrent of flames toward the creatures. Those undead souls disappeared in a sea of fire in the blink of an eye.

“Not only the undead, but also the giant swamp rats.” By the firelight, Thranduil saw a dark shadow in the ruins in the distance grinning at him. There were dozens of giant swamp rats of all sizes.

The situation was evidently crazier than before. But Thranduil ignored it and kept moving forward.
At the same time—

The giant swamp rats also charged at him like mad, their eyes glowing red.

Thranduil did not hold back either and slew all the swamp rats with a fireball.

In the following hour, he killed more than a thousand monsters, both undead and giant swamp rats. During that time, he also saw giant swamp rats fighting with the undead.

The scale was not small. As for the end—naturally, all of them were annihilated by his Dragon Fire Roar.

These large black rats had indeed been affected by the Blood Moon. They had become extremely restless and not even afraid of the undead.

Normally, at this hour, the giant swamp rats would have already returned to their burrows and would not have the courage to compete with undead creatures for territory.

Obviously, it was the Blood Moon that had given them such courage.

“As the Blood Moon approaches, this situation will only intensify. I must prepare myself.” Thranduil truly hoped the Blood Moon would appear sooner.

That way, he could wipe out all the monsters, including the swamp rats, earlier and complete the cleansing of the city center ruins at a faster pace.

He was already sick of the plagues.

…

At midnight, Thranduil returned to the territory on time.

A new day had arrived, and the Tree of Life could once again give birth to elves. Soon, under Thranduil’s leadership, a total of ten thousand elves were born from the Tree of Life.

Thranduil trained these thousand elves to become archers and swordsmen in a three-to-two ratio.