Chapter 23: Eliminate potential hazards

The Drakewolf’s throat scales immediately spewed out a large amount of steam, followed by the space around it distorting. Blazing heat instantly blasted into the goblin camp, causing the surrounding corrupted plants to dehydrate and wither immediately.

The goblins fared even worse—those caught in the flames twisted in agony, while the rest collapsed and scattered in chaos.

Phield recalled a childhood scene of pouring hot water on ants.

The pillar of fire swept back and forth through the camp, igniting goblin after goblin in painful howls. Many were hit directly and burned into piles of black ash, while the remaining ones, unwilling to wait desperately for death, countered with javelins and stones.

"Aooooh!"

The goblin leader, with seven or eight loyal followers, raised spears and charged at Phield.

"Whoosh~"

The foremost goblin didn’t even cry out before collapsing abruptly to the ground. Intestines and ruptured organs spilled from the massive wound in its abdomen, while the feather arrow that killed it embedded into the boulder behind, its fletching still quivering slightly.

Ashina couldn’t be bothered to command the giant wolf to attack; she drew arrows and strung her bow herself, firing rapidly at the goblins.

The charging goblins didn’t even have time to consider fleeing before they were all slain by streaks of silver light.

Soon, all the goblins in the camp were dead. The earth was baked and cracked, the ground covered in grayish-white ashes.

"These goblins have armor—they definitely didn’t make it themselves. I think there are things worth exploring nearby." Phield remained focused, though unfortunately the mini-map didn’t mark resources. He picked up a rusted, unrecognizable iron scrap. "This seems like royal stuff, but it’s so rotten that even scrap dealers wouldn’t want it."

The intricate and ornate iris patterns on it vaguely indicated it was royal shoulder armor, worn as a helmet on a goblin’s head.

Phield flicked it, only for a shower of rust to fall.

"Alright, what was I expecting? These armors are rusted to slag—no value." He tossed the junk away in disgust and continued rummaging through the goblin camp.

In this era, there was no such thing as antiques.

"My lord, I estimate there’s another nest nearby. There are no young in the territory—that’s strange."

"Search carefully. Treasures are secondary; this band of goblins must be wiped out completely." Phield’s expression was serious; he didn’t want to leave behind a group of monsters harboring hatred toward him.

Ashina tilted her head, sensing that Phield was unusually vigilant about goblins, even though they were weak creatures. But since the lord had given the order, Ashina searched the surroundings meticulously. As they predicted, after a thorough search, they found the goblin young hidden in a burrow not far from the territory.

Pulling aside the thorns blocking the cave entrance, Phield bent down and entered.

The entrance was small, but inside it opened up spacious, piled with clutter—especially heaps of armor and weapons, all rotten beyond recognition. The smell of rust and excrement filled the space with a pungent odor, but Phield could ignore it; after all, the scent of corruption wasn’t much better.

"Waa waa waa~"

A pile of goblins huddled together, scattered all over the floor—at least a hundred or so. If they hadn’t found them, the goblins could recover their strength in a month. Imprisoned beside the goblins were two deformed doe deer. Unsurprisingly, these two does were the goblins’ mothers.

Goblins had no females and could only reproduce with other creatures—and they bred exceptionally fast.

"Huh? Are these species immune to the death mist?" Phield’s eyes lit up as he approached to inspect the does, but upon seeing the mouths and eyes on their spines, he felt disappointed. "So they’re corrupted creatures—just the non-aggressive type."

Ashina covered her mouth and laughed. "Such peculiar goblins are quite rare. The death mist isn’t something you can just immunize against casually."

That was true; otherwise, the empire would have reclaimed the vast Northern Province long ago.

"Something’s wrong. These goblins can already reproduce with corrupted creatures?"

Phield suddenly realized this and sucked in a cold breath. Corrupted creatures were everywhere—if the goblins captured a large number of female corrupted creatures, they would pose a massive threat to the Nightfall Domain.

"This is indeed a problem. From now on, we’ll have to keep an eye on the goblins."

Ashina drew her long knife from behind her waist. The giant wolf was too large to squeeze in, so they would have to take care of it personally.

"Let’s do it together—make it quick." Phield picked up a rusty spiked mace from the ground and, like playing whack-a-mole, smashed all the little goblins into "two-dimensional" pulp. Then he gave each of the two corrupted does a hammer blow, sending them all straight to hell.

After taking stock of the spoils in the burrow, Phield harvested a cave full of junk armor.

Transporting them would be time-consuming and laborious, and they were useless, so he left them. However, a locked ironwood chest caught his attention.

"Did you see a key?" Phield searched around.

Ashina blinked playfully. "Of course, my lord."

She reached out and casually yanked, ripping off the iron lock along with the corrupted moss clinging to it.

Fine, you’re impressive!

Phield took a deep breath, cautiously and slowly opening the chest, praying inside that it wasn’t a trap bomb or a mimic.

Fortunately, his boring fantasies didn’t come true. The first things that met his eyes were two banners: an old, faded Sacred Griffin Empire flag, and another Phield didn’t recognize—a strange pattern made of an eye and a hexagram, like some noble family’s crest. Just like the Ross family crest, which was an abstract rose made of symbols and lines—Phield didn’t even want to use that flag; it looked kinda gay.

Beneath the banners were several sealed thin wooden cylinders standing upright.

Using a small knife to carefully pry off the lid, Phield could tell that inside was a rolled-up parchment.

Ashina’s eyes lit up, her wolf ears perking straight. "Feels like we’ve found something interesting! Is it a long-sealed imperial secret? Or a treasure map hidden by some noble?"

Phield was equally curious. From the faded Sacred Griffin Empire flag and royal armor, it wasn’t hard to see that these were supplies left behind by imperial forces. The documents inside must record something fascinating.

Carefully pouring out the parchment scroll, Phield noticed the flame pattern on it and suddenly found it very familiar.

Ashina only glanced at it before squinting in disappointment. "I can sense magic flowing. I think this isn’t a treasure map."

Sure enough, when opened, it was covered in incomprehensible symbols.

It was a magic scroll!

"No wonder it looked so familiar. My sister attended mage college, and the magic scrolls she brought home to show off were exactly this style." Saying so, Phield—who had long been itching to try it—aimed at the corrupted doe’s corpse and unfurled the scroll.