Sieging the Castle

Through various scouts sent out Dante has found his starting location in a circular area with only one entrance and exit.

Two of the castles were already placed at the left and right of the entrance to the valley, with the other two are behind Dantes current castle.

So his current idea is to occupy all four castles and to connect them all with his current city in the centre.

This would block off the only entrance and also allow Dante to fulfil his mass expansion plans.

He also didn't forget that the entire castle will be teleported as the final deathmatch. So naturally he wants to prepare as many defences as possible.

In fact he had already started. The many mortals have begun producing various ballista's, catapults, bows and arrows and many other defensive weapons.

Even the four bloodline families have begun forming their own mini castles rather than compounds.

Each castle has many spiritual defences run by their soldiers.

Dante prepared a plan to take over each castle. He wanted to use the bloodline families to occupy 3 of them, while the golden skinned families will take over the last one.

After occupying the small tribes, Dante was able to produce over 50,000 Rank 9 Physique male puppets and provided them each as a private army for the families.

So now each family had 10,000 people in an army for them alone. And with the aid of some resources they have mostly reached the body refining state.

Unfortunately they don't have any peak combat power. Their strongest has only reached the beginning of bone refining.

So Dante is planning on accompanying them to face the fourth castle. As for the bloodline families they have long since got a person in the spirit tempering state.

After all there were many bone refining peaks within the tribes so it's simple to promote them up to the spirit tempering realm.

Dante doesn't know whether each castle will have spirit tempering warriors, but based on the hundreds of thousands of kids who came in it is unlikely.

But it is better to be cautious.

After organising the offensive, the marching began.

Dante followed by thousands of glittering gold humanoid figures headed towards the fourth castle that guarded the entrance to the valley.

As for the bloodline families they each set off towards their own targets.

Ashs Family took a target for themselves, while the other 4 families split into teams of two. Naturally targeting the remaining two castles.

Over this time the bloodline families easily have tens of thousands of tribe members and received many warriors from the crystals harvested.

Hours passed quickly before Dante could finally see the apex on the top of the beginners castle.

Occasionally you can see logging camps or signs of life on the journey. Dante wasn't having to control this fight himself.

He simply told the patriarchs of the Golden Skinned Puppets to command the order.

While his puppets lack a soul, they don't lack intelligence. They just don't have their own personal thoughts.

Clearly the commander of this army wasn't worried about appearing head first and fighting the castle. And why should he be? At most the soldiers only have a couple of thousand soldiers.

Compared with the 50,000 strong army it was nothing. Quickly the soldiers went into the battle formation and the bone refiners from the clan began to bombard the giant stone walls.

Luckily the walls were slightly reinforced or the enemy's castle would've been easily breached.

''Enough! If you leave now I will forgive you when I get out of here!'' Suddenly a small boy appeared on the walls of the castle.

Clearly he was the little golden boy in his clan and was used to acting domineeringly. Maybe it would've worked if it was someone else attacking him, however Dante didn't care.

No matter what force the boy comes from, it can't affect Dantes decision.

The bombarding was constant. Obviously this boy had gotten a good start with three peak bone refiners guarding his gate. However quantity overwhelmed the quality.

Slowly the soldiers on his side were worn down and the walls were crumbling.

The boy himself was immobilised by Dante in a single move. The terror shown in the boy's face was unending. After all, this isn't a game. Any lives lost here are lost permanently.

But Dante naturally had no idea of killing the boy. Rather he wanted to make him into a loyal puppet for his use.

After all, any force that has come to participate is at least an ancient force and commonly a Saint force.

And from this boy's attitude it's easy to tell he is at least a saint. After all, he wouldn't dare be so arrogant if he was in the lower ranks at just an ancient force.

Dante naturally received no backlash when he was making the boy into a puppet. He also learnt that the boy was from a relatively weaker Saint force in the area. It was weak because it only had one living saint at the moment.

The boy's talent was impressive with a Rank 3 Illusionist Physique. It was a relatively well known physique among Rank 3's.

As his strength increases he can produce powerful illusions that can trap people within them. There were even rumours that an Antique Illusionist would be able to trap millions of people for their entire lives.

But the boy was unlucky with this test, the Illusionist Physique Requires a minimum of the Spirit Tempering in order to use its abilities.

The boy, whose name Dante found was Liam, has a normal cultivation base of Spirit Tempering.

The downside of the Illusionist Physique is the weakness of their body. They are hardly a match for peers during the body and bone refining realms, however once they reach Spirit Tempering they can tower above the others.

Unfortunately this boy met Dante. Liam didn't stand a chance and now has been implemented into Dantes Army.

This was one of the rules Dante found out when he won the castle. After a castle is occupied, if you can gain the loyalty of the original contestant then the limit of their cultivation will be removed.

So Liam rose straight to the fourth stage of Spirit Tempering allowing him to use his illusionist abilities.

This is naturally a powerful card that can be played in large battles.