Chapter 73: Forest of Death

Arthur had already selected the items he wanted to buy from the system shop. They were all meant for his cousins. Although all of them currently possessed Epic-grade items, they were merely low-grade Epic items,they were faw below than a high tier epic item. A single high-grade Epic item cost around one million Divine Gold along with a task.

He now needed to buy 48 high-grade Epic items, so he decided to merge all the tasks together. He immediately asked the system to combine them into a single task, hoping it would save him some time.

[Ding! 48 high-grade Epic item tasks have been merged. You will now have to stay alive for 30 minutes in the Forest of Death. A portal to the Forest of Death will be opened within 5 minutes.]

Arthur almost cursed when he heard the notification.

"What the heck? The Forest of Death? Why a Black-grade danger zone? The 48 tasks combined can actually trigger an impossible task?" Arthur thought with frustration.

He had only wanted to reduce the amount of time by combining all the tasks together. However, he had never done anything like this in his previous life, nor had he ever heard of anyone else doing it.

He had expected the combined task to be extremely dangerous, but this was beyond anything he had imagined. This was practically an impossible task.

In the Genesis Realm, there were many danger zones, which were graded from Orange, Yellow, and Red, all the way to Black.

Black-grade danger zones were considered impossible for ordinary players. No one had ever come out of one alive to tell the tale.

More importantly, if someone died inside a Red-level or Black-level danger zone, even a revival scroll would not work.

It meant true death.

And the Forest of Death was one of the Black-grade danger zones.

Arthur was actually somewhat terrified. He was nearly not powerful enough to survive a place like this.

He immediately checked his balance. He currently had 500 million Divine Gold, which his generals had obtained from that Divine Dungeon.

"Looks like I’ll have to level up my generals," Arthur decided immediately.

Since he had already accepted the task, he could no longer refuse it. He had to complete it.

"They are all God-tier entities, so I’ll need Eternal Gold to level them up." Arthur felt a pang in his heart at the thought.

With 500 million Divine Gold, he could convert it into 5 million Eternal Gold, which was enough to level up each of them five times.

That should be enough.

With every level-up, they would gain 16,000 attribute points. After five level-ups, each general would gain a total of 80,000 additional attribute points.

That would multiply their current attributes by nearly twenty times.

"Come out."

Arthur immediately summoned them.

One by one, the ten generals appeared before him and knelt down.

"My liege, what is your order?" Kaiser asked respectfully.

"I am going to level you up. There is a tremendous battle ahead of us, so you all must prepare yourselves," Arthur said in a calm tone.

"As you wish, Sire. We will destroy every obstacle in your path," Kaiser replied in an extremely reverent tone.

Arthur did not waste any more time.

[Ding! You have converted 500 million Divine Gold into 5 million Eternal Gold.]

[Ding! You have upgraded Kaiser to Level 11. He has gained 16,000 attribute points.]

....

Arthur finished upgrading all ten generals and allocated their attributes accordingly.

The ten generals were now radiating an aura far vaster than that of his ten cousins. Combined with their powerful divine skills and immortality, they would now be able to destroy humanity.

Arthur was extremely satisfied.

He looked ahead with his hands behind his back. He finally felt slightly more confident that he might not simply die inside the Forest of Death.

Besides, he still possessed a powerful skill, the Domain of the Shadow God.

The skill could give his entire shadow army a fivefold power boost at the cost of 100 mana points every second.

It was his ultimate trump card right now.

The five-minute waiting period finally came to an end.

Suddenly, a dark portal appeared in front of Arthur.

He took a deep breath before stepping inside, followed by his ten generals.

The next instant, the other side of the portal appeared before his eyes, and Arthur stepped out of it.

Swish!

The moment he stepped out, something rushed toward him with terrifying speed.

Arthur always kept his divine sense activated, so he immediately sensed the incoming attack.

However, he did not even need to move because Blitz reacted first.

The Thunder Roc General stepped forward and threw a single punch.

Boom!

The incoming object was instantly destroyed.

It was a branch from one of the surrounding trees.

But that was only the beginning.

Soon, countless branches rushed toward them from every direction, moving with frightening speed.

"Come out!" Arthur roared.

In the next instant, his 990 Shadow Soldiers emerged from his shadow space.

The ten generals also drew their weapons and began cutting down the incoming branches, while the Shadow Soldiers did the same.

Arthur did not participate in the battle immediately. Instead, he looked around, searching for the source of the attacks.

These branches were relentless.

Every time they cut one down, another would immediately emerge from the forest.

So Arthur wanted to destroy the source from the root.

The forest was filled with enormous trees, and the dim light made it difficult to see very far.

However, it did not take long for Arthur to identify the tree responsible for the attacks.

Not every tree in the forest was demonic.

"Got you."

Arthur smiled.

The next instant, he activated his Atomic Body Control technique.

Boom!

With a single movement, his figure vanished.

In the next instant, he appeared above the enormous tree that was currently busy fighting against his Shadow Army.

The tree immediately noticed his presence and sent another branch toward him to intercept him.

But Arthur was faster.

He descended toward the tree like a meteor.

Boom!

With his immense strength combined with his terrifying speed, Arthur slammed directly into the tree and completely destroyed it.

[Ding! You have killed an Epic-grade Level 25 Boss. You have gained 12,500 Divine Gold.]

"This tree is really something," Arthur muttered.

For a moment, he was tempted to take the tree under his command. He had never encountered a monster like this one before.

"Arise." ℯℯ𝑙.

[Ding! Failed to bind. The tree isis not sufficiently sentient to form a contract.]

Arthur sighed.

He was disappointed, but there was nothing he could do about it.

However, he had already begun to understand why this place was called the Forest of Death and why it was classified as a Black-tier danger zone.

They had only just arrived, yet they had already encountered and fought an Epic-grade Boss.

And only two minutes had passed.

Just as Arthur heaved a sigh, he suddenly heard the sound of trees breaking somewhere to the north.

"Another one already?"

Arthur turned toward that direction.

Soon, he saw an enormous rhinoceros charging toward them, its massive body crushing trees along the way.

This time, Arthur immediately used Appraisal on the monster.

[Name: Diamond Skin Rhinoceros

Level: 30

Grade: Epic]

"Another Epic one?" Arthur muttered.

This time, he did not engage the monster directly.

The Golem General stepped forward and moved to intercept the rhinoceros.

However, before the battle could even properly begin, Arthur suddenly sensed something else.

More noises were approaching from deeper within the forest.