The tower slowly emerged from the ground, shimmering with a strange, watery aura. When the construction process reached its end, Lilith stood before it, expecting a spectacular effect.
Meanwhile... absolutely nothing happened. The sun continued to shine brightly, and visibility in the Canyon remained crystal clear.
Lilith furrowed her brow, stepping closer to the cold structure.
She checked the system panel - the Mist Tower was marked as [ACTIVE], and the first 50 gold coins for daily maintenance had just been deducted from her account.
"What's the deal here?" she muttered, feeling a rising irritation. "I paid 3,000 gold for a tower that's supposed to create mist, and I can see everything as clearly as if I'd washed my eyes with holy water!"
She entered the construction mode interface, which gave her a view of the buildings placed across her entire territory. However, after seeing the details in the system, Lilith froze.
In the system, she saw a thick, impenetrable white cloud slowly pouring out of the obelisk, swallowing meter after meter of the valley. Instinctively, she turned the building off in the system - the mist vanished. She turned it back on - the mist was there again, thick as milk.
"Is this some kind of magical mist? Why can't I see it in reality?"
She played with the switch for a moment, activating and deactivating the structure. Each time, the system stubbornly insisted that 90% of her territory was already under "cover."
Finally, Lilith analyzed the detailed description of the tower's operation and felt a mixture of admiration and anger wash over her. The mist was an intelligent jamming system. It worked selectively: every unit the system recognized as "friendly" - skeletons, goblins, succubi, and even the newly conquered werewolves - saw the world completely normally. To them, the mist simply didn't exist.
However, for any outside intruder, the Valley of Eternal Darkness had just turned into a white blank spot on the map. Scouts looking from afar saw only swirling vapors, and anyone who dared to enter would lose their orientation after a few steps, wandering blindly straight onto the swords of her skeletons.
Lilith massaged her temples, looking at the obelisk standing on the front line in the Canyon.
"If this thing has such a range that it covers almost my entire territory, then why did I put it here?!" she shouted toward the empty sky. "If I'd known it worked globally, I would have placed it safely in the castle courtyard where no one could touch it! And here? It stands out in the open like a target!"
She began to curse the system for its lack of transparency in the building range descriptions. The system, as was its habit, remained haughtily silent. Despite her anger, Lilith had to admit one thing: this tower was brilliant. It hid the layout of her base, the number of units, and her defensive positions. The strategic value of such a "jammer" was greater than a dozen ballistae.
"Fine, have it your way," she sighed, glancing at the gold counter. "50 coins a day is like spitting for me. If this keeps any hero from seeing how many potatoes and skeletons I have until they get a bone to the head, then it was worth it."
She looked at the skeletal mages standing near the tower. They also looked ahead with total calm, not seeing the mist that, in the eyes of the outside world, was currently making their valley the most mysterious place in the entire Forest of Chaos.
Now that her home was safely hidden, Lilith could focus on the next step: erecting the [Laboratory of Clay Guardians].
Lilith pushed off from the edge of the Canyon and headed toward the mine. From above, she could already see smoke rising over the new encampment. The werewolves were working fast - in the woods, a few hundred meters from the entrance to The Mines of Despair, a makeshift settlement already stood. The number of her new subjects had grown to nearly 500 individuals as the last groups reached the site.
As soon as her feet touched the ground, Varg - the new chieftain - ran up to her with devout respect, bowing low.
"Mistress! Your presence hallows this place," he recited, clearly trying his best to make a good impression.
"Was the journey peaceful?" Lilith asked, sweeping her gaze over the camp.
"Yes, Mistress," Varg nodded. "There were some problems... wild beasts attacked us along the way; packs of monsters caught the scent of our migration. But Lady Mina..." - a shiver of fascination mixed with terror was audible in his voice - "she handled them all with such ease, as if it were a game. No harm came to us."
Lilith nodded. The little succubus, despite her childish behavior, was after all a top-class predator. She noticed, however, that Varg was shifting from foot to foot as if something were bothering him.
"Do you have anything else to say? Speak up," she threw out coldly.
"It's about... the food, Mistress," the chieftain began, lowering his gaze. "This new territory is foreign to us. We don't know where we can hunt game, and our own fields do not yet exist. The people are starting to get hungry, and I have nothing to feed them."
Lilith struck her forehead with her palm.
Right, she thought, Graaz knows about the werewolves, but I forgot to tell the werewolf that the food is already waiting for him.
"You don't need to worry about food," she replied with a wave of her hand. "In a moment, you will come with me to a certain place. There, you will receive so much nourishment that your tribe could go without hunger for decades."
Varg opened his eyes wide, looking at her in disbelief. Decades without hunger? For a werewolf who had fought for every scrap of meat his whole life, it sounded like a fairy tale of paradise. Lilith, however, wasn't finished.
"And as for hunting..." she pointed her thumb at the thicket of the Darkness Woods surrounding their territory. "You might have a hard time here. My girls and I have slaughtered practically everything that moved in this forest within a radius of several kilometers."
The chieftain's eyes nearly fell out of their sockets. He felt icy sweat trickle down his spine. He knew his new mistress was powerful and merciless - he had seen what happened to Verial, after all - but the vision of wiping out the entire fauna of a mighty forest just to "clear the area" exceeded his imagination of cruelty.
We're truly lucky she didn't slaughter us; we must show her as soon as possible that we're worth keeping alive, he thought with dread.
Lilith, unbothered by his pale face and the terror in his eyes, turned on her heel. "Follow me," she threw over her shoulder. Varg, with his tail tucked and his paws shaking, followed his new Monarch submissively.
A moment later, they stood at the threshold of the mine, which breathed out a chill and a dark, necromantic aura left over from the recent battles. Varg, feeling the thick tension on his neck, instinctively cowered, and the fur on his back stood on end.
"From today, your entire pack is responsible for this mine," Lilith announced, pointing her hand into the depths of the dark tunnel. Seeing the chieftain shaking with fear at the aura of death, she waved her hand lightly.
"You don't have to worry about that smell. Everything that haunted this place was slaughtered by me. You can dig in peace."
Varg swallowed hard and nodded, though he still glanced uncertainly into the gloom. Lilith, however, wasted no time on calming him. A new, shimmering scroll materialized in her hand.
[Blueprint: Laboratory of Clay Guardians]
Cost: Earth Gem x1, Wood x100, Stone x150, Gold x1000.
Lilith smiled predatorily. She had all the materials at hand, and her account was shining with gold earned from the potatoes. She chose the perfect spot for construction - exactly opposite the place where she had buried all the dead zombies from the mine.
The moment she confirmed the construction, a strange metamorphosis occurred on her territory. The supplies of wood and stone, meticulously stored by the skeletons, suddenly began to melt, turning into a thick, black sludge that flowed across the ground like a living river. The last Earth Gem was also consumed by the black sludge, sinking into the territory.
After building this structure, only one single Undead Gem remained in Lilith's reserve of rare stones.
Suddenly, a massive, squat building with thick walls, seemingly made of solid, reinforced clay and earth magic, began to emerge from the ground before Lilith and Varg. The Laboratory of Clay Guardians was rising at a staggering pace, casting a shadow over the terrified Varg and giving Lilith a new, powerful card in her labor arsenal.