Slime Immortal.

Chapter 197 The Devil's Bearing of Humiliation

The blood-red eyes of the demon Ajax lowered indifferently, sweeping over Hammerbone, who was bowing his head.

With a swift movement, he leaped off the back of the giant savage, his obsidian-carved hooves thudding heavily on the gravelly ground.

He walked straight toward the fortress, and without turning his head, commanded in a hoarse voice:

"Bring your legion commander out to see me."

Hammerbone's burly body trembled slightly, and he said with a forced smile, "Lord Ajax, the legion commander is undergoing trials. You can ask me anything."

Ajax stopped in his tracks, turned around, focused his gaze on Hammerbone, and said with interest, "Very well, then from this moment on, I am the Legion Commander. Do you have any objections?"

"Uh……"

Hammerbone's throat went dry, and he was momentarily speechless. His hand unconsciously tightened its grip on the hammer, and he fell into hesitation.

Just as he was still hesitating, Grumg had already grinned and laughed, stepped forward with his staff, and bowed to Ajax.

"Grumger greets our wise and profound new Legion Commander—Lord Ajax!"

His voice was loud and clear, filled with undisguised flattery and submissiveness.

The goblins around, clad in fine armor, exchanged bewildered glances, their eyes all turning to Hammerbone, the highest-ranking figure present, seemingly awaiting his final decision.

At the same time, Hammerbone felt Ajax's gaze. He had no doubt that if he showed the slightest hesitation, the demon would not hesitate to feed him to the undead.

Faced with absolute power and the terror of the abyss, so-called loyalty seems so pale and powerless.

His massive head drooped even lower, and he roared, drowning out the struggle, as he cried out:
"Hammerbone greets Legion Commander Ajax!"

His massive, bear-like physique appeared so insignificant and small in the face of this demon.

It's hard to imagine that a goblin known for its cunning and tyranny could be so humble, even fearful.

Ajax nodded slightly, as if this was how it should be, without feeling any surprise whatsoever.

He ignored the green-skinned creatures that he saw as nothing more than food, turned around and continued walking, preparing to step into the fortress that symbolized the change of power.

However, just as his hooves were about to step into the megalithic fortress, he seemed to remember something, paused again, and asked in his hoarse voice:
"Have you seen a combination of an undead and a crow while you've been in this swamp?"

"Oh right, this undead can use the power of nature, and that crow is very noisy."

When he said those words, his originally calm tone was tinged with a hint of apprehension.

That's right, he was the very same filthy demon that had previously lurked in the underground city of the Eastern Swamp, nearly driven to the brink of destruction by Arthur, and ultimately forced to flee in a sorry state.

As for the name "Ajax," it was merely a code name given to him casually by the great demon when he surrendered to him in the Valley of the Golden Light.

In common parlance, it means "dirty" or "unclean," not a particularly glamorous title.

But a true demon with immense power would never easily reveal its real name to outsiders.

Revealing one's true name means that the prey has exposed its presence in the dark forest, enough to attract a fearsome hunter.

Since his defeat at the hands of that undead knight favored by nature, he wandered southwest, enduring adventurers' bounties and monster hunts, and finally stumbled into the Golden Valley by chance.

There, through his cunning and thirst for power, he successfully attracted the attention of the great demon and completed the ritual of trading his soul, gaining even greater power.

He constantly thought about returning to the swamp that had brought him shame.

He wants to wash away the marks of defeat and restore the terrifying reputation of the Filthy Demon.

He wanted to envision a scene he had imagined countless times in his mind, where he would drown that damned undead knight, along with his ridiculous natural power, in an endless tide of filth.

He wanted to imprison his soul, burning it day and night with the most vicious flames, making it the soul fuel for his future ascension to the rank of Great Demon.

If it weren't for this obsession, he would never have asked to return here.

As for helping these weak and stupid green-skinned creatures? That's utterly ridiculous!
In his eyes, these goblins, bear goblins, and even that cannibalistic magician were nothing more than strategically useful miners and cannon fodder.

He even knew that the real bigwig behind the legion had always only cared about the mineral resources in the Rift Pass.

The life of a goblin is not even worth as much as a bottle of magic dust.

The goblins looked at each other, their faces filled with confusion, and shook their heads, indicating that they had never seen anything like it before.

Hammerbone had a vague impression of "Ravens," but in his understanding, the main enemies of the swamp had always been slimes, and he had never seen any powerful undead forces.

He replied in a low voice, “Commander, we have never seen the undead and crows you described in the swamp.”

"Our current confirmed enemy is a group of cunning slimes."

"A slime? That's interesting."

Ajax's eyes gleamed.

He had already thoroughly researched information about slimes through Grumger and other channels before deciding to return.

This is a basic quality of his as a qualified abyss strategist, nothing to mention.

Unexpectedly, besides the strange undead knight and the noisy crows, this swamp also contains a strange slime capable of establishing a kingdom.

This only made him more and more interested.

Hammerbone and Grumg led the way, and Ajax quickly surveyed the entire fortress, including the petrified dragon carcass in the main mine deep within the fortress.

What puzzled Hammerbone was that the new legion commander seemed uninterested in these things, but was more interested in the dimensional rift.

After he personally entered the rift and surveyed the frozen snowfield before returning, he directly finalized the legion's next course of action.

"Immediately purchase a large quantity of warm furs and antifreeze agents."

"Then, send your most elite warriors to take over the ice plains behind this dimensional rift."

Hammerbone scratched his scarred bald head, his face full of confusion: "Commander, but... there's nothing in that ice field except for the freezing wind. What's the point of occupying it?"

Ajax glanced at him: "Foolish. The rifts around here are all connected. Behind this dimensional rift is undoubtedly an important strategic location."

His dark red eyes gleamed with ambition: "As long as we firmly control this place and establish a secure outpost..."

"Not to mention that small swamp in the east, our legions can be rapidly deployed even to the Dark Lands in the south and the more distant southern kingdoms through this network."

“My offspring… need more flesh and soul as food.”

"These creatures, with their weak souls yet occupying fertile land, have been living comfortably for far too long. It's time to take back everything they have."

In fact, there was another reason why he wanted to occupy that dimensional fragment: the castle. The ignorant creatures here didn't understand its origins and value, but he did.

As for that slime kingdom... having suffered from the strange undead, Ajax was far more cautious than before.

It's not too late to destroy them once he has patiently developed and cultivated a sufficiently large number of filthy calamities.

He couldn't help but marvel at himself, realizing he truly was the most intelligent of all demons.

Now, let those slimes jump around for a few more days.

……

The Ice Elemental Plane, the Nameless Snowfield.

The cold wind, like countless icy razors, howled endlessly across this desolate world.

Occasionally, the silhouette of an ice wolf, its entire body made of ice, would flash by in the wind and snow, quickly disappearing into a huge blue ice crystal and never to be seen again.

After an unknown amount of time, a ball-shaped ice elemental creature quietly emerged from the edge of the blue ice crystal.

[Devour and Digestion Lv.7 Triggered - Some characteristics of the Ice Wolf have been recorded, and the talent "Frost Affinity Lv.1" has been obtained.]

This is precisely what inspired Chen Yu's "ice affinity".

At this moment, a layer of hard frost has solidified on the surface of his gel, and its color has changed to a mixture of ice blue and snow white, blending perfectly with the surrounding ice and snow environment.

Immediately afterwards, two heads, one large and one small, emerged from the ice crystal nest; it was Peggy and Little Ka.

These two, one possessing the power of ice and the other having an affinity for fire, are not afraid of the extreme cold environment here at all.

"Wang, there are lots of green guys over there," Little Ka said cautiously, lying on the icy ground.

Following the direction Little Ka pointed, through the swirling snow, one could vaguely see many goblins dressed in thick animal skin coats busily transporting timber, stones, and metal components in the shadow of the towering city in the distance.

They appear to be taking advantage of the relatively sheltered terrain surrounding the castle to try and build a rudimentary fortress.

Chen Yu couldn't help but mutter, "What exactly do these guys want to do by going through all this trouble to occupy this godforsaken elemental plane?"

He remembered clearly that these dimensional rifts, which were accidentally created due to magical disturbances, were extremely unstable and mostly temporary.

As the month of harvest arrives, the magic of the prime material plane will gradually return to calm, and most of these rifts will shrink on their own until they disappear completely.

Investing a lot of resources to build a fortress here could very well mean that next month, the fortress itself will be abandoned in the unstable fragments of the elemental plane.

They lost everything.

This is a principle that even a slime with a tiny head can understand. These goblins must have brains bigger than almonds, so how could they do something so stupid?

Unless their goal is not simply to occupy this elemental plane.

Perhaps they want to use the dimensional rift as a springboard to invade other regions?

It wasn't that Chen Yu underestimated these goblins who weren't very bright, but could they really conceive and execute such a strategic plan with their average intelligence?

Even if one could figure it out, neither the Eternal Night Territory controlled by the vampires nor the Gol Lands occupied by the stone races would be easy places to invade.

Ok……

Just as Chen Yu's mind was racing, pondering the goblin's true intentions, he keenly noticed subtle changes in the surrounding light and shadows.

Two faint shadows seemed to be silently approaching the ice crystal nest where they were hiding.

"Boss, it's me, and my aunt is here too."

Arno's voice came over, but it didn't come from the shadow. Instead, it came through the clone Chen Yu left in the stone fortress, perfectly solving the problem that the shadow couldn't communicate with people.

"Hello, my dear lord, how have you been these past few days?" Nelly's voice came through.

She seemed quite curious whether the slime clone could transmit her voice, and poked it several times, transmitting the strange tactile sensation as well.

Chen Yu jumped up and down to show his welcome to them.

However, he soon discovered that when the "ice affinity" was activated, a thick layer of frost formed on the surface of the gel, making the body more solid and causing a significant decrease in elasticity, making it somewhat unable to "bob" around.

So he could only roll back into the ice crystal nest, somewhat clumsily, like a small snowball.

The interior of this naturally formed ice crystal nest is not very large, with the enormous Peggy taking up most of the space.

It was curled up carefully at the moment, even its whimpers were much softer, for fear that if it swelled up its belly, it would squeeze its little king out.

Chen Yu and Xiao Ka didn't feel crowded, after all, they were relatively small.

It was difficult for the shadow creatures that Arno and Nelly projected. In order to squeeze into this limited space, their shadows were almost shrunken into blurry spheres, barely managing to project onto Peggy's broad back.

"What's the situation outside?" Chen Yu asked.

Arno's solemn voice came through his clone: ​​"This is not good. My aunt and I secretly scouted the goblin camp near the castle."

"They seemed to mention words like 'demon' and 'invasion' in their conversation."

"The key point is that Gore's dimensional rift is located at the edge of the fluorescent forest. If the goblin army really does invade Stone Castle through this area, there's almost no terrain that can stop them, and there are no gargoyles there either..."

Chen Yu thought about it for a moment, and realized that this was indeed a serious problem for Shi Yi.

Even though the Stoneborn family has many powerful Shadow Masters and elite assassins hidden within, their numbers are still far too few compared to the Goblin Legion.

They are better at carrying out decapitation strikes, intelligence gathering, and covert sabotage than at directly confronting massive, legionary attacks.

This is equivalent to the assassin's hiding place being discovered, exposing their biggest weakness.

Not to mention, there might be a demon standing behind the goblin army.

"Then, our clever Slime Lord, do you have any good ideas?" Nelly's voice came, and she didn't seem as anxious as Arno.

Method?

Of course there is.

Dealing with goblins is something slimes excel at.

"Finally, I have another chance to collect protection money," Chen Yu thought.

(End of this chapter)