You promised to wreak havoc on the dungeon, but instead you've got Dragon Slime!

Ron nodded.

He lifted a stone slab from the top of the temple, revealing a control panel underneath—likely a control array left behind by Grayface. The entire city's defenses, including illusions, perception, substitution, and mapping, all relied on this device.

He casually stuffed a disc into the array, and the array instantly lit up, with light spreading from the rings of magic seals to the outer perimeter of the city.

Chapter 160

At this moment, the entire city could see the ring of light that had lit up, spreading outwards from the center like ripples on water.

All the troops stationed outside also understood—

The City of Shadows has changed its flag.

Ron turned around.

"Now is not the time to relax; the crucial part is yet to come."

“This place is not just a city; it has command value. The three mountain ridges, two canyons, and the resource transport line behind Rift Rock Fortress are all within its field of vision.”

Viser nodded without saying anything more.

He was never the type to talk a lot of nonsense.

“Arrange the defenses.” Ron walked out of the hall. “Use the illusionary defense line as the front layer, and hide the real troops inside. Have all patrols conducted by imaginary units first. If the enemy wants to get in, they’ll have to be confused first.”

He pulled out a long, densely drawn map of the troop lines from the command array, accurate down to every single alley.

This thing used to be used by Gray Flour to trap people, but now it's all for his use.

"The illusion array is well done. If Bakus and his gang come again, they'll have to get themselves trapped first."

At that moment, Claudia rushed in from outside.

She had been handling logistics for the past few days, and upon hearing that the battle here had ended on her way from Rift Rock Fortress, she came without stopping.

"You've taken the city?" she asked breathlessly.

“We’ve taken it,” Ron said, tidying up the map, “but not just by fighting.”

"I've been studying this place for several days. The structure isn't complicated, but it's deceptive."

Claudia didn't say anything more, and handed over a battle report: "The front line is relatively stable. A batch of supplies has been sent from Snake Bone Valley, and I've had them transferred to the camp first. If you're preparing for your next target, I need to prepare supplies in advance."

“We have a target.” Ron pointed to the black area in the north of the map.

"That is?"

"Iron Bones Wasteland".

He tapped his finger down, making a "snap" sound.

"Bacchus is sending people there, probably trying to create an opening and resupply our side."

"Then let's make the first move."

Claudia didn't say anything, just nodded, and then turned to make the arrangements.

Ron stood on the high platform and looked down.

The internal structure of the Phantom City has been mostly cleared out, and the maze has been largely dismantled. Now, all that remains is to transform it into a true tactical command center.

He didn't rush to leave.

He stared blankly at the blueprint beneath the temple for a while.

Grayface once said that he was following the old path.

He neither forgot nor believed those words.

“I’m not going down the old path,” he thought to himself. “I’m going to trample your path underfoot and take a different one.”

The wind picked up behind me.

Ron turned and left.

After the city of the shadows changed its flag, Ron did not rush to send troops, but instead spent two whole days on one thing—repairing the formation.

It's not the kind of formation that's just for show; it's a real, structural defensive formation that can actually "trapped the enemy."

The entire city is divided into three levels:

The first layer is the outer street, which was originally the area with the strongest illusions. Now he has had 70% of it demolished, leaving only the usable "intersecting passages" and "luring alleys".

The second level is the main urban area, which includes residential houses, markets, guard posts, and granaries.

These places shouldn't have too many illusions; the goal is to make the enemy feel that "there are people in the city, and the city is inhabited," making it look like a city that has truly been captured.

But he had a backup plan—he placed thirty-six mobile nodes at the intersections of the streets and alleys, so that if a battle really broke out, he could "flip" all these sections of the road within five minutes, forcing the enemy into a "turnaround circle".

The third level, which is the central temple of the city, is his command center and trap zone.

The temple appears spacious on the surface, but once a mechanism is activated, twenty "false doors" will open on the ground, each leading to an illusory dead end.

After all these arrangements were made, on the afternoon of the third day, Ron stood on the wall and said:

"The enemy can now enter."

Viser stood behind him, one hand on his hip, watching the dust rising from the mountain path ahead, and chuckled, "You really want them to come?"

Ron didn't reply, he just nodded.

He deliberately left the gap.

In the past few days, instead of expanding their forces, they have reduced their troop strength and removed all the outposts on the perimeter, with the aim of creating a "weak point".

Sure enough, Bacchus took the bait.

This time, he didn't go in person; instead, he sent his lieutenant, Grien—a guy who had risen through the ranks of minor nobles in the North and had fought Ron several times without ever winning.

But he's not stupid, and his fighting ability is decent.

This time, Grean brought three thousand soldiers, plus a squad of "forbidden magic manipulation soldiers," the kind of veterans who can suppress illusionary spaces.

They quietly circled around to the edge of the city, breached the wall from the south, and fought their way all the way to the main urban area without anyone stopping them.

Grean was a little confused.

"Why is there no one?"

"Ron wouldn't even bother defending the city, would he?"

He led his troops into the market and saw pots and pans left behind by the local people on the street, and even a few chickens circling around the dilapidated houses.

"Have you really given up?"

He was still wondering when suddenly the patrolman in front of him slammed on the brakes and shouted, "General! The road behind us has disappeared!"

Grian turned around abruptly, and the entire street he had come from had vanished.

It wasn't fog or a collapse; it was as if someone had slashed the entire street with a knife, completely erasing it and leaving a blank space behind it.

Then the surrounding air began to tremble, like the surface of water twisting.

He realized—he'd fallen into a trap.

"Get out!"

He shouted and led the vanguard back.

They had run less than fifty meters when a loud "crack" rang out ahead, and three shadow barriers rose from the ground, dividing their entire team into three sections.

The soldier controlling the device beside him quickly pulled out a forbidden spell card, and just as he raised it, a loud explosion was heard—

A blue pillar of shadow fell from the sky, sealing him and the card together, freezing him like a wax figure.

Grean was stunned on the spot.

He finally realized that Ron had no intention of abandoning the city at all; he was setting a trap.

Meanwhile, Ron stood on the temple, staring at the group of figures running around in the street in the projection circle.

"Leave them an opening."

"Don't kill too quickly."

Viser stood beside him: "Send a few back?"

Ron nodded: "Send a message back and say that we're going to Snake Bone Valley next."

"Get Bacchus ready. I want him to clean up that poisonous swamp. I want to uproot it completely."

Viser laughed: "They really made him a cleaner."

"The gas in that place is too toxic. If we don't blast it first, we'll be skinned alive if we go in."

"Let them go first, it's just to do our part."

three days later.

Grean led about a hundred people to escape from the City of Shadows.

He didn't say a word when he came back this time. He just knelt down in front of Bacchus, on one knee, and handed him a piece of paper written by Ron.

There was only one line of text on the paper:

"Next, Snake Bone Valley."

Bacchus's face was ashen, and he tapped the edge of the chair lightly with his fingers, tapping it more than a dozen times without stopping.

The city of shadows was eerily quiet at night.

The city gates were closed, and the guard shifts had been changed several times ahead of schedule. All the lights in the main city were turned off, except for the faint blue ever-burning lamp on the temple roof.

Everyone knows that if the light is on, Ron is there.

But today, the wind is a bit off.

The night patrol changed shifts three times, and no one noticed anything amiss. By the time the fire in the third row of towers by the back door went out, three figures had already climbed in from under the south wall.

They wore specially made night clothes without any metal, and held short knives inlaid with snake bone blades, capable of slashing a person from the neck to the waist with a single blow.

That's the way people died that came from Snake Bone Valley.

Ron sat for a long time today.

The battle reports, battle formation diagrams, logistics dispatch, and intelligence sent by scouts from the wasteland that he had just received a few days ago were all spread out on his table.