Sam came out of the small research retreat to work on their next target. He was expecting to see the results of the initial investigation from their team, but when he heard and saw the report from the team, there was only one response that came almost instinctually.

"Are you sure this report is accurate?" Sam asked as he looked at the team members.

"Yes, Boss. This is hundred percent accurate." Saber Monarch said with a sigh.

Their next actual target is a Hob Goblin tribe that worships Hou Yi and in fact, the tribe is named after Hou Yi himself with Hou tribe.

The Hob Goblin race is evolved from the Goblins in ancient times and it outgrew its predecessor in strength, size, and intelligence.

Hob-goblins have a much stronger affinity with elements and they are much more intelligent can control their own urges, which is the main difference from the normal Goblin tribe.

That is also the reason that Sam felt the need to prepare beforehand when dealing with this tribe, even though the leader is only a person a Middle-stage transcendence of the Astral Plane. Night Ghost alone should have been enough to take care of them.

Hob Goblins are weak innately and prey on the weak a lot based on their instincts, but they are good at one thing, formations. Every one of the Hob Goblins is a born warrior like minotaur and centaur, but unlike them, the Hob Goblins have a higher elemental affinity. If one in twenty to thirty minotaurs gains elemental affinity, almost every second Hob Goblin has an elemental affinity and they are quite diverse in their awakening, they can even awaken spatial ability and it wouldn't be that surprising.

Along with the diverse elemental users and their natural talent in the formations, the tribe is full of talents, and together, they could defend against almost all kinds of invasions. They are truly one of a kind among their peers.

But their potential is extremely limited and they cannot grow past the Transcendent stages of the Astral Plane.

And they are also weak in invading others, which places them on the lower end of the hierarchy among races.

But that is not the only reason they are on such a low level, to the point that it is first on Sam's list.

It is because, the Hob Goblins are a bit sentimental when it comes to territory and they wouldn't move their core operational base that easily along with, this territorial protective instinct caused internal conflicts, and once large tribe divided into five different tribes and worshipped dive different gods.

Hou tribe is one of those five tribes and they worship Hou Yi while they are skilled at archery.

The main base of operations for all these tribes is the closest city to Sam's current location. The team went there to investigate that tribe as well, but the results smacked them in face.

Because, currently the number of five tribes in the city is not five, but one and that is Hou Tribe. The rest of the tribes didn't disappear, rather they were conquered and merged together. The report is regarding the process of merging and the reasons for it.

Approximately a year ago, the Hou Hob Goblin tribe decided to expand and waged war on the remaining four tribes at the same time, Not only did they manage to win making everyone shocked, the tribe chief made the remaining four tribes chiefs as elders without killing them.

After they took over the city, the first thing they did is rebuild the city wall and install new defensive formations along with it. The whole city and its structures were used and made into formations, just like how Sam did with his own city.

The security personnel of the city was also upgraded, the causal guards that go on regular patrol are replaced by Astral Plane Pre-transcendent stage cultivators.

Even at the gate, there is an Initial stage Transcendent Astral Plane cultivator taking charge along with a bunch of Pre-transcendent stage cultivators. Every creature that needs to enter the city must go through a special formation that uncovers any disguise technique.

The shocking thing is that this is the only time, Kiran's disguise technique was beaten and he almost got caught.

No creatures, souls or even lifeless objects can sneak into the city they all must go through the formation at the entrance.

Apart from that, the whole city wall was mounted with large crossbows with some high-level enhancements.

The city is backed against a cliff so there is no rear side, the remaining sides are guarded by the wall which is a large circular arc and it is guarded strictly.

There hired a necromancer to place a necromancer ring which is mostly dormant and could only be activated upon invasion and they even made some small necromancer rings within the city.

The beast tamers that are specialized in assisting people in taming the beasts were hired and they made Hob Goblins sign contracts with every beast that is at Astral Plane Pre-transcendence and above within the surrounding forest and mountain region.

The puppet masters were hired to create a puppet and Golem army even if they are weak, they were being used as formation nodes and some cannon fodder just in case.

The whole city was fortified and it is completely giving out a war-like feel.

It is as if they are waiting for some foreign invader to strike at any moment. And the reason behind this made Sam stunned even more.

It turned out that the Hob Goblins are preparing for a human that would bring them a disaster.

The story is that the tribe chief of the Hou Tribe heard from a seer that a human along with his team and some other weird methods would strike their tribe and the only possible way to stand against them is to unite the five tribes and band together.

Hou Yi, the god worshipped by the Hobgoblin tribe was generous in his help when that tribe chief requested him. Hou Yi gave the blueprints for high-level formations, weapons, and artifacts that could help them win the war against the remaining tribes and helped the Hou Tribe unite and the current situation is the final result of the whole scenario.

When Sam heard the story, he has a faint suspicion that the whole incident might be some kind of ploy from Hou Yi. But at the moment, it is not the time for them to ponder about that.

They need to make a decision on how to proceed further in the current situation.

Sam looked through all the notes the teammates made while investigating and sighed.

"It seems like we need to go for a head-on war. I can't see another quick way."

From the looks of it all the humans are being suspected and they are a team that mostly consisted of humans. Even if they sneak in separately, they would be kept under a tight watch and they would have some trouble doing anything that would raise suspicion which would slow them down. Time is a valuable commodity for them to waste on this tribe.

"So, do you guys have any objections regarding the direct war?"

All of them shook their heads.

So, Sam proceeded to explain the plan.

"Even if this is a head-on war there is no need to reveal ourselves this early. We can just wait for now and prepare for the next two days. I have a bunch of new toys that require some practical testing and this would be a good opportunity.

And the first step in these preparations is that I need an aerial map of the immediate surroundings of the city. Don't stray too far, around a few hundred meters would be sufficient. But within this short-range, we need to be extremely detailed.

Hob goblins might be good at fortification, but expertise happens to be destruction we will see whose expertise prevails this time.

Tamas and Night Ghost are excluded from the aerial mapping, both of you are in charge of dealing with the necromancer ring so make your preparations, any gains you get from that are yours to keep. "

After that, Sam left the both of them and soared on the harbinger to participate in the aerial mapping with the rest of the team.

As he hovered on the harbinger, there was a faint smile on his face. The Harbinger is currently at Spiritual Infancy and so are the two swords, the reaper, and the executioner. Unlike the feather coat which had longer infancy, Sam is sure that these three wouldn't bother him as much.

He is really looking forward to how they look.

He almost felt like a father waiting for his child to be born.

By the next day, they finished the mapping and Sam started calculating something.

After that was done, he took out some poles and some one-foot-long liquid containers. The metal poles have gaps in their structure to hold the containers in place.

The containers all had brown earth elemental energy liquid.

Sam twisted the cap a bit and pressed on different protrusions before placing it in the pole.

"This is the active state of the pole. Take these and do this properly before stabbing them in the points marked on the map.

There is a button on top of it, do not press it under any costs before getting my instructions."

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