Agatha The Legendary Guild Master

The march towards the distant city of Golam took two days from me and my armies to reach. The city lied in the heart of the valley I once met the treefolks there and also met Dredly and summoned Omad.

It was such a nice place filled with many memories, and I intended to have more good memories about it after crushing the first Golam city.

As we marched directly towards the valley, my personal army led the way with my top commanders with their elites.

Right now my armies were really gigantic, filled with diversity of all races and monsters. On my right, Dredly walked in a bunch of his biggest demons he could ever find, yet they still were smaller than my own two demons.

Omad walked to my left, and his group of strong looking Tesakos left a deeper impression in me than those of Dredly.

Also some vampires were walking behind, led by the two fighting brothers; Derky and Trefor. Each had his own group while they also had some of the flying monsters as well.

Jen also walked like a mighty commander, among many ferocious looking monsters that some I knew and some I didn't.

In the back, my beloved giant pet was moving slowly, yet each step of his made the entire place tremble under our feet.

We were going towards the Golam city in the strongest formation possible. As for my grand army of necromancers, I figured to let them walk in the rear.

After all they were weak humans, with their strongest weapons being the ability to summon skeletons from far.

Their skeletons moved as vanguard, scouting the area and making sure no hidden threat was there.

We met a couple of groups of monsters that thought themselves strong enough to kill some of my skeletons, but when the leading group of my army reached their places; they all knelt in recognition of me.

The trip took roughly half a day, and we were almost heading towards sunset when I noticed it.

It was such a gigantic tree looming all the time at the horizon, yet this was the first time for me to reach it.

"This is the golden tree?" I wondered, "it really deserves the name!"

Everything in this tree was made of gold! Even the leaves, the fruits, or that strange circle formed by its twinkling roots on the surface.

"Beware my lady," Dredly suddenly warned, "this place is cursed."

"Cursed?" I laughed before adding, "I love cursed places, let's hope we can find something worthy after getting this curse crushed."

"Ding Dong! Don't be so full of yourself like this, listen to the advice of your man and be more careful."

Finally the system decided to speak, and from his tone I smelled the faint sense of confidence in his layout. "What trap have you arranged for me this time?" I chuckled while not fazed by his hidden threats.

"Ding Dong! Nothing, I don't arrange traps for you. I'm on your side here."

"Liar," I laughed while adding, "you are on my enemies' side, dumbass!"

"Ding Dong! Ding Dong!"

"Hehehe," I laughed while waving my spear towards the front casually, "Make the skeletons go and check things out for me."

The necromancers at the back received my orders via some of the vampires. The next moment I saw a sea of skeletons erupting all of sudden from behind and moving without fear towards the tree.

"Ding Dong! This is the wrong way to deal with the ancient Golam city sleeping here," the system sneered and I knew he might be right.

But I didn't ask about the right way of doing things. After all, his advice might not be as useful as my current approach.

"Rumble!"

Just as the skeletons got near the golden circle of roots on the ground, the earth rumbled while the roots suddenly became alive. They stood up like giant pythons and started to smash the skeletons like gigantic whips.

"Damn, this is a warm welcome indeed," I laughed  before shouting, "keep sending skeletons, spare none!"

The skeletons kept hitting the tree and smashed under its roots which kept spinning in the air moving from right to left. I watched all this being unfolded in front of me and said nothing.

After all, I had to gather more intel about this tree.

"Aim for the trunk," I shouted as I noticed the skeletons only aimed towards the roots. Despite the brutal nature of the roots, the skeletons managed to hit them often.

Yet they seem like hitting rocks with clay, nothing was left behind; not even a single scratch.

This made me realize the key to crack the entrance wasn't in the roots but in the trunk perhaps. Per my orders, the skeletons moved towards the trunk, ignoring the roots.

They managed to reach the trunk on great cost, but this didn't matter. I already had a million necromancers here.

Yet when they kept hitting the trunk for minutes, nothing also happened to the tree.

"Sigh," I shook my head before glancing over the tree once more. It was so grand that even seeing it from this close up made me feel much dwarfed. I couldn't even glance at every single detail of it in one look, so I took a couple of minutes before I noticed something.

The tree was all golden in color but there was a single fruit that looked strange. It looked rusted from time, with a surface showing many wrinkles and some bronze color appeared around it.

And it was lying in the center of this tree, high in the air amidst the thick branches and leaves.

"See that fruit over there," I shouted as I pointed towards the fruit, "make the skeletons climb the tree and get it for me."

The vampires delivered the message and I just watched an endless stream of skeletons being thrown non-stop towards the tree. I knew for so long having necromancers was a crucial thing to make me able to secure this city relic with little cost.

Or that what I just hoped to happen.

"Tsk, it's not that easy," I sighed as after an entire hour of constant trying, the skeletons couldn't even get closer to the fruit, not even touching it.

This all was due to the problematic branches of this tree. The moment my skeletons jumped over the tree and started climbing it, these branches started to emite thorn-like extensions everywhere, killing many of my skeletons in no time.

"Attacks from the ground, attacks from the tree itself," I muttered, "is the air safe or not?"

I thought of sending off my aerial army to assault the tree, yet I refrained from such a thing. After all I could replace any number of fallen skeletons, but I couldn't do this for my vampires and flying monsters.

"May I suggest something?" Lisely suddenly spoke, from the shoulder of my demoness where she used to stay, "let the aerial army carry the skeletons and drop them over the fruit."

I glanced at her with shining eyes. "This is really a great plan!" I turned to glance at my vampires before adding, "do this, hurry."

"Roger that, my lady," Derky said while Trefor instantly acted.

In less than half an hour, the sky got filled with huge numbers of vampires and flying monsters. On their backs, each carried almost a hundred skeletons, even some fell from their backs while reaching that height.

"Drop them!" I shouted and the next moment they listened to my orders, dropping the skeletons directly towards the fruit.

"Swoosh!"

"Swoosh!"

"Swoosh!"

Suddenly the tree shook and long thin branches moved from it towards the incoming skeletons. The reach of these branches was big but not enough to endanger my flying army.

"Nice, I didn't send them to do the job," I smiled in content without caring about all these skeletons falling with every passing second. "Keep delivering skeletons, don't stop!" I shouted, and my orders were executed swiftly by them.

In another hour, the fight kept raging wildly everywhere around this tree, yet we were getting closer to the fruit with time.

The aerial attack came to divert a good deal of this tree's resources away from the climbing army of skeletons. So, I was sure in more hours, and after sacrificing hundreds of thousands of skeletons we would have a chance to gain this fruit.

This happened shorter than I expected, and it happened not from the climbing army of skeletons but from one skeleton falling from high and managed to slip luckily between the dense defenses of the tree.

"Rumble!"

The moment it touched the fruit, the entire world around me rumbled while I felt a strange oppression force coming forth from the tree.

"Ding Dong! Congratulations on making the sacred tree mad!"

The system sneered and I wasn't in the mood to listen to his words. "throw the fruit here, hurry!" I shouted and my skeleton lying over the fruit just took a minute to cut it and threw it over to me.