Chapter 12: Encircling the Village

All the villages that have survived until now have their own ways of living. Zhou Tian understood that waiting for the enemies to expose their weaknesses was virtually impossible. Under such circumstances, Zhou Tian's only choice would be to force the opponent to expose their vulnerabilities.

Although Zhou Tian lacked the power to deal with large castles, his current opponent was just a small village or town. Given the strength of his adversaries, Zhou Tian believed he stood a decent chance if he played his cards right.

Among other things, considering the size of the village, Zhou Tian simply couldn't believe it could sustain the food consumption of so many NPCs. After a lengthy observation, Zhou Tian became increasingly certain that a large portion of the food consumed in the village was purchased from the nearby Novice Village, while the village itself produced only a small fraction of it.

Therefore, judging from the current situation, Zhou Tian didn't need to do much other than to cut off the food supply of the NPCs. He believed that, if starved, these NPCs would likely approach him for a desperate fight to the death.

Upon developing his plan, Zhou Tian acted immediately. At his command, the beastman warriors under his command sprung into action.

Following Zhou Tian's orders, over a thousand beastman warriors divided into several groups to block the exits of the NPC Village. Consequently, most of the NPCs leaving the Village were attacked by Zhou Tian's beastman warriors.

Even though the beastman warriors were not very powerful, their ambush was successful in causing trouble for the NPCs.

Without needing to win the battle outright, despite his military power having greatly increased, Zhou Tian knew he stood no chance in a direct fight against the NPC Village. However, as long as the beastman warriors initiated their attacks whenever the NPCs left the village, Zhou Tian wouldn't have to do much else, even if the NPC's Army was able to drive them back.

In the end, despite the constant retreat of the beastman warriors, the frequency of NPC activities at the village's entrance and exit had remarkably reduced.

Zhou Tian was not entirely certain of the situation within the NPC Village, but he had a strong feeling that his tactics were having an effect.

Zhou Tian could not tell whether his feelings were right or wrong, but having felt something, he was not going to stop halfway. Under these circumstances, Zhou Tian gradually suppressed the temper of the NPCs with his tactics.

Eventually, with Zhou Tian not making any radical moves, the NPCs were still forced to retaliate due to his previous strategic deployment.

Those NPCs might not have been entirely carefree before, but one thing was certain, before Zhou Tian appeared, they didn't have any major issue. However, after Zhou Tian took over as the monster overlord of the territory, those NPCs saw considerable losses time and again. If these losses hadn't affected their foundation and if the NPCs weren't aware of their own capability, they might have already filed a rescue request with the higher castle.

At present time, those NPCs were almost at the limit of their tolerance for Zhou Tian. Under such circumstances, Zhou Tian was still directly blocking their doors. It was impossible for these NPCs to act as though nothing was amiss.

As a result, after enduring for a while, the NPCs chose to march against Zhou Tian.

Although the NPCs might not completely understand Zhou Tian's intentions; they knew one thing. If they let Zhou Tian block their village entrance like this, their village would inevitably suffer. To avoid eventual losses, no matter what Zhou Tian intended, the NPCs thought it best to repel Zhou Tian as soon as possible.

When the NPCs couldn't bear it any longer, a squad of nearly two thousand NPCs charged from the village and marched toward the location where Zhou Tian's lair was located, without exchanging any words.

Zhou Tian, who had been watching the NPCs all along, naturally wouldn't miss their movement. When he learned that the NPCs were marching towards his lair, he could not remain indifferent. However, when the NPC squad began to move, Zhou Tian didn't send a reinforcement. After learning of the NPC squad's itinerary, Zhou Tian didn't block their movement, but unexpectedly opened the way on purpose.

Undoubtedly, the NPCs made another mistake in their countermeasures.

Monsters are like beasts. Regardless of their strength, they highly value their territory. Considering this, if enemies intrude their territory, regardless of whether they can defeat these enemies, those monsters would usually engage in a fight.

Undoubtedly, if it were any other Beastman, even a Beastman leader, the current action of those NPCs could certainly attract their enemies. If things really progressed to that stage, the battle between them would indeed become a contest of strength.

However, it was clear that those NPCs had chosen the wrong target in Zhou Tian. Zhou Tian had never really cared about his territory. As long as his strength could be improved, even if those NPCs occupied his land, he could tolerate it. Thus, the NPCs' vain attempt to force Zhou Tian into a battle in this manner was bound to fail.

On the contrary, when Zhou Tian saw the NPCs leaving, he revealed a smile of satisfaction.

Even though the population of the current NPC village exceeded ten thousand, after a team of two thousand was drawn, the actual combat members left would probably be just half. That is to say, if there was any loss to the expeditionary NPC team, it could directly shake the foundation of the NPC village.

Of course, Zhou Tian essentially had no chance against that NPC team. One could even say that Zhou Tian dared not show his face in front of that NPC team. The gap in strength between the two sides was too great. If the other party knew his location, Zhou Tian really didn't have the confidence to say he could escape their pursuit.

Although Zhou Tian had no confidence in dealing with the NPCs, he was not without support. What if Zhou Tian was no match for that NPC team? Zhou Tian couldn't deal with those NPCs, but if he could mobilize the majority of the Beastmen, not only would the NPC team be easy to defeat, but even the entire NPC village could be effortlessly wiped out.

Zhou Tian naturally didn't have the ability to command the Beastmen, but involving other Beastmen in this battle was not a difficult task for him. Although the NPCs wouldn't cooperate, Zhou Tian could manipulate them from within.

As a result, when he saw those NPCs heading towards his territory, Zhou Tian only considered briefly before giving an order to the Beastman warriors under his command to mobilize.

At Zhou Tian's command, a small group of higher-intelligence Beastman warriors left the team. Those Beastman warriors then spread out across the entire Beastman Territory according to Zhou Tian's order.

Although the generally low intelligence level of the Beastmen meant they wouldn't cooperate even if Zhou Tian wanted them to, getting some Beastman warriors from other territories to go somewhere was not difficult for the Beastman warriors under Zhou Tian's command.

The following steps were quite straightforward. Under Zhou Tian's command, his Beastman warriors took actions independently. They directly went to other territories and naturally spread the news about the NPC team after attracting some Beastmen warriors.

Although the NPC team was originally targeting Zhou Tian and had no intention of clashing with the other Beastman warriors, those Beastman warriors would not think so. When they found out about the encirclement of the Beast slaves by the NPC army, there were still Beastman warriors who reacted. Now that they knew the NPC army had entered Zhou Tian's territory, although they didn't know why Zhou Tian hadn't done anything, those Beastman warriors couldn't ignore the existence of the NPCs.

As a result of Zhou Tian's arrangement, after learning of the existence of the NPC team, more than ten Beastman warriors mobilized almost simultaneously. Nearly ten thousand Beastman warriors moved together and surrounded Zhou Tian's territory.

Upon discovering the situation of the Beastman warriors, the NPCs naturally got a fright and without any hesitation, they decided to retreat.

However, given the circumstances at the time, even if the NPCs wanted to retreat, the Beastman warriors would not let them go.

Consequently, under Zhou Tian's arrangement, when the Beastman warriors clashed with the NPCs, they inevitably started fighting. Given the circumstances at the time, unless there was an unexpected change, the NPC team had no chance of winning.

Once things developed to that point, even if they had realized that something was wrong, the NPC team that had gone out still couldn't help but send a rescue message back to their village.

After receiving the rescue message, considering the situation, the NPC village had no choice but to respond. After all, they could not ignore the sacrifices of their relations in the village, and even without considering that, the impact on a village of their size from losing more than half of their combat power all at once would be too great to bear.

So, after receiving the rescue message, the NPC village did not hesitate to send out another team to assist the expedition. As a result, after two consecutive deployments, there was very little combat power left in the NPC village.