Before he finished speaking, Mark had already put away the scroll, nodded slightly to the thief, and led Monica, Anna, and Enzo out of the cellar filled with the atmosphere of greed and scheming, and rejoined the filthy crowd of the black street.
The four-person team quickly left the Black Street without stopping, heading towards the high ground in the wilderness where they were scheduled to meet up with Kyle's team.
After the two sides met up, they immediately planned the optimal route based on the map markers activated by the quest scroll, and shot towards the first nearest Rotten Vine Alliance quest point like an arrow released from a bow.
A small orc outpost marked "Cracktooth".
Their combined teams consisted of six high-level and ten powerful mid-level professionals.
In the buffer zone of the Lor Swamp, a place teeming with all sorts of people, they have become a force to be reckoned with.
As long as they don't run into a well-organized orc legion or the main human force, they can practically do whatever they want.
Of course, if they encounter the Elf Trio or a powerful figure like Alfonso, they will still have to immediately tuck their tails between their legs and run away.
However, in the days that followed, they became a nightmare for the orc tribes in the buffer zone.
According to intelligence from the Rotten Vine Alliance, the defenses at Cracktooth Outpost were weak, and for Mark's squad, their defenses were child's play.
A group of skinny orcs with only mid-level professional status really couldn't hold a camp in a swamp.
Enzo's lava warhammer cleared the way, smashing down the outpost's simple wooden tower. The sparks from the collapsing tower ignited the outpost's animal-hide tents.
Monica's ghostly figure weaved through the panicked orcs, her dagger piercing precisely into the throat of the orc who was trying to blow his horn.
Anna's arrows fell silently, killing every scout who tried to escape to the swamp to report the danger.
Mark barely made a move, merely using a disguised holy light shield to deflect a few stray bone arrows, and the battle ended within fifteen minutes.
The outpost was reduced to scorched earth and mangled limbs.
Even Kyle and Ruby, who were hiding in the shadows to protect them, didn't have a chance to make a move before Mark's four-man squad easily took down this small outpost with more than twenty orcs.
Next up is the black swamp crocodile's nest.
The venomous swamp behemoth was quickly overturned by Enzo's ferocious power and Anna's cunning arrows.
Monica calmly pried open the tough skin of each black swamp crocodile, precisely removing the venom glands and placing them into a specially made preservative container.
The entire process was highly efficient and ruthless, like completing an assembly line operation.
On the outskirts of the Bloodclaw tribe.
Mark and his men didn't dare to push their way through this tribe.
Because they really do have an orc legion, as well as high-level professionals of rank eight or above.
Mark and his group lay in wait there for the entire night. Mark first identified the two people in the tribe with the strongest soul auras and then took their breaks.
They then bypassed the core of the tribe and headed straight for the rough totem pole erected at the edge of the camp, a symbol of power and ancestral protection.
Under the cover of night, Enzo's spare lava warhammer, like a siege hammer, thudded three times, and the three totem poles, each requiring two people to encircle, shattered and burst into flames.
The moment the totem pole was destroyed.
Angry roars and alarm horns immediately rang out from the Bloodclaw tribe, but Mark's squad had already disappeared into the swampy mist amidst the chaos, leaving behind orc warriors who were furious but dared not pursue them.
As for the final reconnaissance mission in Stonethroat Canyon, it was a piece of cake for Mark's team.
Monica's shadow stealth and Mark's soul perception combined to thoroughly understand the size, equipment, and patrol routes of several elite orc squads.
In the final intelligence summary, Monica even wrote down the name of each orc and the six-dimensional attributes of each individual.
Throughout the mission, Kyle and Ruby followed the team from a distance of about a mile, keeping ambush.
One reason was to protect Mark and his companions from being ambushed by the elf trio again.
Secondly, it was also to ensure that if Mark and his team encountered a task they couldn't handle, they could appear immediately to help them out.
Anyway, neither side really intends to stay in the Lor Swamp forever, so the sooner they upgrade the map and get the information that everyone wants, the better.
With Kyle and Ruby protecting them from the shadows, Mark and his group were naturally more daring in carrying out the "purification" mission against the orcs issued by the Rotten Vine Alliance.
The efficiency is astonishing.
Often, as soon as they finish completing the previous batch of tasks, they immediately update the map in the Black Street and then head to the next task location.
Wherever they went, no one could say it wasn't barren; at least, orcs couldn't survive.
Mark's squad was like a tireless war machine, carving scorched tracks across the orcish territory in the buffer zone.
In just one or two weeks, more than a dozen mission scrolls were collected and stored in the rusty cellar in the Black Street.
When Mark tossed another stack of quest tokens, stained with mud and orc blood, at the feet of the gray-robed rogue foreman, a hint of surprise flashed in the foreman's sharp eagle eyes.
Old Crippled Buck's map permissions were continuously upgraded with "mana replenishment," from the lowest level of blurry outlines to clearly marking small resource points, temporary camps, and even some known dangerous area paths.
The ranks of the members of Mark's squad also skyrocketed, soaring from the lowest level of peripheral members to level three members.
This news was like a pebble thrown into a stagnant pool of sewage in the dark streets, creating ripples all around.
"Have you heard? Those four new tough guys have reached level three!"
"Hiss... It's only been a few days? Don't they sleep? They specifically target orcs, like they have a blood feud with them!"
"The Cracktooth Outpost, the Bloodclaw Totem, and the Stonethroat Canyon... they've decimated several small tribes!"
"I heard that all the resource points that the Dogtooth Gang controlled on the map after upgrading to level three were wiped out by these four newbies! These guys are practically scavengers!"
"That fake priest who's leading the group, he looks all smiles, but he's really ruthless..."
"And that red-haired girl, she's elusive and mysterious. It's said that any orc she targets dies without even knowing how they died..."
"That short, stocky guy is a real menace; one blow from his hammer..."
"Shh! Keep your voice down! They're level three now, damn it, they might even be able to show us our daily resource points on the map! We can't afford to mess with them!"
In the stinky air of the tavern, whispers mingled with awe and apprehension.
Mark's squad quickly gained the reputation of being "Orc Butchers" and "Resource Scavengers".
Their presence made the mercenaries and outlaws in the Black Street, who also relied on hunting orcs for contribution points, feel both pressured and secretly hopeful.
Perhaps, with this "tailwind," the orcs' power in the buffer zone can indeed be weakened?
After all, those who have lived in the buffer zone of the Lohr Swamp for many years know that nearly half of the more than two hundred Black Streets are located in the territory of the orcs.
The members of the Rotten Vine Alliance are not all human!
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