The two entered the Desire Energy Station, arriving in a vast hall.
"This building has twelve floors," Niv explained. "The first floor is the control center. From the second floor up to the eleventh are the Desire Energy factories — each floor can hold up to a thousand elves."
As for the basement, it served as the corpse disposal facility.
Low-level elf corpses weren't stored in the resource vaults; instead, their bodies were broken down on-site into Life Essence, which was then recycled as nutrients for the Elven Mother Tree.
"However," Niv continued, "edwina had been limiting the Mother Tree's production for years, so a huge quantity of Life Essence was stored beneath the Desire Energy Stations. The stockpiles under both stations combined could create over a billion ordinary elves."
As she spoke, Niv took a small cube, about the size of a palm, from one of the mechanical octopus's tentacles and handed it to Hel.
"This is Life Essence — the condensed product extracted by goblins after draining every drop of life force from a corpse."
The moment Hel took it, she could sense the immense vitality pulsing within the cube. She could even tell — if she absorbed all that energy, her own life magic would increase significantly.
"Honestly," Hel said, turning the cube over in her hand, "I'm more interested in their bodies than their life force."
"The drained corpses are thrown into the underground incinerators," Niv replied. "The flames there help power the city."
"Ha. Typical goblins — efficient little capitalists."
Hel wasn't particularly bothered by the fact that the corpses were burned. After all, even if she had them, she didn't have enough souls to turn them all into undead anyway.
"Take me to see the elves."
At Hel's command, Niv led her to the elevator at the edge of the hall and took her up to the second floor.
As the doors opened, Hel was met with a forest of metal capsules, stretching as far as the eye could see.
The front of each capsule was made of transparent glass — and behind that glass were the elves, used as living energy batteries.
"These two stations hold what used to be the officers and elites of the elven rebellion," Niv explained. "Every one of them is at least third tier. The weaker ones were sent to the B6 factories.
Here, you'll find both snow elves and half-blood goblins."
"Three thousand years have passed since then," she added softly. "Most of these elves' lifespans are nearly spent."
Hel extended her spiritual sense — and indeed, most of the elves' life energy was barely flickering. Their souls were chaotic and fragmented, like those of undead born from Hel's necromantic runes. Some were already beginning to disintegrate.
"They're beyond saving."
Hel shook her head, disappointed. She had planned to recruit the elves here, then move on to those trapped beyond the walls — but it seemed these ones were already at their end.
After checking their condition one by one, she gave up on saving them and returned to the first floor.
There, she had already drawn a massive Soul Extraction Circle.
Niv ordered the mechanical octopi to begin moving the elves down, one after another. Each elf would have her soul drawn out by the magic array, after which Hel would harvest their ability tags.
"You know," Hel said casually while working, "the saying 'lust leads to ruin' really fits here. Locked in this place for three thousand years — even ten would've been enough to drive them mad."
As she worked, she chatted idly with Niv.
"Do you think Miss Lily would like this place?"
"Lily?" Hel paused, thinking seriously. "Yeah… knowing her, she probably would."
But then she glanced at a trembling snow elf nearby — one who still quivered even after being freed from the machine — her eyes filled with terror of the goblins' energy-extraction devices.
"…She'd probably last twenty years at most before breaking," Hel mused.
After a moment, she added thoughtfully, "Though, I think the Insect Queen would last longer — she's kind of a masochist. Still, as the Desire Energy gets extracted, their souls erode. That's why I said hardly anyone could endure this for long. It's a sweet, slow poison."
"I… see," Niv murmured, staring at the same snow elf.
A faint blush rose on her cheeks as her mind wandered — she didn't even catch the rest of what Hel said.
By the time Hel had finished extracting the last set of tags from the corpses, she sighed regretfully.
"Too bad their bodies are in such poor condition. Otherwise, they could've made some pretty decent undead."
"Is Master not going to turn them into blood elves?" Niv asked curiously.
"Anna's only fifth tier," Hel replied. "She doesn't have the power to transform all these elves into blood elves. So I'll have to try… something different."
She fell into thought.
Both snow elves and half-blood goblins were, by essence, offshoots of the elven race — still bound to the same ancestral line. Edwina hadn't been wrong about that. The half-blood goblins weren't true goblins; they were born from the Elven Mother Tree, just like any other elf.
So… what would happen if a race known for longevity and life, a symbol of vitality itself, were merged with death?
This wouldn't be like her previous blood elves, who were essentially a branch of vampires. What Hel envisioned now was something different — a being infused with both life energy and death aura, a truly unique undead lifeform.
However, neither snow elves nor half-blood goblins possessed any inherent life-aligned traits. So she would need additional materials.
"Niv," Hel said at last, "have them bring me more Life Essence."
"Ah? O–oh, right, Master!"
Niv, startled out of her wandering thoughts, hurried to the elevator and fetched the supplies herself.
Before long, she returned with two mechanical octopi, each carrying a massive crate in their tentacles, while she herself held a smaller box in her arms.
"Master," she said eagerly, "these are Life Essences extracted from elves above fifth tier."
Handing the small box to Hel, she stepped back with sparkling eyes — curious and excited to see just what kind of new race her master was about to create.