Chapter 263 Fortress Predicament
In the camp, Arantir sighed helplessly after hearing Solmyr’s roar.
What would come would always come. From the beginning of the chaos last night, he had expected such a situation. But there was nothing he could do about it. Necromancers believed in the dark aspect of Asha. Logically speaking, such belief in orthodox G.o.ds should place them in the righteous camp, and the people of the world should accept them, but this was not the case. The conflict between the dead and the living would absolutely not change because of beliefs.
Just like this time, even with Arantir’s reputation, he could still not defeat the discrimination and hostility in the hearts of people.
“There’s still a long way to go to promote Asha’s glory…” Arantir sighed as he stood up and walked toward the entrance of the camp. In order to make clear his intentions, he did not even bring a guard and welcomed the hostile eyes of the army of the kingdom of Bracada.
Seeing Arantir appear, the nagas immediately narrowed their vertical pupils and made angry hissing sounds. They would rush forward and slash Arantir into pieces as soon as Astral gave the order. The djinns opened their arms and released the light of magic in their palms. Countless electric sparks sprang up on the t.i.tans, and storms began brewing on their fingertips.
However, Arantir did not seem to see this scene. He walked to the entrance of the camp with his staff, looked at Astral, and said solemnly, “I understand your anger. But what I want to say is, please calm down and think clearly. Don’t fall for the demon’s trick!”
Solmyr was as hot-tempered as the lightning magic he practiced. Without waiting for Astral to answer, he said, “d.a.m.n it! Now that things have come to this, you still want to push the blame onto the demon?! Put away your ridiculous lie, necromancer. Everyone in Ashan knows that although those demons who steal souls are evil, they are recognized as experts at playing with fire. How come in your mouth, demons can even command undead?!”
gleaming, meaningful eyes. Indeed, everyone knew that demons had always despised undead because undead would not let them plunder any souls. In their impression, demons often appeared with flames and destruction, and they had never heard of demons creating undead.
The zombies that wreaked havoc in the fortress last night were all undead creatures no matter how they looked at it, and in the entire fortress, the only necromancer who controlled the power of death was Arantir. He was naturally the most suspicious person.
“Everyone, if the commotion last night was really caused by me, why would I still be here waiting for you to come?” Facing the doubts, Arantir was still calm. “To be frank, the success rate of me seizing the fortress was very high under such huge chaos, but I stayed in the camp peacefully and did not even take a step out. Isn’t this enough to explain the problem?”
“Hmph. Maybe you have other plans and are trying to use this att.i.tude to lull us into negligence?” a Bracadan wizard hero said coldly.
Arantir looked at him and shook his head. “I know that you Bracadans are very hostile to necromancers, but please don’t use such an illogical guess to insult your and my intelligence. Knowledge is power. What you haven’t seen doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist!”
After that, he ignored the wizard hero and continued to say to Astral, “I don’t know what the situation was like when that demon appeared in Ulambus. But when I met him in the Desert of Death, not only did he have a fallen angel and an enormous h.e.l.lhound by his side, he also had a lich obeying his orders!!”
“Lich?” Astral frowned.
“Yes!” Arantir nodded affirmatively. “Perhaps it’s through something like a demon contract. The demon was indeed using that lich, and it looks quite powerful. At least when I met them, that lich controlled thousands of undead troops. Moreover, I lost and could only retreat, so the high-level undead troops under my command should have fallen into the hands of that lich afterward.”
“Even so, it’s impossible for a lich to cause such a situation, right?” Gelu frowned. “If the lich controlled those zombies, then it had to have been close to the fortress. Under such circ.u.mstances, our patrols should have easily found it!”
Astral added, “Also, according to my understanding of undead, even a real lich would not be able to create a plague. But the chaos last night was caused by the plague. How do you explain this?”
Arantir slowly shook his head. “I can’t explain because I don’t know much about that demon. Although my intuition tells me that it was the demon who caused this disaster, I don’t know how he did it…”
Arantir’s answer caused an uproar among the wizard heroes. How could they be satisfied with such a response?
“Still quibbling! Master Astral, Your Excellency Solmyr, I think he’s the one who did it!” a wizard hero said indignantly. “He’s pus.h.i.+ng everything onto the demon that we haven’t even seen. Still saying such words, isn’t he underestimating us a little too much?”
Astral and Gelu were also dissatisfied with Arantir’s words. Astral said with a dark expression, “Your Excellency Arantir, this plague and chaos caused Dendera Fortress to suffer heavy losses. If we can’t get a clear explanation, we have no way of working together. Now, we can only temporarily detain you and your undead army. I hope you don’t do anything that will cause further misunderstandings…”
With that, Astral signaled to the troops and prepared to arrest Arantir.
But at this moment, Arantir shook his head and said, “Please wait! I have a suggestion!”
“What suggestion?” Astral stopped the troops for the time being.
“I know you can’t believe me, a necromancer!” Arantir looked at the crowd. “But if there’s a conflict between us, we may really fall into the demon’s trap. Therefore, I think that we can make a compromise. I’ll leave the fortress with my undead army and set up a defense outside it. If the demons appear, then I’ll take the lead to fight against him. At that time, all the doubts will be resolved. What do you think?”
Astral and the wizard heroes looked at each other in surprise. Arantir’s suggestion was a bit beyond their expectations.
Gelu suddenly said, “How are you going to get us to believe that you won’t take the opportunity to escape?”
“I swear in the name of Asha!” Arantir said solemnly. “If I, Arantir, take the opportunity to escape, I’ll be devoured by thousands of undead!”
At this time, Arantir was willing to go all out. He also knew that continuing to stay in the fortress would only make him more and more of a scapegoat, so he might as well pull the troops outside the fortress wall. His purpose for this trip was to eliminate that demon. As long as the opponent appeared, he did not believe that Astral and Gelu would remain indifferent.
Seeing Arantir swear a cruel oath in the name of Asha, Astral and Gelu could only choose to believe him. In fact, they could not wait for these undead to get out of their sight. Although they had suppressed the zombies in the fortress, they had not resolved the source of the plague and still needed to search the entire fortress. If Arantir continued to stay in the city, they would have to divert their attention to guard him. Since he planned to station his troops outside of the city, then they should let him go..
Soon, everyone reached an agreement. Arantir and his undead army withdrew from the fortress under the watch of the troops of Bracada and the elves.
Arantir did not go back on his word. After leaving the city, he stationed his army around the fortress as the first line of defense against the demon.
But looking back at the chaotic scene in the fortress, Arantir sighed again. He thought that by joining forces with the kingdom of Bracada and the elves, they might be able to kill that powerful demon here in one fell swoop. But he did not expect that before the demon appeared, the coalition forces would have such mutual suspicion and even lost a lot of troops. Now that Arantir had been ostracized and forced out, who knew what tricks that demon would have next…
Astral and the others thought that as long as they could find the source of the plague, they might be able to eliminate it. Unfortunately, when they really investigated the source, they were horrified to discover that the fortress might be hopeless!
The source of the plague was actually the water source in the fortress!
All the wells in Dendera Fortress actually came from the same underground water vein. In other words, all the wells connected at the deepest part!
Although the Demon Eye had dropped Roy’s demon blood in a well last night, the infection swiftly expanded after the demon blood containing the T-Virus mixed and diluted in the well, causing the entire underground water vein to be contaminated! All the wells in the fortress eventually became the source of contamination.
Under such circ.u.mstances, it was almost impossible to eliminate the source…
Here lay the horror of the T-Virus. Its super spreading ability was dangerous and difficult to control. In addition to the source, when the first infected appeared, the virus had already begun to multiply. If not for the fact that the people of this world were quite strong, and beings like t.i.tans and green dragons would not be corroded by the virus at all, Roy throwing out a little bit of demon blood might have caused a global extinction event like in Resident Evil…
Now, although the people in Dendera Fortress had not all turned into zombies, the water source could no longer be used, meaning that they had to give up on this place. Moreover, they had to seal the spatial portal so that the infected would not accidentally teleport through the spatial gate to Aglan Fortress and bring the plague there.
Once the spatial gate was closed, it meant that the fortress would no longer be able to receive any reinforcements from Aglan at any time… It was simply like misfortune never came alone…