Chapter 1133: Weak Fetal Movement
Tens of thousands of undead creatures swarmed the enemy ahead like a rus.h.i.+ng tide. They scattered from their formation cleanly like a mysterious, dense, dark mist of death surging forward at the fully-armored soldiers who raised their long s.h.i.+elds. Meanwhile, the clerics stood in the back and chanted in unison. As both sides were about to clash at close quarters, the clerics raised their hands high and a dazzling, sacred radiance glittered, enveloping the soldiers in the blink of an eye. At the next moment, both sides collided. Then, the Holy Maiden Statue emanated a crystal-clear brilliance, sending several light columns that descended from above to disperse the dense, dark mist entirely.
The undead creatures charged fearlessly, but their enemies weren’t ordinary humans either. The well-trained soldiers flourished swords that were enhanced by holy blessings, hacking the undead creatures into halves effortlessly—a feat ordinary weapons couldn’t achieve. Magical radiance flickered from time to time. The lichs positioned behind the undead creatures raised their staff and launched a mix of lightning and fireb.a.l.l.s forward. However, the other side cast a colorful barrier that resisted and devoured them entirely. On the other hand, the death knights riding the incubi spiraled in midair, clas.h.i.+ng with the battle angels who brandished their swords at them.
At that moment, some changes happened to the formations of both sides. The undead creatures pressed forward, while the humans seemingly failed to resist their aggression and retreated. Shortly after, the formation in the middle began to show signs of crumbling. The undead creatures seized this opportunity and swarmed toward them like a ma.s.sive tsunami, striving to break through the defensive lines in the shortest time possible. They were as though a battering ram, pounding on a crack repeatedly. Under this ferocious attack, the humans’ front was in a precarious state, twisting and struggling like city doors under heavy impact where just a little more and they would collapse completely.
Boom!
The humans’ dense formation finally crumbled, revealing a crack, and the ma.s.sive a.s.sault troops of the undead creatures instantly rushed through it quickly. As soon they marched forward, the human army would be completely annihilated… Well, that should have been the case.
But the truth was otherwise.
As the undead creatures rushed through the crack, both sides of the humans’ formation surged abruptly. The powerless sheep scrambling to provide support had turned into ferocious wolves, snapping their jaws open and dispersing to both sides while the undead creatures’ formation was unstable. The humans penetrated the undead creatures’ formation like two flying daggers. At the same time, some uncharacteristic changes occurred to the center of the humans’ formation like a vortex engulfing the undead creatures that rushed into it. Shortly after, a series of magical radiances erupted, but it wasn’t able to stop the humans. Meanwhile, the battle angels soaring in the air coordinated with their movements and pushed forward to repel the death knights. On the other side, the Holy Maiden Statue emanated a brilliance that swept across the land horizontally, blazing the dense ma.s.ses of soul griffins in a sea of blue flames as they vanished into nothingness.
The undead creatures were in a turmoil as they witnessed countless strings of magical radiance erupting like a violent storm bombarding the battlefield. The clerics yelled and gestured with their hands. Along with this movement, golden threads flew out of their hands and turned into a huge, golden pyramid-shaped crystal barrier in midair to stop the magic attacks. In the continuous explosions, the dazzling radiance appeared in sequence on the periphery of the barrier. Even though the attacks were resisted, the golden barrier also dimmed from the impact.
At this moment, the young lady riding silently on the horse finally made her move.
She opened her eyes and scanned the battlefield. Extending her hand and flipping through the tome in front of her, she slid her finger across the pages. In this action, unfathomable symbols and texts began ‘drifting’ from the pages on their own before flas.h.i.+ng across the sky.
At the next moment, thousands of magic spells recorded in the tome were instantly activated.
As the human army retreated swiftly, the battlefield was enveloped by all sorts of magic spells. The blinding white radiance forced the undead creatures shrinking back and growling. The lichs couldn’t gaze straight at the strong brilliance and even those that stood far away felt burning pain as they were enveloped by the light. What the young lady had done was record all the offensive magic spells used from the start of the battle and released them all at once. This mighty strike was no weaker than Lydia’s utmost attack. Not only that, but the magic spells also lasted for a long time. As the rumbling and thunderous explosions resonated in the clouds, the earth rumbled and only stopped after a few moments.
When everyone managed to return to their senses from the glaring light and looked ahead, the belligerent undead army had already vanished in a puff of smoke. The battlefield was also completely scorched. The death knights tangling with the battle angels and lichs at the back were saved by the bell. Looking at this scene, the undead creatures stopped attacking and chose to retreat quickly.
Until they had all retreated, the young lady yawned, turned to her subordinates, and waved her hand.
“Alright, pack it up. Revive and heal those who need it and get ready to move out.”
Orchid Heart said and extended her right hand, where a scarlet light sphere flew into the sky. Christie, who sat a distance away, witnessed the light sphere and stood to her feet. Shortly after, a pure white scroll unrolled in front of her. She reached her hand out, held the pen that appeared out of thin air, and waved it gently. Immediately after, the night sky that was as dark as ink quietly disappeared like some kind of fuel that was saturated, only to be replaced by a sky full of stars. The huge, fiery sun emerged from the horizon, illuminating the pitch-black land with its warm, dazzling light and rescuing it from the eternal darkness.
“It seems like the Dark Dragon has made up his mind to not stop until Rhode is back.”
Marlene, who stood beside Christie, knitted her brows. She gazed at the boundless night sky in the distance and said in a lowered voice.
“Hmph, just a mere Creator Dragon and he is trying to find trouble with us. This is simply outrageous!”
On the other side, Ca.s.sidy grumbled. Upon hearing her remarks, Alice who stood on the other side twitched her brow and commented briefly.
“I have no news of His Majesty yet. But I think he won’t take too long to return.”
“Hope so.”
Marlene responded, before letting out a sigh.
Rhode wasn’t aware that the Void Territory was ambushed by undead creatures soon after he left the Dragon Soul Continent. That’s right, ambushed by the undead creatures and not the Dark Dragon. In the beginning, this worried Marlene and the others deeply. They thought Ion had decided to shed all pretense of cordiality and launch an all-out attack which was why they didn’t retaliate immediately. But later, they realized that even though the undead creatures were aggressive, there were basically no powerful troops leading them. Great lichs were nowhere in sight, not to mention the legendary generals. That was when everyone discovered that this ambush was perhaps arranged by the Dark Dragon to sound out the strength of the Void Territory. Such occurrences weren’t rare. After all, to the Country of Darkness, sacrificing low-level undead creatures wasn’t considered a huge loss to them. On the other hand, if the Void Territory collapsed to this level of probing, it just went to show how weak they were.
The six deity wardens were not to be trifled with. Back then, they were mighty figures who led armies under the Void Dragon in wars against Chaos Beings. So it went without saying that they wouldn’t complain to the twin dragons about such a small matter. It could also be said that they totally disregarded a dragon soul heir like Ion, which was also why Rhode was a.s.sured to leave the territory in their care. Even though the six deity wardens were considered the same as the four legendary generals and three archangels in terms of level, none of the deity wardens would falter against a dragon soul heir in terms of strength. If Ion dared to charge over, he could only watch helplessly as long as Marlene and Alice went all-out. With the six deity wardens’ strength, perhaps it wouldn’t be easy defeating Ion, but stopping him wouldn’t be too challenging either. Of course, it was merely because the six deity wardens weren’t a.s.sembled. As soon as they reunited, even Siena and Nalea had to head back to where they came from. And now, four of the six deity wardens were present. There weren’t any issues with the strongest Christie and Ca.s.sidy, so they weren’t afraid of taking Ion on.
Since the Dark Dragon sent troops to probe their strength, the Void Territory would seem inferior if they retaliated with great fanfare. If the undead creatures were to attack again, Orchid Heart would lead the army and resist them to give them a taste of their own medicine. Although she wasn’t in the Legendary Stage yet and her physical strength wasn’t as powerful as the lichs, since Rhode had handed all soldiers to her care, he could only let her lead the attack.
If it were in the past, there were no good consequences from battles between humans and undead creatures. But now, it was different with revival spells. Orchid Heart used this chance to experiment with how exactly revival spells worked in reality. After all, the corpses of players who were killed would remain in perfect condition despite being slashed by axes or ground into minced meat. After a white light of healing spell shone on them, they would stand up and be considered revived. But in reality, it wasn’t as harmonious as players who were chopped, smashed, and stomped to a b.l.o.o.d.y mess were clearly shown. No one knew how exactly the revival spells would work, which was why after leading the soldiers in this battle, Orchid Heart began her research.
But what exceeded her expectations was that the revival spells in reality were unlike the fast recovery of b.l.o.o.d.y flesh wounds or broken limbs in the movies. Instead, a white light would s.h.i.+ne on the corpses and they would vanish. At the next moment, they would recover as in the game, which didn’t seem as ghastly.
This fact boosted the confidence of the soldiers. In the beginning, the soldiers were more or less terrified to face the undead creatures under Orchid Heart’s lead. But after several clashes and discovering how potent the revival spells were, they were no longer afraid of death. Meanwhile, Orchid Heart had gotten in the groove in commanding. She was an expert in commanding players in battle. Even though it wasn’t impossible to reach her goal leading human soldiers, she would sacrifice too much manpower. But with the revival spells, she had no such concerns at all. After personally witnessing the might of the revival spells, the soldiers became dead set against the undead army. Furthermore, Orchid Heart was experienced in battles against undead creatures. With her unique abilities, she swung her arm to strike back at the Country of Darkness!
Of course, Orchid Heart acted cautiously, advanced inch by inch, and didn’t penetrate deeply by herself. As the area was near the border and many humans resided nearby, she chose to recruit them so as to add some strength to her side. Facing Orchid Heart’s retaliation, the Country of Darkness hadn’t instantly come up with any counter solutions. Although they could choose to send out stronger troops, it would mean that both sides were tearing into each other. Besides, there wasn’t an unreasonable agreement that forbade one side from retaliating when under attack. That was why the Void Territory and Country of Darkness were confronting each other during this period of time. However, Orchid Heart wasn’t one to be trifled with. If they didn’t mess with her, she would choose to settle camp and take over the occupied areas. If they attacked, she would lead an army to take over a piece of land after defeating them. This period of time was somewhat pleasant in a sense.
Both sides were waiting for the other party to commit a mistake.
At this moment, in the Darkness Capital, Ion was grimly listening to Balende’s report.
“Is it? Our army lost again?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
At this moment, Balende felt helpless. With the emergence of revival spells, the Country of Darkness took the biggest hit. In the past, when they were in war, they gathered sacrificed corpses and replenished their battle strength almost immediately. But now that the enemy had revival spells, it was an entirely different matter. The enemies could revive their troops, while the undead creatures who were purified couldn’t be used to replenish their forces. The undead army was no longer as threatening as before. Taking Orchid Heart, for instance: this time she led more than 20,000 humans into battle, while the undead army had always sent out 40,000 to 50,000 troops. As a result, apart from losing some soldiers in the first few days, other soldiers basically revived to full health for the remaining time. After all, the soldiers weren’t confident of the revival spells before witnessing and experiencing it for themselves. But after being repeatedly revived, they solidified their faith. Unless some of the unfortunate ones had their bodies contaminated by the undead aura, there basically wouldn’t be any deaths in war.
On the contrary, the casualties of the undead army couldn’t be revived to replenish their forces. Even though they were low-level troops and weren’t worthy of a mention, it wouldn’t be favorable for the Country of Darkness if this continued.
Balende pondered in silence and said.
“Your Majesty, should we stop the battle? After all, based on the current situation…”
Before Balende completed his sentence, Ion waved his hand and interrupted. Balende quickly shut his mouth in silence. After a few moments, he heard Ion’s reponse.
“Alright, I got it. You may leave now.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Upon hearing Ion’s response, Balende was speechless. In fact, he finally understood why Erin acted so cautiously and worriedly whenever she mentioned Rhode to him. Although Ion was a great and strategic ruler, he was less outstanding in foreign affairs. The twin dragons disliked battles, while Lilian was timid and easily frightened. That was why Ion had always been spontaneous, so never did he expect Rhode to show up along the way. Not only did Rhode disrupt his plans time and time again, but he also became the Void Dragon and his subordinates were much stronger than the four legendary generals. Even until now, Rhode’s subordinates were capable of taking his hara.s.sing tactics. Perhaps the Country of Light that was established for years wasn’t even this tough to deal with. And now, Ion apparently had no intention of giving up, which made Balende worried. But he understood Ion’s personality, which was why he didn’t continue speaking and chose to leave.
It was just that… not even Balende was that confident in Ion. After all, it didn’t matter even if Ion was impressive in the nation as the Dark Dragon. Unless the undead creatures were pressured into rebelling, none of them wouldn’t dare to disobey orders. It would be considered true capability when one didn’t falter against foreign enemies. But at least it seemed now that Ion wasn’t advantageous in his clashes against Rhode.
“…”
Ion didn’t respond. He grimaced and watched as Balende left. Then, he turned around and also left the palace.
The entire Darkness Capital was in silence. This was a place that didn’t belong to humans at all. As the Dark Dragon, Ion disliked being interrupted by anyone, which was why the whole hall was empty. Ion took a step forward and as though sensing something, he came to an abrupt halt and s.h.i.+fted his gaze to a corner of the dark palace. He let out a snort, extended his right hand, and clenched his fist!
“———!”
All of a sudden, a figure that was seemingly twisted out of shape let out a screech and jumped out. It was illusory and its eyes glinted in a mystical golden radiance. Judging from its appearance, it was similar to the mysterious black-clothed figure that Erin fought earlier.
“Hmph!”
Staring at the strange figure, Ion snorted and tightened his right fist. Along with this movement, the figure let out a mourning scream before vanis.h.i.+ng into nothingness. Ion retracted his right hand, swept a glance at his surroundings coldly, and turned around to leave.
He didn’t realize that the instant he killed the dark, mysterious figure, a pitch-black ray of light flashed across his hand, before disappearing entirely.