Chapter 302 – Charge
“Why are there dark creatures here?” Redbeard Troda was shocked. He couldn’t help but stop barking orders to his subordinates to charge up Mount Tali as he gazed, baffled, at the dense army of undead creatures that were advancing on him.
“Boss, I think-I think that the target of those damned dark creatures is us!” When the shimmering purple eye of the little skeleton focused into a glare at the cowardly bandit, the bandit suddenly felt that the warm spring air had plummeted into the depths of mid-winter. A bone-deep chill crept into his body.
“Light mages, kill those filthy dark creatures!” Troda noticed the disadvantageous situation by now as well, so he hurriedly roared at the mages ahead on Mount Tali.
There weren’t as many mages as there were swordsmen and knights in the Profound Continent. The fact that this bandit group could field a few mages was a clear demonstration of their strength. The journeyman mage as well as the light adept mage clearly realized that it would be up to them handle these dark creatures, so the two of them had already started their incantations the moment Troda finished speaking.
Rays of light-shaped swords and balls of light shimmered in the air as they slowly barrelled towards the undead creatures. Seeing the light magic descend, the earth elite zombie, who had been standing on the front lines, scratched his head ingenuously and suddenly sank into the earth from the body of the fire-breathing warhorse. Right after that, a barrier formed from dust suddenly appeared, blocking most of the light swords and balls of light.
Although several light swords and balls of light managed to land on the dark creatures and purify a few skeletal warriors, they barely made a dent in the horde of dark creatures.
These two light mages were not light archmages like Ferguson, who was able to cast a damaging area of effect spell such as “Radiant Glory”. Mere sparkles of light were snuffed out like candles in the wake of the inexorable advance of more than a thousand undead creatures, especially since the undead army also boasted the little skeleton and elite zombie warriors who were not afraid of light magic in their ranks.
Of course, the black armor of the high ranked evil knights also gave them very good resistance to light magic. Thus, the army composed of dark creatures did not waver at all under the attacks from light swords and balls of light. They continued to rush vigorously towards the bandits led by Redbeard Troda.
“Foolish pigs, feeding you guys was truly useless!” Troda swore loudly and pulled out a bright dual edged broadsword from his storage ring. He then roared towards the subordinate behind him, “Come, smash these dirty bones!”
Troda immediately charged out in the lead, three thousand bandits by his side. The bandits, who didn’t understand things like battle formations at all, only followed behind Troda like a crowd and charged towards the dark creatures with savage expressions.
Faulke led the group of terrified soldiers in another direction, different from the dark creatures’ path. The soldiers from Brettel City looked fearfully at their city lord, not daring to retreat in the face of Han Shuo’s ruthlessness. “Prepare the crossbows and bows, shoot until you see them fall. You gutless idiots, focus!” Faulke couldn’t help but swear when he saw the soldiers actually daring to crane their necks around on the battlefield.
The soldiers who were used to being scolded all raised the bows and crossbows in their hands and shot wildly at the Redbeard bandits running down the hill. Although these soldiers were far from accurate, the bandits were too densely packed together. Every arrow drew blood in the crowd as long as enough strength had been applied behind the shot.
On one side stood soldiers that hadn’t been trained for long and had worked up their courage for the first time to resist the bandits. On the other side were fiery bandits who didn’t understand battle techniques and used brute force. As defenders, the bows and crossbows in the soldiers’ hands were quite vicious. Three hundred something bandits were killed and five to six hundred others were injured in the blink of an eye as a dense rain of arrows hurtled down.
After the bandits had paid the price in three hundred lives, they finally reached the foot of the mountain. They had two options now. They could either charge towards the Brettel City soldiers on their flank, or charge forward to meet the slowly advancing undead army.
Troda was furious. He’d finally recognized the ones who’d dared to attack him were the cowardly soldiers of Brettel City. The same soldiers who would run away like cowardly dogs every single battle, and were a laughingstock for the seven dukedoms and the bandits.
Yet at this moment, these soldiers had actually dared to pick up their weapons and attack his men, inflicting quite a bit of damage. This was an unforgivable insult for Redbeard Troda. Thus, Troda roared maniacally when he’d reached the foot of the mountains, “Brothers, destroy these pieces of crap!”
Troda once again lead the charge as he rushed the soldiers led by Faulke with a roar. He didn’t bother attacking the undead creatures in front as per his previous plan. However, even though he didn’t attack the undead creatures, these creatures of darkness controlled by Han Shuo and the little skeleton would not let them go peacefully.
When the dark green from the Canopy of Necromancy crept over the ruby hue of dusk, a dense aura of death slowly spread out under the cover of the Canopy. All of the bones of the undead creatures shimmered with evil light as they bathed in the undead atmosphere. Their slow marching immediately suddenly tripled in speed, and even the hate warriors that moved slowly became as fast as flying gargoyles.
With a series of deep and archaic chants, rays of rippling grey liquid poured down from the sky. As the grey liquid poured down, patches of acidic swamps with azure smoke appeared in the middle of the path that bandits were taking towards Faulke and the soldiers.
The bandits that carelessly set foot in the acidic swamps all suddenly howled in pain. Due the corrosion of the acidic swamp, their skin and muscles quickly separated from their bones. Fifty to sixty living skeletons suddenly appeared in the acidic swamps in the blink of an eye.
“Damnit, avoid those pools emitting azure smoke!” Troda yelled then furiously glared at Han Shuo, who was elegantly releasing necromantic spells. Troda roared. “Evil necromancer, why are you opposing us? I shouldn’t have wronged you before!”
Han Shuo temporarily stopped chanting and looked at Troda with interest. He said softly with a charming smile, “Brettel City is my territory, wouldn’t killing and robbing in my territory count as offending me?”
“Haha, so you are that unlucky new city lord. Do you think that Brettel City is Seamist City? Do you think that you, a necromancer, can change the situation of such an abandoned place?” Troda mocked Han Shuo after the latter revealed his identity.
“How would I know if I don’t try!” Han Shuo chuckled lightly in response. He then pointed the skeleton staff towards Troda’s direction and ordered, “Children, tear them apart!”
The purple eye of the little skeleton riding on top of a giant undead creature shone with a ferocious light. He looked towards the undead creatures that were rushing towards Troda, and suddenly patted the undead creature underneath him. This undead creature, that looked like a supersized hedgehog, extended three pairs of five meter long wings that seemed to be made of azure colored rotted meat. With a flap of its azure wings, the giant undead creature brought the little skeleton into the sky towards Troda.
This seemed to the signal for a charge. The moment the little skeleton and the undead creature took off, the gargoyles that had been circling above quickly flapped their bat-like wings and followed closely behind the enormous undead creature and attacked Redbeard Troda’s bandits.
Han Shuo floated in the air and observed the spiky undead creature through a yin demon. He didn’t know why, but the dense white bones sticking out of its body actually seemed rather familiar. After a period of detailed observation through the yin demon, Han Shuo suddenly remembered that the little skeleton and earth elite zombie had collected a lot of super ranked magical beasts’ bones spikes. Those bone spikes had shimmered with a strange energy that was actually surprisingly similar to the energy coursing through the spikes on the undead creature.
“Can it be that this undead creature that I’ve never been seen before was actually refined by the little skeleton?” This thought randomly popped up in Han Shuo’s mind, but he quickly dismissed it as too fanciful. A little skeleton that he’d personally refined shouldn’t have this kind of special ability.
“Don’t kill him, I want that leader alive!” Han Shuo suddenly yelled when he saw the little skeleton and the undead creature dive down at Troda.
Han Shuo had found out from Dick that the bandit named Troda often robbed Brettel City in recent years. He was a bandit leader who’d amassed an unknown amount of wealth. Han Shuo was going to make him spit out all of the riches that his group had looted. Brettel City currently needed a large amount of gold coins and the two hundred thousand gold coins Han Shuo had brought with him was not enough to continue supporting everything.