Chapter 379: The Final Battle (Part 2)

  A distance of twenty li was not considered far. Even now, the dense, black mass of the undead army could already be seen on the desert's horizon. A pitch-black aura, with a radius of nearly a hundred li, shrouded everything. It was like a separate space of death, within which faint, deathly-white colors could be seen—the countless skeletons, zombies, and ghosts.

  The closer they charged, the more they could feel the power of this death, the boundlessness of this death. As far as the eye could see, besides the endless deathly-black, there were only countless skeletons and zombies. The tens of thousands of human soldiers, before this sea of death, were like a small, withered leaf.

  Finally, this withered leaf crashed against the shore of this boundless sea of death.

  The sea was broken open. These tens of thousands, who seemed so insignificant, were not a withered leaf, but a scorching hot, red-hot, sharp sword. It was not swallowed, but instead began to forcibly carve and cleave a path through this sea.

  This sword stirred up a huge wave of undead monster remains, sweeping across the sea of the dead. Bones and rotten flesh flew everywhere in the air.

  The outermost layer of the undead, aside from some old and broken skeletons, was entirely made up of zombies. Although their withered, black exteriors looked like corpses dried out for a hundred years, the clothing and adornments that still remained on them were intact. These were the people who had failed to escape in time from the cities destroyed by the undead army. Under the aura of the Lich King, no corpse could be left behind. And now, these low-level undead were being shattered into fragments under the iron hooves of the coalition's vanguard cavalry.

  The prayers recited by the priests connected into a grand chorus of hymns, mixed with the rumbling sound of horse hooves and battle cries. This majestic wave of sound, along with the coalition army, charged madly into the sea of death, turning every undead they encountered into nothingness.

  All the surviving bishops of The Radiant Citadel were in the ranks, and along with the priests and clerics, nearly all members of the clergy had joined the battle. In this boundless, dark aura of death, the power of white magic was actually suppressed to its minimum. But they had to be in the ranks. Not only for the soldiers' morale, but the warhorses also needed their white magic to resist this aura that terrified all living things at the soul level.

  This rolling torrent of steel, enveloped in holy light, thus continued to kill its way toward the center of the sea of death, like an extremely sharp sword tearing through this blackness.

  Ethan had not made a move. He was at the very rear of the army, just galloping forward with it, watching the distant waves of bones and rotten flesh rise higher and higher under the charge.

  It wasn't just him; Gru, Lancelot, Regiment Commander Roland, and the two masters of the Tower of Fangs beside him had yet to make a move. Around them were the forces of the Paladin Order and the Archmages, and a little further ahead were the orcish troops from Oufu. These too had not yet joined the fight. This was the force held in reserve, the most elite of all.

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  To the rear of the army, countless skeletons and zombies were gathering again. No matter how powerful or ferocious the coalition's charge, the undead just quietly, like flowing water, silently filled the gaps that had been broken open. The silence of death was also the majesty of death.

  Regardless of whether the final outcome was victory or defeat, these warriors on the outermost edge could never escape. A thin layer of sweat appeared on Ethan's head, but his hand gripping the hilt of the blade was as steady as ever. The familiar, dry sensation was as intimate, stable, and gentle as the fit between parts of one's own body.

  And so they charged and killed without stopping. All around were the sounds of shouting, of weapons hacking against bone, of bones shattering. In a bizarre and majestic concerto played in tandem with the hymns, fragments of the undead fell like snow and rain. Time itself seemed to stand still in this strange slaughter, with only the continuous charging and killing remaining.

  It seemed as if a hundred years had passed when a trace of a bloody smell suddenly appeared in the air. At the same time, the army's advance seemed to slightly falter.

  The surrounding sounds of shouting, horse hooves, and killing were as before, and the charge within the holy light seemed still unstoppable, but Ethan truly felt a slight sense of resistance, as if a fish swimming swiftly in water had suddenly run into a patch of oil.

  "It has begun." It wasn't his imagination; Lancelot and Roland felt it at the same time. "A little earlier than expected."

  "Have we reached that position? Twenty-three or twenty-four?" Roland asked.

  "Around twenty-five li. Fifteen more to go," Lancelot replied simply.

  "Do we make our move now?"

  "Wait a moment." It was Gru who spoke. He had been silent since charging into this place, just holding the black Phantom Divine Bow in his hand as he galloped his horse. "Just leave it to the guys from Oufu for now. Trust them."

  A scream came from the troops at the front, followed by the flash of a magical explosion. There was no change in the expressions of Lancelot and the other two, who continued to spur their horses forward. But Ethan knew the real battle had begun.

  The scream came from the very front of the coalition. A warrior, together with his horse, was sent flying by an exploding fireball, and as he landed, he was impaled by the horn on a giant skeletal monster's head.

  He was not the first to fall, only one who had the chance to let out a death cry.

  The sky was still an all-consuming blackness, and the periphery of the army was still an endless, seemingly boundless sea of undead creatures. It was just that these were no longer fragile skeletons and zombies, but skeleton and zombie warriors armed with weapons. Giant skeletal monsters, like chariots, began to charge toward them from the front, and semi-transparent ghosts were now drifting in the air.

  The coalition's speed began to slow; it was no longer unstoppable. The warriors at the front were charging suicidally. In their eyes, there were no swords in the hands of the skeletons and zombies; they only thought of how to smash and hack with their own weapons as much as possible, how to push themselves and their horses one step further forward.

  The waves kicked up were no longer just the remains of the undead; once the red appeared in their midst, it was as unstoppable and irreversible as the charge itself. The wails of warriors and warhorses began to mix with the shouts and hymns. Flesh and blood flew everywhere. The warriors at the front had just spilled their own flesh and blood onto the bodies of skeletons and zombies, and their newly deceased bodies immediately began to be infected by the black aura. But before the aura of The Black Star could completely turn them into undead, the warriors behind would trample them, along with the undead, into pieces. The white magic's holy light and countless thunderous hooves rolled over, leaving not even a trace of the remains, turning them all to dust.

  In the distance ahead, a cluster of black was faintly visible. Even in this sea of death, so black that heaven and earth were indistinguishable, this blackness was still so distinct, so conspicuous, a blackness that stood from the earth to the heavens.

  There were still fifteen li to go, but at this point, the army's charging speed had clearly slowed down. The surrounding sea of the undead was no longer as calm as when they first charged in. As far as the eye could see, giant skeletal monsters and Wights were continuously gathering around them. It was no longer just an attack by simple zombies and skeleton warriors; the magic of the Wights began to explode, blossoming like flowers of death.

  Finally, after the coalition had reluctantly advanced a few more li, its size and numbers had been reduced by half.