Chapter 641: Initial Battle – The Death Raider Legion
At dawn, while the morning mist had yet to dissipate, old Tom, the night watchman, was dozing on the city wall. The smell of low-quality, cheap whiskey from the previous night still lingered between his rough fingers, his eyelids heavy as if filled with lead. He felt a chilling cold creep up his spine and suddenly jolted awake, his cloudy pupils reflecting the surging black fog in the distance.
“Damn weather…”
The sudden cold made him mumble and rub his arm. He instinctively looked up, but the sight before him made him freeze in place.
At the end of the plain, Death was approaching with the dawn.
The black fog rolled in like a tide, withering grass and scorching the earth wherever it passed. Countless ghostly green lights flickered within the black fog, accompanied by the grating sound of bones rubbing together. Old Tom’s throat moved. He didn’t know what was happening, but this bone-chilling scene certainly didn’t seem like friendly forces, and he trembled as he grabbed the rope of the alarm bell.
“Dong! Dong! Dong!
Enemy attack! Enemy attack!”
His shouts were quickly drowned out.
A piercing shriek erupted from the black fog, like thousands of undead souls wailing simultaneously. Following this, cavalry appeared—no, that wasn’t an army of living beings.
The horses’ eye sockets burned with ghostly green flames, and their hooves left scorched imprints wherever they stepped. The riders on their backs wore tattered armor, their exposed white bones entwined with squirming black lines. The rusty long blades in their hands emanated a chilling aura of death.
The most terrifying thing was their speed.
Old Tom blinked, and the undead cavalry had already charged to the foot of the city wall. They didn’t slow down at all. A wave of cyan energy surged within the entire cavalry formation, making the figures of the undead riders appear illusory. Their charging speed increased to the point where only afterimages could be seen. And what surprised him most, leaving him speechless, was that a squadron of skeletal battle steeds charged straight at the city wall!
Leaving burning marks on the stone wall, the riders swung their long blades. The defending soldiers hadn’t even raised their weapons before they were severed in two.
The undead cavalry’s charge was too fast. In just a single encounter, they had pierced through the defending army on the front lines. The phantom steeds leaped over the entire cavalry formation, light as a feather, leaping from the city wall. They entered the serene and peaceful city, which had been calm just a second ago.
“God of Light!
Where is the Gryphon Knights!
Where is the Master of Defense!
Screams instantly exploded throughout the city. Apples scattered on the ground in the marketplace, the baker dropped the freshly baked rye bread and crawled into his oven, covering his head. The tavern owner had just opened his window when he saw a skeletal knight’s long blade pierce the blacksmith’s son’s chest. The young body instantly shriveled, as if all its vitality had been drained.
“Help… help me…”
The tavern owner, Barry,
collapsed onto the ground, his pants wet.
Just then, a clear cry echoed from the sky. Dozens of griffins broke through the clouds from the direction of the castle. Leading them was a griffin nearly ten meters wide, its pure white feathers gleaming in the morning sun. The knight on its back wore mithril armor, the sun emblem on his chest shining brightly, and the lightning-wrapped spear in his hand crackled.
“It’s the Master of Defense! White Lightning Calvin! Everyone, don’t panic, Lord Calvin is here!”
“We are saved!”
The griffin squadron in the sky instantly found the perpetrators of this attack on the city. With a wave of his right hand, the entire squadron plunged downwards.
The leading white griffin, just like a
diving eagle, Calvin on the griffin’s back pointed his spear directly at the tallest figure in the undead formation –
Morien.
The leader of the Death Raiders raised his head, and in his stitched skeletal eye sockets, the ghostly green soul fire surged.
As if predicted, more than a dozen skeletal knights suddenly threw out pitch-black nets. The nets hung across the sky, spreading out horizontally and vertically. The white griffin agilely dodged and flipped, its claws tearing through two giant nets. But its wingmen behind it were not so lucky. Most of the griffins were directly bound by these giant nets, which were covered in the power of death. The invasion and erosion of the death energy, along with the corrosive
properties of the net,
caused the griffins to instantly lose their ability to fly and fall straight towards the ground.
Glancing out of the corner of his eye at his teammates under attack, Calvin’s eyes widened in fury. But as the
commander,
he knew this was not the
time. The enemy’s attack
was too sudden. Their job, as the most mobile griffin squadron, was to
quickly
and
effectively
contain the enemy’s attack until the army inside the city could assemble, and to protect civilians from harm.
Calvin’s
spear erupted with
blinding lightning, shattering the third net into charred fragments. The enemy’s nets posed no threat to him. Combined with the griffin’s own
mobility,
even if he couldn’t defeat the obvious leader in front of him, he could at least contain him.
“Filthy undead!” the knight roared, his voice echoing across the battlefield,
“In the name of the Sun God—”
His declaration was abruptly cut short.
Molian raised his hand, stitched with black threads, and countless chains made of energy shot out from his palm. The chains were entwined with
wandering souls, their speed so fast that afterimages appeared. Calvin quickly
raised his
guard, but the
chains
wrapped around
his
limbs.
“Boom—”
As the chains tightened, the knight let out a
human-like scream. The soul chains were devouring his vitality, and his mithril armor turned dim at a visible rate. The white griffin let out a mournful cry, trying to
help him, but was entangled by more skeletal knights.
Molian slowly raised his hand,
the chains lifting Calvin into the air. The Death Raider drew his
great
sword. The
long,
sinister blade was covered in bone patterns that glowed with a bloodthirsty
light. Without any preamble or ceremony, the
blade
flashed.
As Calvin was
flung into the air, a
look
of
shock remained frozen on his
face. His headless body was flung by the
chains
towards the city wall, smashing
“Bang”
at the tavern entrance,
blood spraying
all over Barry’s face.
“No…”
The tavern owner stared blankly at the Master of Defense’s
head
rolling to a stop at his feet.
Suddenly, the sound of orderly footsteps could be heard from outside the city gate. Squadrons of heavily armored soldiers marched in, their banners bearing the city’s
sun emblem.
Spears like a forest,
shoulder pads forming a wall of steel. Priests raised their holy emblems, and golden holy light began to gather in the air.
“The city defense army is here!”
“Hold on! Reinforcements have arrived!”
The soldiers let out battle cries, and the holy light spells began to dispel the black fog. But just then, the sky suddenly darkened.
People looked up in terror, their
pupils
contracting.
A massive
creature blotted out the sun—a colossal
dragon.
Gleaming with metallic coldness,
its wings spread to cover half the city.
On its bony back, countless human faces were densely packed, and
eyeballs
turned towards the ground.
The colossal dragon slowly descended,
every
bone
exuding a suffocating
power.
Molian
jumped off his battle steed and knelt on one knee,
his commanding
voice echoing through the
dead
city:
“All hail the King!”
On the dragon beast’s back, a slender black figure flickered in and out of sight.
She gently raised her hand, and the colossal dragon’s three-lobed mouth slowly opened, gathering black poisonous smoke in its throat…
