Chapter 2: New Century (Epilogue)
Chapter 188: Royal Palace Bloody Battle
“Your Highness, how can you become a minion of the undead?”
Karallant did not answer the First Prince’s question, but instead asked speechlessly.
His expression was complex, filled with the anger of being deceived and the confusion of not understanding the First Prince, but these eventually condensed into an inerasable sadness.
“To survive.”
“The Kolon Empire was founded on strength, yet I am a useless person with no talent. What good is being the firstborn?”
The First Prince sneered, clenched his fists, and felt the surging power within him. He said joyfully,
“Now I have enough strength. I can reclaim everything that rightfully belongs to me.”
Upon hearing this, Karallant closed his eyes in pain. His lips moved, whispering, and finally let out a sigh.
“…Actually, His Majesty was also trying to protect you, you…”
“Nonsense!”
Karallant’s words were interrupted by the furious First Prince.
“Protect me? And then watch me be turned into an emasculated cripple by that scoundrel, the Second Prince? And then watch me be driven out of the Royal Capital without anyone caring?”
“Do you know how cold the wind is in the Emerald Frontier?”
“No matter how cold, it’s nowhere near as cold as my heart.”
The First Prince looked at Karallant kneeling before him, his crazed gaze tinged with a sliver of desolation.
“This is all their own doing.”
Karallant was speechless.
This man, who had always been as majestic as a lion, finally closed his eyes and shed two lines of tears.
His voice trembled, and he choked out,
“Your subordinate understands. Your subordinate is willing to break new ground and expand territory for Your Highness, for Your Highness!”
The cold moonlight cast a lonely silhouette behind Karallant, and for a moment, the First Prince’s crimson eyes showed a flicker of emotion.
He didn’t know when this man, who had watched him since childhood and whom he considered an uncle, had begun to grow white hairs.
His loyalty was unquestionable, just as it was at this moment.
No matter how proud he had once been of his human identity, he was now willing to abandon it and become a lowly blood slave, simply to ease the First Prince’s mind.
But the First Prince understood that this was the path he was destined to walk.
From the moment he accepted the gift of the Undead Emperor, his fate was sealed.
To become a king, one’s heart must be ruthless.
The First Prince no longer hesitated.
A chilling, stale wind swept through, and Karallant was surrounded by countless bats. The aura of the Undead permeated the air, and a layer of frost formed on the surrounding city walls.
When everything subsided, Karallant was still kneeling there, as if nothing had happened.
But his crimson eyes and sharp fangs told of his transformation.
The Undead army had already advanced to the Royal Palace. Except for Xi Wei, who had cleverly recalled his troops early, the other Lords were pursuing victory, wanting to gain more military merit.
They were still naively striving for their future.
By the time they discovered that behind them lay a Sea of Undead, and before them stood a solid palace wall with hundreds of Templar Knights and over a thousand Griffin Knights ready for battle.
It was already too late.
The hundreds of thousands of Undead in the Sea of Undead overwhelmed the Lords’ armies and converted them into their own allies.
In the end, only the forces of the Pope and the First Prince remained on the battlefield.
The Players, who had long known the First Prince’s identity, hid themselves under the Scheming Frog’s command near a section of the palace wall close to the Royal Palace.
Not long ago, he had quietly destroyed the soul-gathering Spell Array with Gou Fugui. From now on, the Undead could only convert living beings, but they could no longer be resurrected through the soul-gathering Spell Array after death.
According to his rough calculations, the current number of Undead should be enough to fight the Pope’s forces to a standstill.
It did not matter to the Players who won below.
However, if the undead legions of the Pope and the First Prince were both severely weakened, the Players would not mind stepping in to snatch the spoils.
Now that Ye Hao was dead, the Players were leaderless, which allowed the Scheming Frog to operate freely.
However, the Scheming Frog did not know that on the opposite city wall, there was another hidden player, the Lord of Eagle Territory.
On the walls of the Kolon Empire’s Royal Palace, the Pope looked down at the First Prince and Karallant standing before the Sea of Undead.
Behind him, Anna sat quietly, sensing the meat-grinder-like battlefield.
“Your Highness, the First Prince, I never imagined that the one standing before me would be you, whom I always regarded as a straw bag.”
The Old Pope’s calm gaze swept across the vast Sea of Undead. He showed no fear and continued to say with a chuckle,
“Not only that, but you also brought such a big surprise.”
“You are merely a servant who fawns before the gods, what could you possibly know?”
The First Prince did not hide his contempt for the Old Pope.
When his father was alive, this Old Pope was as obedient as a dog. As soon as his father died, he came out and started biting everywhere.
He was just a bully who picked on the weak and feared the strong.
He didn’t want to waste any more words with the old dog on the palace wall. He flapped his bat wings fiercely behind him and transformed into a swarm of screeching bats that attacked the Old Pope.
At the same time, Karallant silently raised his long sword. The Sea of Undead behind him emitted dense creaking sounds, like a living, pitch-black tide, and began to surge towards the Royal Palace without a sound.
Facing the murderous First Prince, the Pope merely raised his hand, and a golden Aura appeared on his chest.
Immediately, flames ignited on the golden Aura, and a knight made of fire, riding a lava warhorse, leaped out of the Aura, slashing down at the incoming swarm of bats with his sword.
A group of nearby Templar Knights also unleashed their skills.
The lights of Qi Slashes and Magic flashed near the palace walls, illuminating a small patch of the sky, but more Templar Knights and Griffin Knights had already charged into the Sea of Undead.
They had only one mission: to buy time.
From time to time, Griffin Knights would grab one or two Undead and throw them from high in the air, smashing them into pools of rotten meat against the city walls.
Some unlucky Griffin Knights were shot down from the sky by dense bone spears resembling a swarm of locusts, or were entangled by the Undead during their dives, falling into despair.
This battle did not have the earth-shattering roars and shouts of the previous siege. Instead, there were only the screams of griffins and the roars of the Templar Knights.
The Undead were always silent, and their silence made the battlefield even more eerie and terrifying.
Each Undead was like a killing machine. Although they could not inherit 100% of their former strength, they became fearless of death and even more bizarre.
“Urgh!”
In a corner of the battlefield, one Griffin Knight was accidentally dragged off his griffin by more than a dozen Undead. He screamed in terror and struggled fiercely, but it was like sinking into a deep, dark swamp.
Countless broken hands pulled at him, and the only sound he heard was a chilling creaking. Clusters of weapons clanged, and in a short moment, he was cut into several pieces.
One Undead, with only its head remaining, bit down on the griffin’s neck. No matter how much the griffin struggled, it was useless, and finally, exhausted, it was dragged into the vast sea of bones.
Similar scenes unfolded everywhere on the battlefield. Faced with the terrifying Undead plague, the Pope’s remaining defensive forces became stretched thin.
“Blood Siphon!”
Near the palace walls, a cold and soft voice echoed. The blood of the surrounding soldiers bizarrely flowed out from their seven orifices and converged on the First Prince.
He had already been fighting the Old Pope for a long time.
In his battle with the Old Pope, he was not at a disadvantage. Now that there were so many live blood foods nearby, he relied on the abilities of a Vampire Prince to absorb blood, recovering his injuries and energy, and gradually gaining the upper hand.
