Azure Scepter

Page 30

He bent down and put down the brown wooden spear, then picked it up again. Seizing the opportunity, he pushed off the ground and thrust the spear in his hand fiercely at the tip of the spear in the skeleton's hand.

As a master of necromancy, Trier was very familiar with the basic reflexes of skeletons—except for skeletons that had been specially treated to retain some of their combat skills from their previous lives, most skeletons would only mechanically attack flesh and blood—as long as a living person they could attack was close at hand, they would even ignore the weapons that were attacking them.

This means that the timing of the skeleton's attack and the target of the attack are entirely predictable.

The next moment, Trier's spear tip whistled down, and the skeletons, who had finally managed to squeeze in, seemed to be controlled, simultaneously thrusting out their short spears.

This is precisely when the torque required to hold a weapon is at its minimum.

"Snap!" Trier lifted each of the short spears the skeletons extended towards the militiamen, and in the next instant, flag spears with banners, along with various long-handled weapons shorter than super-long spears, slashed past their ears. The skeletons, unable to control their weapons, were instantly annihilated—this time the killing efficiency was significantly higher.

Of the skeletons that had rushed in, only two, still with half their bodies remaining, were crawling on the ground. Even without their weapons, they were still frantically crawling toward the living people, their jaws opening and closing as if they were about to take a big bite.

Trier took a quick aim, and with a swift, curved motion, his spear smashed the remaining two skeletons to death.

[XP+200]

[You have gained additional information about the "Final Slash" feat.]

At this moment, the battlefield fell into a strange dynamic equilibrium. The militiamen's extra-long spears blocked most of the skeletons, while the few undead that managed to break into the spear formation were quickly killed by the militiamen wielding other long-handled weapons.

As the number of skeletons pouring into the gun emplacement continued to increase, the militiamen's chances of engaging the skeletons in close combat also increased significantly. However, thanks to Beaver Town's role as the supply center for military supplies for the entire Earl's territory, the militiamen had a high rate of armor, so they only suffered minor casualties, which did not shake the militiamen's morale at all.

The militia's well-organized tactical division of labor allowed them to move in an orderly manner, and the skeletons were being slowly but steadily worn down.

The seemingly unstoppable undead forces were surprisingly evenly matched with the hastily assembled rabble.

Trier knew that the most dangerous moment had passed; the militia had not collapsed at the first touch. At least until the militia were exhausted, they were safe, and when the militia gradually weakened, that would be the planned time of collapse.

The plan went very smoothly, so smoothly that even Trier, the planner, found it unbelievable.

In the narrow street terrain, he held back a large number of undead like a pillar, which further expanded the militia's local numerical advantage. All the undead who managed to sneak into the long gun formation had to face an attack from at least three times the number of militia.

The terrifying and bloody battle gradually transformed into a routine, mechanical act. The militiamen wielding oversized spears only needed to thrust, retract, and thrust again, while the others merely wiped out the few who escaped. In the constant slaughter, the seemingly horrifying undead gradually became familiar, and as the number of kills increased, this familiarity even evolved into a kind of numbness.

Even Trier, who was under the most pressure, had extra time to think about the problems.

"The Silent Whisperers' commanders are ridiculously incompetent," he thought. "They should use zombies to deal with the gun formation. They're heavier, and even if they die, they can hang on the guns. Wasting skeletons like this is just insane."

"But where did all those zombies in Beaver Town go?"

He casually pierced the eye socket of yet another skull and scanned his surroundings.

The next moment, Trier sensed a fluctuation of some invisible energy—an unknown person was casting a spell! Based on his own experience in casting spells, he looked at a building at the end of the street.

A cultist dressed in black robes was chanting loudly, and a huge fireball was slowly condensing in his palm.

As the fireball grew larger and larger amidst the cultists' chanting, Trier couldn't help but chuckle.

Chapter 53 Evocation-based Barbarians

Dead people, dead people everywhere!

Soms felt he had lost the ability to think; the groans of the dying and the buzzing of steel clashing filled his ears. His mouth was dry, and his heart felt like it was going to jump out of his throat.

He, who always prided himself on his wisdom, could not comprehend the scene before him—endless undead surged forward like a tsunami that devoured everything, silently and resolutely. The militia, who were supposed to be cannon fodder, should have been swallowed up by the skeletons the moment they engaged the enemy, but at this moment they stood firm like rocks, resisting the onslaught of the undead.

The cook beside him, with his buck teeth, was wailing. His forearm had been pierced by the short spear thrust out by the skeleton before it died, and warm blood was flowing down the gruesome wound onto the ground. The cook's wailing was tinged with a sob.

"Help me, little Soms, I'm bleeding, I don't want to die!" the cook cried.

Little Soms mechanically thrust out his spear again, this time hitting the bullseye, leaving a large dent in the skull. "The more afraid you are, the more likely you are to die. Hurry up and chop a few more times!"

Suddenly, Soms felt a sudden darkness before his eyes. He initially thought he was injured, but after a moment he realized he was still unharmed. He blinked in confusion, only then noticing that the noisy battlefield had fallen into a brief silence.

He looked up and strained to see the building at the end of the street.

Thump thump... Little Soms felt his heart beat a beat slower.

He actually saw an extremely huge sphere made of flames—a fireball!

The flowing flames, like a painter's watercolor, formed a perfectly spherical shape, the enormous sphere seemingly containing a kind of artistic, sculptural beauty. A dazzling incandescent flame burned on the outer edge, while scorching heat surged and rolled within the sphere.

At this moment, time seemed to slow down, and all that remained in little Soms's vision was the ever-growing, increasingly perfect fireball. This was the first time he had ever seen a fireball. He vaguely remembered his father telling him that the ability to accurately unleash a fireball was a crucial sign of a mage's competence.

"If only I could be a mage, even the most foolish, the most inept mage," Little Soms thought, staring at the fireball.

The fireball expanded to the width of three people, making the black-robed cultist casting a spell beneath it appear quite small. Little Soms slowly withdrew his gaze, looking beyond the ocean of skeletons, noticing more details—a dozen agile, towering ghouls and several plate-armored cultists had somehow infiltrated the skeletons, having already bypassed the obstruction of the extra-long spears.

They were all terrifyingly tall, with dark brown dead skin exposed beneath their metal armor. Their faces, covered in congealed scabs and filth, were indistinct, but the eerie blue flames of their souls burning beneath the blood and grime were chillingly menacing.

Little Soms withdrew his gaze, the golden banner fluttering in the wind. Before the banner, a paladin in tattered chainmail gripped his lance, piercing the eye socket of a skull. He stood ramrod straight, seemingly locked in a stare-down with the cultist mage casting a fireball.

The mages wielding immense magical power, the endless hordes of skeletons, and the towering, muscular ghouls formed a stark contrast to the outnumbered paladins. Undoubtedly, the fireball was aimed directly at the paladins.

The paladin did not scream; he remained calm and composed, standing straight as straight as the flag behind him.

Based on basic logic and deduction, young Soms had already envisioned the scene of the paladin being blasted into a burning mist of blood by the power of magic. As the only son of the tax collector of Beaver Town, he had always been cynical, but at this moment, seeing the paladin's courage in facing death so calmly, he was still deeply moved.

Amidst the crackling sounds like firewood exploding in a furnace, little Soms regained his sense of time. The enormous fireball, along with several smaller ones, danced towards them like fireflies. Under the ever-approaching fireballs, even the blood-stricken buck-toothed chef forgot to cry out.

The next moment, an indescribable, violent explosion drowned out everything, and a blinding white light instantly turned everything in the world white! In the white blur, a knife-like gust of wind, along with flying debris, fiercely scraped against our cheeks.

—Am I not dead yet?

Little Soms blinked in disbelief as the unbearable tinnitus and the temporary blindness caused by the bright light gradually subsided.

He was shocked to find that not only was he alive, but everyone else was also unharmed! Even the various weapons that were severely worn out were unharmed!

If it weren't for the scattered skull fragments not far away, the large crater still emitting black smoke, and the small flames burning everywhere, he would almost have thought that the terrifying fireballs from before were just an illusion.

"Was it the effect of divine magic? Sister Noy seemed to have cast a spell before the group set off," he muttered to himself.

Just as he was trying to understand what was happening in front of him, a ghoul suddenly burst out of the black smoke and grabbed Little Soms' spear.

The ghoul, wielding an extended cleaver, gripped the handle of a spear and slashed down at Little Soms without hesitation. A cold glint flashed, and the blood-stained blade struck suddenly!

Little Soms was startled. He instinctively released the gun handle and tried to duck to avoid it, but the sharp blade followed closely like a leech.

"Pfft!"

The next moment, the ghoul's head spun high into the air and crashed into the flames, splattering cold, viscous, putrid blood all over Little Soms' face.

"Stop daydreaming!" Little Soms heard the paladin's rebuke, which struck him like a hammer blow to his cerebral cortex, instantly snapping him out of his daze.

Sparks flew as steel clashed, and amidst the ear-piercing sound of metal slicing through flesh, viscous, putrid blood splattered on the ground like a shattered paint can.

Little Soms instinctively looked in the direction of the sound and saw the two cultists in front of Trier clutching their necks in pain, collapsing backward. The cultists slumped to the ground, and the buck-toothed chef screamed again. The next instant, the paladin grabbed the buck-toothed chef's arm, and a soft, holy white light flashed by.

"Die!" The next moment, Soms heard a furious shout. Then, he stared in disbelief as one of the cultists whose throat had just been slit stood up again! The cultist sprang up, ignoring the blood gushing from his throat, and screamed hysterically as he raised his long-handled axe diagonally and slammed it down hard into Trier's back with a powerful slash!

In a flash, Soms quickly thrust out his spear, trying to help the unsuspecting paladin, but because it happened so suddenly, he missed!

"Watch out!" he had no choice but to shout a warning.

Trier abruptly stepped back half a step, bent his knees, turned, and slid through a semicircle; the longsword in his right hand seemed to vanish as if by magic, and the next moment, the reflection of the blade lightly traced a graceful arc, instantly slicing through the cultist's ribs, throat, and spine.

The sword stabilized, blood droplets flew along the blade, and the cultist's shocked head slammed to the ground with a thud.

"By the radiance above, how did you come to your senses?" the buck-toothed chef asked incredulously.

Trier answered succinctly: "Prediction."

After saying that, Trier turned his head and quickly observed the situation on the battlefield.

During the meeting, his prediction of the spells that the Silent Whisperers might cast was very accurate. Before the militia set off, Noi's "Flame Energy Resistance" and "Flame Energy Absorption" spells made the cultists' fireballs a complete joke.

The four fireballs did not cause any damage to the militia, but instead the skeletons were blown up and thrown into chaos. The four fireballs killed or maimed at least thirty skeletons and greatly disrupted the skeletons' formation.

By this time, the undead and cult warriors who had rushed in amidst the chaos had been wiped out by the militia, while the skeletons were still regrouping. For a moment, the battlefield had entered a strange state of equilibrium.

At the end of the street, the black-robed cultist covered his mouth, seemingly unable to comprehend the effect of his spell. The next moment, Trier took out a military crossbow and fired a shot. The cultist mage cried out in alarm and scrambled back into the building.

"Truly a magic barbarian of the energy system," Trier thought to himself.

Chapter 54 Encirclement

The ground was littered with rubble, and the cracked streets were riddled with craters from the fireball explosions. The jagged cracks were piled high with the ruins of collapsed buildings. Corpses lay strewn across the landscape, and the cold wind of early spring silently dispersed the acrid black smoke. The flag of the Kingdom of Orko still fluttered in the wind.

The flag-bearing sergeant and Trier shouted, and the ranks, scattered by the fireball explosion and the melee, were quickly restored to order. Thanks to the protection of "fire energy resistance" and "fire energy absorption" beforehand, the fireball caused no casualties; however, the brief but bloody battle that followed resulted in heavy losses for the militia.

Despite having an absolute advantage in numbers in the local area, the combat ability of the corpse demons and cult warriors far exceeded that of the hastily assembled rabble. At this moment, the shattered ground was full of people groaning on the verge of death, and the blurred flesh and internal organs covered the ground, making it soft and slippery to step on.

Trier moved swiftly through the crowd, using his healing power without hesitation. Under the influence of the paladin's power, at least five militiamen who were already on the verge of death were temporarily saved.

“You are truly a saint, Your Excellency Trier,” an elderly man who had been healed said sincerely.

The paladin simply shook his head, then bent down and looked at a fallen militiaman.

The deceased's eyes were wide open, their cloudy and dull eyeballs filled with a misty white film. That empty gaze made Trier feel somewhat uneasy.

"Why me?" he seemed to hear the dead man's question.

Trier remained silent, staring at the corpse's eyeballs. A thousand thoughts flashed through his mind: "I feel uneasy, perhaps even a little guilty, because these people were pushed out to their deaths under my decision."

“This kind of mentality is hypocritical and weak, and it must be eradicated.” He took a deep breath and closed the corpse’s eyes. “The decision was made yesterday, and it was the most reasonable solution. If one feels uneasy and guilty about the consequences of the decision, then that is not only weak and hypocritical, but also foolish.”

He stood up resolutely, the iron rings on his chainmail clanging together.

Trier grabbed a cultist lying on the ground, half-dead, ignoring the pink blood oozing from the man's mouth and his incoherent pleas for mercy, and roughly led him back to the front of the line.

According to Trier's estimate, the militia's death rate was close to one-fifth, and the rest were almost all wounded. Based on general military experience, the militia had reached its limit, and the next attack after the Silent Whisperers regrouped would directly lead to the militia's defeat.

His plan was to use the "Cooling Down" spell to strangle the wounded cultists at the moment of the rout, thereby summoning the Sana demons to cover the escape of the survivors.

However, when Trier dragged the cultists back to their positions, he noticed that the atmosphere around him was somewhat subtle.

He felt a very strange fervor—not the kind that came and went quickly from ignorance an hour earlier; this seemed to be the fervor of victory after enduring bloody trials and cruel tests.

Trier then noticed that all the militiamen were staring at him.

“That’s victory calling, hey ya hey ya,” the surviving old man shouted in a hoarse and rough voice. After shouting, the old man stopped, as if he had forgotten his words.

A hoarse voice echoed through the deathly silent street. The next moment, another person shouted, "Iron Fist grips the gun handle tightly, hey-ya-hey-ya!"

The sound seemed to pull a trigger, and the militiamen suddenly began to sing: "Even in defeat, we are invincible, hey ya hey ya; it flies forward over the knights' robes and inspires us to fight, hey ya hey ya!"

Amidst the resounding singing, streaks of cobalt blue light flashed across Trier's eyes:

[You have obtained full information about the "Leadership" specialty]

[Leadership: You excel at leading people. You more easily attract loyal companions, followers, or subordinates to help you; additionally, those directly led by you receive a bonus based on your charisma modifier when facing the fear effect.]

[WARNING: Your alignment is slightly shifting; current alignment: Lawful Good]

[Your righteous actions are exceptionally consistent with the paladin's oath "To atone for evil," increasing your justice saving throw bonus by 1 point. Current saving throw bonus: 4]

Looking at the “lawful good” on the information panel, Trier felt an extremely absurd irony.

Trier was no stranger to leading others, and with the acquisition of this skill, the militia's morale seemed to receive additional support. Their songs grew louder, and they spontaneously reformed into dense gun emplacements, the tips of their spears, stained with bone fragments and blood, gleaming menacingly in the sunlight. After the horrific battle, the militia's morale not only remained unshaken but strengthened, with some even developing a blind devotion to the paladins.

By now, the black smoke from the burning had been completely dispersed by the wind, and the horde of skeletons reappeared in Trier's sight. Strangely, the skeletons did not attack; they simply remained quietly a short distance away—Trier then realized that the seemingly endless line of skeletons could now be seen to have no end.

He glanced at the battle log and found that he had killed a total of twenty-eight skeletons in the battle just now. Including the militia and fireballs, at least a hundred skeletons thrown out of the beaver town's graveyard were destroyed—a truly considerable number of casualties.

“Something’s not right, something’s really not right.” Trier frowned. “There’s no reason why Moyu would do this.”

Various thoughts flashed through his mind after analysis and classification: "If the goal is to kill the militia, then we should deploy stitched monsters and a sufficient number of high-level undead after the fireball bombardment; if the goal is to delay the militia, then we should use more common walkers to fight them. Throwing skeletons so lightly is a crazy act."

"Moreover, this kind of ruined terrain is clearly more suitable for attack by specters and ghouls, as they can bypass the building's wreckage and directly attack the flanks."

The paladin pondered all the possibilities at lightning speed, when suddenly, an inspiration flashed through his mind like lightning.

“The ghouls, the stitched monsters, the shadows, and that high-ranking undead aren’t here—they went straight to the old square.”

“But without the support of the Sea of ​​the Dead, can they really defeat professional soldiers, at least three high-level professionals, and a severely wounded dragon?” Trier gently stroked the glowing holy emblem in his hand. “That would be suicide.”

"It's impossible for the zombies to be sent to attack the Old Square, because I confirmed their spellcasting power yesterday in Pastor Byron's field of vision. The Silent Whisperers don't have enough people to control the undead to command both the skeleton army and the zombie horde at the same time."

“If I were the commander on the other side, then the walkers should be…” Trier looked up at the building to his right rear—by the dilapidated window sill, a ghoul holding a longbow, its bowstring drawn taut, aimed directly at him. Behind it, a swaying, decaying horde of corpses lurched about!

The Silent Whisperers actually chose to use zombies to flank the militia from the buildings on their side and from behind!

"This is insane! They're using the more mobile and aggressive skeletons as cannon fodder to delay the enemy, while using the slow-moving walkers to encircle them!" Trier was somewhat shocked by this military deployment that defied all common sense.

As a former renowned expert in undead tactics, he had naturally considered the possibility that the undead, with their numerical advantage, could use the buildings on both sides of the road to flank them. Therefore, the defensive location he chose was very strategic—the place where the militia were stationed did not have any intact two-story buildings on either side, so the undead could not jump directly from the buildings and crash into the ranks.

They must jump down from the buildings behind the militia before they can launch an attack.

"Look behind us, we're surrounded!" exclaimed a rather young and short spearman behind us.

Trier knew that the man's name was Soms.

The next moment, the ghoul that had been aiming at him suddenly released the bowstring, and the arrow burning with blue flames came flying through the air. Trier was prepared and intended to dodge, but as if by divine intervention, he slashed with his right hand and the arrow was instantly cut down.

"My martial arts skills seem to have improved?" Trier thought incredulously, looking at the arrow shaft that he had cleanly severed in two with his sword.

Chapter 55 Spell Enhancement