Chương 102: Chapter 101. Necro killing (1)

At first, only common undead poured out of the doors. Shambling corpses with weapons in their hands rushed into the chamber in waves, their glowing eyes fixed on the warband. Then the stronger ones began to appear. Undead lords stepped out next, towering over the lesser corpses, their heavy weapons dragging across the stone as dark mana pulsed beneath their armor. Behind them came heavy suits of armor with death elementals inside them. The army had already grown used to fighting them.

So they only put their shields forward, ready to take them on. If the army was just this, he knew they could win. But then the door to Rayne's left creaked open wider. Two massive figures stepped out slowly. They were taller than even the undead lords, broad-shouldered and thick with muscle. Their skin was a mix of dark green and black, as if death had stained their flesh permanently. Jagged tattoos rolled across their arms and shoulders, glowing faintly red with each pulse of mana through their bodies.

Their tusks jutted from their lower jaws, and they grinned at the warband. Each held a giant axe, the blades massive enough to cleave a man in half. As soon as they fully entered the chamber, a ripple of shock moved through the warband. Whispers of "Orcs" travelled through it as everyone thought the same thing. What were orcs doing here? There had been none in the Pascar Plains.

None anywhere close to this region for the necromancer to kill and add to his army, yet here they stood, growling low in their throats before suddenly breaking into a charge toward the warband. Captain Edran reacted instantly.

"Squad leaders!" he shouted.

"Get your men into a straight formation against the undead and circle them up! I will take care of the orcs!" Before anyone could object, he leapt down the remaining stairs and charged straight toward the first orc. The creature swung its axe down with brutal force, red streams of mana coursing through its arms to strengthen the strike. Edran met it head-on. His blade glowed crimson as he poured mana into it. Steel clashed against the axe with a deafening impact. The shockwave cracked the stone beneath them.

He didn't stop there, and sliding to the side under the weight of the swing, Edran twisted and aimed his next strike toward the orc's legs, intending to cripple it before it could recover. Just then, the second orc roared and rushed in, lifting its foot to kick him away. A translucent barrier appeared instantly in its path. The orc crashed into Varrick's [Force Shield], the impact sending a ripple across its surface. Varrick stepped forward calmly behind the barrier, reinforcing it as it held.

With the two of them handling the orcs, Rayne doubted those beasts would pose much of a long-term problem. But around him, the chamber was already filling with far more undead. Soldiers had already moved to form a shield line, and with Captain Edran engaged, Casper immediately took command.

"Axel and Rancour's squad, take charge!" she shouted, her voice cutting clean through the noise of the chamber.

"Archers, fire! If you see any birds, strike them down before they get close!" At once, the soldiers roared in response. Boots pounded against stone as the first rank surged down the remaining stairs and planted themselves firmly on the final step. It was the perfect position—slightly elevated, forcing the undead to climb up into their shields. They formed a solid wall. Spears braced between shields. Swords ready at shoulder height. Archers lined up behind them, arrows already nocked.

The first wave of undead hit like a tide, slamming into the shields. The elevation worked in their favor. Every undead that stumbled up the stairs exposed its throat and chest to a waiting blade. Rayne and his party stood toward the flank of the formation. The undead reached them seconds later. One slammed into Rayne's shield and another lunged from the side, rusted sword aimed toward his shoulder. He let them hit. The shield absorbed the blows, pushing both back a step.

Before they could regain their balance, his sword moved in a clean horizontal slash. The first undead lost its head instantly. He pivoted and brought the blade up in a diagonal arc, cleaving through the second's collarbone and down its chest. Both dropped within seconds, and Rayne guessed that they were barely around level twenty. Months ago, something like that would have been a threat. Now he handled them as if they were reckless children swinging sticks.

But for every two he cut down, three more rushed toward the stairs. Kesh blocked a strike beside him and rammed his blade through a skull. Nate shoved one off balance for John to finish. Heins held his shield steady while muttering curses under his breath. In the center of the formation, two undead lords crashed into Axel, Hobbs, and the other squad leaders. Heavy weapons swung in brutal arcs, cracking stone when they missed. Axel met one head-on, blade flaring as he redirected a strike.

Hobbs drove his shoulder into another, forcing it back a step while Casper's fire exploded above them, slamming into the lords and a cluster of undead attempting to surround them. The air filled with ash, blood, and heat in a matter of minutes. Rayne's eyes flicked briefly to the center before focusing back on the undead in front of him, and he exhaled once. If he stayed in the shield line, this battle would grind on. The undead would keep coming, and the necromancer might gain an advantage.

He needed to get a move on. Hence, as he cut down another corpse that stumbled into range, Rayne stepped forward slightly, breaking the symmetry of the line.

"I'm going to open up a path," he said sharply.

"Follow me." No one questioned him. As another undead lunged, he drove his blade straight through its skull and kicked the body off his weapon. Then he moved. He stepped fully away from the shield line and began advancing into the mass of undead ahead, trusting that the men behind him would shift and close the gap he left behind. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. With each step Rayne took forward, more undead surged toward him.

Now that he had stepped away from the safety of the shield line, they swarmed him eagerly, as if sensing the opportunity to drag him down. Swords swung wildly from every direction. Spears thrust toward his chest and legs. Rusted daggers tried to stab toward the gaps in his armor. A few of the corpses even lunged forward with their jaws open, trying to bite through the back of his neck. Rayne didn't slow. His shield moved constantly, smashing aside weapons and bodies alike.

Every time a blade slipped through the chaos and a gap opened for even a fraction of a second, his sword followed. He cleaved one's head, stabbed another's throat, and plunged his blade through the eye socket of a third before kicking it as it collapsed against the others. Behind him, he could hear his party fighting to keep up. Shouts rang out as the undead tried to close in on them from the sides. Steel clanged against bone and armor. John cursed loudly as an undead bit his shoulder. Rayne didn't look back.

He trusted them to keep up. Notifications rang constantly inside his mind, stacking one after another as more corpses fell at his feet. But the flow of undead never stopped. More continued to pour out of the doors lining the chamber walls. Soon, even moving forward a single step became harder. The mass of bodies in front of him thickened until it felt like pushing through a wall of rotting flesh. And through the shifting gap between the corpses, Rayne suddenly saw something worse.

A death elemental turned toward him, the glow inside its helmet focused directly on him. Though even it couldn't move through the swarm to reach him fast enough. And before it did, Rayne needed to get out. Without hesitation, he drove his blade through the eyes of the undead in front of him, ripping it free before pushing mana into the steel. The weapon trembled in his hand as the dark energy surged through it, but he held it steady and swung. The [Death Strike] tore through the air in a straight line.

The arc of dark mana slammed into the undead ahead, ripping through several of them instantly. Rotten faces and skulls split apart as the attack carved a path through the swarm. The force didn't stop there. More undead behind them were caught in the strike, their bodies collapsing as the wave of energy pushed deeper into the mass. For the first time since leaving the shield line, a clear gap appeared.

"Increase your pace!" Rayne shouted.

"We make a run!" He surged forward immediately. Boots crashed against stone as he rushed through the opening, stepping over the bodies of the undead he had just cut down. Behind him, his party burst through the same gap before the swarm could close it again. More undead still waited near the back of the chamber. He raised his shield and simply slammed through them. The first undead staggered under the impact. The second was knocked aside completely.

The third tried to swing a rusted sword, but Rayne shoved it aside and drove forward until he finally broke free from the swarm. Once he did, he exhaled and turned his head. One by one, the rest of his party burst out behind him, having forced their way through the last cluster of undead. None of them had fallen behind. Rayne allowed himself a single moment of relief, then he turned forward again. And his [Danger Sense] exploded inside his mind with a ringing sound.

Before he could react, he saw dark chains moving through the air straight at him. Rayne barely had any time to react. The moment the dark chains rushed toward him, he simply raised his shield on instinct. The metal rang loudly as the chains wrapped around it. For half a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then Rayne felt the pull. His eyes widened as an immense force yanked the shield forward.

The grip nearly tore his arm from its socket as his boots scraped violently across the stone floor despite so many points in his Strength stat. His feet slid across the ground, sparks kicking up from his greaves as he struggled to resist the pull. The chains tightened further, and Rayne felt his balance break completely. In desperation, he let go. The shield shot through the air, pulled violently toward a set of stone slabs on the left side of the chamber. It landed with a heavy clang.

The very next second— Spikes exploded downward from the ceiling. Dozens of jagged iron spears slammed into the ground with terrifying force, crushing the shield beneath them as if it were nothing but thin scrap metal. Rayne froze for a fraction of a second. His eyes widened as realization hit him. There were traps all around the central part of the chamber. He snapped his gaze toward the throne. The apprentice necromancer stood there calmly, clicking his tongue in disappointment.

Dark chains coiled around his forearms like living serpents before whipping through the air again. But this time, they didn't aim for Rayne. The chains shot past him at an unprecedented speed and wrapped tightly around Kesh's legs. Kesh cried out in shock, not even having a moment to dodge. The chains yanked his feet out from under him instantly, and he slammed hard onto the stone floor. Before he could even cry out properly, the chains began dragging him.

His armor scraped violently across the ground as he was pulled straight toward another pair of stone slabs.

"Kesh!" Rayne shouted. There was no time to think. He immediately dashed forward, mana already surging through his blade as he prepared to cut through the chains. But just as he moved, two death elementals burst out of the swarm. Their hollow armor crashed through the mass of undead, rushing straight toward him. Red light burned within their helmets as their weapons lifted, ready to strike. Rayne saw them from the corner of his eye.

And he knew instantly that he couldn't deal with both of them and save Kesh at the same time. Then something flew past him. A small glass vial spun through the air. It struck the ground between the elementals and shattered. An explosion erupted the very next second. Flames burst outward in a violent blast that sent both death elementals flying backward, their armored bodies slamming into the surrounding undead. He blinked in surprise. For a split second, he glanced behind him. Fredrick stood there.

Rayne didn't understand why he was there. He didn't have time to ask because Kesh was still being dragged.

"Kesh!" Rayne shouted again. Kesh's armor screeched across the stone as he slid closer and closer toward the trap slabs. Panic filled his face as he tried to claw at the ground to slow himself down. Rayne knew he wouldn't reach him in time. So he paused and aimed. Mana surged through his arm as he swung his blade in rapid succession. Three arcs of death mana tore through the air. The first two struck the stone slabs uselessly, cracking their edges around the chains. The third finally hit them.

The impact split through the links with a sharp crack. The dark metal chains shattered just enough. Kesh saw the opportunity instantly. He rolled onto his side and brought his sword down with frantic force. He kept striking them repeatedly until the weakened chains finally snapped apart. Freed from the pull, Kesh scrambled backward on hands and knees, crawling away from the stone slabs as fast as he could. He didn't stop until he was several steps away.

Rayne rushed forward and grabbed Kesh by the arm, pulling him up to his feet.

"You okay?" he asked. Kesh let out a shaky breath.

"As okay as I can be knowing I nearly got skewered by a trap." Rayne gave his shoulder a firm pat before turning his head. The apprentice necromancer was looking at them. He clicked his tongue again, clearly annoyed.

"Pity," the man said lazily. The dark chains still coiled around his arms, shifting like living things.

"But you are all going to die either way." His lips curved into a cold smile.

"If not one by one… then together." The chains suddenly dissolved into dark mana. At the same time, another spell matrix formed on the necromancer's palm. Rayne sighed and raised his blade.

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