Chapter 218: The Death Knight
Although hundreds of corpses had been reduced to ashes, there were still hundreds more.
In truth, undead are only scary and repulsive to look at. They aren’t actually that difficult to fight against in a 1-on-1 scenario.
A brave young man could easily defeat a single zombie that rose due to a lack of proper burial and brag about his feat.
The difficulty was that life, from the moment of birth, comes with a survival instinct as well as a fear, anxiety, and wariness of death, which bursts when confronted with a living corpse.
The force that moves the skeletons, devoid of proper muscles or nervous systems, and the rotting flesh is usually a core of gathered evil energy.
This was also known as a core and was usually found in the head or neck. When it was destroyed, the corpse lost strength and collapsed.
However, despite this, the number of corpses was truly terrifying.
The living corpses’ greatest strength was their vast quantity.
Bang!
A draugr who had crossed the collapsing castle gates and the pile of wreckage swung down its axe.
The large, crescent-shaped blade cut a soldier in half. The smooth cut exposed the bisected brain and skull, collarbone, and internal organs.
Before the halved soldier could even fall to the ground, the large Draugr roared.
Kuaaaaak-!
“Eueuk……!”
“Ack!”
The troops, who had stopped in front of their comrade’s terrible demise, turned pale when they faced the roar of evil spirits head-on.
Red blood streamed from their eyes, nostrils, and ears as their pupils rolled up.
“Hehehehehe!”
“Ahahahahahaha!”
The crazed soldiers jumped on the spot, as if having a seizure, or collapsed on the ground and twitched. Some swung their swords furiously, cutting or stabbing the soldiers beside them.
They had lost their minds due to the terrible terror. A temple priest, who had been mass-producing a mountain of ash while holding out a golden cross to the corpses, raced forward with anxiety.
“Be gone, evil being!”
The corpses trembled at the cross he stretched, and the soldiers who had been foaming at the lips calmed down and regained focus.
“Don’t back down!”
A knight who had split the heads of five zombies with his blue mana-filled longsword yelled as the soldiers came back to their senses.
“Have no fear of death! Our destination is not the devil’s, but Lutheon’s. Huap!”
The knight who had risen from his position charged directly at the Draugr. His mana-enhanced body and sturdy steel sword deflected the Draugr’s axe and inflicted wounds on its massive body.
A temple priest wiped away the rancid blood from her face before kneeling on the ground. She clasped her hands together and said a prayer.
“The brilliance of the sun in high places, peace on earth for your people, Lord, we praise and thank you. May the sun’s brilliance be praised. Grant us the ability to extinguish the foul smoke, temptation, and longing that pervade this area today.”
As the young priest recited her prayer, golden waves appeared on the ground. The black fog recoiled at the ripples, and the corpses didn’t dare to approach.
The soldiers pushed forward with a cheer, inspired by the sight of the priest continuing to pray while bleeding from her nose.
With a crash, one of the houses behind them fell, spewing dust.
A ghoul appeared from the dust and snow. Regardless of what had thrown it, the ghoul had flown in from beyond the castle wall and crashed inside.
“Kyaaaaaak!”
A monster with a gray, leathery hide, two-meter-long limbs, and four legs raced toward the priests and soldiers from behind, galloping on all fours.
There wasn’t time to react. Four elongated claws that had shot out and flashed converged at one point, piercing the back of the priest who was praying, then penetrating her chest and emerging.
The priest’s hands trembled as she felt the claws pierce her chest, coughing up blood and spitting.
Her dark, intelligent eyes gradually clouded over, and her last plea came from her weakened lips.
“……Thus, the darkness will vanish before the radiant light of the sun, fear will be replaced with courage, defeat with victory, and none will be ignorant of its glory……”
The feeble prayer triggered a surge of holy power, illuminating the dead priest’s body and gliding towards the ghoul’s right arm and upper body.
“Kuaaaaak!”
The ghoul, which had been shrieking in agony, had to chop off its own right shoulder before the white flames died down.
As the one-armed ghoul rolled its gray eyes, which were flaming with rage, and struggled to strengthen its legs, its head cracked and burst.
The knife that had shattered its head flew out of the castle wall and pierced an unfortunate banshee.
Julia was behind the ghoul’s body when it collapsed with a loud thud. She reached out her hand.
Although the church priest had died tragically, the soldiers did not retreat. Instead, her death acted as a catalyst, and they rushed towards the corpses, spitting out hot steam.
The Keonitra Temple and the castle wall around it had more than one or two benefits.
Although it did not have a moat like a traditional fortress, the temple was built on high land.
To reach the castle, one had to climb a steep, sloping route littered with pebbles, finely crushed stones, and fine sand, making it easy to lose balance and fall.
It is commonly assumed that laying siege requires three times the number of troops defending it, although this is only true when calculating the minimal loss.
The army of the dead lacked ballistae, catapults, and siege towers. The temple’s forces, which numbered less than 100,000, faced a dead count of less than 10,000.
However, the army of the dead was not without advantages. The corpses weren’t fatigued.
Skeletons with less strength or agility did not experience the same level of physical weariness.
And their ghostly possession was as much of a problem as the eerie wails that echoed everywhere.
The remaining paladins, Julia’s knights, priests, and soldiers charged towards the corpses.
They drove the bodies back with their shields, and scores of axes and swords landed on the falling zombies’ heads and chests.
Priests cried and bled from their eyes and noses, squeezing out their holy power, while temple warriors wrapped their holy power around themselves and charged at the bodies.
The knights, who were magic users, smashed and trampled the undead heads with their quick movements and footwork as they approached the castle wall’s gate tower and watchtower.
The wreckage from the collapsing castle gates continued to block the way. However, it was lower than the castle walls to the left and right.
Julia stood in the middle of it.
“Huap!”
She raised her sword high, gripping the hilt with both hands. Mana imbued with the power of light, drawn up from the cold, steel blade, soared into the air like a pillar of light.
Julia, holding the pillar of light, flung her arm forward. The odd light and shadow, which had been swung in the castle’s lower level, pushed down on the throng of bodies pushing up.
Kwang!
The light exploded. That blazing light was infused with terrible magical power. The two ghouls and three druggers who had led the charge were crushed and dispersed.
“Wow!”
The presence of a strong leader instilled new courage in her subordinates. The soldiers, facing the blizzard and the biting wind head-on, pushed back the zombies with their swords and spears, even using their bodies.
White bone joints that had constantly climbed the steep slope and the castle walls were crushed by battle hammers and axes, scattering their devastation below.
Julia, who was taking deep breaths to cool her hot body and head, assessed the situation.
The advantage of a defensive battle was universal, even for the living corpses. There were not many high-ranking undead leading the undead, and their large size and undeniably repulsive appearance made them prime targets for concentrated spear and arrow fire.
But it wasn’t a matter of holding out forever. The priests were reaching their limits, and some had fainted.
The devotion of the bishop and priests, who offered prayers even at the risk of their lives, was supporting the holy might that was currently challenging the castle wall and soldiers.
She glanced at the thin horizon that lay between the rock and the valley.
Her vision was blurred due to the thick snow and her own fluttering hair, yet she could see the horizon as small as a fingernail.
And the route to the horizon was littered with dead. There are too many white and rotting skulls.
Julia’s magically enchanted sword dropped with a burst of light.
Kik!
A Wraith screamed, ripped apart, and scattered along the trajectory of the sword strike.
Her sword didn’t stop. The swordsmanship she had honed since she was a child, to the point that her hands bled and the sticky blood formed into scabs, created white brushstrokes in the vacuum.
Julia, encircled by white light and racing among the bodies, annihilated the undead as a knight, even more so than the paladins.
Although they did not turn to ash and vanish since it was magic power rather than holy power, the undead crumbled into piles of bones or rotten flesh as their evil spirits, which had been condensed into cores, were shattered and destroyed faster than any knight of the temple.
It was not just her allies who took notice of Julia. She had been sensing her surroundings through her wide-spread mana, even detecting blind spots where her eyes couldn’t see, and she suddenly moved like a thunderbolt, raising her sword.
Kwang!
A large double-headed axe missed its mark on Julia’s upward swing, hitting the ground instead. Julia, deflecting the flying debris with her armor, was about to step back when she heard a hiss from behind.
Julia threw her body forward, not glancing back or forth. A scythe just grazed her back.
Thump!
Julia, who turned over and stood up, bit her lip. Two headless knights were there, one clutching a two-handed axe and the other a long scythe.
Julia grinned. This was the dullahan who could manipulate with zombies and corpses in the most intricate way.
“Come at me!”
The combat axe and scythe came at her, who was shouting.
Only two weapons had been charged. It was a minuscule amount in comparison to the scores of swords and spear blades that the zombies and skeletal troops had already swung and shattered.
She felt as if many people were waving their hands at her. And all those many hands represented death.
Julia took a hesitant step back and knocked away the weapons one by one as the dullahan attacked, covering her field of view in darkness.
She dodged the double-headed axe that swung up as if to cleave her jaw, and she kicked away the scythe that swept towards her waist.
The situation occurred numerous times. When an axe that she had not been able to stop in time grazed her left shoulder, her body rotated half a turn due to its great strength, and the scythe targeted at him swung down.
Julia gritted her teeth and spun her body in the air, knocking the scythe away.
Clang!
A clear clang echoed, and Julia’s falling body soared upwards by a foot. The crisis was a chance.
Julia, who had just escaped the tragedy that had touched her, experienced both fear of death and an obsession with life. She summoned her magical power while listening to her heartbeat in her ears.
Mana flowed through her mana circuits, filling her entire body, granting her the strength of a giant, the agility of a fairy, and the endurance of a dwarf.
The essence of the skill that a human, who was neither as tall as a giant, as agile as a fairy, nor as strong as a dwarf, had battled to master.
That extreme erupted at the tip of Julia’s sword.
Thwack!
The air shrieked thinly. The blade swung easily, as if a whirlwind were blowing.
A cross-shaped slash is driven deep into the dullahan’s right shoulder with the war axe, cutting out the opposite side.
The remaining dullahan, understanding that one of his companions had died in the blink of an eye, attempted to flee.
But Julia didn’t stop there. She lunged forward the moment her feet touched the ground.
Her left leg stretched out, and her body spun in a large circle. The sword, gripped tightly with both hands, spun along with the semi-circle.
The Dullahan raised the long shaft of its scythe, flipping it upside down. The opposite blade of the curved scythe gleamed crimson red, ready to block Julia’s sword.
Kung!
The ground was significantly deformed, with the footprint she had stepped on in the center. The dullahan’s legs, which had been standing on the ground, wobbled for a moment before losing their footing.
The recoil from the force she had exerted traveled through the ground, up Julia’s knees, waist, and shoulders, and into her sword.
Zzzing!
The scythe was cut in half. And so was the dullahan’s waist.
Its head, severed along with its torso, fell with a thud, and the Dullahan, now split into its upper and lower halves, collapsed onto the ground.
“Huff! Ha, ha, ha!”
Julia kneeled on one knee, exhaling the entire breath she had been holding in. White vapor rose from her entire body.
A ringing noise invaded her ears. Julia looked blankly forward in her wobbling vision.
The hundreds of zombies under the Dullahan’s control suddenly lost their strength and either collapsed or attacked nearby zombies without distinguishing between friend and foe.
It wasn’t a bustle in one corner of the battlefield; it erupted all at once, throwing the outside of the castle wall into complete anarchy.
The knights who had been fighting on the parapet, gallery, and gate tower were waving to her.
Julia, who had cooled her overheated body for a few minutes or seconds, attempted to lift her arm and wave back.
At that moment, Princess Julia felt a shiver run through her entire body. Her subconscious sent out a warning before her consciousness could react.
Julia threw herself back and forth as her unconsciousness or body required.
She felt something strike her back with a thump.
Despite the warning to avoid looking back, Julia turned her head.
A Death Knight in black armor and helmet stared down at her.
“Ah……”
Her golden eyes widened. The Death Knight’s left fist, pulled back, was visible in her transparent pupils.
Kwang!
The only thing she could do at the time was cover her upper torso with her wide sword.
Julia saw her sword shatter as she flew backward.
Quaddeudeudeud, Kwang!
“Keuk.”
Julia, who had slammed into the castle wall, couldn’t contain the heated air rising from her throat and vomited it up.
Red blood poured out. She could definitely feel her internal organs being rattled and torn through her abdomen.
Forcing her strength into her legs, which were about to give way, she pushed herself off the wall and stood up.
The Death Knight walked in front of her, his feet covered in black fog and his body draped in smoke like a cloak.
Thud, thud. The footsteps were not very loud, yet they resonated extensively.
Before she knew it, the corpses had stopped advancing, and the knights and soldiers atop the castle wall were no longer screaming.
‘Is this where I die? Without even uncovering the truth about Father’s death, without preventing the Empire from falling into the abyss of death for the sake of my incompetent family?’
The corpses formed a round arc around the Death Knight and Julia, as if engaged in a big fight.
A faint sigh and sob could be heard above the castle walls.
Julia strengthened her trembling hands. The sword’s grip was clutched, with barely half of it remaining.
“Haa……”
Looking at the white breath she released, she raised the remaining half of her sword.
Julia instantly noticed her breath steadily fading.
However, the Death Knight did not charge. Julia, noticing the Death Knight’s turn to the left, unconsciously turned her head to the right.
On the cliff to the right, so high that it seemed to touch the low clouds, stood a dark figure.
Due to the weather and the immense distance, what appeared to be a faint shadow looked like a centaur, a half-human, half-horse creature that dwelt on the distant plains below.
At that moment, the shadow shone brightly. The shining light became a spear, shooting from the cliff down towards the Death Knight and Julia, piercing the space between them.
Kwang!
Scattered rocks and sand bounced off the armor, making a ting, ting sound.
Julia’s eyes widened as she realized she was looking at a massive black sword, not a thunderbolt that had fallen from the sky.
The Death Knight took a step back when he saw the greatsword. The Death Knight was still staring at the edge.
There was a rattling sound as the ‘centaur’ descended the cliff.
Even though it was no different from a slope that would send ordinary horses and humans tumbling to the ground, the ‘centaur’ neither fell nor dropped straight down. It ran, arriving at the spot where the great sword was stuck.
“Uh, uh……”
Julia couldn’t believe she was speaking in such a voice.
Russell, who had picked up the great sword, saw the princess behind him and greeted her.
“It’s been a while, Your Highness.”
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