Chapter 46: Necromancer’s Terror

Someone had to step forward to steady the troops now.

The Black Knights [II], the Silver Masked Man’s personal guard, was the commander of the Tower Shield and Dragon Spear Formation. After the initial panic caused by that earth-shattering axe blow, he quickly came to his senses.

Seeing the formation begin to fray, Black Knights [II] drew his Two-Handed Broadsword from his waist with a clang. His eyes turned cold as light flashed from its blade. Unable to react in time, the heads of five or six fleeing Black-Armored Soldiers flew into the sky. Their headless bodies stumbled a few steps before collapsing, blood fountaining out…

“Hold formation! Organize the second defense! Anyone who dares retreat will be executed!”

[II] bellowed, his blade dripping blood as he channeled Battle Qi.

Faced with the threat of death, the Black-Armored Soldiers finally regained some composure. They slowly pulled together and steadied themselves. Once the formation was sufficiently stable, Black Knights [II] regained his calm. He immediately began barking a series of orders, reorganizing the defensive line.

With an officer firmly in command, the Black-Armored Soldiers finally displayed their solid combat discipline. They decisively abandoned the routed men at the front. The ranks behind pulled back slightly, creating a gap of two or three meters. Instantly, walls of sturdy Tower Shields and countless sharp Dragon Lances were raised again. They quickly assembled, forming a new wall of steel.

Clang——!

The Tower Shield and Dragon Spear Formation finally steadied once more.

From the rear of the large formation, Black Knights [II] glared intently at the twenty armored beasts relentlessly advancing. He sneered inwardly.

The distance between the forces had closed. That beast-like figure could no longer rely on the momentum of a charge to smash through this line of Tower Shields. As long as the Black-Armored Soldier formation held firm, if those fully armored creatures dared charge again, the Dragon Lances protruding outward would easily pierce them through, stringing them up like kebabs.

Black Knights [II]’s gaze was icy. Through the narrow gaps between the Tower Shields, he watched the battle outside closely.

This desperate reorganization of the formation came at a grim cost; he had callously abandoned the thirty-plus soldiers caught outside the crumbling perimeter. Now, the fully armored beasts were ‘clearing’ these pitiful Black-Armored Soldiers like a hurricane sweeping fallen leaves. On the narrow Stone Bridge, waves of blood surged, severed limbs and shattered weapons flew through the air…

Black Knights [II] had to admit, every one of the attackers was a monstrous force of nature, a superhuman killer. Their impossibly large weapons even sent a chill through him, a One-Star Warrior, just looking at them. On this uniquely confined Stone Bridge, any army encountering such a group of fully armored beasts would find it a nightmare they’d never forget.

The one leading the charge especially made Black Knights [II]’s blood run cold.

That figure was by far the shortest and thinnest among all the metal-clad warriors. Yet, bafflingly, his killing power and destructive force were undoubtedly the most terrifying of them all.

Black Knights [II] remembered vividly: the fight’s very first second began with that figure throwing out an earth-shattering axe while charging. As easily as a Demon God descending, he shattered the supposedly impregnable Tower Shield and Dragon Spear Formation. That terrifying Might felt like divine wrath itself… Even recalling that moment now, the battle-hardened Black Knights [II] still felt a lingering dread.

Now, through the shield gaps, [II] could clearly see that figure wielding a new, even more exaggerated Great Axe. He swung it with terrifying force, the axe blade like a massive door panel. Terrifying spikes and shocking white barbs adorned its edges. Blood flowed through three grooves on its surface. The pitch-black shaft, made of unknown material, was covered in mysterious spiral patterns. In an ordinary person’s hands, this axe could serve as a massive blade. It likely weighed at least fifty kilograms, requiring two or three soldiers to lift it together. Yet in that figure’s grip, it seemed lighter than a straw. A casual swing unleashed a whirlwind of steel. A strike with the axe sent flashes of lightning-bright light. And the Black-Armored Soldiers fell like wheat before a farmer’s scythe, instantly mowed down. Weapons and men alike were cleaved in two. No one could dodge that devastating strike. No one could block that furious blow.

That person was like a fighting machine, born for slaughter.

More than thirty elite, well-trained Black-Armored Soldiers hadn’t managed to hold out for even twenty seconds against those metal-clad warriors. In the blink of an eye, they became vengeful spirits. The corpses looked horrific – either hacked into several pieces or completely mangled by blunt impacts. Severed limbs lay everywhere; swords and spears were broken and twisted…

Where these killers passed, nothing retained its original shape except the Stone Bridge itself.

By now, the Black-Armored Soldier line had been pushed back over fifty meters along the Stone Bridge.

And this entire process had lasted a mere forty seconds.

…

“God of War above——!”

Chaos couldn’t stop Sun Fei from a grand show.

He roared, slicing the last Black-Armored Soldier before him into three chunks with quick axe strokes. Raising his head, he then saw that the once panicking Black-Armored Soldiers had quietly retreated a little over two meters. They had stabilized and formed a second defensive line: the Tower Shield and Dragon Spear phalanx.

A flicker of surprise crossed Sun Fei’s mind too.

The enemy’s speed of reaction and reorganization was unexpected.

Pushing forward now was clearly going to be much tougher.

But the arrow was already loosed.

Sun Fei understood perfectly clearly: he had to lead his group of powerhouses to smash through the Tower Shield phalanx in front of them at the fastest possible speed, in the shortest time. Then charge forward and destroy the distant Siege Ladders and Giant Stone Catapults immediately.

Right now, time was life.

They couldn’t stop charging. They had to accomplish all this before the enemy’s mysterious commander could react. Otherwise, if they got bogged down, waiting for the enemy’s elite fighters to arrive… Sun Fei might escape alone, but his twenty-odd men weren’t Warriors. They had no Battle Qi. Fleeing would be near impossible. They wouldn’t even serve as decent toothpicks for the enemy.

“Form a wedge shape! Center on me! Assemble quickly! Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick!!”

Sun Fei’s bellowed command cut through the chaos. The twenty-something powerhouses, slightly scattered from the fighting, snapped back into formation. Drogba, the big, wild-haired fellow, and Pierce, the fierce white-haired man, immediately took positions behind Sun Fei, left and right. Both were already thoroughly spattered with enemy blood. Blood and white bits of bone fragments still dripped from their weapons, making them appear as demons escaped from Hell.

The others were much the same – as if they had walked through a rain of blood. Armor dripped red. Their entire bodies were crimson.

During the intense fight moments ago, Sun Fei – a frontline super-shredder – had ensured that any threatening enemy fighters were killed instantly. So the others hadn’t faced much difficulty. At worst, a few got shallow dents in their armor from enemy blades. For now, there were no casualties or injuries.

“Everyone! Drink from the blue water skins quickly! Restore strength! Charge again on my order!”

Sun Fei shouted instructions to his men behind him, then suddenly charged forward alone.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh——!

At full sprint across the Stone Bridge, he kicked several corpses through the air. They flew over the three-meter-tall Tower Shields, landing amidst the Black-Armored Soldiers packed tightly behind the shield wall. Cries of surprise rose from the back. But the Tower Shield and Dragon Spear Formation didn’t falter in the slightest.

Honestly, Sun Fei hadn’t truly expected a few corpses to disrupt the enemy’s footing.

With his level 12 Barbarian speed, he covered the remaining two to three meters in barely a second anyway. But in that fleeting charge, he did one more thing—

He switched his Might.

With a thought, he shifted swiftly from Barbarian Mode to Necromancer Mode.

Instantly, the oversized Great Axe in his hand flashed white and vanished. Simultaneously, the Barbarian’s potent physical Might disappeared. An eerie, bone-chilling white mist—the energy of death—rapidly enveloped him like river fog.

And with that, Necromancer skills activated instantly.

[Corpse Explosion]!!!

Streaks of fine, barely visible white Death Qi shot from Sun Fei’s hands. Like lightning, they zipped through the gaps between the sturdy Tower Shields and plunged into the corpses he’d just kicked into the enemy ranks behind the shield wall.

Explode! Explode! Explode! Explode! Explode! Explode! Explode! Explode! Explode!

Sun Fei mentally chanted the command ferociously. Suddenly—

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM…!!!

From behind the Tower Shield wall—that three-meter-high steel barrier blocking Sun Fei’s path—came a violent series of explosions. In that instant, screams erupted. Blood sprayed like rain.

The [Corpse Explosion] skill had taken effect.

The Black-Armored Soldiers hiding behind their shields, ready for battle, had sneered at Sun Fei’s earlier act of kicking corpses over. Did he think they were mere recruits who’d panic at dead bodies? They had no inkling that these corpses would suddenly detonate without warning… and with such extreme force.

Dense clouds of shredded flesh and bone hurtled out with enough Might to punch straight through their Magical Beast-hide leather armor. The flying bone shards struck like Armor-Piercing Heavy Arrows, tearing even through metal plates with terrifying ease…

Caught completely off guard, the Black-Armored Soldiers suffered terrible losses.

Over twenty Black-Armored Soldiers were killed instantly, without even a chance to cry out. Many more, unlucky to have arms or legs blown off, writhed on the ground in agonizing pain, rolling and howling in misery as they were alive but crippled. Among them were a few even more unlucky souls; they weren’t wounded by the blasts, but in the ensuing chaos and panic, were jostled by companions right off the side of the Stone Bridge. Their screams cut short as they plunged into the churning, roaring torrents of the Zuli River, surfacing only a couple of times before being utterly swallowed by the flood…