Slayer raised his sword, indicating that the assault had finally begun. Drones armed with square shields marched in turtle formation to protect from arrow fire.

The humans were at the back of the formation, and they tried to not lag too far behind.

The undead archers were helpless to stop the drones from bursting through the collapsed section of the wall, but a line of living armor and skeletons awaited from the other side.

In front of the mob of skeletons guarding the other side of the wall, there were a few heavily armed living armor.

Slayer ordered a charge since staying in formation would be too inflexible with the archers raining arrows from above, the undead at the front, and a crumbled wall behind them.

Drones charged forward with great speed, slamming directly at any skeleton unfortunate enough to get into their way. As the two groups of lifeless beings collided, bones flew in every direction.

Slayer swung his sword with one hand, and launched bolts from his crossbow with the other hand. Drones surrounding him also shielded his blind spots, ensuring a perfect defense with a perfect offense.

As the drones tried to fight their way into the castle courtyard, the humans went up the outer walls. Supported by the mage drones, they attacked the archers on the wall. If there were any living armors on the way, they were blasted away by the mage drones.

At the gates, Magus launched fireballs up against the gate towers as the automatons’ battering ram rolled towards the gate.

Rocks, arrows, and even skeletons were thrown down onto the drones, but the battering ram’s roof protected the siegers.

But still, his group were suffering a lot of casualties as the twin gate towers were armed with ballistas. The new combat drones had their chip located just slightly below the neck, so it would need a lot of precision to permanently destroy a drone. But still, a ballista could pierce through a limb, rendering a drone incapable.

Thus, Magus had to keep running to dodge the ballista bolts flying towards him. In retaliation, purple lightning or fireballs would be launched at the towers, but the heavily fortified towers would need more effort to destroy.

At the northern wall, Apoth was leading a climb against the wall. Several vials of explosives, acid, and holy water were tossed up on the wall, softening up the defences. Using a special type of rope made by Custodian, Apoth and his troops made steady progress in their assault.

On the eastern side, Princeps’ forces didn’t join the assault. Rather, they were defending against the undead coming from the streets. Since the assault has begun, some skeletons, wraiths, and even living armors assembled to the east of the castle. Princeps’ job wasn’t to take the castle, but to hold off the undead reinforcements.

To that end, Custodian sent Princeps a group of prototype drones to serve as his bodyguards when the siege began.

Armored as heavily as their older kin, the new bodyguards, or ‘Huskarls’ as Custodian called them, swept through the undead with their mighty steel battleaxes.

Back at the castle, much of the wall was cleared by both the humans and Apoth’s forces who had successfully climbed the walls.

The undead at the courtyard was finally clearing up when the gate broke down, making way for another wave of combat drones. Magus’ forces took the ballista towers and joined the fray at the courtyard.

Though their numbers were dwindling, the undead didn’t have morale or even the intelligence to run inside the castle for protection.

In fact, more undead swarmed out of the castle and into the courtyard, determined to destroy the invaders at any cost.

Slayer, Magus, Apoth, and the humans met at the center of the courtyard.

“It seemed you had fun, Magus,” Apoth noted as he pointed at a long ballista bolt sticking out of Magus’ elbow.

“Hmm? Damaged. Must go. I leave the rest to you.” Magus raised his staff as a farewell, leaving with only a few drones as escort.

“Will he be alright?” Aefelred asked Slayer as Magus vanished into the dark.

“Yes. Come with me. We attack. Take the inner castle and-…”

Slayer was interrupted when a loud howl came from inside the castle. The city shook as if it was trembling in fear. While the humans covered their ears, the drones raised their head in alert.

Suddenly, drones fighting at the front flew up into the air as a new undead appeared. A hooded figure draped in a set red torn robes appeared armed with a greatsword.

It swung the sword, decapacitation multiple drones at once. Immediately afterwards, it raised the sword.

Aefelred noticed the change in the air as mana began dancing around the hooded figure. “Get down! It’s going to use magic!”

The humans ducked down, but the drones continued to stand.

“Get down-…”

FWOOOSH!

A wave of fire engulfed the courtyard, just barely missing the crouched humans. Aefelred had almost thought the drones had burnt to death when he realized they were still standing.

‘Report. Any damages?’ Custodian asked.

‘Negative. No changes detected,’ Slayer reported.

‘Good. Destroy that hooded figure,’ Custodian ordered.

Slayer nodded then took a step forward.

“Wait! That’s a lich! We’ll need to get Elena to perform a Rite of Mercy!” Aefelred shouted.

“No time. We kill. Any other way?” Slayer asked.

“The… the holy water! Splash enough of it and it’ll burn away! We have a flask of holy water here, so-…”

“No need. Slayer and me go,” Apoth interjected as he revealed several vials of holy water.

“We’ll join you. Give us some vial,” Gerard requested to which Apoth complied.

While the combat drones kept the other undead in check, the humans and the two commanding drones charged at the lich.

The lich raised its head, revealing its decaying and lifeless face through its torn hood. Its rage seethed into the air as it saw humans coming at it.

It bellowed in a language both the humans and the drones had never heard of, then charged with greatsword at hand.

Gerard threw a vial at the lich, and in response, the lich tried to block it with its sword. This was a mistake, however, as the vial smashed and splattered its contents all over the mighty undead.

“GREAAAAAAAAGHHH!” the lich screamed as it felt pain for the first time in many decades, or even centuries.

The lich once against swung its sword, this time at Osvart and Slayer. The drone dodged back, while Osvart barely managed to block the attack with his shield.

The lich followed up by launching a black bolt which came from the greatsword at Dyvona. The woman threw herself backwards as the arcane bolt whisked by, but it hit Apoth.

The drone was taken aback and Custodian immediately ran a scan on its drone.

‘Minor blunt damage incurred. Nothing life threatening,’ Custodian concluded after finishing its scan.

‘Roger. Good to hear that,’ Apoth replied as he stood up.

Dyvona ran up Apoth to check on him. “Are you alright?”

“Down, now!” Apoth pulled Dyvona down as an ancient blade swung over their heads. The drone took advantage of the lich’s overconfidence and threw multiple vials at it.

The lich once again roared in anger, but was temporarily stunned.

“Now!” Aefelred, standing from afar with the three mage drones, shouted as he raised his axe. Mana rapidly circled around him as he began chanting his spell.

“I order you, Visage of Fire! Burn my enemies with a fiery wrath!” Aefelred shot a stream of fire at the lich from his hand and axe. The mage drones joined him, shooting lightning out of their own staves.

The combination of spells and holy water was too much for the lich as it erupted in fire. It fell on its knees and screamed towards the air.

Slayer doused his sword in holy water, then plunged his blade into the lich.

With one final howl, the lich was no more.

Family screams echoed throughout the ruined city, but the undeads were still standing.

“With their controller dead, the undead would go berserk and begin killing each other,” Aefelred explained as the drones looked up to the sky, intrigued by the screams.

Sure enough, the remaining undead in the castle began killing each other until not a single skeleton remained. Even the living armors were not immune, reduced to slaughtering each other.

The living armors at the castle were all dead, but at the tower within the fort, the living armors were still fighting amongst themselves.

Custodian estimated that, because of how resilient the living armors were, it would take a few days for the fort to clear up.

“I can’t believe we managed to kill a lich…” Dyvona sighed in relief as she fell onto the ground on her butt.

Osvart was also exhausted to the limit, feeling as if he had experienced two lives already.

“If it weren’t for the ridiculous amount of holy water we have, it would’ve been impossible to easily kill the lich. But strangely, the lich’s death magic didn’t affect you lots,” Aefelred observed as he turned to the drones.

“Death magic?” Slayer asked.

“Spells designed to target at a person’s soul. Or… at least a living one. Are you…” Aefelred walked up closely to Slayer and inspected the drone closely. “No. Impossible. You are unaffected by holy water so you can’t possibly be undead.”

“Well. We’ve managed to take the castle and still remain in one piece. That’s quite an achievement, huh?” Gerard laughed as he stretched his back. He was about to walk inside castle when Slayer grabbed his shoulder.

“You all. Stay out. We check inside,” Slayer declared.

“What? But we gave you the map! We at least deserve some compensation!” Aefelred protested.

“Aefelred, these people saved our lives, and with the lich dead, we could possibly even leave this place. This should count as repaying them, right?” Gerard replied.

Aefelred calmed down then ran his hand through his red beard. “Fine,” he finally gave up and sat on the ground as well.

Apoth picked up the ancient greatsword the lich was using, and Custodian immediately scanned it.

‘It’s stronger than steel? Hand it over to Princeps. We’ll have Niner inspect it later,’ Custodian concluded.

‘Yes, Master Custodian.’

The search was conducted by the two commander drones followed by combat and scout drones.

Moments later, Princeps arrived with his victorious army, who held off the undead reinforcements until the death of the lich. Apoth handed the ancient greatsword to Princeps, who happily dumped his greataxe.

He was also accompanied by basket drones in order to store the countless number of loot inside the castle.

Many of the things inside the castle were still in decent quality. There was even a bookcase full of readable scrolls and books.

Apoth held one of the scrolls and opened it. Custodian immediately began reading through the contents.

‘Ineligible scripts. I doubt the humans would even understand these. Luckily, I have one remaining drone to handle these books and scrolls,’ Custodian thought.

The search party finally happened upon the throne room. In it, an empty throne sat on top of a raised platform. This was where the lich obviously sat on for centuries to collect dust.

[Attempting to establish control on foreign automaton.]

‘What?!’ Custodian immediately began processing what it just read.

‘Could it be… there’s more treasure other than the greatsword?’

When Custodian saw the weapon the lich was using, it thought that was the ‘weapon’ hidden inside the city.

‘Begin searching the throne room. Topple everything if you have to,’ Custodian ordered.

The combat drones tossed the furnitures up, ripped curtains apart, and even smashed tables for no apparent reason while screaming “DIE!”.

Custodian should really fix that but…

‘Unable to locate,’ Princeps concluded.

Custodian scanned the throne room carefully, trying to pinpoint the source of the notification.

‘Move the throne aside, and begin breaking down the floor under it.’

The drones pushed the throne out of the way, then began digging up the floor. Inside the raised platform the throne was sitting on, there was a coffin surrounded in chains buried beneath it.

‘This is… a container? Lift it up and open it.’

The drones grabbed the coffin by its corners and hoisted it up. After breaking the chains with Princeps’ new weapon, Apoth tried to push the lid aside, but was bolted shut.

‘A key hole?’ Custodian thought as it noticed a hole at the center of the coffin. It then remembered that a scout drone had picked up a key some time ago. The key was kept in Princeps’ hands since Custodian believed it would be useful later.

Now, its belief had paid off. Princeps inserted the key, and twisted it. With a click, the lid loosened, allowing the drones to finally open the coffin.

Seeing what was inside, Custodian’s system began haywiring.

‘What… is the meaning of this?’