*****

The blast from the spell caused the commander of mages unit to fall from a height. He was lucky to survive the fall and not getting himself buried by the fallen debris.

He sat on his butt and examined himself. He had sustained not many injuries aside from a broken left foot and a few light scratches. He then surveyed his surroundings, He could not see clearly due to the seemly unsettled dust storm from the aftermath, but many figures were lying on the ground and beneath them was a pool of blood. There appeared to be some unfortunate soldiers who were buried under the fallen debris with only bloody arms and legs exposed. And from his blurry vision, the gates were nowhere to be seen. It was replaced with a huge hole in the enclosed walls surrounding the city.

Soon, he heard sounds of horses galloping, approaching in his direction. Was it ally arrived to provide aid? He couldn’t tell. But one thing for sure, judging by the amount of noise made, the group consisted of more than what he was expecting.

The noise became louder every little second and by the time he regained his vision, a silhouette leaped over him with several followed after. What came after them was a stinky unbearable smell that assaulted his nostrils, causing him to swallow his vomit. He gradually turned to look at those mysterious figures. Fear ran through him as he froze in place. It was a four-legged creature, the lower body of a horse and its upper body was a human figure. The body of the figure was decaying, and a long laceration was on its belly with its inside exposed. It human figure was horrifying, half of its face was exposed rotten flesh and the other was a skeleton face. These creatures gave off a foul-smelling odor from their rotten flesh, which polluted the air even since they arrived. All of them wield a rusty long lance and equipped with broken armor and what amazed him was the pair of azure blue light glowing from their eye socket that seemed full of life.

What are they!?

The giants in front of him made him tremble. He wanted to shout, warning the healthy soldiers of the development here, but the words that he formed were silent as he feared for his life if these creatures were to register his presence.

However, these creatures seemed oblivious of him as their glowing orbs were moving left and right before they scattered and galloped into the depth of the city.

Relief spread through him as he watched the back of these creatures vanished into the city, but was soon horrified as he realized the blunder he made had to be costly. For allowing undead to access to the city, thousands of civilians were about to die from his blunder, they were mindless creatures after all. On the other hand, what could an injured one man army do?

In any kind of situation, one must recognize their limits and do what you can. And being taken away the ability to move, what he could do right now was to warn the soldiers.

“The undead have invaded the city!”

He shouted on top of his lungs, praying that some soldiers nearby would answer his cry. Yet, nobody heeded his call as the majority of the available soldiers were all occupied, resisting the undead Legion advancement.

At the same time, the spell was fired, the reserved soldiers were ordered to prepare immediately, taking over the front line once the gates had fallen. True enough, the gates fell while the reserved soldiers were mobilized to the gates. And making full use of the granted access, the undead centaurs’ knight galloped through the hole created and rushed into the city, all in a short amount of time. 24 centaurs’ knights successfully infiltrated the city before the majority of the Legion was obstructed by the soldiers arrived.

*****

A young, lively boy was jumping from roof to roof and taking a quick glance here and there once in awhile. He made a giant leap, that span over a meter as the wind blew gently, pushing him forward and landed on top of a wooden house. He surveyed his surroundings and smiled brightly.

"Found you ~"

He found his toys.

In the meantime, the infantry unit of 1800men had been dispatched to the front line. The moment they stepped foot onto the remains of the once tall gates, endless undead swarmed and commenced onslaught. Immediately, they formed up out of the rumbles and fought against the undead.

The first to clash was the core of the undead Legion, skeleton warriors. They were agile and fast and had the bones of steels that reinforced by their underperformance armor. They did not adopt any formation and simply charging ahead to engage the enemy, with no stratagem to speak of.

On the other hand, the infantry unit charged with their shields rose and formed a shield wall to tackle the incoming charge of the undead. An intense collision, but they soon realized that piercing weapons were ineffective against the skeletons as they were made up of bones and the skeletons had had resistance towards slashing attacks. Hence, for the infantry unit with swords and axes as their primary weapons, it would be difficult to deal effective damage against the skeleton.

The difference in numbers was clearly shown on the battlefield with 1 soldier against at least 2 of the skeleton warriors. However, if it was to include stronger enemy like the undead commander, the ratio would be 3 against 1. Thus to boost morale, the commander of the infantry unit stood in the front line and led them to the battlefield.

In an instant, the overwhelming skeleton warriors crashed a hole into the infantry formation. Angry roars accompanied with sounds of metal clashing and occasionally moaning of pains were incredibly loud. The soldiers were wounded and some with missing limbs and the smell of blood filled the battlefield.

The commander was observing the pattern of the skeleton warriors so as to predict their moves and counter them. But what he found instead, bewildered him.

“What are they planning?”

The enemy’s movements were random, but he found that the skeleton would only wound the soldiers and if they deemed the soldiers unfit to fight, they would continue to the next victim. Simply to say, there were no single corpses in sight. And what further confused him was the fact he believed the Legion had the potential to push through and invade the Kingdom once their dominant units made a move. However, the Legion had creased their advancement and was on defensive.

You, creating a mess out of my kingdom and stayed on defensive? Then, why the hell do you invade my kingdom?!

He wanted to ask, to whoever initiated the invasion. But time was tight as a skeleton charged at him in his blind spot. He noticed a presence and dodged sideways, and by his warrior’s instinct, he accelerated his sword towards the skeleton.

The sword pierced through the right eye socket of the skeleton. He knew it was useless and kicked the skeleton away to put a good distance between them. The skeleton stumbled back and lay flat on the ground. He was expecting the skeleton to rise, but it was on the ground lying lifelessly. Suddenly, an unexpected cried of pain came from the skeleton startled him. Curiously, he moved near the skeleton.

Cracks formed on the skeleton’s azure blue glowing orb. The blue lights were flicking and getting dimmer by seconds. Slowly, the blue glowing orb shattered and the skeleton was reduced to a pile of bones.

Eh?…

He could not grasp the relationship between the skeleton and their orbs, but one thing for certain; he had by chance found their weakness.

“Their eyes! Aim for their eyes!”

He roared to gain the attention of the soldiers; the information disclosed by him began to spread across the battlefield. The soldiers began to pierce their sword through the eyes of the skeletons. Having realized that the eyes were the weakness of them, the tides of war had changed; the humans were gaining the upper hand and soon, the numbers of skeletons had decreased significantly.

Just as they were pushing the undead back, an unknown projectile punctured onto the commander’s right shoulder and shortly, more of his soldiers were hit by these unknown projectiles.

He surveyed his surroundings fast and turned to look at the gloomy night sky. The dark night obstructed his vision, but thousands of blurry mini sized projectiles lighted up by the moon, sinking gradually from the sky.

“ARROW!”

“Shield formation!”

The soldiers fought their way through the hordes of skeleton warriors and quickly huddled together in a bundle, raising their shields closely to prevent arrows from penetrating. The shield formed like a tortoise’s shield that seemed impregnable. And they waited…..10 seconds… 30 seconds…50 second… A minute. Yet, the impact of the arrows was never to be felt.

Puzzled, they broke their shield formation and looked at the dark night. What appeared before them was jaw dropping.

*****

Rufus and Gir were watching the entire battlefield calmly. Along with skeleton archers, mages, and undead Knights, both of them had stayed in position.

“Good, the horses are in. We will proceed with the next step.”

The summoned undead had a special connection with Rufus; he could feel the movements of the undead and transmit thought to them. Likewise, his Master could feel what Rufus does.

“Archers.”

Receiving their master’s order, the skeleton archers began to unsling their bows and nocked an arrow, aiming at the sky. On précised movement, the bony fingers drew back on the bowstring and in one fluid motion; hundreds of arrows were fired simultaneously.

With the gentle wind blew towards the battlefield, the barrage of arrows held the advantage and glided through the air. A few arrows were faster and shot several soldiers at once. And while the majority of arrows began raining upon the battlefield, a sudden figure flashed across the barrage of arrows.

“Rufus!”

“Yes, I noticed.”

The figure appeared to be making a strange hand gesture and danced around the abundance arrows. Somehow or other, the arrows were synchronizing with the movements of the figure and the trajectory of the arrows began to change. It started to gradually glide through the air, whirling around and slowly but surely, danced around the figure. From the top view, the arrows were whirling in a clockwise direction, forming a big giant sphere that centered on the figure.

The arrows continue whirling around for awhile before the figure gestured it towards the Legion. Bit by bit, the arrows began to move, breaking away from the sphere formation beginning from the top.

A Mana shield was immediately erected, big enough to cover two people and obstruct the movements of arrows. Rufus was not worried about his slaves as arrows had no means to inflict a damaged upon them. Either way, he could summon them again if they were dead.

Instantly, the arrows strike onto the shield one after another. Hordes of arrows continued to bombard the shield, but however the arrows tried to penetrate, breaking it; the shield did not even flinch. Subsequently, the impact from the arrows was subdued, and a heap of fallen arrows was before the shield.

Meanwhile, the figure was shocked that the shield could hold. A bitter smiled appeared on the figure and he began to chant a lengthy spell. A complex magical circle manifested before the sky as if another dimension was opened, the air got sucked in and soon, a big giant rock gradually crawled out of the circle.

And upon fully in sight, the last words of the spell were chanted. It was completed. The atmosphere suddenly became scorching hot. It was difficult to breathe for any humans near the rock. Perhaps it was caused by the atmosphere; the giant rock was suddenly set ablaze. The heat and pressure emitted by it caused the environment to strain even further. As a grand finale, the figure gestured the blazing giant rock-meteor to the Legion.

Just when Rufus thought that the barrage of arrows had ceased, Gir noticed the changed atmosphere.

“Rufus, a big one is coming.”

Gir said it casually, having high regards that Rufus could handle it. But a sign of irritation was shown by the composer Rufus. He did not expect this to happen, nor does he believe he could take on this giant meteor. Even so, he had to give it a shot for the meteor was coming in any second. The scorching heat made the both sweat profusely. Rufus was prepared to take on the meteor; he stood upright and rooted his feet to the ground.

Eventually, the blazing meteor collided with the shield. Upon contact, Rufus was being pushed back and the shield couldn’t even hold as cracks were gradually formed.

Naïve! The shield couldn’t even last!

Rufus blamed himself for the obvious. It was evident that the meteor was way larger than his puny shield. He cursed in his mind.

“Er .. Rufus, are you trying your best? Because it is breaking.”

“Shut it, Gir. Hold onto me.”

Again, Gir said without regards of Rufus. His ignorant thinking was

“Rufus could handle it no matter what.”

Following after Rufus, Gir positioned his right hand onto Rufus’s shoulder. And in a while, Rufus chanted.

“Teleportation”

Because teleportation was a basic spell of the magician class in Phoenix Online it was no surprise that Rufus was able to use.

The pair teleported away from the trajectory of the meteor and reappeared meters away. They watched as the meteor smashed onto the ground. The noise of the impact was deafening, the shock-waves of the explosion caused them to protect their ears. Rufus cast heat protections’ spell in order to resist the high temperature.

The result of the collision was a giant hole. But it does not stop there as the meteor dragged all the way to the Legion, destroying a lot of unfortunate undead and buried them beneath before it came to a halt few meters after.

The trace of the track made by the meteor was split open and burning with fire. The plentiful lands filled with grass and trees were destroyed in seconds. The Legion was, half annihilated.

What will be left of the Kingdom if this was to use in the Kingdom?

As a fellow magician, Rufus began to admire the figure. This was the first time he saw this extent of an AOE spell. Considering the range, the spell could probably deem as a 4th or 5th tier. Was it the highest spell the humans could use? Then again, he probably had no idea what was the highest tier this world could use. The pair slowly watched the raging fire and Rufus’ trains of thought were running wildly. Just then, they heard a voice.

“Intelligent creatures that use dark magic. Now tell me, how do you know of necromancy?”

The feminine voice came from the sky.

*****

The 24 centaur’s knights split themselves into 6's and scattered to the four cardinal directions. Closer to the east street, the 6 centaurs’ knight galloped down a path and began thrashing their lance around, destroying everything in their path. It was dark at night, but that does not pose a problem to the undead as their eyes could see through the darkness like during the day.

Meanwhile, they heard sounds of clattering hooves and the ground seemed to vibrate violently with it.

“I’ve found them!"

The noise came from the path the knights travelled through and soon appeared a group of soldiers approaching them.

The soldiers were chasing madly at them, but the knights had anticipated their presence long ago. They did not confront the soldiers as there were no orders given. They turned on their heeled, galloped away and leave the scene quickly.

“Faster! Don’t let them get away!”

The soldiers couldn’t chase after them as the invaders’ hooves were twice as fast as their horse. They were no ordinary horses, the undead centaur’s knight held pride in their speed. They were agile and could run up to thrice the speed a normal horse. However, they were not built to fight. Their strength was as weak as skeleton soldiers. But one could pose a threat to a human.

The 6 centaurs’ knights galloped as fast as they could to shake the enemy away from pursuing. They travelled a narrowed alley and eventually arrived at a 3-way intersection of a street.

The soldiers watched the intruders vanished from sight. They were searching desperately for them, but to no avail. However, the search must carry on as the human’s life was on the line.

“Damn it! Find them!”

Meanwhile, the young boy leaped over the roof and landed near the invaders.

“Here you’re!”

The boy said with a beaming smile. But his smile was soon replaced with a frowned of disgust as the unbearable odour made him pinched his nose and waved his hand back and forth in front of his face.

"Wah , stinky!"

The loud exclaimed seemed intentional as the dozen of azure blue eyes gazed at the source of the noise. It was a black haired young boy with a pair of mischievous bright orange eyes. Below his eyes were two long visible stitches, ending at the sides of his mouth. He wore a regular long sleeve cloth shirt along with long leather pants and strapped over his shoulder was a large iron cabinet, the shaped of an adult human that seemed malicious at one glance.

Why would an immature boy doing here, wandering alone in bewitching hour?

The boy jumped and landed in front of them. His feet buried in the ground that revealed the weight of the iron cabinet.

“Hello! I'm Noir, nice to meet you.”

The boy waved his hand childishly and the knights stared blankly at him, confused at this situation. They have no idea what should they do.

“Boss said to finish it quickly and backed Foulk,but-“

He shrugged like a lovely child, but the next words he spoke caused them to involuntarily move a step back.

"I really don't like corpses, they're no fun. Will you please be quick to die?... Oh, sorry, you’re already dead. Hahahaha!"

It was a simple, naïve laughter of a child. Yet for a brief second, the knights could clearly feel a surge of killing intent directed at them. Their train of thoughts were all set in one direction. This boy was, no doubt, dangerous.

“Well, boss permits me to catch living ones after this, so it’s a fair trade, I guess.”

At the same moment the boy finished his sentence, he vanished from sight.

Where did he go? The knights pondered. They search for him in all directions, covering even the smallest opening, but not a single soul was on the streets. A moment later, the 6 centaur’s knights felt fear, out of the norm for undead living puppet. A chill ran down their spine, as they froze in place. The knights tried to lift their hooves, to be freed of restrained, but they couldn’t as the fear conquered their limbs, binding their hooves onto the ground.

Simultaneously, 5 loud sounds reverberated. The remaining one knight could even guess what had happened. He struggled to free himself from the restraints of fear. Ample time he tried and finally freed of binding. He galloped away and looked at his fellow knights.

In a short amount of time, the boy had their azure blue eyes pierced. It was broken to pieces and deprived of light. Their legs were chopped off and without any support; the bodies of the knights plunged onto the ground. They were slaughtered unknowingly.

"you're next~ "

The knight jumped backwards in surprise. It was an insane movement he could not comprehend. When did the boy get near his skeleton ears?

He examined carefully at the boy. He was now carrying a large menacing scythe bigger than him that reeked of evil. Where did his weapon come from?

The boy felt different. No… His aura was different. The aura he was emitting felt like thousands of sinful souls tormenting him. He was an undead, yet the sight gave him to chill. He should feel no emotion, but now, he was afraid. This was no longer the young boy he first saw. The boy was too sinful to be an ordinary young boy.

The knight was afraid to move. But in hopes of eliminating a threat, he sprang with his lance pushed forward. Upon contact, the boy parries the lance with his scythe.

“Tsk, there’s no fun, how boring.”

The last words the knight heard before his vision was robbed and fell to the ground, resting in eternal slumber. Sometime later, the bodies of the undead turned and vanished into particles.

“Ahhh, Helk, did I do a good job? Boss has no means of scolding me, right?”

Noir said to no one in particular. But a heavy sound of exhaled breath came from the iron cabinet he carried seemed to respond.

"He won't? Of course, he won't. I'm his precious member after all hahahahaha."

The boy jumped up to the roof. He sighed. All he wanted was to have fun yet this task given was a pain in the ass. But his vicious grin said otherwise.

“6 down, 18 to go.”

*****