Summoning the Holy Sword

The young girl had a dream.

Famous heroes armed with legendary weapons were slaughtering the evil monsters barring their path. Eventually, they achieved an overwhelming victory over the BOSS and received immeasurable honor and their fame spread across the lands — however, in the end, a dream was just a dream. It didn’t explain how the heroes toiled to pick up every single loot from the remains of the monsters to gather enough resources for the next fight.

Reality is cruel.

As she stared at Rhode and the others who were stripping down the rotten corpses, a few gold coins amongst other strange things appeared from the bodies. Marlene could only stand beside them with a dark expression and protest.

“This is blasphemy towards the deceased!”

Unfortunately, her righteous objection fell on deaf ears.

“You must be kidding.”

Rhode sneered as he grabbed a few gold coins that fell on the ground and stuffed it in his pocket.

“We are mercenaries, and they are our enemies. Naturally, we have to pick up what we deserve. And… about the matter of ‘blasphemy towards the deceased,’ I would think that the necromancer had already done it once, so I guess the dead wouldn’t mind if we did it again.”

“Yes, I understand, Mr. Rhode.” Lize nodded her head.

Seeing that Lize had understood her role, he turned his head and looked at Marlene.

“Miss Marlene, as I said earlier, your job is to remove the protective shield from the necromancer. With your prowess, it shouldn’t be too difficult. If there’s anything beyond your ability, then quickly inform me, and I’ll solve it. While I attract the necromancer’s attention, it won’t entirely give up on attacking you. That’s why when you are casting your spells, you need to pay attention to your surroundings. Prioritize killing any undead you meet before fighting the necromancer. And lastly, you are not to engage the necromancer until I say so.”

“Alright, no problem. Leave it to me.”

After witnessing Rhode’s judgment on the battlefield, Marlene’s answer became more confident.

Once Rhode received her verbal acknowledgment, he turned to Old Walker.

“Mr. Walker, your job is straightforward. There is a gem on the necromancer’s forehead — it’s quite obvious, so you shouldn’t miss it. Your role is to shoot that gem when the necromancer is preparing to cast a magic spell. Even with your strength, it still will be difficult to break that gem. But do not fret, all you have to do is to delay him from casting a spell. Also, I hope that you can take care of these two girls, if there is any unexpected danger, please do remind them.”

Rhode spoke quite a bit, but Old Walker did not respond. On the contrary, he frowned.

“Youngster, there seems to be a sound coming from that side.”

Old Walker raised his hand and pointed towards a tunnel.

“Over there?”

Rhode’s eyes traced the direction where Old Walker had pointed to, and his face darkened.

At this moment, they were standing at a fork. One passage led to the necromancer, the other was a dead end, behind them was where Rhode and the others came from, and the last one was the tunnel which Old Walker pointed to. This tunnel was connected to the main entrance, that means that if they did not enter via ‘Rhode’s shortcut,’ then they were supposed to come from this passage.

And right now, Old Walker was saying that there was movement from that tunnel.

Rhode signaled everyone to keep silent and then closed his eyes. Soon, he could hear the faint sound of weapons clashing from the other side. It was clear that there was fighting going on, and it appeared that both of them had the same goal.

What should he do next?

Rhode frowned and looked at the other three behind him. The necromancer wasn’t hard to beat, but with only four people, they would need to spend a considerable amount of time. During that time, they did not know what might happen. If they were stabbed in the back in the middle of a struggle, then it would be very bothersome.

People who played online games all knew that there was an unspoken taboo about kill stealing a BOSS. If it was an instanced dungeon, then it wouldn’t be so bad, but a mission BOSS like this one… was really hard to say. After all, a wild BOSS was like a public transport — as long anyone saw it nearby, anyone could ride it. In the game, the BOSS could still respawn after a period of time, but what if there was only one BOSS…?

A river of blood would be an understatement to describe the horror… even a landscape full of bloody corpses wasn’t enough.

As the first guild leader in the game, and also someone who held the title of the legendary Firstblood, indubitably, Rhode would be extremely familiar with these things. He immediately gave up on hunting the necromancer and planned to welcome the uninvited guest, but…

Rhode turned his head and looked at the three people behind him.

Lize was in a panic; she understood that encountering people at this time was not a good thing. On the other hand, Marlene was indifferent to this, but it was no surprise as she had never been a mercenary before. As for a veteran like Old Walker, his understanding of this matter was something that goes without saying. If he didn’t understand, then why would he remind Rhode in the first place?

Now… what should I do? Should I go greet those guys?

“Let’s go there and see.”

Not long later, Rhode came to a conclusion. If the opponents were strong, then he would use the darkness to his advantage and strike down these people before the situation could turn awry. If they were already on the verge of dying, then he’d just watch them die. Either way, he definitely must witness their disappearance.

The battle wasn’t too far away, but contrary to their expectations, the “newcomer’s” situation was already quite dire by the time Rhode and his team arrived. In fact, they were already on the verge of falling apart.

The newcomers were also in the mine. Waves of undead creatures assaulted the center of the room where the ‘living people’ were, attempting to stop these intruders from entering their grounds. Although the ‘newcomers’ had more manpower than Rhode, their overall battle strength was much lower than Rhode and his team. But it was no surprise as Rhode had already scanned their formation and he shook his head.

Three swordsmen, two thieves, and one tank.

In one glance, Rhode saw through the weakness in their formation. Melee classes were indeed threatening in close quarters combat, but in a place filled with undead, all they could become was their dinner. The undead were creatures void of fear and death. As long as the melee combatant wasn’t over-leveled, it wouldn’t be much threat towards them. And these mercenaries here were below level ten; they were even unable to use sword energy condensation. That being said, having able to fight until here could be said to be a considerable feat.

This is as far as they will go.

A thief was attacked by an undead, he flipped his hand and stabbed the opponent’s throat. His move was fast and agile; if it were a living person then they would have long been dead. But for the undead, this was clearly not enough. The undead raised its hand and slammed downwards.

“Woah!!!”

The poor thief who was unable to dodge in time was sent flying a distance before smashing into the ground. Without giving him any time recover, a pair of cold, shriveled hands grabbed his limbs.

“Aaaaaaa!!!”

Followed by a shrill scream, blood flowed out from undead’s mouth, and the thief moved no more.

With the death of a comrade, their formation began to falter. The pressure of missing one comrade grew on the remaining survivors. Suddenly, a brilliant pillar of flame burst out from a group of undead, killing a large number of them and buying the group some time. Then, a red-haired woman staggered out from the fire, her face was pale and her whole body was covered in blood. Even her leather armor was full of blood and holes.

After looking at that woman, Lize was surprised.

“Sister Shauna!!”

Right at this moment, when Rhode heard Lize’s cry, Rhode made his decision.

“Marlene, get ready.”

Author:

PS: Today I was decorating the wallpaper and the other areas, that’s why I got back home a little bit late and updated quite late. There’s still more at night. Yes, that’s the case…

PS2: The background wall was really expensive, a wall was about two thousand…