Summoning the Holy Sword

Tens of thousands of undead creatures swarmed the enemy ahead like a rushing tide. They scattered from their formation cleanly like a mysterious, dense, dark mist of death surging forward at the fully-armored soldiers who raised their long shields. Meanwhile, the clerics stood in the back and chanted in unison. As both sides were about to clash at close quarters, the clerics raised their hands high and a dazzling, sacred radiance glittered, enveloping the soldiers in the blink of an eye. At the next moment, both sides collided. Then, the Holy Maiden Statue emanated a crystal-clear brilliance, sending several light columns that descended from above to disperse the dense, dark mist entirely.

The undead creatures charged fearlessly, but their enemies weren’t ordinary humans either. The well-trained soldiers flourished swords that were enhanced by holy blessings, hacking the undead creatures into halves effortlessly—a feat ordinary weapons couldn’t achieve. Magical radiance flickered from time to time. The lichs positioned behind the undead creatures raised their staff and launched a mix of lightning and fireballs forward. However, the other side cast a colorful barrier that resisted and devoured them entirely. On the other hand, the death knights riding the incubi spiraled in midair, clashing with the battle angels who brandished their swords at them.

At that moment, some changes happened to the formations of both sides. The undead creatures pressed forward, while the humans seemingly failed to resist their aggression and retreated. Shortly after, the formation in the middle began to show signs of crumbling. The undead creatures seized this opportunity and swarmed toward them like a massive tsunami, striving to break through the defensive lines in the shortest time possible. They were as though a battering ram, pounding on a crack repeatedly. Under this ferocious attack, the humans’ front was in a precarious state, twisting and struggling like city doors under heavy impact where just a little more and they would collapse completely.

Boom!

The humans’ dense formation finally crumbled, revealing a crack, and the massive assault troops of the undead creatures instantly rushed through it quickly. As soon they marched forward, the human army would be completely annihilated… Well, that should have been the case.

But the truth was otherwise.

As the undead creatures rushed through the crack, both sides of the humans’ formation surged abruptly. The powerless sheep scrambling to provide support had turned into ferocious wolves, snapping their jaws open and dispersing to both sides while the undead creatures’ formation was unstable. The humans penetrated the undead creatures’ formation like two flying daggers. At the same time, some uncharacteristic changes occurred to the center of the humans’ formation like a vortex engulfing the undead creatures that rushed into it. Shortly after, a series of magical radiances erupted, but it wasn’t able to stop the humans. Meanwhile, the battle angels soaring in the air coordinated with their movements and pushed forward to repel the death knights. On the other side, the Holy Maiden Statue emanated a brilliance that swept across the land horizontally, blazing the dense masses of soul griffins in a sea of blue flames as they vanished into nothingness.

The undead creatures were in a turmoil as they witnessed countless strings of magical radiance erupting like a violent storm bombarding the battlefield. The clerics yelled and gestured with their hands. Along with this movement, golden threads flew out of their hands and turned into a huge, golden pyramid-shaped crystal barrier in midair to stop the magic attacks. In the continuous explosions, the dazzling radiance appeared in sequence on the periphery of the barrier. Even though the attacks were resisted, the golden barrier also dimmed from the impact.

At this moment, the young lady riding silently on the horse finally made her move.

She opened her eyes and scanned the battlefield. Extending her hand and flipping through the tome in front of her, she slid her finger across the pages. In this action, unfathomable symbols and texts began ‘drifting’ from the pages on their own before flashing across the sky.

Both sides were waiting for the other party to commit a mistake.

At this moment, in the Darkness Capital, Ion was grimly listening to Balende’s report.

“Is it? Our army lost again?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

At this moment, Balende felt helpless. With the emergence of revival spells, the Country of Darkness took the biggest hit. In the past, when they were in war, they gathered sacrificed corpses and replenished their battle strength almost immediately. But now that the enemy had revival spells, it was an entirely different matter. The enemies could revive their troops, while the undead creatures who were purified couldn’t be used to replenish their forces. The undead army was no longer as threatening as before. Taking Orchid Heart, for instance: this time she led more than 20,000 humans into battle, while the undead army had always sent out 40,000 to 50,000 troops. As a result, apart from losing some soldiers in the first few days, other soldiers basically revived to full health for the remaining time. After all, the soldiers weren’t confident of the revival spells before witnessing and experiencing it for themselves. But after being repeatedly revived, they solidified their faith. Unless some of the unfortunate ones had their bodies contaminated by the undead aura, there basically wouldn’t be any deaths in war.

On the contrary, the casualties of the undead army couldn’t be revived to replenish their forces. Even though they were low-level troops and weren’t worthy of a mention, it wouldn’t be favorable for the Country of Darkness if this continued.

Balende pondered in silence and said.

“Your Majesty, should we stop the battle? After all, based on the current situation…”

Before Balende completed his sentence, Ion waved his hand and interrupted. Balende quickly shut his mouth in silence. After a few moments, he heard Ion’s reponse.

“Alright, I got it. You may leave now.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Upon hearing Ion’s response, Balende was speechless. In fact, he finally understood why Erin acted so cautiously and worriedly whenever she mentioned Rhode to him. Although Ion was a great and strategic ruler, he was less outstanding in foreign affairs. The twin dragons disliked battles, while Lilian was timid and easily frightened. That was why Ion had always been spontaneous, so never did he expect Rhode to show up along the way. Not only did Rhode disrupt his plans time and time again, but he also became the Void Dragon and his subordinates were much stronger than the four legendary generals. Even until now, Rhode’s subordinates were capable of taking his harassing tactics. Perhaps the Country of Light that was established for years wasn’t even this tough to deal with. And now, Ion apparently had no intention of giving up, which made Balende worried. But he understood Ion’s personality, which was why he didn’t continue speaking and chose to leave.

It was just that… not even Balende was that confident in Ion. After all, it didn’t matter even if Ion was impressive in the nation as the Dark Dragon. Unless the undead creatures were pressured into rebelling, none of them wouldn’t dare to disobey orders. It would be considered true capability when one didn’t falter against foreign enemies. But at least it seemed now that Ion wasn’t advantageous in his clashes against Rhode.

“…”

Ion didn’t respond. He grimaced and watched as Balende left. Then, he turned around and also left the palace.

The entire Darkness Capital was in silence. This was a place that didn’t belong to humans at all. As the Dark Dragon, Ion disliked being interrupted by anyone, which was why the whole hall was empty. Ion took a step forward and as though sensing something, he came to an abrupt halt and shifted his gaze to a corner of the dark palace. He let out a snort, extended his right hand, and clenched his fist!

“———!”

All of a sudden, a figure that was seemingly twisted out of shape let out a screech and jumped out. It was illusory and its eyes glinted in a mystical golden radiance. Judging from its appearance, it was similar to the mysterious black-clothed figure that Erin fought earlier.

“Hmph!”

Staring at the strange figure, Ion snorted and tightened his right fist. Along with this movement, the figure let out a mourning scream before vanishing into nothingness. Ion retracted his right hand, swept a glance at his surroundings coldly, and turned around to leave.

He didn’t realize that the instant he killed the dark, mysterious figure, a pitch-black ray of light flashed across his hand, before disappearing entirely.