“Am I seeing this correctly Olerac?”
“I was just about to ask you the same thing Capilon.”
The two Demigods stared down at the Mana Projection that spanned the entire floor of the massive room. A projection that displayed the entire continent in three dimensions. The projection had various symbols designated various targets. Everything from Nation borders and military movements to the locations of Stage ones.
It was the duty of both Olerac and Capilon to monitor, update, and maintain the map. Two Demigods, whose duty it was to alert the others should anything happen. And something was happening.
In ten different locations throughout the continent, massive armies of Undead had appeared, each one at the level of a Blue Lich. Ordinarily, such threats were barely worth the Demigods’ attention, let alone action. But it hadn’t been the Undead themselves that had warranted this reaction, it was the number of Liches, how spread out they were, and how they had all shown up at the same time.
Two Liches had appeared in the dense forests of Athera. Two in the Mountain chains of Tauras. One in Taria. One in Celarn. One in Zalar. And finally, three in the Independent territory.
Such a thing had never happened before, but the Demigods had plans prepared. Except, none of the Undead were attacking any population centers. In fact, Capilon had received reports from his agents of scouts from various organizations being spotted by the Undead, but not being pursued. The Undead were instead targeting exclusively Monsters.
What was even more concerning was that none of the Liches themselves had been seen. Ordinarily, while the Liches typically stayed behind their hordes of Undead, they did not hide themselves. If the more cautious ones did hide, they were never so well concealed that their agents could not find them, yet they couldn’t. Their agents could not find any of the Liches.
It was not as if the Liches would leave their Undead alone, they were weak and needed constant resupplying. Without the Lich present, the Undead would be quickly wiped out.
“Have any of the Necromancers made a move?” Olerac asked.
“None. Even if they did, this would take significant cooperation. They remain quiet and still, just as cautious of these armies as we are.”
“Have any of the Nations acted?”
“Not yet, so far, they seem content to let the Undead wipe out the Monsters in their borders. I can’t even blame them for being passive. Athera has been struggling with their Monsters for generations. I wouldn’t even be surprised if the Adventurers of Athera are throwing parties for the Undead.
Taria and Celarn are moving their militaries around to secure their borders. The Empire is also moving their military, but in a more aggressive manner. I think the Empire sees the Undead as a chance to purge the Monsters from their borders, and with their resources and man power, while it would be difficult, its possible.
Zalar is the most entertaining, they are using their Golem Armies to corral their Monsters towards the Undead.”
“Seriously?”
“I understand why. With their Golems they can push the Monsters in the direction they want without any risk to their own lives. If the Undead are apparently willing to fight the Monsters, why not help them?”
“How did they even show up? They just all appeared at the same time out of nowhere! We have no idea where they came from, how they appeared in multiple places at once, or even what their goal is!”
“Do we send one of us to deal with the Undead?”
Capilon shook his head as he walked over the symbol designating the Undead army that had appeared in Zalar, “No. Like you said, we don’t know what their goal is. For all we know they only mean to help Humanity. Unlikely, but possible. Until we know more about the Undead armies, we will continue to monitor them only.”
“How long has it been since they appeared?”
“Two days.”
“And how many Monsters have they killed already?”
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“The various armies have different numbers, but all together? Three hundred thousand Novice grade Monsters, two hundred and fifty thousand Adept grade, and just over a hundred thousand Expert grade.”
“How are they being supplied? Surely with that rate, they are losing just as many Undead. Can you imagine just how much Mana is being used to maintain that many Undead, let alone creating more?”
“The people behind this must have been storing Mana Crystals for years, perhaps they even condensed it in its Liquid form. That, or we are dealing with a group of people all at Master rank, all with exceptional control over their own Mana and have Master Tiered Necromancy Abilities.”
“How many such people exist?”
“To my knowledge? Only two, and they hate each other. Not enough to fight, but enough that they would never work together. But this? This would require at least four people of their magnitude.”
Bright red lights began to flash over the Undead army in Zalar.
“What is going on?” Capilon asked.
Olerac tapped on the symbol with his foot, causing the map to change into an aerial view of the Undead army in Zalar.
* * * * *
“Get down!” Someone screamed somewhere down the line.
No one cared who had screamed it, or even if they had the authority to command anyone. Everyone ducked. An instant later, a massive explosion created a crater a few meters away from the trench, raining dirt down on the soldiers within.
The large Golems, ranging from four meters tall personal, to massive mobile platforms standing several dozen meters tall, all began to retaliate, launching their own spells and weapons back.
The attacks of the Golems seemed to merely disappear in the vast hordes of Monsters that swarmed over the land like a tidal wave. Tress fell and boulders turned to gravel as they charged over them. The Golems were killing hundreds every second, yet thousands more simply took their place.
The plan had been a simple one. Use the Golems to push the Monsters towards the Undead. Let the Undead kill as many Monsters as they could before they took fell. In this way, Zalar would be able to eliminate a potentially hostile Undead force while also thinning out the Monsters in their borders.
But the Undead had not been defeated, instead, they remained unchanging. As one was defeated, another simply took its place.
The Zalarian Commanders had been expecting the Undead to fall, but when they didn’t the Monsters became more enraged, more frenzied. More and more came, until they eventually overwhelmed the Golems that had been carefully corralling them towards the Undead army that had built its own fort on a small hill in the forest.
A forest that had since disappeared from the multitude of Spells, bodies, and explosions that had occurred in these two days. A mere forty-eight hours was all it took for the once magnificent woods to become the ruin it was now.
But while the Undead were holding resolute against the vast hordes of Monsters ranging from Goblins and Ogres all the way to Wyverns and Griffens, there was not enough space for them all to attack. Those that couldn’t get closer to the Undead instead turned their attention to the nearby city of Xesas.
The city had no choice but defend itself to the best of its capability, but it was struggling. Even with its vast legions of Golems and advanced defenses, the entire city was struggling to hold back the Undead’s leftovers.
The trenches in front of the city were struggling to survive the various ranged attacks from the Monsters as they held back the few that managed to get past the constant barrage. But while the Trenches struggled, without having to protect themselves against the ranged attacks, the defenses atop the city walls were all able to focus purely on attack.
The massive cannons never remained quiet for more than a few seconds, and there were dozens of them, each one capable of firing a beam of Magic that could punch a hole straight through a Dragon. Against the hordes, the cannons’ settings were changed slightly to instead create a massive explosion at the impact point, killing upwards of a hundred Monsters with each shot.
The walls were also equipped with much smaller and weaker versions that personal could use in small teams. But the majority of the firepower came from the legions of Golems that emotionlessly did their duty to protect the city.
The smaller Golems hauled heavy loads or fought on the frontlines, heavily reducing the number of casualties while the large mobile platforms sat in the back, against the wall and rained hell on the Monsters. While the Golems did the majority of the fighting, there were still loss of life in defending the city.
The operators of the Golems had to be within a certain distance of their Golems, depending on the operator’s skill and technique. This put them much closer than any of them desired.
John watched the city defend itself against the Monsters, who had seemingly come from across the entire Nation. He watched the defenders desperately, yet valiantly, protect their home as he sat on a tree stump, bored. They way the Zalarian fought was interesting, using Golems, but John found it boring and borderline cowardly.
As one of the ten Death Knights that had been sent away to help their Master gain Levels he had expected to be the one fighting.
He had accepted his duty with joy as it had been much too long since his mace had crushed a skull and turned brains into mush. Yet he, like the other Death Knights, had been regulated to mobile respawn beacons.
Undead constantly appeared around him, yet he was not the one summoning them. Instead, Alaster was constantly summoning and creating them and merely throwing them out, using the Death Knights as markers for their locations.
John had not thought much of it until he had been instructed to remain still. Not because Alaster was worried he would be destroyed, but because using the Death Knights as a beacon was much harder when they were moving around.
John sighed as yet another dozen Iron Guardians appeared around him, their large armored frames and massive shields nearly covered him entirely in shade before they thumped away to join the battle yet again.
“Well this is boring.”