Ch.164164. The Final War (2)

The victims of the Plague God Marus Area—the plague-zombies—were not as strong as their horrific appearance might suggest.

They were merely infected with a magical disease called the zombie-plague, their bodies half-rotted and their minds paralyzed.

Essentially, they were not undead but infected organisms—something alive that was halfway to becoming a corpse.

Aside from having their strength limiters removed, they were weak enough that even ordinary people with weapons could handle them.

Though they clumsily swung weapons like clubs and continued moving as long as they weren’t completely dead.

Objectively speaking, apart from being slow, strong, and durable…

They were nothing more than violent, rampaging mobs.

However, on this battlefield—the story was different.

“Damn it, move aside!!”

“Holans, break through!!”

“Heeheeng, heeheeheeng!!!”

These zombies, using the sheer power of numbers, stood against thousands of heavily armored cavalry equipped with lances.

Even when struck, beaten, and stabbed with spears, their numbers were truly overwhelming—the very definition of violence through quantity.

A total of 60,000—the vile slaves of the Plague God, those who remained after so many had been sacrificed in the holy city—literally threw their bodies without hesitation.

“Get off!! Go away!! —Ah, kyaaaaaaaa!!!”

“Ru, Rukina!! Just wait—aaaaargh!!!”

They hung onto horses with their bodies, pushed with their full weight, or threw themselves in the path to prevent any forward movement.

The exchange ratio was nearly 50:1, about fifty zombies for one cavalryman, but…

Even if it were 100:1, the Imperial Legion would still be at a disadvantage.

Caught by these disposable meat shields and cushions, the elite heavy cavalry began to fall one by one, swept away by the tide of bodies.

“M-move asiiiiide———!!!”

KWAAAAAANG!!!!

However, there were limits to their obstruction.

The plague-zombies, which had served as excellent cushions against lower-ranked heavy cavalry, were simply shredded before the Pegasus cavalry that rushed in urgently.

All of them were intermediate warriors who had awakened their aura, and their pegasi were legitimate rank-5 monsters.

Thanks to this, they charged into places swarming with enemies while wrapped in aura, literally grinding all soldiers in their flight path as they advanced.

The cavalry, recognizing the suddenly thinned barrier of zombies, realigned their formation and pressed forward—

“Fire!! Fire at them!!”

Above their heads, clots of blood condensed with magical power began to fall.

KWAAANG!! KWAAANG!! KWAAAANG!!! KWAAANG!! KWAAAANG!!!

The blood clots rained down as if unconcerned with what happened to the plague-zombies, exploding upon impact and spreading sharp fragments.

A direct hit at close range meant instant death as bodies burst apart, and even at a distance, fragments frequently pierced necks or horse bellies.

“Damn it!! Damn it!! DAMN IIIIT——!!!!”

Though magical in nature, these ancient recreated mortars were extremely powerful. Rex, witnessing his friend become riddled with holes before his eyes, screamed as he charged forward.

Seeing his close hometown friend collapse to the ground as a lump of flesh, his mind completely snapped, spewing intense hatred and rage.

With his senses amplified to the extreme, he rode as if possessed, evading every attack that came his way.

From the massive boulders thrown by giants in the distance to catapult stones, ballista bolts, and iron balls.

Drawing magical power to its limit, he gained perception abilities approaching supernatural levels and charged forward relentlessly.

After riding for some time.

As he recognized that the distance to the enemy’s front line was closing, he suddenly realized that the warriors before him were larger than he had imagined.

Rex was quite tall for this era at just over 170cm, yet even mounted on horseback, his eye level seemed similar to the warriors before him.

This momentarily confused Rex when their eyes met, but he did not hesitate to aim his spear and charge—

“……..Huh?”

In the next instant, Rex recognized that beams of light had shot from their spears, and that his head, separated from his body, had begun to spin.

With his head detached from his body, his vision rapidly blurred, and his consciousness faded just as quickly.

Just before his breath was completely cut off, the scene reflected in Rex’s eyes was that of the light beam that had severed his head slicing through hundreds of cavalry from the front.

※ ※ ※

Right after the heavy cavalry finally broke through the wall of plague-zombies and charged forward, only to be suppressed by the soldiers’ volley of spear-shaped magical musket fire.

“…Send out the troops.”

Bjorn, riding on the back of the Red Dragon Ben Gaitenphang and observing the battle situation, issued orders to his staff with a weighty, dignified voice.

“Sacred Assault Unit!! Prepare to charge!!”

“Release the maddened thralls!! Send forth the corpse-soldiers!!”

Following the orders transmitted instantly through magical power, two groups were completing preparations to charge into enemy lines.

[Fellow countrymen, you serve the King in Red beyond death!]

As the captain of the Sacred Assault Unit, clad in black armor and prepared to atone for their sins, lowered their battle standard—

From somewhere, hundreds of the dead who had received orders from the god of vengeance appeared, transcending death.

Beings with semi-transparent bodies reminiscent of ghosts, skeletons visible through them, and bodies and weapons burning with black flames.

Those who had been members of the Sacred Assault Unit in both past and present appeared here, their bodies granted by the power of sacred relics.

Meanwhile, what began to appear on the other side—were undead.

From the well-selected undead forces subjugated during the destruction of the old Kingdom of Levia and surviving until this point,

to vampire summons called forth by vampires serving the bleeding god of vengeance, to vampire thralls who had lost their minds in blood frenzy.

This assault team, composed of those who could be thrown away without concern, slowly advanced forward, measuring the distance to the enemy—

[The time for atonement has come! For the bleeding God of Vengeance!!!]

“Take revenge!! Kill!! Drink blood and devour flesh!!”

Just as they witnessed the Pegasus cavalry temporarily retreating,

the assault unit advanced forward, and simultaneously, bombardment rained down on the heads of the imperial troops who were marching in formation before them.

KWANG!! KWAAAANG!! KWANG!!

KUWOONG!!! KUWOONG!! KUWOOONG!!!

Blood clots fired from blood cannons, massive stones launched from catapults, and thousands of arrows and beams of light struck them.

The stones collapsed their formations, and the blood cannons created casualties.

And the ballista and magical musket laser fire from those perfectly positioned on the slope leading to the high ground hit the enemy lines with almost no misses despite being direct fire.

The lasers penetrated straight through the flimsy wooden shields they presented, as did the spears and iron balls fired from ballistas.

In the distance, the boulders randomly thrown by Titan Philemon and the catapults crushed shields, collapsed formations, and destroyed battle arrays.

And after the blood cannon shells fell again onto these broken formations, exploding and scattering thousands of blood fragments, creating an enormous number of casualties—

“Kill them!! Kill them!! Kill! Kill them all!!”

“Blood!! Blood, blood, blood, bloooood!!!”

“For the great Red Lord!!!”

“Don’t retreat!! We die here!!”

The crazed vampires, excited by the prospect of seeing blood, and the Sacred Assault Unit, excited by the possibility of atonement through martyrdom, descended upon them.

The vampire thralls who had gone mad from being unable to control their blood impulses had transformed into quite hideous and bizarre monsters.

Their limbs had generally elongated while their bodies had withered, causing them to crawl like beasts, and their skin had discolored to a sickly bluish pallor beyond mere whiteness, resembling corpses.

Their eyeballs had expanded the red parts to such an extent that the eyes themselves appeared red, and decisively, they had lost all their hair and their mouths had grown excessively large.

Except for being able to distinguish friend from foe and still serving the blood god, these monsters, no different from beasts—

“Kyhaaaaaaaak!!”

“Blood, blood, blood!! Bloodbloodblood!! Bloooood——”

——KWAJIK!

They fought like monsters, utilizing their ferocity and monstrous physical abilities, driven by their thirst for blood and religious devotion.

Extending their arms to cruelly tear apart the bodies of Imperial Legion soldiers, or slashing bodies with their nails before pouncing to drain all the blood.

While these beasts rampaged with their enhanced regenerative abilities, the Sacred Assault Unit and elite undead complemented their gaps.