Chapter 341
The Attack — Part 2
Editor(s): Speedphoenix, Joker
“Is that them?”
Ominous undead creatures came into view as Nell and Remiero made their way to the front of the pack . Her first impression was that they were rather large . Each individual stood at over two meters tall, and were muscled to the point where they seemed deformed . Their arms and legs were as thick as the trunks of trees, and their necks were so bulky that they seemed to be swollen .
Even without the information provided to her by her predecessor, she would have easily come to the conclusion that they were artificial constructs . They were far too unnatural to have once lived in their current forms .
Their proportions were simply wrong . Their extremities, their hands and feet, were far too large relative the length of their limbs . But as bizarre as the body plan seemed, Nell had to admit that it was effective . Their attacks, which made use of nothing but weight and brute force, were heavy enough to rend the earth . A single swing could take out a tree or a piece of elven architecture with no difficulty whatsoever . Even taking one such attack head on was likely to prove fatal .
With that said, their offense wasn’t the most troubling part about the creatures . That crown instead belonged to the rate at which they were capable of regenerating . No matter how deep their wounds, they were capable of fully restoring themselves in a few dozen seconds . Not even a beheading could put one of the creatures down . Removing its eyes and brain would momentarily cause it to lose its balance and fall over, but before long, its flesh would regrow, and it would stand back up .
“That reminds me a bit of the way s.h.i.+’s regeneration skill works… not that I should be comparing them . She’s adorable, but these things are just plain disgusting!” Nell shouted as she cleaved her holy sword through one of the creature’s chests .
As it was already dead, it didn’t even bleed, at least not profusely . In fact, its only reaction was to stumble a few steps backwards . Of course, Nell had expected nothing less, having seen their ability to heal, so she promptly activated Equipment Synthesis, the unique skill that Yuki had used a scroll to grant her .
It allowed her to use her mana to temporarily create a weapon or piece of armour, albeit one on a timed life cycle . The skill’s reliance on her imagination was both a blessing and a curse . She was able to create whatever came to mind, but she couldn’t come up with things the way her husband could; unlike her, he could pump out countless, unique looking weapons, one after another without delay .
But knowing that weakness allowed her to work around it . Rather than trying to come up with something new, she instead opted to think of the many weapons that she’d seen Yuki make in the past . As she sheathed Durandal, several replicas straight out of his armory appeared in her hands . He had made them just for fun, but each weapon was still incredibly powerful in its own right, and had no difficulty piercing the undead’s flesh .
And that was exactly what she did .
She slammed her creations in the still-open, regenerating wounds . And left them there .
Annoyed, the creature swept at her with one of its bulky arms, but she kicked herself off its body to evade and repositioned herself outside its range .
The result of her experiment was favourable . Its wounds were healing, but the armaments she’d left inside it remained present . As Remiero had described, the creatures were easy to incapacitate despite being difficult to outright destroy .
In any other scenario, she would have relied mainly on holy magic . Undead had the tendency to be susceptible to it, but these particular specimens had been modified in such a way that the divine element had little effect . But that wasn’t a problem .
Now that she understood the creature’s traits, she began tackling it in a much more efficient manner . Rather than creating random weapons, she chose to create rapiers . With one each hand, she closed in on the abomination, slid under a lariat, and jabbed her blades straight into its kneecaps .
Diving between its legs to evade another strike, she jumped onto its back and beheaded it . Another pair of rapiers went straight into the creature’s neck before she once again repositioned to observe the results of her a.s.sault .
Another success .
It couldn’t regenerate properly because the weapons were in the way . Neither its legs nor head were operable any longer . The creature was not intelligent enough to make an effort to remove any foreign ent.i.ties from its flesh, as those particular instructions were outside the set that it was given .
“Impressive . When did you learn to use creation magic?” asked Remeiro .
“I’ve been working pretty hard,” said Nell, with an ambiguous chuckle . After disabling her targets’ arms the same way she had the rest of its body, she looked towards her predecessor . “Wait, didn’t you say they were hard to outright destroy?”
The creature at the butler’s feet was no longer showing any signs of regeneration . All of the deep cuts he had left in its body stayed exactly where they were .
“As is the case with many other regenerating creatures, it’s possible to simply overwhelm it with brute force . ” He made a ridiculous claim with his usual aloof demeanor . “The issue with this approach is that it consumes quite the amount of mana . Unfortunately, it’s not the best in a situation like this, where there are so many of them . ”
“I’m not sure why I expected anything less from you,” she said . “Oh, uhm, and about that . I think I have something for your mana problems . ”
She grabbed one of the many containers from the bag mounted on her waist and threw it in his direction .
“A high grade mana potion!? Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“I got a whole bunch of them from Y—my husband, so it’s not a problem!” she said before gesturing towards the creature she had engaged . By the time she was done, the undead was crippled, every notable joint in its oversized body now home to a rapier . “Carlotta, would you mind finis.h.i.+ng this off?”
“Not at all!”
After confirming that Carlotta was having her unit take care of it, Nell moved onto cutting another one of the undead freakshows down to size .
All in all, the situation seemed volatile . The two sides were roughly evenly matched . The elves had lost their first line of defense, and their town had been breached . Still, their responses were swift, and the added support from the demons and humans provided the forces necessary to engage the a.s.sailants head on . But they were unable to easily repel them; the battle could easily go either way .
The biggest problem was the headcount . The individual undead creatures were slow, but their impressive defensive properties and capacity for destruction meant that a small unit had to be a.s.signed to each and every single one . Their sheer numbers provided them with the ability to take over the battlefield the moment its tides swung in their favour .
“Watch out!”
After sensing a sudden spike in magical energy, Nell confined one of the abominations inside one of her spells, Imprisoning Barrier . A moment later, it detonated . An explosion filled her magical s.h.i.+eld with a ma.s.sive cloud of dust .
“Thank you, human, we owe you our lives!” said a demon .
“Not bad, girl! Good moves!” shouted an elf .
She raised a hand to acknowledge their thanks, then informed her allies of a change in plans .
“Remeiro, Carlotta, I think it’ll be best for us to spearhead an a.s.sault . Could you please help me with it so I can make sure I suppress all the explosions?”
“On it . My unit will handle her right side . Sir Remiero, please get her left!”
“Right away!”
With their plan of attack solidified, the newly formed strike team charged straight into enemy lines .
***
“Well, Naffy, what do you say we evacuate?” asked Phynar . “As I’m sure you’ve already started to suspect, the enemies probably have s.p.a.ce mages in their ranks . I don’t see any other way they could’ve made it so deep into your territory otherwise . ”
“That is one of the possibilities We had considered,” said the Elven queen, with a stern frown and wrinkled brow . “This is likely but the first in a wave of attacks . Given the scale, I suspect some sort of ritual magic is at work . ”
“It’s certainly possible . I’ve recently heard some awful news about the fiends forging a teensy little alliance with a group of demons that’s especially good at magic, so a ritual or two certainly isn’t impossible,” Phynar said, “And I agree with your other point too . They’ll probably try something else . They really love doing things in two steps . The first always involves creating confusion, while the second normally involves taking advantage of it and going straight for their intended target . Knowing that, I don’t think staying here is all that advisable . They’ll be trying to end it all in one fell swoop by getting rid of us . ”
“Hmmm… We understand . Do you have any thoughts in the situation, King of Allysia?”
“I have nothing to add,” said Reiyd . “As pathetic as this is to admit, I am not responsible for military affairs . I leave them to my men, and I believe that the best option here is for you to take the lead . ”
“And that We shall,” Napholahz said with a nod . “There is a Warden’s Barrier guarding an evacuation zone underneath this tree . We cannot conclude that it is truly safe, as the outermost Warden’s Barrier has already been breached, but We believe that it is at worst a superior option to remaining within Our conference hall . ”
The elven soldiers nearby immediately followed through on her suggestion and prompted the three monarchs to follow them down a flight of stairs . But as soon as they moved, the trunk of the tree in which the building was situated, the divider that separated the rulers from the battlefield, was blown apart .