Game of the World Tree

If the goblin army serves as the initial expendable force to test Blade City’s defenses, then the undead legion of the Dark Alliance is the vanguard meant to formally initiate the siege.

Whilst being accompanied by newly revived undead goblins, numerous skeleton soldiers clad in armor surged toward Blade City like a tide, rendering the already desolate and frigid underground surroundings even more colder with the appearance of the undead legion.

It was not the first time the undead had attacked Blade City, and the defending soldiers on the city walls had clearly dealt with them before. Nonetheless, seeing the marching tide of skeletons still elicited such dread within each dwarven and gnome soldier as their breaths grew heavier in an instant…

As followers of the Goddess of Death, none understood the sheer terror that these undead could bring about more than they did.

The undead couldn’t feel pain nor any kinds of emotion, and instead solely obedient in following the commands of their conductor, akin to a group of machines that only know how to kill and nothing else…

Based on their past experiences, dealing with the undead requires the main conductor to be slain otherwise the skeletons would keep reviving themselves…

Facing an undying army is terrifying enough, yet the most chilling aspect of combatting the undead lay in the possibility of their own fallen comrades joining the enemy’s side upon their demise.

To clash against the sword of an undead who was just recently your friend or fellow compatriot, fighting side by side, is a harrowing ordeal no one is willing to face.

On the other hand, unlike the soldiers of Blade City, the elves’ reactions became rather curious upon seeing the undead.

“Undead?”

“Aren’t we allies with the Goddess of Death?”

Seeing the elves’ confusion, Brein sighed deeply and explained:

“Those are fallen undead of the Dark Alliance…”

“They have betrayed Her Majesty and instead pledge their allegiance to the God of Darkness and Shadow. They have gained immense power from the realm of shadows and the abyss, becoming wicked fallen ones!”

“They are more terrifying than an ordinary undead, even corrupting corpses and other undead, transforming them into their own kind…”

After he finished explaining, Brein glanced deeply at the rear of the undead legion, tightening his grip on his staff.

In fact, there was one thing he didn’t mention…

This is, under normal circumstances, as followers of the Goddess of Death, they should have been able to easily obliterate these fallen undead with the power of their Patron Deity.

However, the Dark Alliance seemed to have some special means that could suppress their ability to control the undead.

Not only did it affect these fallen undead, but even their very own Necromancers faced difficulty in summoning their own undead.

And even if they somehow managed to summon their undead, their condition was oddly poor, easily tainted by the enemy’s power…

Listening to Brein’s explanation, the players were left slightly stunned.

Yet, those players who had prior experience battling the undead carefully observed and noticed that these fallen undead are different from the usual kind they encountered before.

Specifically, unlike the typical undead, the flames flickering in the eye sockets of these fallen undead were not the usual blue but a dark red instead.

In addition, they were also shrouded in a faint black mist, resembling the shadow monsters they often encountered in the dungeon, while also carrying a hint of similarity with the Despair scaled monsters…

Watching the undead army drawing nearer, Brein reminded sternly,

“We must not let them breach the city walls! Quickly remove the dead bodies on the walls! Otherwise, they will corrupt these corpses and transform them into new fallen undead!”

However, contrary to what he expected, the elves sounded ecstatic upon hearing his reminder.

“”Hey, whether they’re regular undead or fallen ones, the latter seems to be more stronger! Maybe they can give us more EXP points!”

“Haha! Sounds good! Is this going to a clash between two types of undying disaster?”

“There are so many of them! I wonder how many experience points killing them will provide us? In any case, I’m going to kill them to my heart’s content today!”

“Everyone! Change your weapons! The starter wooden weapons work best against the undead!”

“Oh fuck! Why didn’t you say so earlier! I didn’t bring mine…”

The elves appeared unconcerned about Brein’s warning. On the contrary, they even chattered excitedly, clearly eager to engage with the fallen undead.

Seeing the elves’ excited demeanor, Brein wasn’t sure whether to commend their fearless mindset or chastise their excessive optimism. It seemed his words hadn’t dampened the excitement of these battle-crazed elves at all and had even further fueled it instead…

Ultimately, Brein could only sigh as he gave up on commanding the elves and instead ordered the soldiers of the Hermetic Alliance to remove the dead bodies from the city walls so that the priests could purify and guide their souls towards Her Majesty’s Divine Kingdom.

However, after he issued his order, the soldiers did not take much action and just looked around awkwardly.

Brein furrowed his brow.

“Why are you all still standing there?”

The soldiers’ expressions turned somewhat strange after hearing him.

One dwarven soldier nearest to Brein scratched his head and replied, “Chief… um… there don’t seem to be that many dead bodies left around as they were taken care of earlier.”

Brein was momentarily puzzled.

…The dead were already taken care of?

How could that be?

The elves inflicted heavy casualties on the goblins, and they too faced some losses themselves.

The battle just ended, so those dead bodies couldn’t be moved quickly!

Thinking of this, Brein carefully scanned the surroundings, but what he saw left him somewhat bewildered.

Indeed, just as the dwarven soldier said, there weren’t many dead bodies around, but the weird thing was there was plenty of tattered equipment left by the goblins.

It was almost piled up like small hills in some areas and he even saw a few elves happily rummaging through them, like scavengers…

Hmm… seeing these gallant-looking elves acting as scavengers is a bit eye-catching.

Brein’s mouth twitched inadvertently as he averted his gaze.

How peculiar…where were the dead bodies?

He was utterly baffled.

At that moment, the young chief’s peripheral vision suddenly caught a glimpse of an elf chasing a stray goblin.

It seemed to be a goblin who had wandered in the wrong direction.

While the other goblins had either been killed or managed to escaped from the city walls, this one in particular had been cornered by the elves due to it running in the wrong direction.

Then, moments later, Brein witnessed a scene that surprised him greatly—

The elf chasing it smirked wickedly and swiftly brought down the goblin with a single sword strike.

Then, as the goblin died on the spot, its body turned into ashes as if it were withering away…

Brein widened his eyes.

The goblin’s body…disappeared?

He gestured to the death priest beside him, who immediately understood his meaning and closed their eyes before silently chanting something.

After a few seconds, the priest reopened their eyes with a weird look.

“The goblin’s soul is gone.”

Brein was left dumbfounded.

…Gone?

Suddenly, a look of understanding sparked within him.

No…

It’s not actually gone, but rather, these elves must have purified the goblin’s soul!

Yes, that’s it!

No wonder these elves weren’t afraid of facing the Undead Army at all! They… actually had a means to instantly purify the dead bodies!

Wait… if what he’s thinking is true, then perhaps all those dead elves must have been purified too, right?

Brein took a deep breath, believing he had discovered the truth behind the mystery of the disappearance of the dead bodies.

At that moment, his opinion regarding these weird elves shifted once again…

No wonder the Goddess of Death had chosen these elves as their reinforcements!

It turns out they had such capabilities!

All this time, what troubled the Hermetic Alliance the most were the shadow creatures and the fallen undead of the Dark Alliance.

The fact that these elves can purify their enemies’ deceased remains meant that they could directly cut off the fallen undead’s method of replenishing their numbers!

Coupled with their fearless mindset and reckless attitude in battle…

Subtly, Brein began to look forward to the battle between the elves and the fallen undead.

— 357 —

【 WAIT…WHERE ARE THE BODIES? 】

Author’s Note: Hmm… Is the plot a little slow?

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