Chapter 263 - Fortress Predicament (1/2)
In the camp, Arantir sighed helplessly after hearing Solmyr’s roar.
What would come would always come. From the beginning of the chaos last night, he had expected such a situation. But there was nothing he could do about it. Necromancers believed in the dark aspect of Asha. Logically speaking, such belief in orthodox gods should place them in the righteous camp, and the people of the world should accept them, but this was not the case. The conflict between the dead and the living would absolutely not change because of beliefs.
Just like this time, even with Arantir’s reputation, he could still not defeat the discrimination and hostility in the hearts of people.
“There’s still a long way to go to promote Asha’s glory…” Arantir sighed as he stood up and walked toward the entrance of the camp. In order to make clear his intentions, he did not even bring a guard and welcomed the hostile eyes of the army of the kingdom of Bracada.
Seeing Arantir appear, the nagas immediately narrowed their vertical pupils and made angry hissing sounds. They would rush forward and slash Arantir into pieces as soon as Astral gave the order. The djinns opened their arms and released the light of magic in their palms. Countless electric sparks sprang up on the titans, and storms began brewing on their fingertips.
However, Arantir did not seem to see this scene. He walked to the entrance of the camp with his staff, looked at Astral, and said solemnly, “I understand your anger. But what I want to say is, please calm down and think clearly. Don’t fall for the demon’s trick!”
Solmyr was as hot-tempered as the lightning magic he practiced. Without waiting for Astral to answer, he said, “Damn it! Now that things have come to this, you still want to push the blame onto the demon?! Put away your ridiculous lie, necromancer. Everyone in Ashan knows that although those demons who steal souls are evil, they are recognized as experts at playing with fire. How come in your mouth, demons can even command undead?!”
gleaming, meaningful eyes. Indeed, everyone knew that demons had always despised undead because undead would not let them plunder any souls. In their impression, demons often appeared with flames and destruction, and they had never heard of demons creating undead.
The zombies that wreaked havoc in the fortress last night were all undead creatures no matter how they looked at it, and in the entire fortress, the only necromancer who controlled the power of death was Arantir. He was naturally the most suspicious person.
“Everyone, if the commotion last night was really caused by me, why would I still be here waiting for you to come?” Facing the doubts, Arantir was still calm. “To be frank, the success rate of me seizing the fortress was very high under such huge chaos, but I stayed in the camp peacefully and did not even take a step out. Isn’t this enough to explain the problem?”
“Hmph. Maybe you have other plans and are trying to use this attitude to lull us into negligence?” a Bracadan wizard hero said coldly.
Arantir looked at him and shook his head. “I know that you Bracadans are very hostile to necromancers, but please don’t use such an illogical guess to insult your and my intelligence. Knowledge is power. What you haven’t seen doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist!”
After that, he ignored the wizard hero and continued to say to Astral, “I don’t know what the situation was like when that demon appeared in Ulambus. But when I met him in the Desert of Death, not only did he have a fallen angel and an enormous hellhound by his side, he also had a lich obeying his orders!!”
“Lich?” Astral frowned.
“Yes!” Arantir nodded affirmatively. “Perhaps it’s through something like a demon contract. The demon was indeed using that lich, and it looks quite powerful. At least when I met them, that lich controlled thousands of undead troops. Moreover, I lost and could only retreat, so the high-level undead troops under my command should have fallen into the hands of that lich afterward.”
“Even so, it’s impossible for a lich to cause such a situation, right?” Gelu frowned. “If the lich controlled those zombies, then it had to have been close to the fortress. Under such circumstances, our patrols should have easily found it!”
Astral added, “Also, according to my understanding of undead, even a real lich would not be able to create a plague. But the chaos last night was caused by the plague. How do you explain this?”
Arantir slowly shook his head. “I can’t explain because I don’t know much about that demon. Although my intuition tells me that it was the demon who caused this disaster, I don’t know how he did it…”
Arantir’s answer caused an uproar among the wizard heroes. How could they be satisfied with such a response?
“Still quibbling! Master Astral, Your Excellency Solmyr, I think he’s the one who did it!” a wizard hero said indignantly. “He’s pushing everything onto the demon that we haven’t even seen. Still saying such words, isn’t he underestimating us a little too much?”
Astral and Gelu were also dissatisfied with Arantir’s words. Astral said with a dark expression, “Your Excellency Arantir, this plague and chaos caused Dendera Fortress to suffer heavy losses. If we can’t get a clear explanation, we have no way of working together. Now, we can only temporarily detain you and your undead army. I hope you don’t do anything that will cause further misunderstandings…”