Chapter 500: Wallbreakers (1/2)
It was the man that had almost killed Alea. The man who had left him no recourse but to either let her die or turn her into a Spirit Tool, not to mention causing the creeping death of their whole planet.
His appearance was all-too-familiar, as it was the very same one as the four ghosts he had fought back on Port Atwood. Zac had already known that the hooded beings he killed were clones or projections, as destroying the four identical copies provided no Cosmic Energy. He had also suspected him to either be the Lich King or one of his Generals, but it looked like he had his answer now.
He was accompanied by a powerful-looking female to his left, and a wretched ghost to his right. If one of the generals was occupied in the zombie horde, then these two might just be the last two generals of the Undead Incursion. The Abbot had killed two of the six when they tried to take down Mount Everlasting Peace, and Zac dealt with Mhal himself, leaving just three. A host of ghosts who hovered behind them in the air as well, perhaps there to provide the three with War Arrays.
Anger burned inside his chest, and his mind worked a mile a minute in figuring out a way to get up on that wall-walk to rip that man into pieces. However, he was surprised to sense the Demon next to him sporting a similar killing intent.
“It’s that bitch,” Ogras muttered from the side, his eyes trained at the ghastly woman standing to the side of the Lich King.
She looked almost like a pale human with long, black, flowing hair, but her hands were replaced by grisly claws with unnaturally long fingers.
“You know her too?” Kenzie asked with surprise. “She’s the one that almost killed me and Ilvere. I thought we had killed her by detonating the mecha.”
“All the more reason for me to skewer her,” the demon muttered. “That crazy banshee almost caught me inside an array when we fought last time. This time we’ll see who will be the Scuttlecreeper and who’ll be the Gwyllgi.”
A roar from behind interrupted their discussion, and Zac turned around to see that the zombies pretty much had caught up with them. There were thankfully no zombies between themselves and the wall though. Perhaps the Lich King was afraid of friendly fire.
The Undead saw zombies as something between children and potential recruits, after all. They both were and weren’t part of the Undead Empire just yet, and while they wouldn’t really mourn their true death, they also weren’t keen on killing them with their own hands.
The six Valkyries set up their war array once more, and they started a methodical slaughter of anyone that came too close under the direction of Joanna, allowing Zac and the others to focus on the castle.
“Do you people have any better ideas than charging right at them?” Zac asked.
“They are obviously prepared for a siege,” the demon said with a frown. “I can’t sense anything, but I bet this place is covered in both defensive and Offensive Arrays.”
“He’s right,” Kenzie said from the side. “The wall itself is full of array flags. Those huge towers contain offensive arrays as well.”
“We can’t dally too long,” Joanna said from the side as she looked behind then. “We will be overrun in a few minutes without assistance.”
“I can’t keep boosting you either for very long,” Emily muttered. “It drains way more energy now than it did before. Perhaps because you’re E-Grade and boost me a 100 points?”
Zac’s brows rose in confusion as he looked over. Her skill was supposed to boost his attributes by 10% after having been upgraded to High Mastery. However, a glance at his status screen confirmed that it truly only gave him 100 Strength.
Perhaps there were limits to how much the skill could provide, and 100 Points was no doubt a huge amount for most people in the F-Grade. It made sense that she couldn’t use it on a B-Grade monster and gain tens of thousands of points too, which would allow her to skip multiple grades and kill D-Grade Hegemons without much effort.
But now was not the time to experiment with the limits of Emily’s supportive capabilities.
“Let me see how the arrays look,” Zac said as he shot forward, a surge of warmth entering his back as Emily reapplied her buff.
A pillar of light rose toward the sky as a shockingly large fractal edge appeared. It glistened with sharpness as it stretched almost a hundred meters into the air, far exceeding the height of the wall. [Chop] might not be able to evolve, but just being able to cram five times more energy into the Skill Fractal before he lost control made a huge difference.
The ground cracked for dozens of meters in each direction as Zac launched himself into the sky, and the air screamed as he swung the towering fractal edge straight down toward the Lich King, seemingly intent to cut the whole fortress in two. The area heaved as a black shield materialized just before the blade would hit them, forcing Zac's edge to a stop.
The clouds of miasma churned as blade and shield met, and winds buffeted the zombies who were approaching. Zac grunted in annoyance though, as he was incapable of cutting the shield open even after having infused the skill with the Fragment of the Axe. He lost control a second later and the blade dematerialized while the barrier remained.
However, while the shield held against Zac's strike it didn't do so effortlessly. It didn't crack, but it did shudder and fluctuate a bit, and Zac noticed that a few of the core members of the Incursion took a step back or reached for their weapons upon witnessing the strike. The shield wasn't invincible after all.
It looked like the Lich King hadn't completely ruined his finances when erecting the defensive arrays around his fortress. Perhaps he had spent too much of his invasion budget on the massive fractal in the sky and thousands of Unholy Beacons. This was the only reason Zac had a chance at taking them down at all, as there were obviously way more powerful arrays than this readily available in the Undead Kingdoms.
But those were too expensive to bring, and a Kingdom would rather cut their losses than overinvest in an incursion.
“Not quite enough, Monarch-Select,” the Lich King snorted as a green fractal appeared in front of him.
He reached out a withered hand and tapped it, and a massive copy appeared above one of the Array Towers the next second. Danger screamed in Zac’s mind as the fractal started humming with power, and a torrent of what looked like radioactive toxins shot toward him while he was still mid-air.
Another fractal blade shot into the array with tremendous speed, this time forming a stab aimed right at the Lich King’s head. The Lich welcomed the strike without a care, and the shield unfortunately held against the assault once more. However, piercing the shield with a normal [Chop] had never been Zac’s intent.
He shot away from the rebound like a bullet, narrowly dodging an acid beam that would have swallowed him whole if he didn’t react in time. It was the downside of [Loamwalker]; the skill didn’t do him much good while mid-air.
However, Zac could always move around with the help of [Chop] as long as he had some fixtures to generate momentum with. He could probably even generate some push by simply swinging in the air quickly enough. He landed some distance from the wall and immediately flashed away, appearing next to his squad the next moment.