Chapter 3: Seizing the City (3)

The magical energy surrounding Uma began to flow rapidly, but the clothes covering her body concealed everything. The only thing visible was an unusual excitement in her indifferent eyes, shining brightly amidst the dark aura. Invisible dark magic spread endlessly, rapidly extending to the skeletons and zombies gathered around Uma.

A sense of pride and satisfaction arose within Uma. It had been a long time since she had directly controlled these undead creatures using her own magical power. She was even a bit unaccustomed to it—she never really liked undead to begin with, usually only summoning or creating them. Using her own innate magic to command them meant merging herself with them. If it weren’t for Komer’s request, Uma would never have agreed to such a thing—merging with these inferior undead, even if only on a magical level, felt like a corruption to her. She seemed to have forgotten that she was also occupying another undead’s body.

The knights gathered around immediately sensed the strange change in the atmosphere. The skeletons seemed to become more aggressive all at once. That wasn’t the main problem; what was concerning was that their physical strength also seemed to have increased significantly. Combat energy became less effective against them—their bodies, as if specially forged, could now withstand the blows of knights’ swords and spears. Earlier, these skeletons should have shattered into pieces, but now they only suffered cracks or white marks on their bones.

Chains, clubs, broken swords, rusty knives, and mottled antique shields constituted the weapons of the skeletons and zombies. After this strange transformation, their agility also improved greatly. The black aura surrounding them spread outward, signaling that their innate weapon—putrefying poison—could now be emitted from their bodies. This made the Light Knights realize that danger was approaching.

Putrefying poison wasn’t a special attack method—it was simply a way for the inherent toxicity in undead creatures to be released. Generally, ordinary skeletons and corpses couldn’t do this without special refinement. Before now, these skeletons and zombies hadn’t shown such abilities, proving they lacked special combat strength. But now, with the appearance of that mysterious figure, everything had changed.

Borin also sensed this change. Clearly, that sneaky man in black was the culprit behind it. If they could get rid of him, all problems would be solved. Taking a deep breath, Borin drew his knight’s spear again. Mechenov realized this as well and gathered the nearly exhausted magic power in his body to continuously bestow blessings on the knight leader. Rings of holy light kept appearing around Borin, each time strengthening his radiance. Facing those undead creatures, they had to be extra careful. After Mechenov released the last enhancement spell, he no longer had the strength to stand and could only sit pale on the battlement, gasping for breath.

The knight’s cape once again helped Borin soar through the air, descending like a celestial being. His graceful posture boosted the knights’ confidence even more. With Borin’s full effort, his knight’s spear became like a dazzling full moon, shooting downward with tremendous force toward the man in black standing at the center of the skeleton group.

Uma smiled slightly—actually, only in his mind; his face remained expressionless. It was a shame. Such a magnificent killing move could have served as a model for the knights to learn from. If it had been someone else, he might have shown off his prowess, but since it was himself, there was no chance left.

Borin stared intently at his opponent, the energy of his spear growing stronger. A fierce wind howled as his combat energy surged. He had concentrated all his combat energy into this strike. The amplified holy light spell emitted a three-foot-long flame from the tip of the spear, crashing down with overwhelming force.

With his hands clasped in front of his chest in a cross shape, Uma watched coldly as the flying knight descended. Borin suddenly felt his body grow heavy; his knight’s cape was compressed tightly against him, making his usually agile figure extremely sluggish. He began to fall. Shocked, Borin quickly unleashed all his combat energy outward, sending a massive wave of bright light radiating out.

Uma felt that his Dark Gravity spell was weakening, and he praised himself inwardly. This knight leader was indeed far more skilled than the other knights, capable of resisting his Dark Gravity spell. But breaking free from his grasp would likely not be so easy.

A sharp shockwave emitted from the gun energy rushed downward toward Uma. The three skeletons immediately charged forward without hesitation. Under the unstoppable force of the gun energy, the three skeleton officers were instantly reduced to powder. By the time the last zombie reached them, the gun energy even punched a bowl-sized hole through its chest, sending it flying ten meters away with a slight tremor of the gun tip.

It was only then that Uma truly ceased to look down on them. The Light Knights truly lived up to their reputation—the power of their desperate struggles was truly impressive. But if they thought they could show off in front of her, they still lacked some skill.

Just as the gun energy was about to break through all obstacles and surge forward, three dark magic shields appeared one after another in front of Uma. The heavy, dark aura could even be felt by Bronin, who was struggling in the air. This was the true power of a Dark Mage. A dark, lightless wave-like blade silently sliced through everything in its path, even causing the entire space to twist strangely.

“Dark Blade?!” Komer and Mihajlovic exclaimed almost simultaneously, exchanging astonished glances. This was the pinnacle of dark magic—transforming dark mana into a real weapon, rather than merely using mana to guide spells to attack targets.

Bronin finally reacted correctly at the last moment, raising his spear across his chest and using all his strength to unleash the holy power within him to counter the attack. In Bronin’s eyes, that dark wave-like strike was infinitely dangerous. He had already sensed the dark aura surrounding it—this intangible yet tangible attack was more than enough to plunge him into an endless abyss.

Mechetnov, whose face was already pale, also realized this. Mages were always more sensitive to attacks filled with magical energy than anyone else. When the dark magic attack manifested from the man in black, he knew Bronin was likely doomed this time. Mechetnov had only heard of such manifested magic attacks before; he had never seen any mage or magic knight capable of doing it—yet here he was witnessing it today.

At this moment, Mechetnov didn’t dare hold back. Although his body was weak and limp, if he didn’t help Bronin now, he feared Bronin would truly fall into the abyss of darkness and even become a slave to the dark forces.

A series of spells were recited from Mechetnov’s mouth. Finally, he unleashed his somewhat weak holy power—Light Wings! Like a soaring bird, a faint glow symmetrically flashed across the sky and headed toward Bronin.

The explosive martial energy surged from the gun barrel like an avalanche, colliding with the wavy, dark blades. The powerful martial energy and the all-penetrating force of dark corruption finally collided, creating a violent impact that caused a strange spatial rift to appear in front of Bronin. At the last moment, the martial energy could no longer hold, scattering in all directions amid countless shrieks, emitting numerous colored lights. Even the Holy Light spell of the Light Church combined with the unleashed martial energy failed to resist the relentless advance of dark corruption, causing it to burst violently apart. The spatial rift darkened the entire sky, and at that moment, the Light Wings finally sensed that the pure Holy Light Wings colliding with dark corruption once again triggered immense turmoil. The agonizing howls were almost deafening, and Mechenov’s strike, which had nearly exhausted his sacred energy, proved decisive.

The appearance of the Light Wings finally pulled Bronin back from the darkness, which the massive gravitational pull of the spatial rift had been dragging him into step by step. As another larger spatial rift opened, the two rifts merged, but Bronin managed to break free from the edge of the rift thanks to the powerful counterattack of the Light Wings. He leaped into the air and escaped that dangerous area, while the two skeletons beside Uma were inevitably sucked into the spatial rift. Before entering it, the two skeletons had already been torn to pieces by the immense pressure.

Uma hadn’t expected that damned Light Mage hiding on the city wall could unleash the Light Wings to save Bronin. The spatial rifts couldn’t last long, opening and closing rapidly. Although he could tear them open with his strength, it would cost too much energy. It was better to use the forces of both sides in battle to create such rifts. He had originally planned to send that Light Knight into the dark space for proper training, but that plan was ruined by the Light Mage. Uma felt somewhat disappointed, but he had completed his main task.

After leaping into the air and performing several flips, Bronin no longer had any confidence left. He kept shouting for the Light Knights to form a solid defensive circle and retreat slowly. He had exhausted all his strength yet still hadn’t been able to detect the true strength of his opponent, which filled him with despair. It was no longer a matter of whether he could defeat them; escaping the attacks of these dark undead was now more important.