When Unas returned to the lakeside with two unconscious men and a woman with broken bones, the attack by the Scourge Hounds and Night Bats had already been broken. Presumably, once the Dreadguard died, they no longer had a reason to fight desperately. Along the way, he had run into a few of the beasts fleeing in all directions and casually dealt with the stragglers.
The fighting on the ice causeway had also ended. Tyrosus had led the main force of the knights onto the island in the middle of the lake. Everything seemed to be going well, and all that remained was to await victory.
Surrounded by several vanguard members, the three wounded were taken to the field hospital. Gordon and Darian needed rest, while Whitemane needed a doctor who could set her bones.
Unas returned to the vanguard and boasted extravagantly to his questioning teammates about how he had displayed his mighty prowess, turned the tide, killed the Dreadguard, and rescued the three wounded...
A sudden horn blast from the island interrupted him. Two short notes and one long: the signal for an all-out attack.
With that order, the reserves had to join the battle too. The soldiers, who had thought the fighting on the island was going smoothly, looked at one another. As Gordon's adjutant, Unas was now the squad's nominal leader, but he didn't think the soldiers would take orders from a battlefield rookie like him.
"Earl, you take command." He had to keep up appearances, so he took the opportunity to pass the burden to the tall, thin knight Gordon had singled out earlier.
"Yes." Earl wasted no words and immediately began organizing the squad.
The vanguard set out again, joining the other three reserve units and advancing across the ice causeway toward the island. Only the field hospital and supply camp remained by the lake.
Severed limbs and mangled bodies covered the ice causeway. The fiercest fighting had taken place here.
Tearing the Undead's bodies into pieces was the safest approach; otherwise, you might be killed by a zombie with only half a body. A rapid series of muffled thuds came from beneath the ice on either side of the causeway. The Undead trapped underwater were still gouging at the thick ice.
The snow on the island had long since stopped, and it felt warmer than the frozen lake. The moment Unas set foot on the island, battle cries and the clash of weapons struck him in a great clamor. It was a massive melee.
The army under the Dreadlord Bessarius vastly outnumbered the Argent Dawn Knights. It included not only Undead and demons, but also humans, elves, dwarves, Orcs, Trolls, and ogres under his control, even Kobolds and Gnolls. It was practically a grand gathering of the Eastern Kingdoms' races.
The demon had finally revealed its true form as well. It stood on the hill across the battlefield, the highest point on the island.
The grayish-red demon stood three or four meters tall. Two black horns curved forward from its skull-like head, and a pair of enormous red bat wings spread out behind it. Skeletal armor with spikes at the joints covered nearly its entire body.
It held both arms aloft, maintaining two towering black portals beside it. Squads of fierce-looking Felguards filed out of the portals. These lesser demons were the Burning Legion's basic infantry, and most carried enormous axes or swords. But they didn't join the fighting immediately, instead gathering around Bessarius.
Yet the most striking sight on the entire island was the towering figure at the center of the battlefield—Tyrosus. He held his truesilver holy sword high as golden Holy Power spun at high speed within ten meters of him, forming a powerful Divine Storm. Any enemy that came close was torn to pieces, while allied soldiers had their wounds healed by the storm.
Nothing could stop Tyrosus's might. With him at their center, the knights advanced steadily. Though the enemy was numerous, their battle line kept falling back. More and more Felguards gathered around Bessarius, but it never sent them into battle, apparently waiting for a chance to counterattack.
By committing the reserves at this moment, Tyrosus hoped to crush the enemy with lightning speed and utterly destroy Bessarius's hope of counterattacking.
As soon as Unas entered the battlefield, dense clusters of tiny lights drifted toward him from all directions. Although party experience was reduced considerably, sheer quantity made up for it, and his experience rose at an unprecedented rate.
Unas had also more or less figured out how leeching experience worked. He didn't need to form an actual party as he would in a game. As long as the person killing the enemy regarded him as a comrade, the system would automatically consider them a party, and Unas could absorb experience as long as he wasn't too far away.
So the battlefield was probably the best place to leech experience. His allies would naturally regard Unas as a teammate, and as long as he was on the battlefield, he could get a little experience from almost every enemy killed. Of course, the experience he leeched was far less than what he got from killing enemies himself.
But sheer numbers made up for it on the battlefield. At this rate, gaining another level wouldn't be difficult. Unas was thrilled, though he felt a little embarrassed about leeching experience like this. He spotted a conspicuous familiar face and charged over. Earl hesitated for a moment behind him, then led the squad forward after him.
"Brother Unas, you're here!" Erigor called loudly. Hearing hoofbeats behind him, he had turned to see Unas galloping toward him.
"Yes, Brother Erigor!" Unas replied, waving his silver hammer.
"Let's kill them together!"
The arrival of several fresh units made the battle even more one-sided. The enemy formation, already falling back at every step, was on the verge of collapse. But under the Dreadlord's overwhelming mental pressure, they still had a strong will to resist.
As the knights' spearhead, Tyrosus had already pierced the enemy formation alone and reached the foot of the hill where the Dreadlord stood.
The path up the hill was packed with around a hundred strong Felguards. If the enemy's main force were routed, this handful of Felguards wouldn't amount to much. Yet Bessarius neither advanced nor retreated, and no one knew what it was planning.
"Your end has come, demon!" The one-eyed Paladin didn't attack rashly. He was waiting for the troops behind him to catch up, so for now he could only trade taunts.
"Kekekeke, foolish humans!" Bessarius laughed wildly in a vicious voice. He waved his arms, and a huge mass of green Fel light gathered in its hands. "This island has long been my altar, and you shall all become my sacrifices! Hoh hoh hoh!"
"Scorching Hell!" The Dreadlord's roar rang across the entire battlefield.
The earth shook violently. Stone spikes and lava burst from the ground, striking friend and foe alike and causing considerable casualties in an instant. Every corpse, likewise regardless of which side it belonged to, spontaneously caught fire. Green demonic flames swiftly burned the bodies to ash, then turned into streams of green light that returned to Bessarius's hands.
By sacrificing all the dead, Bessarius obtained a terrifying mass of Fel. The enormous ball of green light completely enveloped its towering body, and its voice once again rang across the entire island:
"Infernal army—descend!"
Eighteen black vortices appeared instantly above the island. From each vortex shot an Infernal in the form of a meteorite. A single Infernal could create a rain of fire, and the meteor shower that poured down with the eighteen Infernals instantly dyed the sky green—now everyone had plenty of green over their heads.
"Scatter!" Tyrosus shouted the order. Holy Light Barriers weren't enough to withstand such a dense barrage of fire, and everyone raised their shields and fled in all directions.
Unas hurriedly pulled a wooden shield from his bag and held it over his head. Urging his mount on with all his might, he followed Erigor out of the area where the Infernals were falling.
"Rumble..." The earth shook and the mountains trembled beneath the deafening roar. The eighteen Infernals struck the ground almost simultaneously, smashing eighteen enormous circular craters into the battlefield. Quite a few fools who had fled blindly were smashed into chunks of cooked meat. In the craters, the Infernals quickly transformed from meteorites into lava giants.
The giants, made of flames and rock, slowly rose from the craters. Rings of fire spread constantly from beneath their feet. Any living creature burned to death by this sacrificial fire would replenish their energy. As long as they could keep killing enemies, they were killing machines that never stopped.
A torrential barrage of rocks and fireballs followed. Holy Light Barriers of all sizes were snuffed out one after another, and the wooden shield Unas held over his head thudded and boomed under the impacts.
The wooden shield wasn't enough to protect the big brown horse beneath him. A head-sized meteorite burning with green fire slammed into the horse's hind thigh. The horse raised its head and neighed in pain, then collapsed to the ground. Unas rolled off as it fell.
The big brown horse lay crumpled on the ground. Unas could barely look after himself and could only leave it behind and keep running. Just then, Erigor abruptly slowed ahead of him. He had heard the commotion behind him and turned back, shouting, "Get on!"
Unas caught up and grabbed his outstretched arm. Both pulled, and Unas leaped with all his strength onto Erigor's mount. Erigor cracked his whip, and the two of them quickly rode beyond the range of the meteor shower.
"Where's Archmage Angela? We need her to cool things down!" Unas shouted into Erigor's ear. The wooden shield in his hand had already caught fire.
"I persuaded her to go back. Her mana was already exhausted, so there was no use in her staying here." Though he answered like that, Erigor also felt a trace of regret. If Angela and her mage apprentices had been here, perhaps they would have had some way to counter that demon.
Without their mages' protection, the Dreadlord's two powerful waves of AOE had completely scattered the Argent Dawn's offensive.