A sudden series of muffled thuds interrupted the Lich's words, and the entire cell began to tremble slightly, as if a small earthquake was occurring.
Unas immediately realized that the Swamp reinforcements had arrived. It seemed that the Goblins had successfully created Depth Charges, and Marcus was bombing the lakebed as planned, hoping to force the Seven-Headed Lizards to the surface.
A hint of panic flashed in Gunsel's eyes. He had thought that hiding underwater was foolproof, but he hadn't expected the enemy to have the means to attack. He couldn't care less about torturing the Paladin anymore and hurriedly led his men to the gate of the research institute.
A humanoid Water Monster, dazed and confused from the explosion, rushed in to report, "Humans have thrown many spherical bombs and a black liquid. The Water Monsters have suffered heavy casualties and retreated into the waterways. Haimola is too big to get in and has also been injured by the explosion. It's about to lose its mind and charge forward!"
Haimola was the name the Lich gave to the Seven-Headed Lizard. Because he lost a Phylactery, Gunsel became very nervous and took back the Phylactery from Shadra and the Seven-Headed Lizard, replacing them with Charm Crystals. As a result, his control over the Swamp Lord was much weaker than before.
It turned out that the enemy hadn't attacked the main gate. Upon hearing this news, Gunsel calmed down and focused his mind on the perspective of the spy Water Monster on the lake's surface.
Red Dragon circled above the lake, while the human army continuously dropped black bombs into it. In addition, they poured barrels of black oil into the lake—a pungent, flammable oil that was highly flammable. The Lich had been routed by the fires caused by this oil, so it left a deep impression on them.
What Gunsel didn't know was that the Crude Oil had been Goblin with by the goblins, making it sink in water and amplifying the power of the bombs. Moreover, the Water Monsters would be poisoned if they accidentally ingested it.
There weren't many human soldiers by the lake, only about a hundred in total, which made the Lich feel more at ease. The only thing he needed to worry about was the Red Dragon.
He used the Charm Crystal to calm the Seven-Headed Lizard down, ordering it to control the water waves to drive away the bombs and black oil, temporarily stabilizing the situation.
There were also several low-level mage assistants in the Biological Research Institute who had been coerced by the Lich. Following Gunsel's orders, they injected all the prisoners with Potions that would forcibly catalyze mutations. Now they were just waiting for the mutations to complete so that the Lich could launch a counterattack with all his minions.
After Gunsel left, Unas pondered how to escape. He tried attacking the magical shield above again, but his Dreadlord's offer of a solution, determined not to let the demon grow any stronger.
He was just about to unleash the much larger Shadowfiend to test it out when the Lich returned with his minions. The tremors in the cell continued, indicating that our forces were still conducting demolitions, and it was very strange that Gunsel was letting it go unchecked.
"I'm giving you one last chance, hand over the Phylactery!"
Unas held out his palm, took the Lich's Phylactery from his Spatial Bag, and then instantly put it back. "Come and take it yourself if you dare."
This provocation worked. The Lich had been worried that the Phylactery hadn't carried the Paladin with him, but now that he was sure it was on the paladin, he excitedly examined the Paladin's entire body and finally guessed that the jet-black Ring was likely a spatial storage Arcane Artifacts.
"King Kong!" Gunsel called out, and the Tauren Centaur, like a wall, rushed onto the light barrier. With a wave of the Lich's hand, it fell into the cell, landing with a thud, instantly filling the small space to capacity.
Unas dodged to the corner and, taking advantage of the monster's momentary stun upon landing, thrust his sword into its side. The sharp tip pierced the King Kong -like skin, penetrating less than half a palm's width into the flesh. Unfortunately, his fire energy was exhausted, preventing him from expanding his gains.
King Kong suddenly twisted his body, raised his giant axe and swung it horizontally, but because the space was too small, the giant axe grazed the wall and lost all speed, allowing the Paladin to easily circle around behind him.
Unas didn't care about the dirt or the grime, and thrust his sword into the chrysanthemum. Sure enough, the feeling was very different from the previous sword strike. The Firekiss went straight in, and the entire blade almost disappeared into it.
King Kong's skin was as hard as steel, with only a few weaknesses, one of which was his anus. A burning sensation instantly spread throughout his body, and he roared madly, desperately turning his body.
But his already clumsy and massive body was now confined to a small cell. Any slight movement would cause him to bump into the walls, like a bull locked in a cage, unable to touch the enemy's clothes.
Unas followed the horse's rump and turned, taking the opportunity to frantically stir the sword that had pierced the enemy's body. The intestines inside King Kong's belly were instantly cut and smashed. Although this injury was not enough to kill it, it almost rendered it powerless to fight back.
Unas drew his sword and continued to add new holes to his opponent's body, leaving the Tauren Centaur spinning around in vain.
Gunsel, watching from above, was heartbroken. Just now, his mind had been momentarily consumed by the impulse to reclaim the Phylactery, and he hadn't thought much about it. He was only focused on sending his strongest men to snatch back the Paladin's Ring, but things had turned out this way.
He immediately cast a spell to release two slender snake-men, who attacked the Paladin from both sides, but this proved to be futile.
Unas unleashed Divine Storm, piercing the two staggering new enemies to death with a couple of sword strikes; the snake-men were no match for him.
Gunsel was not giving up and continued to send his men down, determined to cripple the Paladin.
Unas accepted this opportunity without hesitation, killing one enemy after another, and quickly piling up the corpses of his enemies. King Kong was riddled with nearly a hundred holes, and no matter how strong he was, he could not escape the fate of collapsing from blood loss.
The cell grew smaller and smaller. Unas was covered in multicolored blood. After beheading the sixteenth enemy, Gunsel finally stopped sending his men to their deaths. He had a new understanding of the strength of the Paladins.
In one-on-one, two-on-one, three-on-one, or even four-on-one fights, his men couldn't defeat their opponents and could only rely on encirclement. However, the small cell couldn't accommodate too many people fighting, otherwise, even if they were squeezed together, they wouldn't be able to exert their fighting power.
Then bad news arrived— the Seven-Headed Lizard could no longer tolerate the lake's environment and charged upwards recklessly.
During this period, all the Depth Charges and fueled Crude Oil had been thrown into the lake by Marcus's Hundred-Man Team. The latter half of the bombs lost their element of surprise and were pushed away by the waves controlled by the Seven-Headed Lizard, causing little damage.
But the added Crude Oil was much worse. When stirred up by the large waves, it was evenly dispersed in the lake water, turning the entire lake into a heavily Crude Oil area.
Large and small clumps of black oil floated in the lake, some even seeping into the waterways. The water monsters hiding here had to retreat into the research institute, otherwise, inadvertently inhaling too much black oil would be fatal.