The deep tunnel straightened out, and several red dots appeared at the edge of the minimap in Unas's mind. Korfax showed no reaction, though. Could it be that he didn't know the skill Sense Undead?
Unas quickly called a halt and summoned Beryl over to compare the locations where they had sensed the enemies. Both had sensed them in the same direction.
Unas said softly, "The Undead are less than three hundred meters away in a straight line. Everyone, prepare for battle."
With that, he began casting Blessing of Kings on everyone.
Korfax immediately drew his longsword and moved to the front of the group, but showed no intention of buffing anyone. Under his lead, they walked as quietly as possible, slowly making their way toward their target.
The farther they went, the wider the tunnel became, and the dirt beneath their feet gave way to a stone-paved road. Beryl suddenly cried, "There's fighting up ahead!"
"Full speed ahead!" Unas gave the order without hesitation.
The Undead ahead were caught up in a fight. Whether it was infighting or something else, this was the perfect chance to launch a surprise attack.
After a sharp turn, their view suddenly opened up, and a spacious hall appeared before them.
Crystals embedded in all four walls gave off a murky green light, casting a sinister glow over the entire hall. More than a dozen stone pillars, each so thick it took two people to reach around it, stood throughout the hall.
A gigantic humanoid stone statue towered in the very center of the hall. A huge, ferocious figure sat slumped against its base: a dark red demon with horns on its head and bat wings on its back—the Dreadlord Bessarius!
The notorious demon no longer showed any of his earlier domineering might, sitting limply on the ground.
The arrival of Unas's group drew no interest from him at all. Only the Felguards standing guard in front of him turned to look at them in unison.
The fighting Beryl had heard was taking place on the other side of the hall. A black-robed mage was directing dozens of Undead to surround a group of humans in a corner. Unas could just make out Erigor among them.
Unexpectedly, the underground caves connected in all directions. The two had parted ways earlier, only to meet again at the end of the underground passage.
The only puzzling thing was that there was no sign of the Banshees on the minimap or in the hall. Where had Enya Xingyu and her companions gone?
"It's him! That's him!" Beryl suddenly shrieked, pointing at the black-robed mage as she tried to charge at her enemy.
Unas grabbed her and pulled a spare one-handed sword from his backpack. "Take this and protect yourself. Leave him to me!"
Beryl's anger turned to delight. She happily took the sword and casually twirled it through a few flourishes. She certainly looked like she knew what she was doing; it seemed she hadn't lied when she said she had trained in swordsmanship.
"Stop dawdling! You go help Erigor break out. Leave the Dreadlord to me!" An excited smile appeared on Korfax's face, and brilliant golden light radiated from his body. Like a beast that had spotted its prey, he charged at the Felguards.
Unas didn't dare try to stop him. With Korfax keeping the demons occupied, they could go help Erigor's group break free.
Unas sprang into the air with his legs spread while summoning his Skeletal Warhorse. Smoke scattered as "Flashy" appeared less than half a meter beneath him. He adjusted his position slightly in midair, then landed steadily in the saddle.
It was a move he had just thought of. In the game, summoning a mount put him directly in the saddle, and this move achieved much the same result. It saved him the time of mounting, and he thought it looked pretty cool.
"Hans, take command!" Passing the responsibility to Hans, Unas urged his Bone Horse straight at the black-robed mage.
A gust of wind came from behind his head, and then a soft body crashed into his back, nearly knocking him off the horse.
"Beryl! Stop fooling around and get down!"
The Elf girl held tightly to his waist and refused to let go. Instead, she shouted, "Hyah! Hurry up and charge!"
Unas felt as though two little thumbtacks were pressing against his back, and his thoughts wandered for a moment. But did Night Elves really develop so slowly? She had grown for sixty-two years and was still that tiny.
Since he couldn't shake her off, he had no choice but to take her along. Fortunately, Beryl's petite, slender body was very light and didn't slow the Skeletal Warhorse. The two of them reached the black-robed mage in an instant.
The black-robed mage, the Undead Mage Allen, had long since noticed the newcomers to the hall, and the fear in his heart deepened.
After Unas attacked his lair, he had intended to hide and look for a chance to escape. But he hadn't expected his demon master to survive the battle. Bound by a master-servant contract, he could not refuse his master's summons, so he had brought his elite Undead to this hall, where he ran into a group of humans pursuing his master.
The group had a powerful will to fight, but under his and his master's combined assault, they had soon been pinned down in a corner. They had been on the verge of wiping them out when enemy reinforcements arrived.
What shocked him even more was that the newcomers were the very group who had broken into his "kitchen." There were several secret passages from there to the hall that only he knew about. No matter how they had followed him, it gave him cause for concern.
The battle on the main front aboveground had been lost, and enemies would only keep coming in wave after wave. He didn't know what his demon master was thinking, and he had no time to wonder, because the young Paladin he had seen in the kitchen through his subordinate's eyes had already charged up to him.
Fortunately, he was prepared. His figure flickered and vanished from where he stood, only to reappear forty meters to the right a second later.
Unas missed. He sharply turned his horse around, preparing to charge again, when a pale blue Frostbolt came straight at him. With no time to dodge, he hastily raised his silver hammer and smashed it into the spell.
With a crack like ice shattering, crystals of ice flew in all directions, and the silver hammer broke apart the Frostbolt.
But the head of Verigan's Fist was encased in a thick lump of ice, and the cold spread down the handle to his hand. Unas shivered involuntarily, recalling the terror of being dominated by mages in the game.
Based on his experience in the game, when their skill levels were similar, a Paladin's odds of winning a duel against a mage were one in ten. One-on-one, a Paladin had almost no chance.
The reason was that Paladins were slow and simply couldn't get close to mages. A mage's two great tools, Blink and Frostbolt, could keep a Paladin from even touching him. The Paladins blasted to death by mages outside the city gates each day could be laid end to end around Azeroth.
But this wasn't the game, and Unas had a major advantage—he had a mount. His opponent wasn't a proper frost mage, either.
Besides, this wasn't a one-on-one duel. He had comrades, and Hans had already led the soldiers into close combat with the Undead surrounding Erigor.
Attacked from behind, the Undead formation fell into disarray. Caught between two forces, they immediately went from besiegers to besieged.
It looked like victory was only a matter of time. All Unas had to do was keep the Undead Mage occupied until then. Without direction, the Undead's fighting strength would drop considerably.
Having settled on a strategy, Unas stopped charging at Allen. A direct charge would only end with Allen blinking away or hitting him with a Frostbolt anyway, so he began circling the black-robed mage.
When the black-robed mage moved, he moved. When the mage stopped, he stopped too. He stayed close, always at a distance where he could threaten the Undead Mage, and occasionally fired off a Judgment to harass him, leaving him unable to do anything.
Allen was indeed growing irritated. The enemy was keeping just the right distance to make him miserable. The Paladins he remembered were all the type to rush in and attack fiercely. What kind of Paladin fought so shamelessly? If he ignored Unas, the man could charge at him at any moment. If he chose to attack, the chances of his spells hitting at that distance were doubtful.
The Undead Mage's weakness—his limited means of attack—was fully exposed. Without his Undead subordinates at his side, he was more than half crippled.
That was why Undead Mages ought to hide in dark corners and direct their Undead in battle, never showing themselves for a head-on fight unless absolutely necessary.
He stole a glance at his demon master. The situation there was just as precarious. Several Felguards were struggling under the assault of a single human Paladin, while their master still sat there motionless. Was their defeat and destruction already a foregone conclusion? What exactly was his master planning?
Just then, the Dreadlord's voice rang out in his heart. "Allen, come here."
Allen suddenly felt a pang of dread, but he could not disobey his master's order. He could only drag his feet as he retreated toward the center of the hall.