From atop the cliff, the alchemist saw everything with perfect clarity. By now, the course of every event was proceeding according to his plan.
Even though Adolf was immensely powerful, the living corpses had already spread throughout the city. Every ordinary person hiding inside their homes who saw them sent an endless stream of fear-infused emotional power flowing toward him.
The Headless Knight had also completed his mission. Now, all he needed to do was use his monstrous recovery ability to keep Adolf tied down.
Only within Huidun Academy, for some reason, none of the instructors had gone to the city walls to face the enemy.
And whenever he tried to investigate, an invisible barrier blocked his sight.
The alchemist's narrow eyes shifted as he looked at the Magic Crystal in his hand, rapidly filling with threads of emotion.
The alchemist extended his withered old hand. Bringing together two fingers tipped with unusually long nails, he snipped through Coles's thread of emotional power—the richest and most abundant one.
The severed thread began winding around his nails. Soon, a tangled mass of threads brimming with rage and savagery appeared in his hand.
The alchemist turned and waved toward the carriage behind him. A swarm of bottles and jars flew out from within.
Then, the alchemist began tinkering with those bottles and jars.
Meanwhile, on the city wall, Jamir once again used Holy Light Illumination, wiping out a large number of undead.
Yet by this point, he had also sensed something strange. The defenders on the wall and the undead army outside seemed to be playing a turn-based game, with both sides showing remarkable restraint.
The defenders' restraint was understandable—they were saving their strength for the undead army's full-scale assault. But the restraint shown by the undead outside was deeply bizarre.
With so many undead, and with all their souls bound to the Undead Knight, they should have charged forward without regard for their lives and launched an all-out offensive.
Undead were born hostile to the living. Whenever they encountered living beings, they should have rushed forward without hesitation.
When that happened, even though he was a bishop with Platinum strength, he would still be but a cup of water before a cartload of fire on a battlefield of this scale.
Before Jamir could figure it out, the undead's next turn began.
Most of Huidun Territory's military supplies were stored in Como's barracks. After several rounds of attacks, the arrows within the city that could harm undead were already running low.
Most of the mages had also been sent to reinforce the other two sides. On the front line, only the scattered magical bombardment of a handful of mages remained as long-range support.
Torey and Sgert came before Jamir. Both were Gold Rank warriors, so they had naturally noticed the strangeness of the situation as well.
At the same time, they knew that if this continued, the defenders would lose their courage and the mages would run out of magic power. Then they would truly become lambs awaiting slaughter.
The two wanted to join forces and carve their way out. With Jamir's magical support, they might be able to cut through the undead army, reach the Undead Knight, and kill him.
Jamir looked at the mages beside him, already drenched in cold sweat, then at the soldiers whose hands were trembling.
Though he knew nothing of warfare, seeing the situation before him and hearing the two men's joint request, he nodded and agreed.
Watching the bone arrows fly toward them, Jamir did not use the economical Holy Light Illumination this time, despite its tremendous damage against undead.
Jamir stretched out his hand and recited a complex, ancient incantation. The next moment, he swept his hand across the sky, and the boundless tide of bone arrows vanished as though chalk writing on a blackboard had been wiped away by an eraser.
Then Jamir immediately began chanting at the Undead Knight, who was trying to retreat. "The God of Light grants me the power of light, Hilucas Tu—Holy Light Cage."
As the spell was spoken, vast Magic Energy surged from Jamir's body. Then, above the distant Undead Knight's head, an enormous Magic Rune took shape.
The next moment, rows of magical patterns suddenly emerged from the ground in a five-meter radius around the undead horse beneath the Undead Knight. Holy light then flooded forth, forming a circular Holy Light Cage.
When the Undead Knight, attempting to ride his undead horse away, touched the cage, a searing pain erupted within his soul. The agony made him recoil at once.
The demonic energy around him also let out waves of wails. The once outrageously dense demonic energy was rapidly diminishing.
Before he could swing his axe and smash apart the cage, Torey and Sgert had already charged in.
The two wielded greatswords engraved with Magic Runes, their Battle Aura blending with the weapons as one. Vast Battle Aura burst from their blades, and whenever it swept across nearby Undead Skeletons, the souls within them were instantly obliterated.
The vitality of two Gold Rank warriors directly scattered all the frigid, sinister aura surrounding the Undead Knight.
The two charged before the Undead Knight and, without another word, erupted with their strongest Battle Aura, attacking him from both sides.
The Undead Knight showed no fear. Wielding his great axe and riding his undead horse, demonic energy continuously churned within him and linked with the axe in his hand as he charged directly at Torey, who had lost an arm.
Seeing that the Undead Knight was bullying the weak and fearing the strong by targeting him, Torey said nothing. He ignited the vitality within him, and the blood-red Battle Aura around his body grew three times denser.
Sword and axe collided. Torey's blood-red Battle Aura crashed against the Undead Knight's dark demonic energy. In an instant, wind and clouds roiled, and the force generated by their clash struck the Holy Light Cage, making it ring like a great bell.
The sound waves that burst forth were like surging tides, shaking every Undead Skeleton attempting to surround them into death.
At that moment, Sgert carried his pure white light Battle Aura and slashed toward the Undead Knight's back.
The Undead Knight was quite formidable as well. As Sgert's strike came down, he reached beneath his armor and tore at his own body.
A long whip formed from countless resentful souls appeared in his hand, then lashed toward Sgert behind him as though it had grown eyes.
The whip coiled around Sgert's descending greatsword. Relying on his strength alone, the Undead Knight held off two Gold Rank warriors.
Yet this deadlock was exactly what Torey and Sgert wanted. They knew that although the Undead Knight's strength was at most Gold Rank—
—he was connected to every Undead Skeleton here. Thus, he could borrow the power of those Undead Skeletons and forcibly raise his own strength.
That was also why Jamir could not simply kill him outright.
Now that he had entangled the two of them, was he not equally entangled by them? Seeing this from the city wall, Jamir knew that the opportunity had come. He swiftly recited an incantation, then shouted, "Ruyi Kasha Confinement—Sacred Radiance Purification."
A sphere of light like the sun appeared inside the cage. Its appearance warmed Torey and Sgert as though they were basking beneath the sun, and the exhaustion from their recent charge rapidly faded.
But for the Undead Knight, it was unbearable torment.
His soul, wrapped in dark power, was being forcibly ground away bit by bit beneath the light of Sacred Radiance Purification. This was also the most effective and reliable method for killing undead creatures like them.
Seeing the dark power on the Undead Knight's body gradually being worn away, Torey and Sgert revealed excited smiles.
At that moment, the alchemist atop the cliff suddenly sensed something. Looking at the blood-red pill in his hand, he knew it was time for the next step.
The next moment, before Torey and the others could celebrate for long, the undead army outside the city launched an all-out assault.
A black mass of tens of thousands of Undead Skeletons surged toward the city wall. The Holy Light Cage standing in the path of the advancing army was gradually worn away beneath their impact.
The Soul Power of the slain Undead Skeletons returned to the Undead Knight, who was already on the verge of death, and his aura slowly began to recover.
As Jamir maintained the purification and watched the undead army assault the city, he knew that Great Momentum had already been lost.
Torey and Sgert were furious as well. Since they could no longer kill the Undead Knight, the two charged directly into the undead army.
Two Gold Rank warriors were valiant generals charging forward without obstruction on the battlefield. Around them, the undead they slaughtered left behind a vast vacuum.