I Want to Try It Too

Across the wilderness, a silver-white group was galloping at full speed.

Whether it was the armor they wore or the mounts beneath them, everything radiated specks of holy light.

This was the Order of the Guilty Knights of the Lyne Empire, a special unit made up of high-level Paladins. Even their mounts were Heavenly Warhorses summoned through divine magic.

They had all abandoned their original names and addressed one another only by code names.

The Paladin leading the group was Fanxing. He had driven the Order of the Guilty Knights onward for three days and three nights, simply because he wanted to reach Alchemy City as quickly as possible.

This was the first time since the Order of the Guilty Knights had been founded that they had a chance to confront undead of the Legendary Tier directly. Every one of them was so excited that they could barely sleep, wishing they could fly straight to Alchemy City and purify all evil in the name of Holy Light.

However, the two countries were separated by a great distance, and the Lyne Empire did not have particularly friendly relations with any of the other nations. An armed force as powerful as the Order of the Guilty Knights could not simply teleport into another country's territory.

Fanxing had no choice but to lead his comrades on a long detour. Once they crossed the canyon ahead, the rest of the way would be smooth sailing. According to their intelligence, however, the canyon was occupied by a huge Jackalmen tribe.

Jackalmen were cursed, twisted creatures, inherently evil and brutal. After seizing the canyon, they had slaughtered countless humans who passed through. Fanxing had long since prepared to wipe out the Jackalmen tribe, using it as a warm-up before dealing with the legendary undead.

Although the Jackalmen tribe numbered over a thousand, and although they had been galloping for days and nights, Fanxing believed that the ten of them were more than enough to kill them all.

But as soon as they reached the canyon's outskirts, one of his companions spoke up. "Fanxing, something's wrong up ahead."

Fanxing carefully examined the area in confusion and soon discovered what was wrong.

The canyon ahead was covered by a thin layer of faint mist.

"Death Cloud that hasn't completely dispersed?"

As the arch-enemies of the undead, Paladins were very familiar with common necromantic spells. Death Cloud was a large-scale offensive necromantic spell. Its caster could create a poisonous cloud and spread it over a designated area.

Death Cloud had another name—an urban slaughter spell.

If several necromancers joined forces to cast it, they could create a Death Cloud that covered an entire city, causing devastating casualties in a short period.

But Jackalmen had no talent for becoming necromancers, so they naturally could not have released Death Cloud in their own home. In other words, a necromancer had once visited this canyon, and a battle had taken place.

"Activate Poison Protection. We're going in to take a look."

At Fanxing's command, magical light flared over everyone in the group. Pale-green magical patterns formed the shape of shields, allowing the Paladins to ignore the effects of most poisons.

They then rode their Heavenly Warhorses into the canyon.

The highly poisonous mist, already more than half dispersed, could no longer affect them. But when they charged into the crude encampment in the canyon, everyone instinctively held their breath.

The ground was covered in densely packed Jackalmen corpses, each one in a horrifying state.

Fanxing dismounted and cautiously examined the Jackalmen bodies.

He soon discovered that the Jackalmen had not merely been poisoned to death. Many had been pierced through by weapons, had their heads torn off by brute force, or were missing most of their bodies, as if they had been devoured by Ghouls... From these details, one conclusion could be drawn: the ones who had slaughtered the Jackalmen were not a single necromancer, but a massive undead army.

"Skeletons, zombies, Ghouls, Death Knights, abominations... There are traces of so many high-level undead." Fanxing felt worried by what he had found.

The Jackalmen had not been ambushed while unprepared. Two armies had clashed head-on, and these thousand-plus Jackalmen had been completely wiped out with virtually no ability to fight back.

"Let's continue farther in. No matter how powerful this undead army is, it couldn't have left behind not a single skeleton. There were over a thousand Jackalmen here. A tribe this large must have had sorcerers and a leader... They couldn't have been completely incapable of resisting."

Fanxing's words sounded like an explanation to his companions, but they also seemed intended to bolster his own courage.

The scene before him was far too absurd, giving him an ominous feeling.

They continued toward the depths of the canyon, but all they saw were Jackalmen corpses. At most, they could find a little decaying flesh on the claws and weapons of the bodies, probably left behind from fighting the undead.

Yet they still could not find even half a skeleton soldier's bone. Instead, they saw numerous enormous hoofprints on the ground. This had clearly been a coordinated charge by Death Knights. Their nightmare mounts could ignore the rough terrain and tear straight through the Jackalmen ranks.

It was easy to tell that the Jackalmen sorcerers had been pierced by the Death Knights' lances before they could even cast a spell, then trampled into the mud.

Farther ahead, they finally found a shattered Ghoul corpse. It had probably been completely dismembered, which was why it had not been taken away. Around the Ghoul remains lay a hundred times as many Jackalmen corpses, along with a giant Jackalman nearly the size of a grizzly bear, sprawled atop the pile of bodies.

This was clearly the leader of the Jackalmen tribe. Judging by its size alone, it possessed enough strength to tear tigers and leopards apart. Yet this powerful Jackalman leader had been hollowed out. All the organs in its abdominal and chest cavities had vanished—the classic sign of a Ghoul attack.

Fanxing carefully examined the scene and reached a conclusion.

The Jackalman leader had been impaled through the body by a Death Knight's lance, after which the corpse had been thrown to the Ghouls as food.

He had failed to inflict any damage on his enemies while alive, because the massive axe in his hand was not stained with even a drop of blood.

As for the Ghoul that had been torn apart, the Ghouls had most likely fought among themselves while competing for food, resulting in the only casualty.

What shocked Fanxing even more was that the Death Cloud had been cast only after the battle. The purpose was probably nothing more than avoiding the trouble of cleaning up the battlefield.

"They weren't collecting corpses, and they weren't after loot. They were simply passing through. They also seemed to be in a hurry, and this tribe of Jackalmen had unfortunately blocked their path."

When Fanxing reached this conclusion, the expressions of all the Paladins grew solemn. They were experts at dealing with the undead and understood what this battlefield represented. A massive undead army had passed through here, heading in the direction of Alchemy City.

This undead army had at least dozens of Death Knights, thousands upon thousands of skeletons, and other undead units such as Ghouls. More importantly, there were quite a few necromancers among them.

That raised the question: what kind of powerhouse could command such an undead legion and be so powerful that it could not even be bothered to take the Jackalmen corpses?

Fanxing looked toward Alchemy City and felt that this mission would be far more difficult than he had imagined.

"Everyone, prepare yourselves. This time, we may be dealing with more than one legendary undead."

Fanxing's warning made all the Paladins tense. But soon, one of his companions reminded him, "Such a huge undead army is heading toward Alchemy City. Could it be preparing to attack the city? If so, perhaps we can borrow Alchemy City's strength to deal with them."

The suggestion made Fanxing's eyes light up. It was indeed a good idea.

"Exactly. Let's speed up. It would be best if we could get around the undead army and reach Alchemy City ahead of them!"

Fanxing took out a magical scroll of Mass Flight. Before long, the group of Paladins streaked across the sky like meteors, carefully avoiding the massive undead army marching across the ground.

They failed to notice that an enormous shadow was concealed in the clouds even higher in the sky. Only after they had gone far away did a massive dragon head emerge from the clouds.

A huge Bone Dragon thirty to forty meters long descended from the sky and landed in front of an enormous carriage. The carriage, forged entirely from silver, was pulled by sixteen hellish nightmares. It resembled a small palace and looked incomparably noble and luxurious.

The Bone Dragon lowered its voice and growled at the carriage, "Big Sister Rose, why didn't you kill those annoying Paladins?"

A cool voice came from inside the carriage. "Didn't you say that Gareth fell in love with you because you saved him in the Lyne Empire back then?"

"I want to try it too."