Chapter 9

Night deepened, and the cold grew sharper.

In this frigid midnight, a desperate battle was underway.

On one side stood an endless army of skeletons, as though the malice of the entire Black Forest had taken form. On the other stood villagers who had settled within the Black Forest, fighting with everything they had to protect their homes and their lives.

The battle was rather dull and repetitive. The skeletons charged forward one after another, trying to destroy the wooden fence surrounding the village. The villagers thrust burning logs through the gaps in the fence, striking and scorching the approaching skeletons, using flames to disperse the magic within them and reduce them to temporarily harmless bones.

From Sui Xiong's vantage point, black tides continually surged toward the village enclosed by wooden fencing, only to be halted by red flames. The tide rose and fell without end; with every swell, one or several skeletons turned into bones and scattered across the ground, leaving small gaps. Then the skeletons behind them immediately filled those gaps and continued their assault.

It was a simple, repetitive process. At first glance, the villagers' defense seemed impregnable. No matter how many skeletons came, they could only be held firmly outside the fence until sunrise drove them all back underground. But Sui Xiong knew that the scales of victory had already tipped completely. The villagers' defeat was close at hand.

The reason was simple: they were tired.

Every attack required them to push back the skeletons that had rushed up to the fence. Only then could they prevent the skeletons from attacking it. The skeletons were not weak, and shoving them away each time took considerable effort. Since the skeleton army had reached the fence, the villagers had probably pushed them back hundreds of times.

A hundred times did not sound like much, but repeatedly exerting force to shove something a hundred times was enough to leave an ordinary strong man's muscles sore and exhausted. Sui Xiong had worked out before his transmigration. He did barbell bench presses in sets of fourteen or fifteen, four sets a day, amounting to only around sixty repetitions before reaching his limit. These villagers' "workout intensity" was certainly higher than his, and they had done it so many times without being able to rest... Honestly, the fact that none of them had collapsed yet was enough to make Sui Xiong admire their endurance.

Still, these villagers were not superhuman strongmen. By now, every one of them was drenched in sweat, barely holding on through sheer determination.

But looking at the sky, although the moon had already shifted westward, sunrise was still a long way off.

"Looks like it's almost time for me to make my entrance..." Sui Xiong muttered. Just as he was preparing to leap out and make a dazzling appearance, the situation changed again.

The aura that blanketed the village every night—the one Sui Xiong disliked—suddenly grew stronger. Like a crashing wave, it surged fiercely toward the skeleton army.

A continuous barrage of crackling fractures rang out. Every skeleton close to the fence shattered directly, turning into pale bones that scattered across the ground.

At the same time, Sui Xiong heard prayers. Countless prayers blended together in a strange rhythm, driving that aura to grow ever stronger.

He was startled, and it took him a while to come back to himself. This world was not Earth. It possessed supernatural powers—the skeletons were proof enough. Naturally, supernatural attacks had to be defended against with supernatural power.

Perhaps this was the village's true defensive measure?

The facts proved that Sui Xiong had guessed wrong again.

While he was lost in thought, four black-robed girls emerged from the stone houses, each carrying a wooden cage wrapped in black cloth. They went to different sides of the village and handed the cages to four burly men who had been waiting there. The men carefully accepted the cages, then hurled them with all their strength over the fence and into the skeleton army.

A moment later, shrill rooster cries sounded from within the skeleton army. Four monsters of unknown origin abruptly appeared among the skeletons and began wreaking havoc.

These monsters had chicken heads and wings, but humanoid torsos. Their thick limbs clearly held extraordinary strength, and their chicken-clawed hands and feet were razor-sharp. Skeletons fell when brushed by them and shattered when struck, utterly unable to resist. They were enormous as well. Even the shortest stood nearly as tall as three burly men, while the tallest approached the height of five.

"Strange! Where did these monsters come from?"

Sui Xiong stared in utter shock. He could swear to Marx that after watching this village for so long, he had never noticed any trace of these four monsters. If he could not see things that huge, was he blind?

So where had these four giants come from?

No, that was not the point. The real issue was that with these four giants guarding the village, the skeleton army seemed unable to do anything to it...

Sui Xiong had little combat experience and could not accurately judge how strong the four monsters were. But watching them charge through the skeleton horde like unstoppable forces, it looked like a completely one-sided slaughter. The skeletons had ample reinforcements and seemingly endless numbers, but no matter how endless they were, they could not do anything against four powerful monsters that could wipe out a whole group with a single swing of an arm.

Sui Xiong could not help sighing inwardly.

In the end, he had underestimated these villagers who had managed to survive in the Black Forest!

But before long, he realized that his earlier judgment had been correct. This village was not actually that strong.

After a little over half an hour, the four monsters suddenly let out piercing screams. Their bodies, which had remained virtually unscathed throughout the battle, began to tremble violently. Moments later, four explosions rang out, and each monster became a puddle of blood.

The villagers looked somewhat disappointed at the sight, but Sui Xiong instead breathed a sigh of relief.

There was still time. His original plan to make a dazzling entrance as their savior could still be carried out.

No, the situation was actually looking quite good now. Thanks to the four monsters' efforts, the skeleton army had been greatly reduced. It was no longer packed together like a dense black tide. Although reinforcements continued to pour from underground, it would still take time for them to return to their previous numbers. Meanwhile, the villagers had recovered much of their strength during this period of rest. Even if they could not hold out, the entire defensive line would at least not collapse at once, giving Sui Xiong a chance to save everyone when he appeared.

That was a good thing. The villagers might get a little frightened, but they would ultimately escape unharmed.

Sui Xiong was confident that if he jumped into the village and circled the fence once, he could wipe out more than eighty percent of the skeleton army. As for the few stragglers left behind, he could take his time playing whack-a-mole with them.

No problem. Everything was going according to plan.

The villagers had clearly expected the destruction of the four monsters as well. They merely sighed a little before throwing themselves back into the task of resisting the skeleton army.

The situation was no different from before. The skeletons rushed toward the fence, and the villagers used burning logs to shove them back, scorching them again and again until they collapsed.

But Sui Xiong soon spotted a problem.

The villagers had far less strength than before!

They were already exhausted. Even after resting for more than half an hour, they had not recovered much.

That was actually a minor issue. When facing a life-or-death crisis, even a pig would squeeze out its last bit of strength and fight to the end, much less people. Though the villagers were all panting heavily, Sui Xiong would bet they could hold out for at least another hour!

Compared to that, another danger was truly imminent.

The wooden fence was probably about to give out!

The fence surrounding the village was certainly sturdy, but no matter how sturdy it was, it was still only wood. Throughout the night, it had been constantly attacked by the skeleton army and scorched countless times by burning logs. It had truly reached its limit. If this world were a game, the fence's durability bar would probably be flashing red and nearly empty, on the verge of breaking apart.

Once the fence collapsed, the entire defensive line would crumble completely.

At that moment, the village gate, which had remained tightly shut, opened.

As if someone were controlling them from the shadows, the skeleton army that had been frantically attacking the fence all stopped. They hurriedly swarmed toward the village gate.

Sui Xiong froze. He could not understand the skeletons' way of thinking.

They had fought for half the night and were just about to destroy the entire fence. They were just about to swarm in and drown the village—so why, the moment the gate opened, did they immediately ignore the fence and rush straight for it?

What kind of logic was that?

Sui Xiong felt that only primitive old games could have AI this stupid.

Oh... these skeletons had been dead for ages. They were not even artificial, much less intelligent...

While he was silently mocking them, the skeleton army that had originally surrounded the entire village had already gathered at the gate, charging forward one after another.

The ones responsible for stopping them were naturally the burly men who had been conserving their strength until now.

These men wore beast-hide armor and wielded heavy weapons such as axes and hammers, smashing apart the skeletons that rushed at them. Their powerful physiques, honed through years of logging, contained extraordinary strength. The black skeletons were no match for them, and before long, a large number had fallen.

However, such intense combat drained stamina at an astonishing rate. After only about ten minutes, even these men, sturdy as oxen from years of chopping wood, began to pant for breath.

Seeing this, the bald gatekeeper waved his hand and ordered them to fall back. He then stepped forward himself with two or three other strong men to block the assault.

He was clearly much stronger than ordinary lumberjacks. Every swing of his axe brought down several skeletons, as though he were simply cutting grass.

Even Sui Xiong was secretly astonished. At first glance, the bald man did not seem much more muscular than the lumberjacks, yet his combat strength was on an entirely different level. They hardly seemed like the same species. What had he eaten to become this strong?

Once he had built a good relationship with the people of this village, he definitely needed to have a proper talk with him. If he could learn the man's method of growing stronger, then with this body's foundation, he would surely become absurdly powerful!

However, this absurdly powerful expert seemed to have a problem with endurance. After fighting for only about twice as long as an ordinary person, he began panting and retreating, allowing other lumberjacks to take over while he went to the rear to rest properly.

Of course, in that short time, he had taken down at least two or three hundred skeletons. His record was brilliant.

This guy really was strong!