Does the mechanical girl dream of the Messiah?

"Everyone! Hurry!"

Although he was hit hard, the assistant wizard still nodded and accurately conveyed the order to the chaotic wizards in the communication channel. Although they were also affected by the howling, a few priests in the group still managed to resist the fear with their willpower and did not indulge in terror. After receiving the order, they raised their scepters in unison and sang the hymn loudly.

——Lord of War, King of Iron Flow——

——Devouring thousands of swords, hunting wildly with bows——

——Brilliant red blood, blazing red flames——

The will of Hasar, the power of the Strife!

The stars, interwoven with red and blood, seemed to fall from the other end of the sky, and seemed to rise from the end of the earth, stained with the smell of rust, the smell of blood, the black smoke and flames of blazing fire. As the name of Hasar, the god of war and hunting, was chanted, the stars, those stars, their brilliance became brighter and brighter, dispelling the long-lasting darkness in the forest, dispelling the dense deathly air, shining in the hearts of every soldier, comforting and encouraging their souls, letting hope overwhelm despair, and allowing them to once again regain their heyday.

"Beacon of Hope"!

Swah——

The sound of Roy's sword being unsheathed almost echoed throughout the entire forest.

This is also the sound of counterattack!

"Solidify the formation! Don't panic! Continue to change the formation into a breakout formation! Use armor to crush them!"

He had seen the attacker's true appearance.

That's not human.

Skeletons and zombies were rotting and roaring, spilling pools of thick dark green water on the ground. They dropped pieces of flesh and skin, crawled out of the fortress, and rose up from the dense woods and bushes, hungry and cold, stiff and full of hatred. They were the army of the dead, an army composed of dark green flames.

Tattered banners rose from between their ranks.

It was a red eagle flag with wings and claws, holding an iris.

Today there is only one update with 4000 words

Chapter 13: The Collision of Chess Pieces (Part 2)

Roy looks like a dandy boy.

Almost everyone would think that this person is nothing but a fool in every aspect. He doesn't like politics, doesn't practice martial arts, has mediocre magic, and has little faith. While he knows nothing about serious matters, he likes to make friends everywhere, hang out in taverns, dance halls, and arenas, and drink and chat.

Because of this, when Roy was recalled to Tweek and appointed as the commander of the city defense, he was greeted with almost boos.

No matter how the outside world evaluated him, no matter what he was facing, cups, beauties, bad friends, doubts or government affairs, his attitude seemed to have never changed. Gradually, these voices disappeared, these images disappeared, and people who wanted to question him gradually found that they could no longer find available ammunition. The shadows of the past wanted to entangle him, but found that they had no way to grasp his footsteps and were gradually left behind.

No one understood what he was thinking, no one understood what he had gained or hidden in this seemingly dissolute life, so no one knew where he was standing now or what he was relying on now.

Oh, maybe there is one exception.

Carida von Ivanov.

"This terrain is advantageous to the enemy! Don't fight too long!"

Roy took the lead in chopping the oncoming zombies into two pieces while loudly issuing orders on the command channel.

This was the first time he personally commanded a battle against undead creatures. Even so, he already had enough knowledge to understand how to deal with such situations: undead creatures can have more advantages in places like muddy places, woodlands, and dim places. If they stick to the spot and fight them head-on, they can easily be surrounded and annihilated due to the dual disadvantages of environment and numbers. A considerable number of undead controllers like to use the undead siege network to encircle and annihilate the enemy in the forest, and it is out of this idea.

However, if the situation changes from offense and defense to mobile warfare, the advantage will be reversed.

Undead spirits like zombies and skeletons, without controllers, are just a group of monsters that act according to their instincts, the hatred in their souls, and the remnants of their memories. If they attack based on these alone, a well-trained army can easily suppress the opponent by relying on the difference in quality. After all, the quality of individual soldiers, whether zombies or skeletons, cannot be compared with that of elite heavy infantry.

If one wants to take advantage of their numbers, a certain degree of command is necessary.

Combined with the Gunasalan Kingdom-style equipment that could occasionally be seen among the corpses, Roy was able to judge that these undead were placed here in a planned manner, ready to ambush him at any time. And it was obvious that someone in charge of commanding these undead was nearby. The undead could not be dispatched at too long a distance, which was their inevitable flaw.

And since they are acting under someone's command, mobile warfare can suppress the increase brought by the command.

Controlling undead creatures is not as simple as it sounds, let alone precisely manipulating their movements and making these corpses, which have almost no ability to think and move only on instinct, fight like real soldiers. If mobile warfare is adopted, the manipulator's ability to command these undead will decline, and he will have to give up some accuracy to improve operational efficiency and hand over some control back to instinct and hatred in order to keep up with the rhythm of mobile warfare.

"Break out with all your strength! Follow the instructions before, and victory will come if we can reach the edge of the forest!"

He decided to abandon this stronghold temporarily.

This is undoubtedly a great humiliation. They took the initiative to lead the troops to attack, but suffered such losses without gaining any results. However, even so, retreat is a better option than staying and fighting to the death.

The soldiers moved quickly, covering the wounded, changing formations, and counterattacking the skeletons and zombies in the process. The heavy infantry's iron armor could effectively defend against the attacks of rusty swords and gnawing, but the zombies and skeletons were not particularly good at defense. Although hatred and spiritual essence enhanced the strength of these organic substances, they still could not play a big role in front of alloy weapons. Except for the casualties caused by the first wave of surprise, the tide of undead could not hurt the soldiers for a while.

The mages from the security contractor began to fight for opportunities to break out. Acid and flaming arrows were sprayed out from the team like they were free, raining down on the undead blocking their way. Their already decayed bodies became even worse when they came into contact with the magical acid and flames, and were turned into slime or charcoal in an instant. These trick-level spells, which even mage apprentices could easily cast, showed a completely different effect when there were enough of them.

And those relatively more powerful mages, such as the advisor beside Roy, reached out and grabbed their spell material bags.

call out!call out!call out!

The sound of breaking air suddenly sounded at the rear of the team. The undead had been advancing one after another, and the defense was relatively weak. The skeletons and zombies were about to pounce on the team, but their bodies suddenly began to be torn apart. There was no rhythm, no sign, and no pattern. Both their heads and torsos seemed to be scraped and cut by countless blades, and they were bloody in an instant.

The invisible force field condensed into a blade and gathered together, as if it was a mist made up of daggers.

"Cloud of Daggers" - This is not impossible to release for mages weaker than them, but in the instructions, the leader of the mage team hopes that they will leave the opportunity for possible accidents, so he took the lead and opened an invisible rear guard line for the team that had formed a breakout formation.

The moment the formation was formed, this well-organized army began to drive like a chariot, rolling forward in the direction they came from. The skeleton army, which was already struggling, could no longer stop the soldiers' steps. They were chopped down and trampled underfoot. The single-point breakthrough tactic was simply unstoppable to them.

Even so, Roy still frowned.

Instead of placing himself in the middle of the team to command the retreat from an absolutely safe position, he took the initiative to stay in the rear guard position, ready to deal with possible accidents at any time.

Something was wrong—very wrong.

As an ambush, this one was only half-baked.

Apart from the loss of a few or a dozen soldiers, this wave of attacks did not cause him any losses at all. Those undead did not operate a stronghold. In other words, that stronghold was not their target. Forcing Roy to retreat did not mean that they had achieved their goal. On the contrary, that stronghold was probably their bait, and ambushing them was the goal itself. If we think from this perspective, this wave of raids also did not achieve their goal.

It was a complete failure.

His brows were furrowed tighter and tighter, and a sense of foreboding gradually rose from the bottom of his heart, like bubbles surging out of the deep sea. He quickly turned around, and while following the large group backwards with sufficient exquisite body coordination, he hurriedly ordered in the command channel: "Next, continue to command the team to retreat. Don't slow down or stop until you retreat to the edge of the forest!"

rustle--

The noisy rustling sound kept coming out of the headset, like a spell, scratching the listener's mind from time to time.

"What about you, sir?!"

"I'll cover you! Something...something is approaching! You can't stop it!"

There won't be just one wave of attacks.

It won't be just zombies and skeletons, so tender and so weak.

This was just a bait used to relax people's vigilance and change their formation to deal with this wave of attacks. In essence, it was almost the same as the abandoned fortress full of corpses.

"But we have to protect your life!"

"I'm sure I can escape!" Roy stared at the darkness, the darkness in the forest that could not be penetrated even by the magic fire and lantern. A drop of cold sweat slid down his forehead. "You will just die in vain if you stay!"

Stab it--!

The noise was too loud to be ignored, and a crackling sound kept coming from the headset. It seemed that the sound was not caused by a malfunction or interference. It was as if someone was whispering and murmuring in the headset, saying words that no one could understand. Countless voices mixed together and eventually became noise, a blank, meaningless sound that was difficult to understand.

However, even if you cannot understand it, you can still understand it.

Someone is whispering in my ear.

"Everyone, alert! It's coming!"

huh-huh-

That was the sound of the wind.

The sound of the whistling north wind became clearer and clearer. Everyone could tell that this was not normal. This was in the deep forest. Even if the wind suddenly increased, it would not produce such an effect. Was that the sound of the wind? That was not the sound of the wind! Countless whispers and low moans were mixed in the whistling north wind. Countless mouths were whispering. Laughter, crying, and talking were mixed together, like a noisy wave that instantly swept everyone.

It wasn't just the wind and the sound.

That also includes countless shadows that are either pale or gray.

They were like translucent, rotten figures wrapped in tattered cloth, emitting terrifying howls, their faces distorted and terrifying, as they pounced on the marching troops from mid-air.

They stretched out their hands, which were either rotten or had turned into bones, and swept through the queue, grabbing at the living.

There were no wounds or decay, and the touched area looked normal. However, as soon as the translucent hand passed through the body, the person's face turned pale and his body began to tremble involuntarily. Even though the beacon was still shining, he could not stop the trembling.

It wasn't out of fear.

Something like a wisp of white smoke was scooped up from the claws, like wisps of smoke being peeled off from the attacked soldier. Looking closely, the wisps of white smoke seemed to form a vague image, like a face that was stretched and elongated, and strangely distorted.

It is a mixture of soul and life force.

"A ghost?!"

Roy gritted his teeth, obviously feeling the situation was difficult.

It was like a reversal of the previous advantages and disadvantages between the soldiers and the zombies - the heavy infantry's thick alloy armor seemed ineffective in front of undead creatures like ghosts, which could ignore the protection of ordinary armor to a certain extent, and the soldiers' counterattacks against them had little effect.

Ghosts were originally suspended in the air, and ordinary attacks could only be counterattacked at the moment they actively pounced on us. However, the effects of slashing or hitting with swords, spears, hammers, and axes were like using weapons to stir up thick fog. Although they could temporarily disperse it and separate some of it, the fog would soon gather again. Even if its mass and size were actually reduced, it would seem too insignificant in the overall context. If the attack was repeated like this, even a ghost like thick fog could be dispersed. However, this was a battlefield after all, a real battle, and not as possible as in theory.

If all members can be equipped with magic weapons, then a mere ghost would be nothing special. However, that is really too extravagant. At least the Principality of Mariai cannot afford it.

A single thought could mean the difference between life and death, not to mention that the skeletons and zombies around were still launching attacks. If they hit the weak points of the armor, the damage caused would be much greater than those ghosts.

More importantly, there are just too many of them!

Pale shadows almost densely occupied the entire sky of the forest, like layer upon layer of spider webs woven between tree trunks. Countless distorted human faces appeared on the translucent spider web, wailing, screaming, and plundering the vitality of the living people below. The scene was like a nightmare.

"Pass the order!" Roy continued to maintain his vision of the rear, and quickly reacted, and began to issue orders to the mage troops again, "Half of the priests continue to focus on the Beacon of Hope, and the other half fire tracer bullets at the ghost clusters. After they are finished, burn them with holy flames! Those who have enough energy to guide the divine power can use it to disperse the undead!"

Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-!

The instructions were passed down layer by layer in the shortest time possible, and a barrage of red light spots was spread out from the mage ranks, mixed in with scarlet flames that looked like blood and fire. They were not scorching hot, but instead exuded a sacred charm mixed with the scent of steel and blood. Once they were touched by these light bullets and holy flames, the figures of those ghosts could not help but solidify, sizzling and burning as if corroded by strong acid and fire, and their forms gradually collapsed into smoke of negative energy.

Taking this opportunity, the other mages redirected their spells at the skeletons and zombies on the ground - fire, acid and frost also had little effect on ghosts, so it would be better to leave the sky to the priest's barrage while they concentrated on clearing the ground.

——Lord of War, King of Iron Flow——

——Devouring thousands of swords, hunting wildly with bows——

——Brilliant red blood, blazing red flames——

A few priests chanted the honorable name of the God of War, accompanied by shouts. Gauze curtains that seemed to be made up of blood-red light unfolded around the queue. The curtains that seemed to be made up of countless sacred symbols, countless symbols of war and weapons were reflected in the distorted faces of the ghosts, making them scream loudly. The spider webs that seemed to be made up of countless faces also collapsed and disintegrated, and the ghosts that filled the sky fled in all directions under this light.

They were unable to form an offensive for the time being!

The team continued to advance, but Roy stood still and did not retreat a single step. He put his sword back into the scabbard. This did not mean that the crisis was over and he should relax his guard. Instead, he was ready to go.

The sense of crisis that had been growing in my heart has now spread to a level that is difficult to ignore.

In the darkness behind, something is coming!

That is the real culprit of this attack!

Chapter 14: The Collision of Chess Pieces (Part 3)

Despite his repeated attempts to stop them, several guards and mages stayed behind and did not follow Roy's orders to withdraw with the main force.

Although Roy had not been in charge of Tweek's defense for long, in this short time together, they had already recognized Roy's ability as a leader. They recognized Roy's policies and benefited from the training plan proposed by Roy. In their opinion, with the Principality of Mariei in danger, Tweek City absolutely could not do without Roy - Roy von Ivanov must return alive, but they did not need to do so.

Roy didn't say anything about it, and the guards didn't take it to heart.

They can see why.

It's not that Roy didn't care about their lives - his attention was fixed on the dark depths of the forest, his eyes fixed, his breath held, he didn't have any extra energy to focus on things outside of the darkness, he couldn't speak, he couldn't express himself, he didn't even have the energy to utter a word of comfort.

A tremendous pressure gripped his throat.

The darkness that has always lingered in this forest seems to have come alive under some kind of stimulation. They are no longer lifeless curtains, no longer a pure natural phenomenon without special meaning. They seem to have gained will and life, becoming an existence that humans can no longer understand. Or, in other words, they have always been like this. As the darkness that has lingered in this world for eternity, they originally have their own will and spirituality. However, under the stimulation of a certain existence, this spirituality is finally stimulated, this will is reawakened, and they cheer for that existence.

pat, pat.

Like the sound of something dripping.

It also sounded like footsteps.

Something was coming slowly, step by step, from the end of the darkness.

Each time the sound came, it was one step closer. The sound of footsteps was like a gradually tightening hand, gripping Roy von Ivanov's heart, tightening little by little, a little by little, until it finally burst the mechanism that caused the blood to gush out.

The main force had retreated according to the battle plan. A wide road had been forcibly opened up in the woods during the previous fierce fighting. Even so, no one could see the soldiers who were gradually moving away from this position. Only the occasional fire and shouts from far away in the forest could prove that they were still there and were still moving away.

The other party's steps were still slow, one step after another, as if they didn't care about the soldiers going away.

Even Roy's personal guards had no reaction to this, as if they had not heard the footsteps that sounded like a death knell from the beginning. The sound seemed to only linger in Roy's ears.

Yes - that's right, the owner of the footsteps has never even looked at other humans straight in the eye. It is so arrogant, so confident, and does not care about anything other than its goals. Perhaps it can be said that it only has itself in its eyes.

pat, pat.

A blurry figure vaguely emerged from the end of the darkness.