“Prepare for battle!” Elliot yelled at the young knights breaking out of formation.
“The undead can rise at any moment.”
The knights promptly drew their swords, vigilantly scanning their surroundings.
Maxi grabbed his reins and prepared to retreat.
Meanwhile, she gathered her mana in anticipation to cast a shield.
“There is no cause for alarm,” Ruth's calm voice sounded from the middle of the ranks.
“These are the remains of purified ghouls.”
Guiding his horse through the ranks of riders, Maxi spotted Ruth crouched on the ground, inspecting the charred bodies.
He was using a spiritual stone to measure the mana around the bodies.
Ruth slowly stood up as Maxi approached.
“It appears they were purified with purifying flames,” he reported.
“The others must have been here before us.”
Maxi's eyes widened.
“Were the Temple Knights here?”
The paladins were traveling northeast with the coalition army.
Due to the mana blocking devices in the north, east, and south of the Lexos Mountains, they would have to follow the mountain range to Arex before descending again.
Maxi frowned, trying to recall the geography of the eastern regions.
Even if the Temple Knights had strayed from the path and traveled south, they couldn't have gotten there before them.
A deep voice came from above, waking her from her thoughts.
“It’s probably the work of paladins tracking dark wizards on orders from the church or the local Temple Guards in the area.”
Maxi raised his head and saw Riftan.
Riding Talon, he looked at the ash through his visor.
He looked away at the ruined buildings.
“Since the snow did not cover the bodies, the battle occurred recently,” he said, lifting the front of his visor to reveal his eyes.
“They’re probably on their way to Darund.”
“If that's the case, we need to hurry before they join the undead army,” said Ruth.
Riftan nodded in agreement and lowered his visor again.
Maxi quickly mounted his horse and returned to his position.
The army resumed marching, and Maxi rode as fast as he could to keep up with the war horses.
After galloping down the snowy hill, they encountered more destruction.
This time, it was a field of trampled earth, destroyed buildings and charred human remains.
Maxi suppressed a sigh.
Even at first glance, there were more than thirty bodies scattered across the ground.
No, there's probably more
, she thought as she scanned the vast field.
Most of the peasants living in the area were brutally massacred.
Elliot's hardened expression alerted Maxi to the possibility of an ambush.
“Be prepared to throw down a barrier, my lady,” he warned.
Maxi nodded, gripping the reins tightly.
They continued galloping until they reached the top of a hill, where Wedon's cavalry and Phil Aaron's Knights flanked the White Dragoons to form a column of four.
Behind them, wizards, soldiers, and clerics formed a barricade around the supply wagons while squires carried weapons.
For a moment, Maxi's eyes followed the squires' movements amidst the suffocating tension before leading his horse forward.
A ruined palisade stood in the devastated farmland ahead.
Dense smoke darkened the sky above, and hordes of monsters swarmed around the walls of the citadel beyond, like ants.
Riftan raised his arm and shouted, “Archers, in position!”
On command, a line of longbowmen began to advance.
As soon as they were in range, they lit their arrows and fired them all at the same time.
Maxi watched in awe as the flaming projectiles arced gracefully across the sky before raining down on the monsters.
Meanwhile, the cavalry came crashing down the hill.
Maxi couldn't take her eyes off her husband leading the charge.
Fear and tension gripped her like a vice, tightening as the distance between the White Dragons and the undead army shrank to a mere thradion.
She could barely contain the scream that rose in her throat.The cavalry clashed with the swarm of monsters.
The cacophony of clashing metal tore through the air, and the monsters were launched into the sky like clumsy scarecrows.
The chaos unfolded so quickly that Maxi struggled to make sense of it all.
At the front, Riftan swung his sword with deadly precision, cutting down the monsters that obstructed his path.
The fallen creatures met their end beneath Talon's paws as the immense warhorse crushed their broken bodies.
It was like watching a bull crush a horde of rats under its hooves.
“It looks like they don’t need our help,” Ruth commented, her voice full of relief as she surveyed the battlefield.
Maxi turned his gaze in the direction he indicated in time to see the fierce charge of the northerners.
Richard Breston, wielding his immense sword, opened a breach in the monsters' ranks.
The northern knights followed, sweeping like a wave.
Iron maces, axes, hammers, and halberds descended upon the ghouls' heads with ruthless efficiency.
It was less of a battle and more of a massacre.
A shiver ran down Maxi's spine.
Although Breston was currently following Riftan's orders, she couldn't help but wonder when his loyalties might change.
If Phil Aaron's Knights suddenly turned against them, perhaps they would become the target of the next assault.
Biting her lip, Maxi turned her attention to the White Dragons.
Chaos reigned on the battlefield.
Steel clashed, horses neighed, and the shouts of knights mingled with the smell of burning flesh.
Some of the men burned the shattered remains to prevent the ghouls from regenerating.
Biting back a curse, Maxi turned anxiously to Ruth.
"S-Shouldn't we do something?
Maybe throw a barrier or help with the offensive?"
"Magic must be used with caution when our forces are engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
Intervening recklessly could cause more harm than“"
Ruth suddenly stopped talking to erect a barrier in front of her.
In the blink of an eye, an enormous skeleton burst from the ground, brandishing a hammer made of ice.
Maxi backed away in alarm.
His back was covered in cold sweat as the monster's shining weapon descended onto the shield.
Ruth's quick action saved her from a potentially fatal blow.
“Protect the wagons!” Ruth screamed.
Maxi ran to the line of carriages, summoning the biggest barrier his mana allowed.
The high priests of Phil Aaron and the mages of the Wedonian army also cast barriers over the luggage of their respective units.
His actions proved to be hasty.
A second later, an army of skeletons crawled out of the ground beneath them.
Maxi screamed as a skeletal hand shot out from beneath her.
Her grotesque fingers clung to her ankle, and she frantically tried to kick it.
When this proved ineffective, she drew her sword and stabbed the blade into the ground with all her strength.
It seemed like a miracle when the bones fell apart.
Maxi shook off the icy fingers that clung to her like caterpillars, then quickly jumped onto a train car.
Lowering her shield, she hurried to summon a new one when eight skeletons rose from the ground and charged directly at her.
She quickly circulated her mana.
An incorporeal shield manifested just seconds before the monsters' ice maces struck.
But there was no time to relax“an ax came down on his left.
Pressing her back against the side of the carriage, she gathered all her mana.
A shadow suddenly passed overhead, followed by a resounding crash.
Maxi was stunned.
Riftan had leapt from Talon and crushed the skeletons under an immense shield of five kevette.
As he rose from the pile of bones, he glared at Maxi through his visor.
“Why aren’t you strengthening your shield?”
Regaining his senses, Maxi expanded his shield to cover the carriages.
Meanwhile, Riftan mercilessly hammered the monsters climbing the hill with his own solid steel shield.
Maxi had never witnessed a more terrifying scenario.
He effortlessly blocked an incoming mace, then shattered the monster's skull with a sword strike.
Spinning to the right, he delivered a sideways blow to the approaching horde.
A stream of air shot out from his blade like a flash of light, shattering more than ten skeletons into pieces.Maxi's jaw dropped as the bones turned black as if they were burned by fire.
She suddenly realized that perhaps she did not fully understand her husband's abilities.
She had heard all the praise about his prowess, but this was the first time she had seen him fight up close.