Chapter 1214: Duke Zombies

Laranflura had summoned a large number of zombies resembling the South and West Conquest Dukes. What on earth is happening?

It seems our enemy recognized our shock. Laranflura explained with a triumphant expression.

「Fwahaha! How do you like them? We cultivated these vessels based on genes obtained from the flesh and blood of each duke, then turned their soulless flesh into undead, and enhanced them with evil energy!」

They seem to have experimenting on creating clones of the dukes, which likely failed due to their lack of souls. However, they managed to make it work by turning them into undead. The rest would be easy since they knew how to enhance undead with evil energy based on the experiments with Avenger.

「Oroooogh!」

（That’s…!）

『A droid!』

The West Conquest Duke Zombies shouted, summoning three-meter tall humanoid figures behind them.

Those must be the same as the “droid” we saw back at the battle for the fort. The one from before was much larger, and had a more vibrant color scheme. In contrast, the ones in front of us were uniformly silver, clearly something like a mass-produced model.

The chests of the droids opened with a clank, emitting some sort of tractor beam, and the West Conquest Duke Zombies were pulled into their cockpits. Is that how they board it?

But why did these zombie clones of the West Conquest Duke have the ability to summon droids? Don’t tell me they can use relics too.

Furthermore, the South Conquest Duke Zombies popped out countless weapons all over their bodies. Not only swords and spears but also numerous modern weapons resembling firearms.

The South Conquest Duke was capable of enhancing himself via the assimilation of relics into his body, and these zombie clones seemed to share the same ability as the originals.

「Now, go!」

Following Laranflura’s command, the zombies and zombie-piloted droids moved into action. Two of each type gathered around Sibylla, as the rest went for the Red Knights.

In spite of their massive bodies, the droids arrived unbelievably quickly thanks to the rollers extending from the soles of their feet. The South Conquest Duke Zombies were also capable of extremely quick flight due to the wing-like relic boosting them with mana propulsion.

「Giant beast swarm formation!」

「「「 Roger! 」」」

Groups of ten Red Knights gathered together, each in their own formation. This formation was likely designed for facing groups of multiple powerful individuals.

I honestly thought they were screwed, but the Red Knights were holding their own. They truly were the strongest knights we’ve ever seen.

Their skills and experience from fighting magical beasts day and night must have enabled them to handle the dukes. Considering the size, durability, and speed of the droids, they might be similar to high-level giants. The laser beams and such could be handled similar to the spells from those giants. In fact, the knights with shields were calmly parrying all of the droids’ attacks.

The South Conquest Duke Zombie also had pretty impressive specs. The relic-like weapons all over his body were capable of so many different attacks, not to mention the sheer mass of that massive body. That said, they couldn’t break through the formation of the knights.

Each of the Red Knights were powerful individuals, but I have to say their shield-bearers were particularly formidable. Perhaps because they had to shield their friends from vicious magical beasts day in day out.

If I had to rate them in adventurer terms, they were at least Rank B. Every last one of them. Moreover, they had excellent support.

The Red Sword Knights were currently at the forefront, with the Dusk Rain Knights providing archery support, healing, and buffs.

（They’re amazing.）

『You can say that again.』

Rather than taking on the Duke Zombies, we stepped back a bit to observe the battlefield as a whole. Not because we were running, but because we wanted to weaken the Duke Zombies with purification magic.

The anti-undead ward we placed on the battlefield definitely had an effect. However, this was quickly destroyed by one of the South Conquest Duke’s many relics. Doesn’t seem like purification magic will work very well.

Then how about this!

『Evil God Fragment, give me the power to dominate them!』

I tried to dominate the undead, similar to what we did with Avenger. Unlike last time, I now had Evil God’s Trust. It should be possible…

『Tch. No good.』

I sensed a dejected feeling coming from the Evil God Fragment. Unlike Avenger, these undead weren’t dominated by evil energy; they were merely using it as a power source.

I tried to at least cut off the power supply, but that proved too difficult too. All I could manage was reducing their evil energy power efficiency by 50% or so.

Well, that seems to have helped a bit though. The Red Knights began having an easier time, and Sibylla finally defeated one of her four opponents. The final blow was quite surprising though.

Our disruption of the evil energy supply caused the droids to slow down. Sibylla took advantage of this to break through one of the droid’s outer shells, and dove into the cockpit. She came out less than ten seconds later after having slain the zombie pilot directly, and her mouth was dyed crimson.

She literally ate the zombie? I knew she had a voracious appetite, but that’s a pretty effective combat application…

After observing various clashes, Laranflura became visibly irritated. She had expected to turn the tides of the battle, but her undead were merely on par with the Red Knights.

「Nothing ever goes according to plan… Very well, then I shall break their formation personally.」

The Red Knights’ unexpectedly high strength could not be beaten with brute force. The Superhuman General knelt for an instant before leaping into the sky.

And the direction of gaze was…

（Master! We have to stop her!）

『Just in time!』

We immediately realized Laranflura’s goal, and teleported behind her, delivering a powerful slash to her unprotected back.

「Futile!」

「!」

The divine-infused slash was intercepted by the barrier cloaking her body. It seems we require an attack on par with Heavenly Judgment to break through her defenses.

Laranflura continued her attack without any attempt to shake us off. Her target was the villagers.

「Hahaha! I wonder if you can keep fighting after hearing the screams of those livestock?」

She fired nearly a hundred mana blasts at the villager caravan in the west. Inflicting heavy civilian casualties made sense as a strategy, as it would cause the Red Knights to lose their composure, and they would be forced to sacrifice manpower to treat the injured.

We should rely on the captain of the Dusk Rain Knights to handle the ridiculous barrage of magic! Or so I thought, but for some reason, he simply stood there without doing anything. Was something wrong with him? We’ve seen the Dusk Rain relic firing a hundred arrows at once, yet its powers were left unused.

（Master!）

『On it!』

We chased the mana projectiles via teleportation, cutting down the mana projectiles one after another. slash and teleport, slash and teleport…

「One! Two!」

『Urooooh!』

But we couldn’t get all of them.

Despite using a combination of telekinesis and supreme-tier spells, we could only shoot down 80% of the projectiles. The remaining ones were about to land on the villagers.

『Shit!』

「W-Woof?」

「Kyaaah!」

We heard Urushi’s panicked howl and the children’s screams. Urushi would surely be able to save the children with his magic, but the rest of the villagers will be…

「You ain’t getting through me! Sacrifice!」

（!）

The Red Knight who resembled Biscot suddenly appeared in front of the villagers, and the mana projectiles changed their trajectory to target him. He had activated a shield art to draw the blasts toward himself.

Was his sudden appearance due to some sort of teleport ability?

No matter how high his defenses were, he wouldn’t get away unscathed after taking nearly 20 of those powerful mana projectiles.

By the end of the assault, the man’s armor was cracked in several places. His helmet had completely shattered, revealing the face of a middle-aged man who resembled Biscot. He must be a relative or something.

Or I thought that, but I was wrong.

「Pretty reckless even for you, Biscot.」

「Klikka? You buffed me secretly, right? Thanks.」

Klikka? Biscot? Huh? Are they the real deal? Both of them had participated in the martial arts tournament with Sibylla, but… Klikka looked about ten years older, and Biscot seems to have aged about thirty years.

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