Chương 85: Chapter 84. Helping hand (?)

) The three days passed in a blink. Rayne barely felt them go by, even though every hour was soaked in tension. He had no idea what the Crown's Hand had uncovered during their scouting, but he heard rumours of them coming back all bloody to the camp, and one of them had even died. By the evening of the third day, everyone knew—whether they were told or not—that they would be moving at dawn. When the fourth day arrived, the camp stirred before the sun did.

Soldiers assembled in clean formations while armor was tightened, blades checked, and packs secured. Rayne stood with his own party quietly, checking their gear and rations while watching the disciplined chaos unfold around them. Any march would surely be followed by jokes or false bravado, but there was nothing of that sort until now. Before they departed, Captain Edran stood in front of his warband.

He spoke plainly, without theatrics, about how every soldier under him had done well until now, and that Commander Evans had his eyes on them due to how well they were performing, and even promised each soldier additional pay at the end of the campaign, something his party was actually enthusiastic about. He finished the short speech by mentioning how he believed they would conquer the dungeon within the week and return alive. A week. To Rayne, that would have sounded like a lot of time to conquer one dungeon.

But in the past three days, he had managed to speak with Casper again, briefly, and what she told him made the timeline feel far less generous. The dungeon at the intersection of the ley lines wasn't like the others they had cleared. It was closer to a grand dungeon—a term for dungeons that were massive and didn't fit the definitions of normal dungeons. Grand dungeons were known to stretch as wide as small towns, layered vertically and horizontally in ways that defied conventional mapping.

They were even known as sacred in some kingdoms, and surviving even a day in them was treated as a big achievement. Worse, some of them housed sapient races rather than mindless monsters. Though the one at the ley line wouldn't have something like that since it was just similar to a grand dungeon. They would almost exclusively be fighting undead. But the scale of the dungeon alone made it dangerous. Without Selene's scrying, they wouldn't have even known where to find the necromancer inside.

That thought lingered as Rayne watched the army move out. Just under a thousand soldiers marched together, banners of different warbands rising high. One warband was left behind to guard the camp and deal with any lingering undead from nearby dungeons. Everyone else moved as one, cutting a wide line through the forests. Rayne couldn't help but wonder if even that many men would be enough if an undead army awaited them.

If the necromancer had sent hundreds of undead at them simply as a warning, then how many he had in the dungeon. He mulled over the thought as he walked. The march followed dirt roads that wound between forests and low hills. And for the first few hours, it was quiet. Too quiet. Then the undead came. Not in overwhelming numbers. Just waves of dozens—ragged groups emerging from treelines or crawling up from over the hills. The soldiers handled them efficiently.

Warbands rotated forward, cutting down the undead without breaking formation. Mages burned clusters to ash before they could close in. Rayne's whole squad was in the front and took on most of the undead. But they never ended. Dozens of undead came crawling down the slope to their right. They tumbled clumsily at first, bodies rolling over loose dirt and stone, then rose to their feet and surged forward in a broken rush.

Rayne raised his shield instinctively, planting his feet and tightening the formation as the horn call rang out again. Arrows cut through the air overhead. Several undead dropped before they even reached the road, skulls snapping back as shafts punched through rotting faces and chests. Others kept coming, weapons raised in the air. The first wave slammed into them. Three undead struck Rayne's shield at once. Rusted blades screeched against the metal as the impact travelled up his arm, but he barely felt it.

He leaned into it instead, muscles tightening, and shoved forward hard. The undead stumbled, their balance broken, and he stepped into the opening. His sword flashed. One head came off cleanly. Another split at the jaw as his blade bit upward. The third tried to lunge again, only for Rayne to drive his shield into its chest and finish it with a short, brutal cut to the neck. Around him, his party moved in a practiced rhythm. Kesh went low, blade punching through knee joints before snapping up into exposed throats.

Nate aimed higher, slashing at necks and temples with quick, economical strikes. Undead fell fast when struck there, and the line pushed forward a step at a time. More bodies rolled down the hill. Some slid on loose soil, others crashed into the formation with enough force to stagger the front line. Various sounds grew louder every second—steel biting bone, arrows thudding into flesh, shouted orders, the wet tearing noise of blades doing their work.

Rayne cut another undead down, then kicked the corpse sideways into one charging from the slope. Both went down in a tangle of limbs, and he finished them without slowing. Notifications rang in his mind. He took a breath and glanced around. His party was tight, backs nearly touching, holding their ground. To his far right, Axel moved like a machine, shield high and sword moving through lines of monsters. Hobbs was a wall of muscle on the other side, smashing undead apart with his axe.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Jason and several others he recognised were pushing steadily, forcing the undead back up the slope. Then he saw it. On his left, John was grabbed. An undead lunged from the side, fingers sinking into his armor straps, dragging him toward the front line. John stumbled, kicking hard, and tore himself free, but another undead was already closing in with a spear ready to stab. Rayne nearly dropped his sword and moved for his dagger.

But then— Fredrick came out of nowhere. He slipped in from behind the undead and drove his blade straight through the creature's spine. The undead collapsed instantly, body going limp as Fredrick yanked the sword free and moved on without a word. John didn't even have time to thank him. The fighting surged again, and Rayne tightened his grip on his shield, eyes locking forward as the next wave rolled down the hill. He raised his voice over the clash of steel and rotten flesh.

"Get ready," he shouted.

"This is the last wave. Send these bastards back to their graves." His party grunted in response, planting their feet and tightening their formation. Rayne heard the sound of bowstrings being drawn behind him and lifted his blade, ready to cut down on the first undead that struck his shield. But before the undead even reached the halfway point down the slope, Rayne heard it. A sharp woosh cut through the air. Heat washed over him an instant later.

A massive fireball tore into the clustered undead like a falling sun, slamming into the centre of the wave and erupting outward. Flames swallowed dozens at once. Rotten flesh ignited and screams rose—loud and short-lived—as bodies staggered and collapsed into one another. The undead had advanced too tightly packed. The ones that didn't burn outright were knocked off balance, crashing into those already aflame.

Several tumbled back down the hill in a tangled, burning mess, rolling helplessly as soldiers rushed forward to finish them. Blades punched through skulls and spears pinned writhing corpses to the dirt. Archers at the back didn't waste the opening. Arrows rained down, punching into skulls and throats. The remaining undead barely managed a few steps before they were skewered and met the same fate as their brethren. And just like that, it was over.

Rayne lowered his shield slowly, took a deep breath, and scanned for anything he'd missed. On his side of the road, nothing moved except flickering flames and twitching corpses. He turned instinctively toward where he knew the fire had come from and gave Casper a brief, appreciative nod. She didn't return it. Her attention was already elsewhere. Undead were still pouring in from the opposite side of the hill. Rayne watched for a moment, then looked away.

The soldiers were competent enough to handle them easily, especially with the squad leaders and captains joining the battle. The undead were nothing more than an inconvenience. His party saw it too and relaxed. John dropped into a crouch, resting his sword against the dirt as he sucked in a deep breath.

"You reckon there's a dungeon we missed around here?" he muttered.

"Probably," Nate replied, wiping his blade on the grass.

"Scouts will find and mark it for later. I just hope we're not the ones sent to clean it up once this is all over." Rayne didn't answer. Instead, he flicked his attention inward, skimming through his notifications with practiced ease. Sadly, he had gained nothing. There were no stat increases, and he doubted the experience would be enough to get him anywhere near his class advancement. He exhaled quietly and spent his time looking over the battles around him.

By the time the rest of the undead were dealt with, the road was littered with corpses and scorched earth. A few soldiers spat on the remains and crunched their boots over them. But there were no cheers. Most of the soldiers knew more undead waves were surely going to come. At least the body and tail of their army hadn't been struck yet, but he did wonder if the undead might strike the rear as they passed. He didn't know if they were capable of such thinking.

Maybe if there was an undead lord among them, but if that was the case, then there would definitely be more than a few casualties before the mages intervened. Soon enough, the army began to move again. Scouts were sent ahead and to the flanks to track any remnants of the undead wave and find the dungeon they had come from. He saw Quinn among them as they studied the undead tracks. For the ordinary soldiers, marching orders followed quickly.

Captain Edran's voice carried down the line alongside other captains as warbands fell back into formation, shields locking, banners rising once more. The army moved on, pressing forward toward the centre of the ley lines without lingering. For the rest of the day, nothing happened. There were no more waves hitting the march, but soldiers remained alert and kept watching the surroundings. Only when the sun dipped lower did Rayne see a few soldiers loosening up as they prepared to make camp.

Jokes were muttered quietly, armor was unstrapped just enough to breathe, and some parties even joked among themselves. But at midnight, another wave of undead hit them. Not the head, but the rear. Rayne woke to distant shouts and the sound of steel clashing, and whispers soon told him what had happened. An undead lord had led the wave, just as Rayne had thought it would. Fortunately, Commander Evans had thought the same.

Members of the Crown's Hand had already been stationed throughout the marching column, and when the undead lord was identified, they immediately charged at it. Apparently, Varrick had been there—along with two others—and together they had brought it down before it could do real damage. Still, a few soldiers had been badly injured. Badly enough that they wouldn't be marching with them. Rayne didn't join the fight. By the time he was fully awake and armed, it was already over.

He heard the details later, passed between soldiers in hushed voices. No one slept properly after that. His party stayed alert through the rest of the night, their nerves tight. They had already faced an undead lord once and barely walked away from it. No one wanted to be asleep if another came. Thankfully, that didn't happen. The night attack ended up being the last of them.

They marched again at first light, and Rayne kept thinking about what these waves were about before realising it was nothing more than psychological warfare. The waves hadn't been meant to thin their numbers. They were meant to keep everyone tense, exhausted, and jumpy. And judging by the hollow eyes and stiff movements around him, it had worked. Another day passed as the land subtly changed, and they finally reached the centre of the ley lines and drew closer to the dungeon.

The forest thinned and the air grew heavier as they marched, and he felt a constant prickle of mana crawling over his skin, growing stronger with every step forward. By midday, it was impossible to ignore. Dense mana pressed against him from all sides. It felt like wading through deep water. His movements grew heavier. Even ordinary soldiers felt it. Rayne could see it in the way his party shifted uneasily, rolling shoulders and flexing fingers.

But no one talked about it as the captains kept shouting that they were close, and when they finally stopped, everyone collectively gasped. The dungeon portal stood in a scorched clearing ahead of them, around two storeys tall and giving off a dense wave of mana. Faint streams of energy snapped and curled around it, warping the air nearby. Whispers soon started as more and more soldiers took a look at it.

Rayne kept looking at the portal, not because of how enormous it was, but because waves of death mana poured out of it. He sensed it clearly as it brushed against his skin, and he had no doubt in his mind. The master necromancer was inside.

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