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Chapter 1171: Reemergence

The blades clashed, sending dazzling sparks flying in midair.

The shadowy figure flitted across the air and pounced from above. Facing this ambush, the armored man snarled, unleashed a formidable aura from his blade, and retaliated with a mighty slash. The shadowy figure in midair had no choice but to evade, rolling away desperately upon landing on the ground. However, it stood to its feet quickly and retreated in a trail of afterimages. Along with its movement, ghastly, white skeletal soldiers broke out of the soil, raised their weapons, and swarmed the humans ahead.

“We need to leave this place right away!”

While defending the luxurious carriage, a middle-aged man clad in leather armor and wielding a longsword put up a hesitant expression. He gazed solemnly at the undead creatures ahead, flourishing his longsword to repel them. Then, he moved his gaze to the petite young lady donned in a mage robe within the group. She gnashed her teeth, held the magic staff up high, and cast a wall of flames before them to keep out the undead creatures.

“Lavita! Hang in there!”

“...!”

Upon hearing the middle-aged man’s order, the young lady didn’t respond, but continued to gnash her teeth instead. Upon witnessing her reaction, the middle-aged man was astonished. However, the movement of his hand didn’t come to a halt as he repelled two more undead creatures. Swinging the longsword in his hand, the mighty blade airflows rose from the ground and dispersed in all directions. In the blink of an eye, the blustering winds pushed back the undead creatures around him. But despite that, the undead creatures were unperturbed. They let out terrifying snarls and attacked, charging forward in large strides.

What an annoying bunch.

Gazing at the unrelenting undead creatures, the man knitted his brows tightly. He lowered his gaze to the silver-whitish cross symbol hanging on his chest and put up a hesitant expression.

After Rhode became the Void Dragon, he stopped minding the development of Starlight. However, the guild didn’t decline in strength after his departure. Instead, as Rhode became more prestigious, Starlight also expanded greatly. The wars and battles over the couple of years forced many refugees to seek shelter in the Void Territory. Among them were some who possessed supreme feats. They refused to join the army to battle, but chose to join Starlight as mercenaries instead. After all, Starlight dominated the Void Territory. Under Marlene’s grooming (intentionally or otherwise), Starlight was basically considered half an official and civilian association. The complicated mercenary rules were temporarily abolished because of continuous wars. After all, during such times mercenaries had to protect their homeland and none of them would be interested in accomplishing missions. The Void Territory itself had no relation to the Mercenary Association either, which was why Starlight developed strongly. Everyone was also aware of the relationship between Starlight and the overlord of this territory, which explained why they felt assured seeking help from them. As the Void Territory was occupied with endless matters, they lacked manpower from the start. Sometimes, when the military was too busy, mercenaries would complete the tasks in their stead. The mercenaries also felt unrestrained in Starlight. After all, with the Void Dragon protecting them, no one was foolish enough to stir trouble with them. Of course, under Marlene’s strict orders, Starlight was prohibited from bullying smaller guilds or mercenary groups, which was why Starlight was wildly loved and popular.

And this time, this team of mercenaries was also here for that reason: to detect any undead creatures who sneaked through the Void Territory’s border. Even though Marlene, Cassidy, and Alice were present to wipe out the majority of them, some undead creatures managed to slip through the fish net and entered the territory. Slight negligence could lead to a great disaster. Marlene and the rest were fully occupied with important matters, so how was it possible for them to be bothered by such small issues? If they were to mobilize the army, it would be challenging for them to patrol the long and seemingly endless border. Fortunately, the Void Territory had no lack of money and this also wasn’t some secret mission. That was why they handed the task over to mercenaries of Starlight to eradicate the scattered undead creatures.

This time, they received information about undead creatures showing up in nearby mountains and forests and were sent to check on the situations.

In the end, the team was astounded to realize that not only were there hundreds of undead creatures, but their strength was also much stronger than expected. This small team of mercenaries joined Starlight when Rhode recruited mercenaries back then. At this point in time, they had already become elites. Due to Rhode’s existence, they didn’t have much experience dealing with undead creatures and had a lack of understanding about them. But after facing this ambush from the undead creatures, they discovered that things were far stranger than they had anticipated.

Taking the skeletal soldiers, for instance. The middle-aged man should have been able to crush up to five of them in a single swing of a blade. But now, the skeletal soldiers seemed exceedingly sturdy, where even his all-out attack was only able to strike up to two of them away and not defeat them entirely. Not only that, but the flames that should have also been a huge threat to them seemed to lose their effectiveness. Although the undead creatures were still afraid of getting too close to the flames, they were no longer as weak and fragile as in the past.

This caught the team off guard. Even though they heard from their companions that the undead creatures were rather odd recently, they didn’t expect them to have such dramatic changes. In an instant, the team couldn’t help but pay bitterly. And now, they could only retreat slowly and leave this place. If they could reach a vast plain, it might be more advantageous for them. In the dark forest, it was as though their hands were tied. Fortunately, apart from the leading vampire who was more bothersome to deal with, the rest were only skeletal soldiers. If there were death knights or lichs, perhaps everyone would be dead by now.

But even so, they were in a fluster. The middle-aged man initially decided to dig and set up a trap to eliminate the enemies. But now, he had no choice but to change his strategy. After all, the enemies attacked aggressively with skeletal soldiers being summoned one by one. Even though the skeletal soldiers had the lowest level of all units, the strengthened version of them was enough to give the mercenaries a huge headache.

“Retreat now!”

Upon seeing his men by the rear tangling with the skeletal soldiers, the middle-aged man snarled in an ice-cold expression. If the skeletal soldiers were the usual ones they encountered, they wouldn’t have been able to hold them back. And now, these undead creatures were simply too difficult to handle and this left him feeling anxious. He also felt like the reason why the undead creatures didn’t rush toward them wasn’t because they couldn’t defeat him. Instead, it was as though they were scheming to slow down his team. The middle-aged man felt increasingly concerned and afraid of the undead creatures’ crafty plots. His companions at the rear also gnashed their teeth, struggling with all their strength to resist the undead creatures’ assault and couldn’t back down. If they were to retreat now, the undead creatures might encircle them immediately. On the other hand, if they didn’t retreat and continued to defend themselves, they wouldn’t end up anywhere better either.

“Leader, let me do it.”

While the middle-aged man was watching the situation anxiously, the mage young lady with an ice-cold expression spoke while clutching her magic staff. Even though she looked pale from exhaustion, she continued to grit her teeth and maintain the wall of flames before her. She was apparently at her limit. Upon hearing her courageous words, the middle-aged man knitted his brows. Although this young lady had joined his mercenary team for only a year, her spell-casting abilities were incredible. His team looked down upon her in the beginning, but now she had become their most trustworthy and reliable teammate. But she was a young lady, after all, and it was asking too much of her to protect the rest. Even though she was capable of casting spells, judging from her pale expression, it was obvious that she had almost expended all her spiritual power.

“Can you do it, Lavita? Don’t force yourself. I’ve sent out a SOS. I think reinforcements should arrive any time now.”

The middle-aged man said, while gazing at the white cross badge in a complicated expression. When they first joined Starlight, they weren’t only powerful in strength, but the equipment they received afterward was also top notch. Taking this white cross badge, for instance. It was in the first batch of items created by Lapis. Not only was it able to cast a defensive barrier of the four elements, but it could also transport him to the Land of Atonement in emergencies. Only the first three batches of members who joined Starlight owned this badge. They had either gone on adventures with Rhode, or were the earlier few to join the guild, and they at least deserved credit for their efforts. The mercenaries who joined later didn’t receive this accessory as Lapis was no longer occupied with matters of the guild. As of now, she was busy with working on magical technologies in the Void Territory, so she could no longer create magical equipment specially for the mercenaries. Although her apprentices were still providing alchemical potions to the guild as usual, not everyone was able to get their hands on items like magical equipment like in the early stages.

Even though they were an experienced team of veterans, after two years of trials and hardships, one-third of them were newcomers, so they couldn’t possibly own this badge. And now, this young lady was one of them. If he were to leave, he would no doubt be abandoning them. This was something that he couldn’t bring himself to do! No matter what, they were still his subordinates!

“No, everyone can’t hold on any longer. Let me do it! I have a special skill to summon magical beasts to take down these creatures. It won’t be too late for us to escape later.”

“But...”

Upon hearing her respond, the middle-aged man became increasingly concerned. Even though he couldn’t cast spells, he had witnessed how spell casters controlled their summoned beasts with all their strength to prevent being devoured by them instead. If it were in the past, he would have gotten Lavita to give it a shot. But now, she was all pale and beat-up. Perhaps she would be able to summon magical beasts and barely support them, but that would mean she would be facing the undead creatures alone!

“We’re running out of time, Leader.”

Looking at the hesitant man, the young lady said softly before spreading her arms apart abruptly. Gazing at her actions, the man grimaced. He extended his arm, but at the next moment, he had no choice but to retract it. He gripped the longsword and swung it to the side, striking away an undead creature that pounced on him.

Meanwhile, Lavita extended her arms and chanted under her breath. Shortly after, along with her movements, a ball of scarlet flames appeared between her hands. She widened her eyes abruptly and chanted the incantation loudly. The ball of pure, scarlet flames exploded, bursting forward at the undead creatures. The instant the flames erupted, the undead creatures screeched and retreated swiftly. The flames twisted and turned as they arrived before them, metamorphosing into a burning, red, gigantic rhino. The rhino spurted out scorching white steam from its nostrils and glared fiercely at the undead creatures trembling before it. Upon witnessing this enormous fire elemental creature, the undead creatures shrunk back instinctively. But at the next moment, they let out sinister hisses and confronted the creature. Even though the undead creatures were much stronger now, their fear toward flames was embedded in their bones. Not only that, but the enormous rhino was also a pure fire elemental creature, which left the undead creatures feeling uncertain and terrified.

“———!”

Upon witnessing the fire elemental creature, the vampire hidden in the rear lifted his head and screamed all of a sudden. Along with his screams, the flat ground around them rumbled and skeletons emerged from the soil one by one, surrounding everyone before them.

“Damn it!”

The middle-aged man turned pale after realizing the vampire’s true intention. It seemed like the vampire had already decided to use himself as bait to attract more mercenaries over. If not, if the vampire had summoned so many undead creatures from the start, the mercenaries would have been dead by now. Now that the mercenaries were seemingly intending to escape, the vampire stopped using himself as bait and decided to take them all down!

Gazing at the almost 600 skeleton soldiers, the middle-aged man froze to the spot. He reached out for the badge hanging on his chest, but let out a long sigh after a few moments. He stripped the badge off his neck and tossed it to the young lady.

“Leader?”

Looking at his gesture, the young lady was stunned. Facing her doubtful gaze, the middle-aged man said with a smile.

“Get ready. Use your remaining magical power to activate this badge. This is a treasure we received from Madam Lapis back then, which is entirely different from the one you are wearing. A teleportation ritual will appear after you activate it and we will head back together afterward.”

“Ah... Okay...”

Upon hearing his words, the young lady was taken aback. But despite that, she took over the badge and sized it up curiously. Gazing at her expression, the middle-aged man let out a sigh. He wondered what her reactions would be after she figured out that he lied about teleporting back to safety together. But now, he couldn’t worry about it anymore. He went through trials and hardships in these two years with the boss and encountered whatever he could, so what was there for him to be afraid of?! On the other hand, this little fella here lost her parents and had no intention of becoming a mercenary at first. After all, the Void Territory had high requirements for spell casters. If she were willing, she could be sent to Grandia and grow stronger under Marlene. However, she chose to dedicate herself to go on adventures with him and the rest...

Now, it was about time to end this misery.

“———!”

All of a sudden, the situation took a turn. The rune hovering around the young lady and meant to control the spell began to twist and turn in shape. Lavita’s expression became as white as a sheet. She gnashed her teeth and continued to maintain the rune with all her power. At that moment, the other mercenaries had crowded around to defend her.

“Hurry, Lavita! Activate the badge!”

“No, my power. There seems to be something...!”

Boom!

Before Lavita completed her sentence, the flaming rhino suddenly exploded, turning into a sea of flames that dispersed in all directions and devoured the undead creatures that couldn’t escape in time. Not only that, but the flames also didn’t dissipate like in the past. On the contrary, they rushed forward like a stream and at the next moment, a dazzling, scarlet radiance burst out, forcing everyone to close their eyes.

“Phew... Looks like we made it.”

At that moment, a voice sounded in their ears. Upon hearing it, everyone turned around and couldn’t help but widen their eyes in astonishment. In the place where the flames exploded stood over 100 people all of a sudden. They wore strange, ancient costumes and were seemingly travel-worn as though they had a long and difficult trek. But what shocked the middle-aged man was... Where did they come from?

“Finally...”

Lifting his head to gaze at this familiar starry sky, Rhode couldn’t help but lament. Even though it wasn’t tough getting out of Fiery Plains, it wasn’t that smooth sailing either. If it weren’t for Marybelle who realized that someone was establishing a summoning channel that connected the Dragon Soul Continent and Fiery Plains and made use of this opportunity, perhaps Rhode would spend a lot more time before returning to the Dragon Soul Continent.

“I’m back...”

Rhode muttered under his breath, stifling the intricate emotions in his mind. Then, he gazed at the surroundings and was taken aback.

What is with these undead creatures?

“Ssss!”

Facing the sudden appearance of Rhode’s group, the undead creatures were also stunned. The leading vampire commanded in response and the skeletal soldiers hesitated no more. They raised their weapons and charged ahead like a raging flood that was about to devour everyone.

“Hmph!”

Looking at this scene, Rhode turned grim.

“Finish them.”