Chapter 196. The Final Battle (1)
The air of war was already present in the Brown Mountain Range.
This was because Derek, the strongest and the oldest warrior elf among them all, had declared martial law.
Although the elven society was centered around the decisions of the mother elves usually, they could only follow once Derek declared martial law, as it would be directly related to their survival if it was him who was saying it.
The elderly and the young were restricted from going outside the village, while men from all four villages gathered together to form a defensive line.
They designed a high-intensity scouting system and watched over every nook and cranny of the mountains, and like that, the Brown Mountain Range was wrapped in breathtaking nervousness.
“Derek, don’t you think you declared martial law a little too early? Maintaining martial law for such a long time will loosen their tension.”
Elven warriors around the same age as Derek objected to him.
Derek shook his head.
“He will come. Soon, it will be very soon.”
“It’s not like the humans saw Kajad Pun Aman coming, did they?”
“They know it without seeing.”
“What do you…….”
“Trust me. I have that exact same feeling.”
Derek thought back to the Eye of the Abyss he saw a while back, as well as the eerie voice that emanated from it.
That voice, as well as the energy behind it, was very ominous and evil.
Derek realized that he had just met the greatest enemy of his life.
“Right now, the young ones should be at a loss, since martial law is in place, but there is no enemy. However, things will change once Kim and the others arrive, so don’t worry.”
“Well, if you say so. I’m following orders.”
“We’ll trust your decision like we always did.”
Derek smiled while looking at the veteran warriors that were with him for a long time.
But at that time,
“Someone’s coming.”
Derek spoke as he looked at the front.
Just as he had said, a few minutes later, a young elf hurriedly ran up to him and stood in front of him.
“Orga from Maple Village. The enemy has appeared!”
“Is it Kajad Pun Aman?”
Orga, the young warrior elf from Maple village, shook his head.
“No, it’s an army of undead. Their numbers are huge!”
“What?”
The warriors all took out their weapons.
Derek nodded his head.
“I guess this is the start. Well, he practically declared that he’s coming so I’m thankful instead. Where are they?”
“30 kilometers north-west from Maple village, sir!”
“Okay, we’ll head that way.”
“Yes, sir!”
After Orga left, Derek spoke to his friends.
“There may be an attack somewhere else, so we’ll leave some men to guard the village and the rest of us will head there.”
“Okay, then.”
The other veteran warriors called out their elementals in order to call for the warriors of their village.
Soon, elves started gathering where Derek was.
After all of them gathered, there were around a few hundred.
The elves had flourished and the number of warriors had risen over the past years.
Derek took out both of his swords and shouted.
“Let’s go!”
“Yes!”
Derek ran at the front.
The other elves followed suit.
They were incredibly fast.
***
“Look at this.”
Dana, who was looking at his laptop on top of a rake eagle, suddenly spoke.
“What is it? Show me.”
Dana threw the laptop at me, and Sylph agilely caught it before giving it to me.
I could see an army of undead crawling up a mountain like ants.
However, that undead army was different from the low-tier zombies.
They were only made of bones, meaning, they were skeletons.
However, they were armed with armors, helmets, and spears and had the look of a soldier.
Their steps were identical and their procession was very neat.
“They are skeletons. It’s a type of necromancy that revives the dead from a very long time ago, and as such, they only have bones left.”
“Is such a thing possible?”
“They have no nervous system, no brain, nor any functioning organs, so the controlling necromancer must input all of their actions directly with black magic. It’s nearly impossible to make them march forward in such a neat formation. Hm, for comparison, you can just think about how hard it is to make a bipedal robot.”
“But the fact that there’s so many of them…….”
“There’s only one person in this world who’s capable of doing such a thing.”
I gulped.
“We should leave the undead army to the elves and wait for Kajad to appear.”
“Okay then.”
We arrived at Zelkova village in the Brown Mountain Range.
This was the central elven village where the Eldermother was residing.
The skyscraping huge Tree of Life welcomed us with sweet fragrances.
“Kim!”
The mothers of the village welcomed us as we had told them that we would be arriving beforehand with the communication device.
“Have you been well?”
“Of course, we have been well.”
“Yes, it’s all thanks to you, Kim.”
The mothers started to talk among themselves.
I started taking out examinees from my Virtual Space.
“Huh?”
“Is this the Brown Mountain Range?”
“Already?”
“We just did a hi-five, and we’re here already. How curious.”
The examinees that exited my Virtual Space looked around in wonder. Well, in their perspective, we have just arrived as soon as we did a hi-five, so it was no wonder.
The elves were also surprised by the appearance of the examinees.
The young elves all had a look of curiosity in their eyes, and if it were not for their mothers, they would have come here asking how I did it.
“So we’ve arrived.”
Odin approached me.
“Yes. Right now, The elves are fighting an undead army that Kajad has summoned.”
“Is Kajad not here yet?”
“Yes. So we decided to stay here until Kajad himself appears. What do you think?”
“That’s for the better. If we get attacked while we fight the undead, things will be disadvantageous for us.”
At that time, the Eldermother asked me in concern.
“Kim, is my husband doing okay? Can you have a look for me?”
She seemed to be worried about Derek’s safety as he was one of the elves fighting the undead army.
This was very unusual since the Eldermother had complete faith in Derek most of the time.
“Okay. Litalin?”
“Yes, I’m watching the turn of events.”
Dana showed them the status of the battle in the Brown Mountain Range that the satellite showed him.
Although it wasn’t completely clear due to the height of the trees, they were able to tell that the army of undead was unable to progress further after a certain point.
Other than that, explosions and storms could be seen everywhere. This was the power of the elementals that the elves were using.
“Is it me or is the undead army decreasing at a slower rate than usual?”
I asked.
Considering Derek’s prowess of having annihilated a horde of zombies before, this was very slow.
“This is the undead army controlled by none other than Kajad. They should be in a completely different league from the undead until now.”
“D, does that mean that we’re losing?”
The Eldermother asked.
The other mothers also whispered.
I spoke after thinking about it for a while.
“We’ll be in trouble if the elven warriors are defeated. We should participate too.”
“Hmmm……. I guess it comes down to that. Once the defense line of elves is broken through, the undead will attack all the villages. At that time, we will have to split up in order to protect the villages…….”
Odin spoke while groaning.
Like that, we decided to participate in the battle against the undead army.
First, I took out all of the rake eagles from my Virtual Space.
There were 12 of them in total.
They all had claw reinforcement and rake wind skill maxed out.
They could spam rake wind while flying in the air, so it would help out a lot in a large-scale battle like this.
I knew it was the right thing to do to invest my points in them.
I sent off the eagles first then we started to move as well.
While moving, Dana spoke.
“I’ll apologize beforehand. I need to save my power as much as possible until Kajad appears.”
“Well, I guess the only magician that can confront someone of Kajad’s level is you.”
“No, it’s not just about level. I’ve talked to you about my special skill, right?”
“Yes, dual circle was it? You can wield two different energies in your body or something…….”
“Yes, among the two, I rooted out my black magic and instead gained soul energy. Combining soul energy with mana, I gained something that is the opposite of black magic.”
According to Dana’s explanation, the stone coffin that contained Kajad’s dead body had several defensive mechanisms in layers, and those mechanisms reacted violently to his dual circle.
After seeing that, Dana judged that his dual circle was the only weapon that could take Kajad down.
I nodded my head.
“Okay. Don’t use your energy until Kajad appears, I’ll guard you.”
“Thank you.”
We then arrived at the battlefield.
Rumble!
Boom! Bang!
Violent sounds created by elementals could be heard everywhere.
The elves were fighting against the undead army with their elementals.
Although we all had seen the battlefield through the satellite footage, this still freaked us out.
“Let’s go! The important thing is not to defeat them, but to maintain the defensive line!”
Odin ordered with a shout.
The examinees all started to help the elves fighting off the undead.
While from the sky,
“Screech-!”
“Screeeech!”
Twelve rake eagles bombarded their attacks from the air.
Boom!
Crunch! Crack!
Every time they slashed with their claws, sharp winds shot across towards the undead and defeated them.
12 of them working in tandem was a great strike to the undead.
They acted like bombers from modern warfare and caused chaos among the undead army.
As all of their skills were maxed out, the eagles spammed rake wind infinitely.
Meanwhile, I took out my twin pistols to protect Dana.
I shot my pistols wildly at the skeletons approaching me.
Every time I fired, the skeletons fell down with their skull shattered. Thanks to the bullet adjustment skill, my bullets were stronger than normal pistols and were able to take down two skeletons with one ammo.
However, the number of skeletons approaching me was more than I could take down.
Cha Jihye also swung around her dual curved swords to support me.
After an unknown period of time, we managed to save up on our stamina as much as possible, but the repetitive battle was grazing away at our minds.
The line of defense formed by elven warriors was finally able to gain stability thanks to our help.
At that time.
“1.5 kilometers north-west!”
Dana suddenly shouted.
“What?”
“I have experience using black magic, so I was able to trace the flow of black magic back.”
“Oh!”
This flow of black magic came from 1.5 kilometers to the north-west.”
Dana was sweating, which was unusual for him.
“He has also noticed that I traced back his black magic. What a freak.”
He felt fear.
“He’s coming this way.”
Kajad Pun Aman was coming.
The final battle was here.