Chapter 186: Ch-186: Clearing the Castle and Duke Brightflame
Rina had no idea what Eleanor was thinking about as she followed closely behind Victor and helped him kill the undead swarming around the castle with her light swords.
"Just how many undead are in the castle?" Rina said with a frown as she killed another undead charging at her.
"Probably thousands," Victor said nonchalantly as he killed another undead with a black lightning bullet.
’Killing them is not rewarding at all. Disgusting undead... no drops or even soul fragments.’
Victor clicked his tongue as he complained inwardly. Since the undead had corrupted souls, he could not even create or upgrade his Army of Darkness.
As they were walking, they found a group of survivors huddled together and trembling. Their hearts almost leaped out of their throats when they heard the sound of footsteps, and one of them screamed,
"Ah, don’t kill me!"
"Mmmmph!"
One of the others immediately clamped a hand over his mouth and stiffly looked up as a shadow loomed over them. Their eyes widened when they saw the person and exclaimed,
"Lady Rina!"
"You all have zero survival instincts. I could spot your hiding place from a mile away," Victor complained.
The others who were hiding immediately felt embarrassed.
"Don’t be too harsh on them," Rina rolled her eyes and said. "We have cleared the monsters in this area. You all follow this path and go to the auditorium. My sister and father are there guarding the refugees."
Hearing this, their eyes lit up. They bowed and thanked both of them before leaving.
This kind of scenario played out multiple times as Victor and Rina kept killing undead and saving people.
One by one, they destroyed each of those undead until Rina found what seemed to be a small hidden storage room—and came out crying.
Victor went to see what had happened and found two skeletons with no flesh left on them. Some undead had dug a hole and fed on the corpses. The problem was the size of the skeletons; the bones showed they were children who had died there alone, holding each other.
Rina broke down in tears, sitting in a corner of that place.
Victor walked over to her.
"Sigh, I’ll take care of this," he said.
She nodded, leaving the place still crying without saying another word as her figure disappeared into the corridor.
He summoned his flames and destroyed the last remaining bones. Then he returned and found Rina sitting outside the room, wiping her tears and looking exhausted from crying so much.
"I wonder what those children felt in their last moments of life," she murmured, not even looking at Victor, though she had already sensed him approaching.
’Sigh, I should not compare my mentality with hers... she is experiencing this for the first time,’ Victor thought.
Not everyone was like Amber, who was sadistic and could remain calm while witnessing such gruesome scenes.
"How could they do this?" she asked again, her voice filled with anger.
Victor had found more bodies of children in the area after that, but he didn’t think it right to tell her, as she was already emotionally shaken.
"I’m sorry for them, but this is the instinct of the undead—to kill all life. Their favorite meal is human flesh. The only thing we can do is become strong enough to prevent such tragedies," Victor said calmly.
"You are right," Rina regained her composure and said as they resumed killing the undead that were left behind. When they finished, they headed toward the garden.
When they went out from the castle into the garden, their bodies froze when they saw some Brightflame Knights. Rina’s eyes especially seemed capable of spitting fire as she looked with bloodshot eyes at what they were doing.
In the middle of the garden, they found a small mound made up of the bodies of the residents of the Hall Duchy.
When this scene appeared before them, a blazing fire ignited in Victor’s calm eyes.
On the desolate ground covered in rocks and weeds, the bodies of hundreds of humans, including children and even newborns, were piled up, rotting and emitting a foul smell, with mosquitoes and flies buzzing around them...
The bodies of these people were mangled as if they had been forcibly torn apart, and their deaths had clearly been filled with unimaginable pain.
In Rina’s mind, she could almost hear the desperate cries of these people when the Brightflame soldiers mercilessly killed them.
Upon seeing such a gruesome and horrifying scene, Rina let out a startled cry.
She then covered her mouth and violently vomited to the side.
Even Victor, who was used to such scenes and had killed thousands of people before, couldn’t help but feel his stomach churn in the face of this situation.
He suppressed the nausea as his face twitched with anger. What made him the most furious was that the knights had slaughtered the remaining residents and thrown their bodies here so the undead could feast upon their corpses.
"You... BRIGHTFLAME SCUMS!" Rina shouted, completely enraged, and directly launched her light swords.
Screech!
"Who?!"
The soldiers, seeing their companions being impaled all of a sudden, let out startled cries and turned to see Victor and Rina.
Before they could even react, Victor summoned his Yin-Yang Phoenix, which not only burned the knights but also reduced the corpses and the surrounding undead to cinders.
"Duke Brightflame..." Rina said through gritted teeth.
"Let’s go out. The castle has been cleared," Victor said.
Rina nodded, murderous intent flashing in her eyes.
---
Currently, outside the castle of the Hall Family, the entire area was swarming with knights wearing red armor belonging to the Brightflame Duchy.
They kept their eyes filled with nervousness and wariness as they watched the undead beasts nearby devouring human flesh with gusto. These were naturally weak organisms that had no combat value after being turned into undead, so they were being feasted upon instead.
Some of the soldiers showed anger, as many of the corpses being devoured belonged to Brightflame soldiers. However, they restrained themselves as they remembered the agreement with the undead leader—that all corpses belonged to the undead, whether they were enemies or allies—and Duke Brightflame had agreed to those terms.
At the center of the army were two figures. If Eleanor were here, she would have recognized them: the first human male with orange hair, Duke Brightflame, who was looking impatiently at the grotesque human-like figure that was the leader of the undead.
"Why are we waiting here? Why don’t we just march?" Duke Brightflame said with annoyance.
The undead looked at Duke Brightflame and said with a sneer, "If you are in such a hurry, why don’t you go and lead your men to attack? An injured lion is the most dangerous—what if he uses some kind of last-resort trump card and destroys my entire army?"
"Hmph." Hearing this, Duke Brightflame crossed his arms, snorted, and clicked his tongue as he thought inwardly, ’Tsk, this undead is too smart. I thought I could exhaust them by pitting them against each other.’
Even though he was allying with the undead, he had no trust toward them, as they were directly opposed to life, and if he got the chance, he would not hesitate to eliminate them. Moreover, he was very annoyed that his soldiers were feasting on the corpses of his loyal troops.
The undead also had the same thoughts, as he wanted to turn both the Hall and Brightflame Duchies into his undead kingdom.
"Hmm?" Suddenly, the undead leader’s expression changed when he felt the soldiers he had assigned to monitor the situation inside rapidly decreasing, as if someone was killing them.
"Hey, are you sure you properly stabbed and shattered his heart?" the undead leader rose and asked Duke Brightflame, his tone brimming with hostility.
Hearing this, Duke Brightflame frowned and stood up.
"Hmph, are you doubting me?" he asked.
"Yes, I am. If you injured him properly, why are the undead soldiers rapidly dying? I have stationed even some Tier 3 undead—only Duke Hall could kill them," the undead said, pointing at him angrily.
Bang.
"What?!" Duke Brightflame’s eyes widened as he shot to his feet and thought, ’Could the Hall Duchy have some hidden powerhouse... no, that doesn’t make sense. Otherwise, Hilbert wouldn’t hide them... could that bastard have somehow recovered?’
Thinking about this, Duke Brightflame’s face darkened, and he gritted his teeth and said, "We should attack now. I will volunteer to go first."
Hearing this, the undead leader’s hostility decreased slightly, as if he suspected he was lying and that him attacking first was something he would not voluntarily suggest.
Before the undead leader could say anything, his pupils constricted to needle size, and he hurriedly jumped away from his position. Duke Brightflame did the same.
Whoosh.
A spear made of black ice struck the place where they had been standing, instantly coating it in black frost.
"Who?!" the undead roared in anger, but the next moment—
Bang! Bang!
Boom! Boom!
Multiple explosions rang out in the distance, and they saw a sea of fire consuming soldiers of both the Brightflame Duchy and the undead.
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