Necromancer: Kingdom Building with My Legion of Undead Knights

Chapter 204: Hunt Battle

Darion’s aim coming into this hunt with Seren wasn’t to engage in fights that would lead to a shortage of man power, undead power, in Darion’s case, because his undeads weren’t humans.

They were tools, weapons, assets that he had spent weeks collecting and raising.

Every single one of them represented effort, time, and the careful work of unearthing graves and speaking the words of revival. Losing them wasn’t just a tactical setback. It was a waste of everything he had put into building his army.

When he faced Valdenmoor, a proper war, he lost a lot of knights. Half of his knights during the first invasion, when they were vulnerable and unprepared.

Even during their assault on Valdenmoor, when they had Vera’s magic equipment to help out, he still lost undeads. But that was a war. His aim was to win, and winning in that sense came with losses, large, casual, or very little, it was expected to at least lose something.

You couldn’t fight a war without paying the price. That was simply how it worked.

But this hunt was not a war. This was supposed to be a gathering mission, a chance to fill his inventory without the kind of brutal attrition that came with large-scale battles.

Well, that had been the opposite for Darion coming into this hunt with Seren. He had hoped it to be something primarily that he would gain more undeads, fill his inventory, and leave here happy with many undeads in his inventory.

He had envisioned a clean operation: track animals, kill them, raise them, and move on. No major battles and no heavy losses, only steady progress.

But with the way the fight was going, he seemed to be on the losing side here. He had lost about five knights now, two just now with this battle, and two wolves just now.

The numbers were adding up faster than he was comfortable with. Each loss felt like a step backward, a reduction in the strength he had worked so hard to build.

He didn’t want to lose! That wasn’t the point of this hunt. If he went on to keep losing, then this hunt basically was useless. Not exactly. Because he had gained four Yuimons, creatures that the system had rated as Very High threat, creatures that could crush a man with a single blow.

Those four alone were worth more than a dozen ordinary animals. But if you looked at this in numbers, it was still a loss. He had gained four Yuimons, but he had lost five knights and two wolves.

The net gain was minimal. And if this continued, if he kept losing undeads at this rate, he would be weaker than when he had entered the forest.

Losing undeads hadn’t been the point of this hunt. That had not been his aim coming into this battle! He wanted to gain more undeads, not lose them. And with the way these undeads were fighting, so brutally and fast, he would win yes, but also lose half of his undeads.

The living Yuimons were strong, but the cost of defeating them was too high. He needed to change it. He needed to wrap this up quickly.

Darion changed his strategy. He stopped thinking like a fighter and started thinking like a commander.

He wasn’t going to win this by swinging a sword or standing back and watching his undeads slowly get ground down. He was going to win it by using everything in his arsenal. Every tool, every asset, every single thing he had at his disposal needed to be brought to bear.

Well, he was using everything now. Except one thing.

He had one move left. One thing he hadn’t used yet.

Something he thought would be insignificant. Seren’s arrows were seemingly insignificant in this scale of things here, but she had just helped very significantly in killing a Yuimon.

After blinding both eyes with precise, well-aimed shots, the creature had been left defenseless, thrashing blindly as Darion’s undeads moved in to finish it. Her arrows were small, yes, but they were deadly in the right hands, and Seren had proven that she had the right hands.

His undead bats! He summoned them from his inventory, and they took to the air, circling above the battlefield like a swarm of dark clouds. They were small, fragile, easy to overlook, but they had a purpose.

They could harass, distract, and disorient. And right now, Darion needed every advantage he could get.

"Keep targeting their eyes," Darion said to Seren. "You’re doing a good job."

She nodded, already setting another arrow. Her face was focuse and calm. She had found her rhythm.

They had killed two Yuimons now. All thanks to Ghet Ulg, Edric Vorne, the undead Yuimons, and his original wolf.

The undead Yuimons were really strong and helped in holding the normal Yuimons down while the undeads finished them. It was a coordinated effort, each part of the army playing its role, each creature contributing to the growing pile of dead Yuimons.

But the battle was still raging. The remaining Yuimons were fighting desperately, their massive bodies thrashing and roaring.

Darion’s original undead wolf was in the thick of it, its massive form darting between the creatures’ legs, snapping at their joints, drawing their attention.

But it was taking hits.

With the looks of things, it might be dead soon, and he couldn’t risk that. He summoned it back, green light flickering as the wolf vanished from the battlefield. Then he mounted it, directing it to climb up on a tree.

The wolf leaped, its powerful legs propelling it upward. It caught a low branch with its claws and pulled itself up, then leaped again, higher this time, landing on a thicker branch.

It moved from branch to branch, leaping and climbing, until they were high above the battlefield. From this vantage point, Darion could see everything. The Yuimons were surrounded, their formation breaking, their movements becoming desperate.

From up high on the tree, he could see the gaps in the Yuimon formation, the places where they were vulnerable. He ordered his Rops through his Distant Command ability to harass the flanks, keeping the creatures distracted.

The Rops moved in, low to the ground, their four eyes fixed on the targets, their wide mouths snapping at exposed joints.

The bats swirled above, diving down to strike at the Yuimons’ eyes and faces, creating chaos and confusion. He used his knights to apply pressure from the front, forcing the Yuimons to focus on the immediate threat while the wolves nipped at their heels.

The creatures were powerful, but they were surrounded. And surrounded meant trapped.

They killed four more undeads this way. One Yuimon fell as a swarm of bats descended on its face, blinding it while the knights moved in.

Another was brought down by the combined efforts of the Rops and wolves, its legs torn apart, its body crashing to the ground.

The undead Yuimons held the line, their massive bodies absorbing the attacks, their green eyes glowing with cold determination. The living Yuimons were losing ground, their numbers dwindling, their morale crumbling.

He had lost three more knights now, but thank goodness he wasn’t losing that much anymore. The tide was turning. The battle was shifting in his favor.

Now with six undeads killed total, he pulled fifty undead knights away from the front line. He left the undead Yuimons to hold the remaining

Yuimons together with the rest of the knights, and told the fifty to climb on trees. They moved quickly, their undead bodies climbing the rough bark with surprising agility. They positioned themselves on the branches, their weapons raised, their green eyes fixed on the creatures below.

Darion watched from his perch, his mind racing, his heart pounding. The fifty knights were in position. The Yuimons were surrounded. The end was near.

But how would fifty undeads climbing on trees help to change that? If anything, they should be on the ground, helping to finish off the fight.

That was the obvious move, throw everything at the Yuimons, overwhelm them with sheer numbers, and end it as quickly as possible.

But Darion had learned that the obvious move wasn’t always the smartest move. The Yuimons had adapted to the ground assault.

They had learned how to counter the knights, how to dodge the wolves, how to swat away the Rops. They were ready for another frontal attack. They were not ready for what was coming from above.

Well, the question would be: what would happen when fifty undeads, all armed, climb on tall trees, weapons in their hands all raised, and descend on five Yuimons?

Yuimons who were oblivious to the fact that many undead knights would drop on them from above. The creatures were focused on the ground battle, their attention fixed on the undead Yuimons and the remaining knights pressing them from the front. They had no idea that death was about to fall from the sky.

Darion grinned slightly now. This was the finish.

He looked at Seren, who stayed very much back, looking at the undeads and Darion at the trees now, surprised.

Her bow was still raised, but she had stopped firing. She was watching the fifty undead knights climb the trees, their movements quick and deliberate, and she was clearly trying to understand what Darion was planning.

She must be wondering why. Why would he send his knights up into the trees when the battle was on the ground? Why would he split his forces like this? It didn’t make sense on the surface. But Darion knew what he was doing.

Darion commanded all his undeads to fall on the Yuimons on the ground now, their weapons raised. The knights on the trees moved as one, their bodies dropping from the branches....