Azure Scepter

Page 12

"This is human territory, wouldn't praying to the radiance be more effective?" she wondered to herself.

"Click!" The sound of a weapon being drawn suddenly shattered the elf's dejected thoughts.

She turned her head and saw the paladin silently draw his weapon and then perform a sword flourish.

The dwarf blacksmith was startled; he even shuddered in surprise.

The paladin silently extended his right hand, and then milky white light began to slowly converge, layer upon layer of halos shining on his face, making him look like an angel from a myth.

“We don’t need to run away, we need to attack,” Trier said.

PS: There is one more chapter

Chapter 18 Stealth

"We're going to attack? Just the three of us?" The dwarf's voice was full of doubt. "You must have caught the madness from that crazy tailor! Torrag's Hammer, I hope you recover your mental health soon."

Trier remained unfazed, as if he couldn't understand the blacksmith's doubts. He calmly said, "As Fydia said, this is an alarm device. From a basic efficiency point of view, the troops coming to check must be the garrison of the fog wall-constrained sub-node."

“The number of cult members at each sub-node will not be large. When they come to investigate, we can attack their weak nodes. After that, whether we retreat or advance, we will have absolute initiative.”

"What node? What are you talking about?" The dwarf scratched his head, even though he was completely bald.

The paladin pointed to the fog wall and patiently explained, "I can confuse the fog wall because I know how it works—you can think of the nodes as polyphony in music theory."

The dwarf muttered in confusion, "But polyphony has nothing to do with space..."

“I'm willing to believe you.” The elf drew his weapon. “What do we do now?”

The paladin gazed to the west, pondered for a moment, and then said, "Let Hult and the others leave first, and then we'll wait here."

"Wait?" The dwarf stared wide-eyed in disbelief.

Time slowly passed, and after a few minutes, the blue flashes on the fog wall, which were almost like light pollution, seemed to tire and slowly stopped.

The streets on the west side were still shrouded in mist, so silent that one could only hear their own heartbeat.

Trier calmly inspected the weapons and equipment, and his confident composure infected the anxious dwarf, who went from being grumbling and restless to falling silent.

“This reminds me of the past,” the dwarf broke the silence. “That’s how war is, one wait after another. Waiting to eat, waiting to assemble, waiting for the next dawn, waiting for the enemy to attack—the truly brutal battles are actually a small fraction of the time.”

The paladin remained silent, counting his heartbeats to determine the time.

Accurate timing helps estimate the reaction speed of the Silent Church cult members.

"The 572nd heartbeat, almost 10 minutes have passed, the Silent Whisperers should be arriving soon," Trier thought.

Five more heartbeats passed, and suddenly Futia, who was on guard duty on the second floor of the shrine, said, "They're here!"

Although the experienced elf remained calm, her face was deathly pale.

Trier could imagine what she saw:

At the end of the street, several rotting hands first emerged, followed by a horde of zombies with exposed skeletons and skeletons still covered in rotting flesh, which surged forth like a tide, overwhelming the street and flooding in. The sighs of the dead mingled with the stench of rotting flies, and the ground trembled at their sheer numbers.

Since the Silent Whisperers have begun a large-scale resurrection of the undead, after a night of preparation, the number of undead in Beaver Town must have reached an alarming level. Based on Trier's past experience, the current number of undead should be between 700 and 800.

This number will continue to rise over time.

“Trier, the density of the undead… is a bit exaggerated.” The elf quietly jumped down, then hesitated, “What’s our next step? Should we change our plans?”

"Torrag, help!" The dwarf peered through the window and was immediately horrified. He trembled as if he had been electrocuted, cold sweat streaming down his bald head. He reached out shakily to touch his hair, only to find his bald scalp exposed.

“These undead have no dark vision,” the paladin calmly stated. “And a mediocre necromancer would actually have a hard time controlling such a large number of undead. Simply put, this undead army has a flawed intelligence system, much like giants with impaired sense of touch.”

“We just need to sneak along the shadows of the main street, and we can infiltrate behind the Sea of ​​the Dead.”

He walked to the window and looked out—the view outside was exactly as he had imagined.

"To my knowledge, the perception system of this makeshift undead army is mainly provided by the resurrected shadows. The shadows have strong perception abilities and also possess darkvision. However, based on the most basic logic, these shadows that can penetrate walls would be deployed inside houses in the neighborhood, not on the streets."

“This is insane!” the dwarf said, trembling.

The paladin turned his head and looked at Futia.

He saw his own reflection in the elf's eyes.

The elf blinked: "Okay, let's do it that way."

"Take me away with Torrag's hammer!" the dwarf lamented.

Trier pushed open the door and led the other two into the shadows on the west side of the street.

Quantitative change is enough to cause qualitative change.

Facing forty undead is a completely different experience from facing one hundred undead. Due to the constraints of "controlling the undead," their pace is extremely synchronized, and the deafening "clack-clack" of their footsteps can almost pound into people's hearts.

More than a hundred undead marched side by side along the three paths on the west side, with the ghostly blue soul fire flickering in the eye sockets of the skulls in the front row, chillingly terrifying.

Trusting his judgment, Trier remained calmly in the shadows, silently watching the ever-approaching Wall of the Dead.

Knock knock, knock knock...

In the deathly silence, only the footsteps of the dead and one's own heartbeat could be clearly heard. Behind them, Futia and the dwarf almost held their breath.

The paladin silently observed the foremost skeleton, which was still wearing old armor covered in mushrooms. Judging from the craftsmanship of the rivets at the shoulder joints, it appeared to be a conscripted militiaman who died during the reign of "Green Head" Mason.

"Help me..." the dwarf behind him groaned in a voice that was almost a whisper.

As an experienced spellcaster, Trier had naturally considered the possibility of unexpected situations—such as someone sneezing or someone having a mental breakdown due to stress.

However, due to the excessively high density of undead, even if some undead sense a living person, they cannot immediately rush to the flank where the living person is hiding. Instead, they will be pushed forward by the undead horde.

The spellcaster controlling the undead is completely unaware of the tiny ripples in the horde of corpses—this is what is known as "the darkest place is under the lamp."

The skeletons drew closer, and Trir could see the walkers in the back through the gaps in their bodies. Cloudy eyes, mangled bodies, maggots crawling in and out of the holes.

Behind him, Fythia's breathing quickened, and a warm breath brushed past Trier's ear. The paladin then realized that elves also possessed a fragrance, only that it had been masked by the smell of dust and blood yesterday.

The skeleton is right next to you!

"Crack, crack." A deafening footstep sounded beside him, and then the skeleton walked straight away into the distance.

The dense horde of corpses surged past like a tide, while the undead ignored the living people right next to them!

1,2,3 ...

The paladin calmly counted his heartbeats, scanning the gaps in the horde of corpses with a cool head—if nothing unexpected happened, the most dangerous moment was about to arrive.

Spellcasters, especially mages, are generally not fools.

A fundamental manifestation of intelligence is the ability to categorize and think about various situations, and this kind of thinking, hidden in the shadows under the lamplight, is obviously a very easy situation to come up with.

Therefore, controlling the undead to suddenly change direction and advance to the flanks, using the undead to fill all the gaps in the shadows, is a good way to prevent this situation.

This search method even has an academic name: "flail swerve," which means controlling a horde of undead to suddenly change direction, just like a warrior swinging a flail.

This sudden turn usually occurs when the horde of zombies has passed halfway through.

The paladin chose his hiding place in preparation for this situation—if the horde of corpses suddenly turned, he could jump into the drainage ditch next to him and proceed directly along the street.

—When Trier counted to 30, a sudden change occurred.

"Bang!" All the undead suddenly stopped moving, then turned their heads straight around, turning their bodies like puppets... They slowly walked towards the gap on the left.

The dead first looked at the other side of the street.

"A good opportunity," the paladin thought.

He turned around, patted the elf to signal him to follow, then quickly jumped into the ditch, no longer caring about the sound, and started running.

When the undead horde turned around again, the three had completely passed them.

The horde of zombies behind them moved further and further away.

“Unbelievable.” The dwarf breathed a sigh of relief.

Trier had expected the other party to mess up, but to his surprise, the other party proved to be very reliable.

The blacksmith raised an eyebrow, as if he could read the paladin's mind: "I used to be an adventurer too. If I hadn't met Martha, I wouldn't have retired so early."

"Watch out!" Fythia suddenly exclaimed, "Someone's there!"

Trier followed the elf's gaze and saw a cultist dressed in a priest's robe, with a white ribbon tied around his left arm and holding a holy symbol, staring at them in disbelief.

—The knight released the bowstring.

Chapter 19 Disguise

The arrow flew by silently, like a cold wind brushing past the treetops of a quiet forest.

The cold arrowhead pierced the cultist's throat in an instant.

"puff."

The cultist had just raised the holy emblem, his face still frozen in astonishment and terror, when suddenly crimson blood bloomed on his throat.

He helplessly clutched his neck, futilely trying to stop the bleeding, and then he fell silently backward.

The smell of blood filled the air.

Fythia's arrow was stealthy and deadly, a completely different style from an attack that directly blew the ghoul's head off.

The arrow struck with just the right force, even lodging precisely inside the opponent's body.

"Another priest from the Church of Radiant Light. Are they all cultists?" the dwarf muttered. "I think the Church of Radiant Light should be renamed the Silent Whisperers."

Trier swiftly stepped forward to deliver the finishing blow. The longsword brutally pierced the cultist's left chest, and the paladin twisted it violently.

The cultist who had gone into shock shuddered violently, then fell completely still.

[xp+300]

"I'm definitely going to die this time," he thought.

He grabbed the body and casually threw it back into the ditch he had come from.

"Don't throw it away!" Futia suddenly said. "I haven't retrieved the arrows yet. These arrows are specially made."

"..."

Trier had no choice but to retrieve the body.

"Wait, his size seems to be about the same as mine." Looking at the cultist's corpse, Trier suddenly had a plan.

He reached out and grabbed the dead man's collar.

A few minutes later.

"Splash." The deerskin boots stepped into a pool of blood-stained mud, splashing up a cloud of mud.

"Are you really going to do this?" Futia asked with suspicion.

Trier reached out and smoothed the wrinkles in the cuffs of his priest's robe. "Why not? There's no harm in it."

He looked down at the muddy water at his feet.

The muddy water reflected his current image like a murky mirror—a monk in a priest's robe, with a white ribbon tied around his left arm.

Although his priest's robes were covered in inappropriate filth and bloodstains, and looked particularly bulky because of the chainmail underneath, they were certainly sufficient for initial camouflage.

"If you ask me, we should just charge in and crush them all to death," the dwarf muttered.

As if to prove his point, the bard swung his enormous warhammer, which was disproportionate to his size.

“They have an unknown number of spellcasters,” the elf said. “Spellcasting may be difficult, but in the right place, at the right time, with the right spell, even an apprentice can turn the tide of battle.”

“The Fundamentals of Spell Combat, Third Edition, by Dumont, page 32.” The paladin thought, “I didn’t expect she had read this book.”

He took a deep breath, clearing his mind, and began a final check of the equipment.

—Not far away are the nodes that maintain the fog wall.

The massive and intricate magic array was operating non-stop, and the surrounding dense fog was constantly being constrained by the invisible form of magic, converging into new fog walls to replenish the natural losses.

It used to be a market in a town, but now it has been chosen by the Silent Whisperers as a ceremony site because it is a large, easily tidy open space.

As Trill predicted, the number of guards at the nodes was greatly reduced. Apart from those maintaining the ritual, only a handful of three people patrolled with a group of inferior undead transformed from the blood plague.

Judging from their attire, the patrol members were all former clergy of the Church of Radiant Light, with even the leader being merely a novice priest. This suggests that the patrol members' combat capabilities were quite average.

Trier was now dressed in cult attire—his plan was to infiltrate the vicinity of the ritual circle and launch a direct attack from the center. After his breakthrough, Fythia and the dwarves would then launch an attack from the outside, thus quickly dismantling the enemy's resistance.

This plan is very crude, and strictly speaking, its success rate is not high. But regardless of success or failure, the paladin can quickly approach the enemy, reducing the risk of being hit by ranged attacks.

With his newly acquired spellcasting abilities and expertise, he was very confident that he could hold out until Frythia and the dwarves arrived to provide support.

In short, this plan carries very low risk, while the expected return is absolutely positive.