Chapter 208: Undead Army
Lake hadn't led them even half way back to base when Grandy called out again. His voice was much more panicked this time though so Lake didn't even wait to see whatever was pressuring them from behind and just pulled his sword and ran back to kill whatever it was. He was extremely fast even holding back so he easily beat the gargoyle in the rush attack and sliced it in half.
Lake gave Grandy a thumbs up and said. "Keep it up." They were moving through the area he had cleared during the last few hours so he didn't expect many more of these attacks as they were retreating but he still needed Grandy to help him make sure no one died from a sneak attack.
...
Lake ended up being right about them not really running into anything else while they returned. As he had been walking back through the area that they had spent the day clearing it seemed a lot bigger than he remembered, it looked like he might have cleared out more than a third of the area that the gargoyles were hiding in.
He guessed it was because he hadn't really been paying attention to what he was doing since it was so repetitive. This was good news for them since it should cut down on the size of whatever hoard built up by tomorrow. "Alright we're done for the day, feel free to sleep."
As he was saying this he wondered if it was safe for him to sleep as well. He was a little worried about sleeping in an environment for obvious reasons but eventually he would have no choice. He did have ways to make it safer for him though and the main one was by doing something he should have done earlier.
Using Detector Lake set it to look for traitors. A few people lit up but that didn't mean they would betray him. The skill could just be highlighting them since they had betrayed someone in the past so he switched Detector to look for backstabbers. This time even more people were highlighted and Lake understood stabbing people in the back was part of their job in the Fighters guild.
Thinking about it for a second Lake decided to try 'people that are a significant danger to his life' when no one was highlighted by this he figured it would probably be fine for him to sleep once he got tired and if it wasn't he guessed he would see what Endurance that was over 100 actually did.
He could see someone who had low stats being unable to cut his throat on the first try giving him time to wake up and fight back. For now though he was just going to stay outside on the roof and tell the others he was going to be watching the situation. They needed a lookout and since he could see in the dark he was going to do it himself.
Telling Grandy. "I'm going to be outside on the roof making sure we don't get surrounded. Smack the ceiling if you need me." He didn't want Grandy going outside and yelling if he needed him for something so he made this up on the spot as a less noticeable way to get his attention.
After he said this Grandy nodded so Lake walked outside and jumped onto the roof. Once he was up there he found there wasn't really a good place for him to sit and still be able to see onto the streets below so he got back down, went back inside, emptied a box and carried it onto the roof to use as a seat.
Lake knew he could have just used Mana Vision to look through any obstacles but he felt he would have a hard time doing this job without losing focus if he was just staring at a wall for hours even if there was a chance that there would be lights that represented mana.
...
Donny felt a hand wrap around his ankle and was about to use his sword to free himself from whatever had grabbed him when he saw he actually knew the person and it wasn't an enemy that he needed to attack. It was one of the two people he had survived the blast earlier with.
It seemed they had been hit with an unholy spell and in their last few seconds of life reached out and grabbed his leg. He didn't have time for a dead person though so he just kicked his leg until the hand let go while blocking the constant attacks by the undead surrounding him and all the other people fighting to save the Metal Domain.
Cutting another undead down Donny dodged the retaliation spell from the Demon Worshiper that had been using the undead as a shield. With the Demon worshiper's spell missing, Donny was finally able to go in for an attack after all this time of them dancing around each other. Sadly Donnys attack wasn't particularly effective since he wasn't skilled with a sword causing him to not wound the Demon Worshiper deeply enough to take them out of the fight.
This was why Donny preferred to use a spear over swords. He felt like the kind of wounds a spear inflicted were more lethal even if they were smaller and easier to heal. That being said you could stab with a sword if it had a good point on it. Retreating back into the crowd so the Demon Worshiper's next attack wouldn't be able to hit him very well, Donny saw a red flash of light that made him think a powerful mage had finally arrived to help clear out the massive amount of undead that were here.
Or at least he hoped whoever was using massive fire spells was on their side; sadly he didn't really have the leeway to look behind him being in a duel. That being said as he was dodging around he would face that direction eventually. Having dodged another spell Donny took down another undead in the time it took the Demon Worshiper to gather enough mana for another spell.
Donny knew this was a dangerous game to play since mages could always use their own mana to cast a spell without the buildup but he was willing to bet the Demon Worshiper had already used most of their own mana before he even joined the battle. This meant he could go back and forth with this Demon Worshipper for a while before they had regained enough mana to start firing a barrage of spells towards him.
Taking down another undead Donny saw that the Mage had held off on firing this time when they clearly had enough mana to cast the same spell they had been using until now and half a second later he saw why. Someone else had tried to attack the Demon Worshiper while they had been focused on him but sadly all their dagger had struck was a wall of Unholy mana.
With his view now obstructed by the wall the Demon Worshiper had made, Donny went ahead and cut down another undead that had been facing away from him because it was attacking a different person. The man he had helped by doing this gave him a small nod before they both moved on to new targets.
Donny still wanted to kill the Demon Worshiper but it was too dangerous to wait for an enemy that had time to build up behind a strong defense. His best bet to winning the fight between them was to come back after they had launched whatever attack they would most likely fire as soon as their wall fell.
It seemed everyone else who had been fighting near him saw that it was best to move away as well and soon a large empty space around the Demon Worshiper that had incased himself had formed leaving only undead near them. Seeing this Donny could tell the Demon Worshiper would probably choose to switch their attack to one that would buff the undead near them.
That meant instead of a spell to dodge he would have twenty or so empowered undead to worry about. That was fine though, he wasn't scared of the undead's crazed flailing even if it got faster for a while; he would just have to be 100% focused on defense until it was over. Skilled opponents like the Demon Worshipers would be the only ones that could hurt him.
Seeing the Demon Worshiper's wall start to shimmer before returning to mana Donny saw a rust colored wave move out from the Demon Worshiper before wrapping all of the undead it passed in a layer of mana. If Donny wasn't mistaken this mana layer would act similar to a barrier making the Undead immune to any attacks that couldn't break through.
Donny didn't know what this spell was but he found the way the mana barriers were able to flex with the undead's body very interesting. He wondered if this was a new spell the Demon Lord had just made for users of Unholy mana or if he had just never seen it before.
Blocking the first attack from one of the undead now covered in Unholy Mana Donny saw it wasn't just some shield but instead also was able to damage the blade on his sword quite heavily. Seeing this he got quite worried because without Metal mana none of them would be able to repair their weapons with magic. This would leave them nothing to defend themselves with if they weren't able to dodge instead of block all the incoming attacks.
Donny was able to dodge the next few without making contact with the undead in any way but after a while the Demon Worshiper threw a spell in his direction and he was forced to move into an attack from one of the undead in order to dodge the much more dangerous spell. This was most likely what the Demon Worshiper had wanted so Donny could expect more just like the last.
Looking around briefly Donny found another weapon of a fallen soldier close to him that he could go after if this one was to give out and stopped worrying about this new strategy the Demon Worshiper had adopted.
In a fight like this it wasn't really people at his level that would swing the battle much so all he really needed to do was survive until a big shot showed up. This was their territory so they had a much greater advantage in numbers no matter what level of fighter you were talking about even if you couldn't draw that conclusion by looking at the numbers each side had on the streets right now.
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