At the border of the northern realm of Chen Xu's territory, a crude city wall stretched for thousands of kilometers.
The wall was densely packed with skeleton archers and skeleton mages.
Outside the wall, skeleton soldiers and an army of necrotic knights stood in formation.
Nine Black Knights stood at the very front of the army, holding their knight swords as they looked toward the army of another candidate for the Lord of the Undead, waiting in solemn anticipation.
Chen Xu himself arrived at the front, riding Sindragosa.
Big Boss hitched a ride on Gandalf's magic-guided aircraft—a very retro flying broom.
When he had first seen this flying broom, Chen Xu was quite perplexed; he couldn't understand why a powerful mage civilization like Eternal Heart would still use such an outdated magical tool.
However, Gandalf had provided his own reasoning.
"This is no ordinary magical item. This is a flying broom once used by a great legendary mage of our civilization. It is an antique; its commemorative and cultural value is immeasurable!"
Well, it seemed the mage civilization also enjoyed collecting antiques; Gandalf appeared to be a veteran enthusiast.
Standing atop Sindragosa's head, Chen Xu felt the aura emanating from the candidate for the Lord of the Undead in the distance.
He then released his own control, letting out his massive aura.
The two auras collided in the sky above the Land of the Undead, producing a sharp sizzling sound.
Judging solely by the clash of momentum, the two sides were evenly matched.
However, in terms of troop composition, Chen Xu held a significant advantage.
The army of the opposing candidate for the Lord of the Undead actually used ghouls as its primary unit.
A vast, surging wave of thin, ferocious-looking ghouls stretched as far as the eye could see, looking like they hadn't had a full meal in a year.
This type of ghoul was extremely aggressive; if they encountered a lone bone dragon, they would even dare to take a bite out of it.
But these ghouls were merely ordinary native creatures of the Land of the Undead, unlike Chen Xu's skeleton soldiers who had been enhanced by his talent, making the strength of each one far exceed the limits of their race.
What delighted Chen Xu the most was that while he usually relied on numerical superiority to crush his enemies, he had finally met an opponent with roughly equal numbers.
Behind the vanguard of ghouls was a massive swarm of gargoyles.
The gargoyles even carried strange apparatuses on their backs; Chen Xu couldn't tell what they were, but he estimated they were likely long-range weapons similar to crossbows.
Then, more than a dozen Black Knights appeared in Chen Xu's vision.
A massive chain was wrapped around their waists, the other end of which was connected to a giant, luxurious carriage.
Judging by its style, it should have been the exclusive carriage of some king, though he didn't know how this candidate for the Lord of the Undead had acquired it.
Furthermore, the carriage had no wheels; it relied purely on the brute force of the Black Knights to pull it, leaving deep gouges in the ground and making a tremendous noise with every tug.
Suddenly, the Black Knights stopped pulling. Two of them unhooked their chains, bowed, and approached the carriage to slowly open the door.
A massive bone leg stretched out from the carriage, followed by the rest of its body as it slowly emerged—it was a skeleton giant over five meters tall.
But this giant was only large compared to the Black Knights and ghouls beside it; if placed on Chen Xu's side, it couldn't even compare to an ordinary skeleton soldier.
After the skeleton giant emerged, it slowly bent down with its head lowered, revealing a soft cushion on its back. Sitting on the cushion was a special ghoul, even smaller than an ordinary ghoul.
Its body looked incredibly frail, as if a strong gust of wind could snap it. However, a light of wisdom flickered in its eyes, which was incredible for a species known for its madness.
Its lips moved slightly, producing a loud voice: "I am Old Insight, a contemporary candidate for the Lord of the Undead!"
'Old Insight? With a name like that, surely he has some connection to Old Cyclops.'
Chen Xu muttered a sarcastic comment upon hearing the name.
However, Old Insight did not hear Chen Xu's quiet remark; it assumed this new junior was too arrogant and looked down on it.
After all, Old Insight's unique physique had indeed drawn many mocks in the past. Although most of those who mocked it had been fed to its ghoul army, it still couldn't mend its sensitive heart.
Thus, a red light flashed in Old Insight's eyes, and in an instant, a strange ripple swept through all the ghouls in front of it.
The ghouls, which had been advancing slowly and suppressing their madness, instantly became enraged.
Their originally earthy-yellow eyes turned crimson as they charged toward Chen Xu's skeleton army with incredible speed.
On the other side, the skeleton soldiers completed their Huangquan Formation, with energy flowing continuously from every soldier into Bone Guard One.
But Chen Xu did not intend to reveal the full power of the array from the start. Besides the phantom of the spider lily, the Huangquan Formation itself provided a significant boost to the soldiers within the array.
He intended to let the skeleton soldiers clash with Old Insight's ghouls first to see what they were made of.
Upon receiving Chen Xu's order, Bone Guard One drew his bone blade and pointed it toward the north.
In the next moment, the sea of skeletons began to surge northward as a terrifying tide of destruction began to flow.
The necrotic knights served as the first wave, charging at the very front, while the four horsemen of the apocalypse were interspersed among the skeleton soldiers in the second position.
The distance between the two armies closed rapidly. In terms of speed, the frenzied ghouls were slightly faster than the skeleton soldiers but slightly slower than the necrotic knights in mid-charge.
Just as the two armies were about to collide, another red light flashed in Old Insight's eyes.
The thin ghouls suddenly swelled, their muscles bulging and their frames becoming brawny, while even the nails on their fingers grew long.
With their power unleashed, the ghouls lunged at the necrotic knights.
Two powerful forces collided head-on.
Loud crashing sounds echoed one after another.
As a high-tier unit with Chen Xu's regional bonus, the necrotic knights won the initial impact.
The lunging ghouls were all shattered into pieces of flesh.
However, the momentum of the necrotic knights' charge was also exhausted in the collision, and even more ghouls lunged forward from behind.
They greedily stuffed the flesh of their fallen comrades into their mouths from the air and the ground as they launched their attack on the necrotic knights.
In the second round of attacks, the necrotic knights were suppressed by the ghouls; the lunges of multiple ghouls pinned the necrotic knights firmly to the ground, leaving them unable to move.
At that moment, the charge of the skeleton soldiers arrived. This was the long-awaited Vanguard's Courage. Now that Bone Guard One had become a general, this vanguard will no longer required him to lead from the front to take effect.
As long as he willed it, he could bestow this miraculous power upon the skeleton soldiers.
Piercing frost invaded the ghouls' bodies before the skeleton soldiers even arrived, and Ultimate Cold Power filled the field as the skeletons closed in.
Fine snowflakes drifted through the air—this was also an effect of the Huangquan Formation, changing the environment!
The skeleton soldiers raised their long blades and flicked them upward, tossing the ghouls off the necrotic knights. Then, they reached out with their large hands and roughly grabbed the bone nightmares by their heads to pull them up from the ground.
The bone nightmares neighed loudly and snorted at the skeleton soldiers in protest.
However, the skeleton soldiers ignored them, slinging their bone blades behind their backs and holding their shields with both hands as they charged forward.
Ultimate Cold Power radiated from the skeleton soldiers, forming bridges that connected the bone shields in their hands.
Terrifying ice spikes grew on the bone shields, and the spreading ice linked the individual shields into a Wall of Sighs.
The ice spikes instantly pierced through the ghouls' bodies. Before the skeleton soldiers behind could even finish them off, the ghouls hanging on the shields were torn apart by other ghouls behind them, instantly turning into fragments.
In this manner, the skeleton soldiers advanced slowly while the ghouls continuously repeated the steps of lunging, being pierced by ice spikes, and then being devoured by their companions.
Everything seemed so smooth, as if the balance of the war was tilting infinitely toward Chen Xu's side.
After a long time, only a dozen or so of the originally dense ghoul army remained.
At that moment, the ghouls, which had been incredibly frenzied and knew only to charge, abnormally stopped their advance.
The bellies of those dozen ghouls were abnormally swollen with veins bulging, as if they would explode at any second.
Then, they truly did explode.
Blood sprayed everywhere as more than ten giant flesh balls flew out from the ghouls' bellies.
A faint mythic aura emanated from those flesh balls.
Rate on N.U.
