A Three-Way Standoff

“Boom! Boom! Boom!”

The earth shook incessantly as hundreds of millions of skeletons in the undead army charged together, creating a magnificent and imposing momentum.

High in the sky, swarms of bone dragons blotted out the sun. Intense Frost Breath descended from above, and the power of extreme cold spread and diffused across the battlefield.

At the same time, small Stygian Dolls leapt from the backs of the bone dragons, falling directly into the enemy's undead ranks.

“Crack!”

The impact of falling from such a height instantly claimed the lives of the Stygian Dolls.

Cracks spider-webbed across the small bodies of the Stygian Dolls. In the next moment, terrifying explosions rang out. A massive amount of highly penetrative bone shards scattered in every direction, instantly clearing a large swathe of enemy troops.

With the bone dragons' breath washing the ground and the Stygian Dolls clearing the field, the situation on the entire battlefield became an immediate rout. Bolstered by their military formations, the skeleton soldiers charged straight into the enemy territory.

Suddenly, several mythic-tier auras emerged from the enemy's lands. A few Black Knights teleported onto the battlefield, attempting to use the gap in their realms to halt the army's advance.

Standing their ground, the Black Knights swung their knightly swords horizontally. Arcane sword lights flew out in arcs, soaring toward Chen Xu’s undead legion.

The sharp sword lights moved with extreme speed, striking the charging skeleton soldiers almost instantly.

The massive force caused ranks of skeleton soldiers to stumble, but a mysterious power flowed over their bones.

The strikes only halted the skeletons' pace; they failed to cause any substantial damage.

The mysterious power flowing over the bones was incredibly resilient, seemingly impossible to erode. In the blink of an eye, the sword lights were exhausted and vanished from the battlefield.

The skeleton soldiers quickly adjusted their posture and resumed their charge.

Seeing this, the Black Knights did not follow up with further attacks. They merely murmured in low voices.

“The Undead March... our lord is finished.”

As the personal attendants of a Lord of the Undead candidate, the Black Knights naturally knew that the energy covering the skeletons was a skill exclusive to a necrotic archduke—the 【Undead March】, which allowed undead creatures to be fearless of death.

Unless an eternal-tier existence intervened and used Dao rhymes of the same level to wear down this power of immortality, this army was invincible.

The skeleton military formation launched a fierce assault. The enemy's fragile undead creatures could not block them for even a second, and they were soon about to reach the Black Knights.

The Black Knights remained where they were, their knightly swords lowered to the ground, as if they didn't even see the charging skeleton soldiers.

Just as the two sides were about to clash, Kunpeng’s silhouette suddenly appeared.

A flash of gold swept across the battlefield. Geng Gold qi flowed over its beak. In what seemed like a single breath, it pecked several times. Before they could react, those few Black Knights had been snatched away by Kunpeng.

After finishing its meal, Kunpeng wore a satisfied expression. Even the casual burp it let out was thick with divine power.

With a spread of its wings, it turned back into a streak of light and flew toward the next battlefield, picking out its next favorite snacks.

As before, Chen Xu still chose to fight on multiple fronts. Since his strength had expanded to the eternal-tier and his troop numbers had surged, Chen Xu directly split his forces into six teams.

Thirteen Black Knights were divided into combinations of three, three, three, and four, each leading a team.

Next, Bone Guard One led the skeleton heroes to command another team.

Specialized units like Zhenyuan, Flideng, and Patchwerk commanded the final team. The members of this team were all creatures with outstanding individual strength.

Among them, Zhenyuan, a single tree, was worth ten thousand soldiers. Patchwerk, with his body covered in strange limbs, possessed versatile combat abilities and excelled in chaotic battles.

As for Flideng, he lurked within the battlefield, acting as a hidden lurker, ready to provide support or launch sneak attacks on enemy targets at any moment.

Sindragosa commanded the bone dragons, providing aerial support to the various teams. This fellow Kunpeng, after gaining its Roc form, possessed a speed that was even more absurd than Guixu's spatial teleportation.

Chen Xu simply let it join Guixu's team, putting it in charge of rapid support across the entire battlefield.

Taking advantage of its extreme speed and its heaven-defying ability to devour and digest, Kunpeng roamed between the various battlefields. Any hostile mythic-tier units were its prey.

Most of the mythic-tier units on the battlefield were Black Knights under the command of other Lord of the Undead candidates, with only a few being wild mythic creatures. Those Black Knights lost their will to fight after seeing the 【Undead March】 state on Chen Xu's undead legion.

After sending the news back to their respective candidates, they stayed in place to await the end of their lives.

Consequently, Kunpeng got a huge bargain, eating dozens of Black Knights without much effort.

Before the star core in its stomach had even been fully digested, it had added a large amount of high-energy food. Kunpeng was the most delighted of all during this Northern Expedition.

Chen Xu’s goal was to quickly seize the territories of his competitors and merge their authority fragments.

Therefore, he didn't waste energy pursuing those competitors who knew when to yield, even though he could easily lock onto and kill them with his eternal-tier mental strength.

Chen Xu needed these deserters to spread the word of his power.

The news of the first eternal-tier Lord of the Undead candidate would be enough to strike terror into all competitors in the Southern Realm of the Land of the Undead.

If these competitors all took the initiative to abandon their territories and let Chen Xu occupy them, then he could complete the competition at the fastest possible speed, ascend the Supreme Throne, and achieve the status of the Lord of the Undead.

Unfortunately, things did not go exactly as Chen Xu hoped.

Just as the undead army was rapidly advancing north and Chen Xu was leisurely merging authority fragments in the rear, two eternal-tier auras rose one after another.

One was in the northeast, and the other was in the northwest.

Coming along with the eternal-tier auras was the very familiar scent of the Lord of the Undead's authority.

This meant that the two newly ascended necrotic archdukes of the Land of the Undead were both Chen Xu's competitors—the kind where only one could survive.

The moment the eternal auras appeared, Chen Xu used a single thought to control his army of billions. The charging skeletons stopped instantly as if time had frozen.

Subsequently, the Black Knights and skeleton heroes on the battlefield simultaneously turned toward the south and slightly bowed their heads, listening for Chen Xu's latest instructions.

“Halt the northern advance. Set up camp where you are. We will wait to see what those two do first.”

“By your will!”

The army moved instantly. They transformed from a conquering force into a construction crew.

Walls rose one after another, and bone dragons breathed Frost Breath from the sky to reinforce the city walls.

While merging the authority fragments, Chen Xu pondered his strategy for dealing with the enemies.

“Two of them, plus me... that makes three. Troublesome.”

As everyone knows, a triangle is the most stable shape, and a three-way standoff is also the most troublesome kind.

No matter which side launched an attack, they had to be careful of the other side taking advantage of the situation to launch a sneak attack.

As a reincarnated man with a cheat, Chen Xu’s natural plan in such a three-way standoff was to take on both sides. But before that, he still needed to gather some intelligence on his opponents.

Cheat or no cheat, Chen Xu was a cautious person. He didn't necessarily need to know his enemies as well as himself, but he at least had to figure out their overall strength.

At the same time, this would allow him to spend time converting the new power gained from merging the authority fragments, elevating the undead army to another level.

After a long time, Chen Xu finally finished merging the authority fragments. Just as he was about to take stock of his gains, a figure suddenly appeared beside him.

Sensing the familiar aura, Chen Xu greeted her.

“Lady Medusa, it’s been a long time.”

“Lord Chen Xu, congratulations on your promotion to the eternal-tier.”

Chen Xu nodded and looked at Medusa with a slightly puzzled gaze.

He felt that a veteran necrotic archduke like her wouldn't travel all this way just to congratulate him.

Medusa didn't keep Chen Xu waiting and directly stated her purpose.

“Lord Alix wishes to see you.”