Silage and the Blood Cult forces were completely surrounded. To the east were the zombies led by Prince, to the west were Erzebet’s Corpse Spiders, and to the north were Akemus’s Skullwings. To the south, at the front, were the mummies commanded by Simon himself.
No matter which way they looked, there was no escape. Silage’s expression hardened into a grim mask.
"Golos, Gila, Anvante," he commanded. "Split into three groups, lead the troops, and deal with the undead."
"Yes, sir!" the bishops affirmed.
The three bishops who received the order quickly dispersed.
"I will handle the legion commander myself," Silage declared, drawing up his Jet-Black and staring ahead as Simon and the mummies he led swarmed toward him.
"Zombies, huh," Golos, a bishop of the Blood Cult holding two crimson crosses, muttered as he headed east, the combat-ready followers and Blood Zombies trailing behind him.
[Hm?] Prince, who was running while clutching his crown, spotted him. [What? The Blood Cult uses crosses?]
"In the name of the goddess Deva, I shall punish the profane!" Golos roared.
He kicked off the ground and soared into the air, swinging a blood-soaked cross. Prince stopped in his tracks, crossing his arms in an X to block.
With a loud ’crash’, the ground where Prince stood caved in. Prince frowned.
[What is he talking about? Is Deva not the goddess the Efnel folks worship?]
"They are wrong!" A vein bulged on Golos’s forehead. "They are merely the establishment who twisted the goddess’s words to use as a means of control! We, the Blood Cult, are the true followers of the goddess Deva!"
[Give me a break!] Prince forcefully uncrossed his arms, sending Golos flying backward. [We have only exchanged a few words, and I can already tell how twisted your thinking is.]
"Don’t you dare judge me, you profane undead!" Golos raised his two red crosses again. "The Apostle’s resurrection is the goddess’s true will!"
[I know nothing about that.] Prince also raised his fists, his knuckles cracking sharply. [But I know very well that you are a hopelessly twisted villain!]
The two charged toward each other. Despite their opposing ideologies, the distance between them closed in an instant.
Soon, Prince and Golos were a blur of motion, the ’thud’ of fists against flesh and the sharp ’clang’ of bone against crimson crosses echoing across the sand. The brawl sent sandstorms erupting around them.
"Kugh!" Golos staggered back. ’To think he possesses physical strength that surpasses me, a bishop!’
[Haha!] Prince’s eyes flashed, as did the crown he wore. Golos tensed and lowered his stance, but then—pain erupted from behind as teeth sank into his flesh. Blood Zombies had latched onto his shoulders, neck, and thighs, and were tearing at him.
"What?!"
[How does it feel to be attacked by your own allies?] Prince’s fist flew straight toward Golos’s face. [Hidden Card Punch!]
The punch landed perfectly. His nose bridge was crushed with a sickening ’crunch’, and blood spurted from his nose and mouth. Golos flew backward at incredible speed, spinning several times in the air before slamming into the sand far away.
The Blood Zombies swarmed over him, tearing at his fallen body.
Meanwhile, a low groan rose from the battlefield as the other Blood Cult followers found themselves fighting their own allies, the Blood Zombies.
Prince fiddled with his crown as he watched the scene.
[Hmm, it is working better than usual?]
Of course, that was not the end of the offensive.
[Go!]
The wave of black zombies, the pride of the Deathland, swept past Prince and crashed down upon Golos’s unit.
Every time a dark blue thread sliced through the air, the heads of Blood Zombies went flying. Even when a few followers noticed and tried to block with their blades, the threads cut through the weapons themselves and continued onward.
"Kugh!"
Gila, the second Blood Cult bishop in charge of the western front, leaped into the air to avoid the threads, panting for breath. The piercing on her tongue glinted.
[What are you doing, human?] Erzebet sneered. [Are you going to keep letting your subordinates die like that?]
"Kuh!"
Gila was preoccupied with Erzebet, and in the meantime, the Corpse Spiders descended upon the followers. When Erzebet raised her right arm, palm facing the sky, spiderwebs shot out into the air like clotheslines. The Corpse Spiders launched their own webs to connect to them, then swung through the air like pendulums to sink their venomous fangs into the followers’ necks.
With each sickening puncture, the followers collapsed.
"You monsters!" Gila screamed, activating a magic circle. Blood gushed from the piercings all over her body, including her tongue, drenching the ground. "Come forth!"
She dropped eight Golem Cores from her subspace onto the ground.
The blood on the ground ’gurgled’ as it gathered around the Golem Cores, swelling like grotesque balloons.
[Oh?]
"This is my true power." Eight Blood Golems were rising around Gila. "Connected to eight Blood Golems, I am invincible. I regenerate from any damage."
Just then, a Blood Golem grabbed an allied follower and absorbed its blood. The wound on Gila’s shoulder from Erzebet’s earlier attack healed rapidly.
"No one can break through my defense...!"
In a heartbeat, dark blue flashes flickered around the Blood Golems like lightning. A web of impossibly thin lines appeared, etched across their crimson bodies.
[How pathetic.] As Erzebet flung her arms out, all the golems collapsed at once with a deafening ’crack’.
"...Ah!"
Erzebet twisted her lips into a sneer.
[How strange. The Blood Golems my master learned about in Kizen were not this weak. Are these not merely numerous toys?]
Now, countless thin lines began to appear on Gila’s body with a faint ticking sound.
[And a characteristic of Blood Golems,] Erzebet said, smiling wickedly, [is that they share damage with the caster. Correct?]
"N-No!" Gila clutched her head as she saw the countless scratches appearing all over her body. "No...!"
With a violent eruption, crimson blood exploded outward, and Gila, now a pile of mangled flesh, moved no more.
Erzebet flicked her hands as if shaking off something filthy.
"Not even worth dirtying my hands. My babies," she cooed to her spiders. "Leave none of them alive and annihilate my master’s enemies!"
The swarm of Corpse Spiders descended upon the Blood Cult followers like hawks on their prey, their chittering filling the air.
The northern desert was filled with the cries of monstrous birds.
The 7th Legion’s new undead, the Skullwing, was based on the harpy—a half-human, half-bird creature. Its face and upper body were a human skull and skeleton, while its lower body was composed of the thin, slender bones of a bird.
As undead, the Jet-Black from a Skullwing’s core was directed almost entirely to its wings. Though its body was a skeleton, it had a peculiar appearance, with feathers made of Jet-Black sparsely attached. With these, it glided at high speeds through the air before snatching its terrestrial prey with its two legs.
"Ugh, ahhhhhh!" a cultist shrieked.
The Skullwings either dropped their prey from high altitudes or tore at their necks with their teeth.
"Watch out for the falling feathers!"
"Such troublesome undead!"
As the Skullwings flew, their feathers naturally fell off, each one carrying a curse extremely harmful to living beings: plague, burns, pain. Various curses were randomly imbued within them. The moment one was captured by a Skullwing and enveloped in its feathers, they died writhing in extreme agony.
"They keep coming from the air!"
"Fire the blood arrows!"
The Blood Zombies, lacking any anti-air capabilities, were of little help. They stood there stupidly, only to be snatched up by the Skullwings. Most of the Blood Cult followers were mentally broken from the side effects of the Blood Core and drug abuse, so there was no way they could mount a proper defense.
At the highest point in the sky, the Ancient Undead, Akemus, looked down upon the enemy, his arms crossed. He majestically flapped his dark blue feathered wings, forged from Simon’s Jet-Black.
[I have made a nest, but it is a shame their numbers are still small.]
Akemus, who had only recently begun mass-producing undead, had inevitably smaller forces than Prince or Erzebet. He was operating each Skullwing with care, as if they were elite soldiers.
However.
[To think ten of them have already been taken down.]
The man with a ponytail holding tonfas in both hands, the Blood Cult bishop Anvante, was strong. He had single-handedly taken down more than a dozen Skullwings. The ones hit by his bullets were now tumbling on the ground below.
"When are you coming down, Captain Undead?" the man taunted, aiming his tonfas at the sky.
Akemus shot upward with a cold expression.
Then, like a black comet, he descended to the ground in a matter of seconds and crashed into Anvante with a piercing ’shriek’.
An explosion erupted, sending sand shooting into the air like a fountain. After the sand settled, Akemus’s foot and Anvante’s tonfa could be seen locked in a tense struggle.
"I’m different from Golos or Gila," Anvante said, aiming his other tonfa at Akemus.
A staccato of shots rang out as bullets poured from the holes in the tonfa, each one a Blood Bullet constructed from blood. Akemus retreated, covering himself with his wings.
[Hmph.] His expression twisted. The feathers of his wings, which boasted a hardness greater than steel, were now missing in places.
"I don’t care about the Blood Cult or whatever. I’m a former mercenary from the Neutral Zone. I was just scouted because I’m fucking strong," Anvante said with a shrug. "You look strong too, so let’s just fight moderately and blend in."
[...Moderately?]
A vast amount of Jet-Black began to flow from Akemus’s body, rumbling with power.
[There is no ’moderately’! I have sworn to burn my body, my will, and my very soul for the young master. And!] The corners of Akemus’s mouth, which usually held a firm and calm expression, stretched open like a monster’s.
[How dare you damage the wings the young master gave me!]
A wide-area sound curse spread out with a piercing ’shriek’. Followers collapsed, bleeding from their ears, and the Blood Zombies toppled backward.
[I will kill you, human!]
"Oh, whoa..." Anvante made a face that said he had picked the wrong fight.
Akemus charged at him, trailing a cloak of black Jet-Black behind him.
"Charge," Simon commanded.
The ground rumbled as he led an army of thousands of mummies and struck Silage’s main camp directly. The momentum of the Ancient Undead summoned by Herseva was tremendous. He would have the advantage if he could just stall for time, but unfortunately, Herseva did not have that luxury.
The legionization had only bought a little more time before the barrier broke. Herseva’s power would soon be depleted, and the moment the barrier collapsed, all his advantages would disappear. Unlike the Blood Cultists who had come through a portal, the Ancient Undead had been temporarily summoned by Herseva’s ability. When Herseva’s space disappeared, the other undead would also scatter.
So Simon decided to strike Silage directly.
A chorus of guttural ’shrieks’ rose from the mummies.
The magic circle drawn on Simon’s hip flashed. A turquoise gleam shot up and settled into the bodies of the surrounding mummies. The color of their bandages changed to turquoise, and a light flashed in their pupils.
’<Simon Original – Mummy Royal Guard>’
He succeeded in turning ten mummies into his Royal Guard. These mummies, now Simon’s direct subordinates, stuck close to his side.
"Break through!" Simon shouted.
"Block him," Silage ordered, sending his fanatics and Blood Zombies charging forward.
The two forces soon collided, forming a massive, chaotic battle. Zombies and mummies tore at each other, and the followers rained down blood-flow magic.
"Get the necromancer first!" the Blood Cult followers yelled, targeting Simon from the air.
However, with a sharp ’whistle’, bandages glowing with an emerald light flew out, slicing them down or sending them flying. The mummies who had earned the name ’Royal Guard’ and were tasked with protecting the legion commander were exceptionally strong.
In the meantime, the regular mummies reached Silage, their shrieks filling the air. He still seemed to be suffering from the pain in his heart, clutching his left chest with a grimace.
"Tsk." He extended his arm, and countless blood droplets flew out, causing a chain of blood explosions at the front. Despite it being a technique that consumed blood, he had been using it recklessly from the start.
The explosions tore through the mummies, leaving them in shreds and covered in blood. They fell to the ground, and more mummies pushed forward, trampling over their corpses.
"Annoying things."
Just as Silage was about to cast another major spell, bandages shot up from the ground with a sharp ’whistle’, slicing clean through his leg.
His leg fell to the sandy ground with a ’thud’. A Royal Guard mummy, having emerged from the ground, emitted a sinister glow from its eyes.
"How does it feel to be beaten by a technique you taught?" As the blood explosions cleared, Simon approached, holding the Sword of Ruin.
Silage smiled brutally.
"Indeed, it seems I taught a monster."
His empty right leg was quickly filled with blood, forming a temporary limb. Simon leaped high and swung the greatsword down. Silage also created a blood sword in his hand and swung it up to meet the blow.
With a deafening ’clang’, the two men’s swords clashed in mid-air, creating a massive shockwave. Their eyes met between their blades, glinting with murderous intent.

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