This Lich Requests More Remuneration

Chapter 46: Chapter 46 I Want to Try Too Chapter 46: Chapter 46 I Want to Try Too Above the wilderness, a silver-white squadron was galloping furiously.

Whether it was the armor on their bodies or the mounts they straddled, all shimmered with specks of holy light.

This was the Conviction Knight Order of the Laine Empire, a special force composed of High-order Holy Warriors, even their mounts were Celestial Warhorses summoned through Divine Arts.

They had all forsaken their original names, referring to each other only by code names.

The Paladin leading the team was named Masstar, and he had been leading the Conviction Knights on a mad dash for three days and nights, just to reach Alchemy City with the greatest speed.

It was the first time since the establishment of the Conviction Knight Order that they had the opportunity to confront a Legendary Rank Undead, and every one of them was so excited they could hardly sleep, wishing they could fly directly to Alchemy City to cleanse all evil in the name of Holy Light.

But there was a vast distance between the two countries, and the Laine Empire wasn’t on good terms with other nations, so a powerful military force like the Conviction Knights couldn’t possibly teleport directly into another country’s territory.

Masstar had no choice but to lead his teammates on a roundabout path, and now they just needed to cross the canyon before them to reach the open road. However, according to the intelligence, a large Gnoll tribe had occupied this canyon.

Gnolls were cursed twisted creatures, naturally evil and brutal beings who had claimed the canyon and slaughtered countless passing humans. Masstar had already prepared to eradicate this Gnoll tribe, as a warm-up before facing the Legendary Undead.

Although there were thousands of Gnolls, and although they had been rushing for days and nights, Masstar believed that just the ten of them were enough to wipe out all these Gnolls.

But just as they reached the outskirts of the canyon, a teammate spoke up, “Masstar, something doesn’t seem right up ahead.”

Masstar looked around with a puzzled expression and indeed noticed something amiss.

The canyon before them was covered with a layer of faint mist.

“Cloud of Death that hasn’t completely dissipated?”

As the archenemy of the Undead, Masstar was very familiar with common Necromancy spells, and the Cloud of Death was a large-area offensive Undead spell. The caster could create a cloud laced with potent poison to cover a designated area.

The Cloud of Death had another name — City-slaughtering Spell.

If several Necromancers worked together, they could create a Cloud of Death that covered an entire city, causing massive casualties in a short period.

But Gnolls had no talent for becoming Necromancers, so they naturally wouldn’t release a Cloud of Death inside their own home. This meant that a Necromancer had been to this canyon, and a battle had occurred.

“Set up poison defenses, we’re going in to have a look.”

At Masstar’s command, a magical glow lit up on everyone in the team, with pale green magical patterns forming into shields, allowing the Holy Warriors to ignore most poison effects.

They then rode their Celestial Warhorses into the canyon.

The largely dissipated toxic fog could no longer do any harm, but as they charged into the crude encampment in the canyon, everyone instinctively held their breath.

The canyon floor was covered with a dense mass of Gnoll corpses, their deaths extremely gruesome.

Masstar dismounted, inspecting the Gnoll bodies cautiously.

He soon discovered that these Gnolls had not only been poisoned to death but many had been impaled by weapons, had their heads violently ripped off, or were missing large parts of their bodies as if devoured by Ghouls… From these details, a conclusion could be drawn that it wasn’t a single Necromancer who slaughtered the Gnolls but a large Undead Army.

“Skeletons, Zombies, Ghouls, Death Knights, Abominations… traces of many High-order Undead,” Masstar worried for the traces he discovered.

The Gnolls hadn’t been caught unprepared and ambushed; it was a head-on clash between two armies, with nearly a thousand Gnolls wiped out without any chance of retaliation.

“Let’s keep looking inside; even if this Undead Army is powerful, they can’t possibly have left no Skeleton behind. With thousands of Gnolls, such a vast tribe must have Magicians, must have a leader… There’s no way they had zero resistance.”

Masstar’s remark seemed to be an explanation for his teammates, as well as a pep talk for himself.

The scene before his eyes was so outrageous that he had a bad premonition.

As they proceeded towards the canyon, all they saw were the corpses of the gnolls. At most, they could find some rotten flesh on the claws and weapons of these corpses, probably left from battling the undead.

But they still couldn’t see a single skeleton warrior’s bone, only numerous large hoof prints on the ground. This was a regimented charge by the Death Knights, whose Nightmare Mounts could ignore the rugged terrain and tear through the gnoll’s troops directly.

It was clear that the gnoll shamans had been pierced by the long spears of the Death Knights before they even had a chance to cast spells, and then they were trampled into mud.

Continuing on, they finally saw a dismembered ghoul corpse, likely left behind because it had been completely dismembered. Near the ghoul remains were a hundred times more gnoll corpses, and a giant gnoll, the size of a grizzly, lying on top of the pile of bodies.

This was clearly the chieftain of the gnoll tribe. Just his size alone indicated he had the strength to tear tigers and leopards apart, but this powerful gnoll chieftain had been gutted, with all the innards in his abdominal and chest cavities gone—typical of a ghoul’s attack.

After a careful examination, Masstar came to a conclusion.

This gnoll chieftain had his body pierced by the Death Knight’s lance, and then his corpse was thrown to feed the ghouls.

He had not inflicted any damage on the enemy before his death, since his huge axe bore not a single trace of blood.

As for the torn-up ghoul, it was very likely that the ghouls had fought among themselves over the food, which led to the only casualty.

What shocked Masstar even more was that the Cloud of Death had been cast after the battle, probably just out of laziness to clean the battlefield.

“They’re not collecting corpses or looking for booty, they’re just passing by, and it looks like they’re in a hurry. These gnolls were unfortunate to block their way,” Masstar concluded.

When Masstar reached this conclusion, all the Paladins’ expressions turned grave. They were experts at dealing with the undead and understood what this battlefield signified. A large Undead Army had passed this way, heading in the direction of Alchemy City.

This Undead Army consisted of at least several dozen Death Knights, thousands of skeletons, and other undead creatures like ghouls, but more importantly, there were quite a few Necromancers among them.

So the question was, what kind of powerful being could command such an army of the undead, so powerful that they didn’t even bother to take the gnolls’ corpses with them?

Masstar looked towards Alchemy City, feeling that this mission was more difficult than he had imagined.

“Everyone, be prepared. This time, we might be dealing with more than one Legendary Undead,” said Masstar.

Masstar’s reminder made all Paladins tense, but soon a teammate suggested, “With such a huge Undead Army heading towards Alchemy City, could they be planning to attack Alchemy City? If that’s the case, maybe we can leverage the power of Alchemy City to deal with these undead.”

This suggestion brightened Masstar’s eyes; indeed, it was a good plan.

“Good idea, let’s speed up and try to get ahead of this Undead Army to Alchemy City first!”

Masstar took out a Magic Scroll of the Flight Spell, and before long, the group of Paladins streaked across the sky like shooting stars, carefully avoiding the massive Undead Army marching on the ground.

However, they didn’t notice that in the higher sky above, a huge shadow was hiding in the clouds, and only after they had gone did a giant dragon’s head emerge from the clouds.

A massive Bone Dragon, thirty to forty meters long, descended from the sky and landed in front of a grand carriage. This carriage, made entirely of silver, pulled by sixteen Hell Incubi, resembled a small palace and exuded utmost nobility and luxury.

The Bone Dragon growled at the carriage, “Rose Sister, why didn’t you kill those annoying Paladins?”

A cool voice came from the carriage, answering, “Didn’t you say that back in the Laine Empire you saved Gareth, which is why he fell in love with you?

“I, too, want to try.”