Chapter 559 - Undead

"What sorcery is this?!"

Arthur and the rest of the knights could only watch in mute bewilderment as the numerous corpses scattered and lying on the ground slowly got onto their feet. There were just dozens of them, but the gruesome sight was enough to send a cold shiver down these courageous knights' spine.

The corpses seemed to intuitively grab the closest weapons and swung with entrails still hanging off of it, splattering blood all around, before they came limping to charge at the nearest knight. The corpses' movements were slow, extremely so, but the knights were just not in the right state of mind to fight such abominations. Their mind was still shaken by what they were witnessing.

Out of panic, a knight immediately took the chance to attack and drove his sword heavily into one of the walking corpse's shoulders. The shambling corpse made no attempt to dodge nor defend. The knight's weapon was successfully buried deep into its chest.

Any normal man would have screamed in terror or instantly died from such an attack, but like a puppet on strings, the walking corpses acted as if nothing had happened and kept moving. It stretched its disfigured head forward and bit the man's neck, making it burst in a shower of blood and guts.

Aaarrrgghhh!!!

While the attacked knight frantically tried to close the gaping wound on his neck with his hands, the corpse was still moving, shambling, as if it had no other directive except to reach other knights and kill. 

Seeing such an abomination, Arthur strengthened the grip on his blade and shouted to raise the morale of his comrades.

"Men! Conquer your fears! Fight! Fight!!"

Arthur focused his attention and observed as the corpses moved and was able to survive the knight's heavy swing on their body, no matter which part it was. It didn't take a genius for him to try the next best solution.

When a walking corpse tried to approach him, he swiftly swung his golden blade at his target, the head of the corpse rolled onto the grassy ground. Its body quickly followed suit, becoming unmoving once more.

"Men!! Don't attack their body, sever their heads instead!!"

The new direction appeared to be effective, as the walking corpses no longer moved when their head was separated from the body.

Sir Percival took out a massive hammer and gave the massive weapon a heavy swing to the head, the walking corpse's head was smashed open with its brain turned into a splatter on the ground.

Such a tactic was also able to stop the corpses from moving. To put it simply, they just had to take off their heads. 

"Get into formation! Reform!" Sir Yvain shouted his orders. Even though he was bleeding, sweat stained most of his clothes and hair, the man kept standing straight, his will to see the end of this war shown by his deeds.

The mighty golden knight Bors, however, was too injured and had to be carried around by his brother.

"You two bring the men and retreat back to the hill" Arthur shouted.

Arthur then turned toward Gwen, as their eyes met, they both knew they were in real trouble.

Gwen was still worried about Emery's conditions on the eastern battlefield, but she knew such a fight could not be won without Emery's help. It was, afterall, a work of sorcery.

With a little nod, Gwen understood what Arthur wanted her to do, she quickly rode back to search for help.

The previously victorious army of Brittanies, half still standing, some holding their wounded mates on their shoulder, started to move back away from the hordes of walking corpses.

Arthur could see his men had regained their composure, but the moment he glanced at the woman standing amidst the corpses, the amount of walking corpses had already turned into hundreds. Arthur even saw the corpses of his knights standing among them, their eyes vacant and glassy, as they walked like puppets.

A feeling of dread settled in his gut. He knew the woman, the enemy's sorceress, had to be killed soon or more of his men would be in trouble, or worse, such a hideous state of bane.

"Sir Gawain! Follow me!"

Arthur grabbed a dozen knights and Sir Gawain, his trusted golden knight, before charging in the wave of walking corpses trying to get close toward the sorcerer.

It was at this time Arthur saw the man he just killed before, Esca the lord of a thousand spears. He was bleeding all over, each step he made left trails of fresh blood, but the expression on his face was fiercer than ever.

He charged toward one of Arthur's knights, grabbed its body and break it apart with ease as if he was tearing up a piece of cloth.

Seeing this quickly caused a few other knights unconsciously split out from the formation in their effort of running. But instead of that, it made them easy pickings for the swarm of living corpses.

Arthur and Gawain knew they had to fight against the monstrous living corpses before they could move forward.

The monstrous corpse took a blade and swung it towards Arthur and, as he parried it, the force was strong enough to push him a few steps. He was now sure whatever spell made the dead rise, it increased their strength to a new level.

"Gawain!!"

With a simple signal, Arthur jumped into the air to swing his sword from above to distract the monster, while Gawain bent down, rolled across the ground, attacked the feet of the corpse and cut it off, causing the large corpse to fall to the ground .

Spllattt!!

The combined attack was very effective in bringing the monster down, giving Arthur the chance to cut the huge corpse head clean apart from his body.

Unfortunately, by the time Arthur managed to defeat the huge corpse, he was once again surrounded by more living corpses. He could see more of his men were grabbed and torn apart as the corpses attacked everything in their sight like a swarm of starved piranha.

At this dark moment, a light suddenly descended from the sky like a divine punishment. The reinforcements had joined the fray in a flaming ball of fire.

It was the old wizard Gaious, who charged forward into battle with his fire spell, followed by Percival and Yvain.

"My king, we should head back!!" The old wizard said.

Arthur glanced at the field of battle and realized the few minutes he was distracted, the enemy corpse army had grown into thousands and started to flood away his own men. 

There were so many corpses they started covering the path that was previously open by Gaious' reinforcement, separating him and his main army.

"This is… what is this?!!" 

Arthur was enraged, he could do nothing but watch as his men were slaughtered by something out of this world. There were now only less than 30 of them fighting, surrounded by the swarm.

As if the fates heard his plea, the space close to him was distorted, before forming into a dark tear. A figure came out of it along with four girls and started killing dozens of the walking corpses surrounding them in a matter of seconds.

"Merlin!!" 

Emery casted another spatial gate and quickly shouted to the surviving knights to enter his spatial gate.

Hearing the shout, the dozens knights along with Gaius' reinforcement all immediately jumped into the spatial gate and returned back to the main army.

When the young king finally had a breather, he quickly approached Emery and asked.

"Merlin, the East battle?!"

Emery turned his head and saw the anxious look on Arthur's face. "Don't worry, it's under control for now."

The news brought by Emery and his arrival quickly gave some comfort and erased the young king's previous tense expression. He immediately resumed checking the well-being of his men and issued more orders.

"Reform the line! Don't let them pass!"

Emery could see by now the living corpses already grew into the same number as what was left of Arthur's army. Sooner or later, the army of corpses would overwhelm them.

However, what concerned him the most was that there were still 10.000 more corpses lying on the field. How long would it take to kill them all over again?

Emery turned his head and glanced to the distance, as expected, he saw a familiar woman standing in the pile of corpses like a false queen. 

Her appearance was drastically different, but from his spirit reading, Emery could easily tell that she was the witch Meave.

"Emery, what should we do?" Arthur asked.

These undeads were obviously the result of a strong spell cast by Meave. Emery himself was quite shocked she could use such a powerful spell. However, he believed this spell had probably a similar nature to a summoning spell, hence when the caster died so would the effects of the spells.

Emery looked toward Arthur and firmly said, "Retreat to the castle."

"I will handle her."