Chapter 182: Granite Fist Zombies

The next morning,

The ground 500 kilometers away from the East Branch was shaking while hundreds of gigantic beings ambled quickly forward.

A wandering Authoritarian that had once been a mighty existence got instantly torn to shreds by a pair of Archelon Zombies. It had tried to attack their steel like exteriors, but had been completely decimated in an instant. 

The Archelon Zombies had flesh that was similar in density to steel, and red eyes that glew even in the darkest night. They simply seemed like an unbeatable wave of might drifting into the distance! 100,000 powerful Archelon Zombies marched in a large row enough to take up the entire coast of a small continent. However, all of a sudden they stopped.

"What the hell is going on?" Necrolith held out his hand? "I-I'm in control! I didn't tell you to stop!"

Necrolith searched around in every direction and sighed before a gentle noise began to spread through the nearby mountainous terrain. He sighed, and jumped into the air off his back foot, making it almost a kilometer up in an instant before he located the source of the sound.

"Hmph, Armecolith. You're just as full of surprises as ever! HAHAHA!"

Necrolith saw a large set of mountains in the distance begin to slowly crumble while thousands of zombies seemed to sprout out of the ground. It all suddenly made sense to Necrolith! Armecolith had really gone all out to prepare this surprise attack on the Horned!

'I see… He probably hid Granite Fist Zombies in the mountain over there for hundreds of years with another one of the Night Lords waiting for a day to attack. Hahaha, is that Gorgolith? How long has he been underground waiting for this day! Hahaha! The Horned are going to be destroyed! Hahaha! I'm so excited!'

"Necrolith!" A small zombie with eighteen heads embedded in its chest walked out of a mountain in the distance with hundreds of zombies rushing passed him. "What took you so long! Armecolith sent me a message hundreds of years ago. You think you could get here sooner!"

"He told me you'd be leading his Archelon Zombies, but aya! You took forever!"

'I guess I should've never underestimated Armecolith's intelligence. When he plans for 200 years, he plans for 200 years." Necrolith landed on the floor by Gorgolith and immediately shook his hand. "Ha, brother! How does it feel to be free of Demon King Earl's array? When did you get out?"

"Armecolith cracked the array 300 years ago, but he wanted 100 years to send me here when he noticed the Four Guardians of the Horned were moving in separate directions. He told me to mass produce Granite Fist Zombies, so that's what I did! Do you think I did a good job brother! I made at least a 50,000!"

Granite Fist Zombies were an attack type zombie, but also middle class attack zombies in the B rank. Though this may not seem that impressive, they were extremely terrifying in large numbers because of their ability to merge attacks.

Each Granite Fist Zombie could both extend its body and grow its flesh to create weapons. However, they could also infuse these parts with Ki and merge those parts with nearby Granite Fist Zombies and Archelon Zombies! Basically, they could hide their bodies in the Archelon Zombies and keep attacking until they were destroyed. Watching a few Granite Fist Zombies begin to fuse with his Archelon Zombies, Necrolith smiled.

"I see Armecolith's plan, but how come I couldn't detect you?" Necrolith asked. "You're just a 500 kilometers away from the Horned. Something doesn't make sense."

"Heh, I studied arrays when I was trapped in Demon King Earl's array," Gorgolith said proudly. "You'd be so proud of me brother! I-I helped Armecolith break our seals! Haha! I can even create a protected territory for you if you want. After we take the East Branch over, I heard Armecolith would let us split it?"

"You mean he said that 200 years ago? I forgot how good that maniac is at planning," Necrolith turned and saw a small dot shooting in his direction. "However, what the hell is that? Is that a boy with Horns? Do you see that brother?"

"I do," Gorgolith nodded his head. "Must be some young kid with a death wish. Shall we go watch him die?"

###

Meanwhile.

Kreal hated what he was about to do. All because he heard Nellon was alive, he was willing to risk the lives of thousands for his favorite student.

Though Nellon had lost against Howard, he still had plenty of room to flourish once he entered into the S rank. He imagined even Howard, that Horned 'genius', would be slaughtered by Nellon once he unlocked is 15th door. 

It was unfortunate, but right now he was marching in front of a 100 Aresoul Commanders, standing in the middle of the desert, waiting for the Horned to arrive.

"You think they'd be on time to their own battle," Kreal agitatedly fumbled with his foot. "Such a pain. Arneck? Do you have any reports on the Archelon Zombies?"

"I do, and its strange," Arneck was an extremely muscular man from Kreal's Aresoul's Warrior Brigade. He had large locks of blue hair and extremely large eyes with a muscular face. He almost seemed like a model, but the scars on his body told a different story. "They-they haven't moved for two hours. They-they just have frozen in place like something had sealed them there."

"Hmph, maybe it's our lucky day. Maybe an angry old monster came out and decided to get in their way. Do you remember, Arneck, the story of the 100 strongest warriors you heard as a child? That wasn't a fable. There really are 100 hidden experts that never allied with any nation. Maybe the Night Lords pissed one of them off. Are the scouts we sent there nearby?"

"Ugh, about that, they-they told us what happened, and then passed out. I-I just heard that the Archelon Zombies stopped moving. Then��� then something seemed to terrify them, and they fell to sleep."

"It must be him. I heard he's in this area." Kreal smirked. "Ha, the strongest Varlen Dream Rider to ever exist, and the only one that is also half Horned! Hahaha! I can't wait to see the look on Annibell's face when she realizes she has to give me Nellon for me just showing up! Hahaha! And look, the Horned and the Varlen have just decided to arrive!"

###

A few hours ago,

Howard snuck out in the middle of the night and rushed towards the incoming Archelon Zombie Army.

He was so fast with Fire King Sprint activated, that his sonic booms seemed to crush his sonic booms. Yet he was also quiet when he wanted to be. Even at 4500 kilometers an hour, if he moved in a certain way, he noticed that not even a nearby rock would be disturbed.

However, something was bothering him. He activated his Dream Ki and sent a wave of energy surging out into the distance. The next moment, he turned in fear. His black hair flew overhead before a strange Dream Beast shot literally through a mountain and appeared by his side.

It was at least 100 meters tall and had extremely sharp claws! He'd never seen such a terrifying Dream Beast in his entire life!

"Settle down, White!" A gentle voice came out of the center of a cavern before the large white haired Dram Beast dropped its head down. "Hmph, you're moving so fast you were disturbing its sleep. What are you doing out here, Horned, in my territory. Didn't you notice the sign?"

"What sign?" Howard laughed. "I-I just was running by. I don't mean no harm."

"You're a pain in the ass! The sign is right here!" The small horned man said and pointed to his right. "Don't you see the sign! It says no one is allowed in this mountain!"

"I-I wasn't going into the mountain?" Howard suddenly got a little bit nervous. The man's voice seemed to contain Ki Fluctuations that he didn't recognize and they were also extremely strong. It's almost like he had something similar to his Silver Flame Ki, but that wasn't it either. It was almost like an entire world existed inside of him. "I-I apologize senior. I was just in a hurry. However, you're Dream Beast here is beautiful. Are you a Varlen?"

"Screw them! Screw everyone!" The small man's hand moved and half of the mountain seemed to instantly transform into a set of spikes! It seemed to be like he was using Dream Ki and Earth Ki together, but once again, Howard also couldn't recognize the fluctuations! "I-I want to have some fun! Come here! Come in this mountain right now!"

"I-I'm in a hurry. I-I have to attack that army." Howard trembled. "I-I can't just enter into a random strangers mountain, haha! I'm sorry, senior, but I got to go!"

"No you don't!" The man appeared behind Howard and tapped one of his horns. "You-you're going to come in! Once that army gets near here, they'll also feel the wrath of my fists!"