CHAPTER 504: ESCAPE

These Dracolich experiments drew their inspiration from a more ancient variant known as Bone Dragons, who once ruled the battlefields in ancient times.

When the ancient battles drew to a close, the majority of the pure Dragons left the Western Human Realms, leaving behind a small portion who stayed for unknown reasons. The power of a fully matured Dragon was immense, and not something that could be overcome with just strength of numbers.

Thankfully, these prideful creatures found it beneath their status to harass those weaker than themselves. For the most part, they lived reclusive lives.

In the contemporary age, Necromancers found themselves starving for materials, but still sought the sheer destructive power of a Bone Dragon. The pure-blooded Dragons still lived in seclusion, but even if the Necromancers found them, they couldn’t win. Thus, they began experimenting on Ground Dragons instead, hoping that their draconic bloodline would serve as a usable substitute. However, their mixed blood meant that they were destined to never meet the exacting standards of the Necromancers.

Not willing to give up on chasing this dream of supremacy, they began refining the blood of Ground Dragons, in hopes of one day reviving their glory days.

Unfortunately, the draconic blood within Ground Dragons were too thin, so even refinement couldn’t produce the desired results. That was when the Necromancers started working with the Witches in order to improve the combat strength of their Undead Ground Dragons. Finally, the Dracolich was born.

A Dracolich wasn’t a living creature, yet it wasn’t a solely Undead creature either. At its core, it’s a host of souls stuffed into a vessel.

—-From: Evil Strikes! Necromancers and Witches!

Because the lower-starred Undead were unable to stop us, we easily cut a hundred meter deep swathe into their ranks. But our blinding speeds meant that the Devils I summoned over couldn’t keep up either. At this rate, they would have to be abandoned.

The bodies of these Devils were different from Humans. Before dying, they were practically immune to the effects of the Veil of the Dead. Yet that didn’t stop their corpses from turning into Undead once they died.

If I had to be perfectly honest, the only idea I had in mind when I summoned them was to use them as fodder. Since they were just fodder, I wasn’t going to spend too much effort on them either. Besides, abandoning them would serve the exact purpose they summoned for: stalling the Undead.

“Boom. Boom. Boom.”

With each step the Dracolich took, the ground groaned from its massive limbs. It wasn’t particularly fast, but its sheer size meant that it covered a great distance with each stride. In contrast, we were like sprinting ants next to it. No matter how fast we ran, it was easily made up with one stride of the Dracolich.

The Dracolich outwardly resembled a lizard. Its head was cone-shaped and spotted a pair of large black horns that poked straight up – the typical trait of a dragon. Clearly. Because lizards did not have horns.

The Dracolich was now running towards us at top speed. A staggering explosion would blanket the battlefield each time it kicked its feet off the ground. On top of breaking the rock beneath it, it also decimated whatever was unfortunate enough to be near it at the time.

A number of the villagers who were in the process from being zombified were instantly squashed into meat cakes. In some sense, this was a stroke of good fortune amidst a decidedly disastrous day. At the very least, they were released from their suffering before they could be trapped in a mindless, Undead husk.

Yet it wasn’t just the villagers who were affected by the Dracolich. The Devils whom I summoned weren’t able to escape this untimely fate as well.

Normally, Ground Dragons rarely grew up to twenty meters. This Dracolich had clearly received a horrifying boost in strength from the inhumane experiments performed on it.

A beast like that would normally roar into the heavens, declaring its intent to fight. But this Dracolich had been completely silent till now. Even so, I couldn’t be sure it was completely an Undead. While it might have had Soul Flames for eyes, its eyes also had the red of blood within it. A completely illogical pairing.

A half-Undead, perhaps? Its consciousness should still be intact even if its body has been zombified… must be painful…

Perhaps it was this pain that afforded it limitless power. In barely any time at all, it had caught up to us!

Yet just when it looked like it would reach us, eight of the Assassins covering our backline suddenly broke off from the pack to stall it. Using their Arcane magic, they launched a barrage of attacks at it, but to no avail…

They began waving their hands about, summoning forth a giant magical array in front of them that spat out hundreds of blue Arcane orbs at the Dracolich.

These Arcane projectiles first came into contact with the Veil of the Dead. It was then that I learnt that this strange mist not only was a dangerous biological weapon, it also suppressed magic. Hundreds of Arcane orbs slammed into the Dracolich, causing an unending torrent of explosions to shake the air. Yet when the dust settled, not even a single scale had been knocked down…

Dragons were born with a natural resistance against magic. This creature born of Witches and Necromancers fully inherited this trait as well. With the Veil of the Dead aiding it, it would be hard for magic under the level of an Overlord to harm it. In that case, there was only melee combat!