Puff, puff, puff—
Flesh and blood flew everywhere. Something splattered onto his face, but Mikhael, the burly moose centaur craftsman with a big beard, didn't have time to wipe it off or see what it was.
He gripped his heavy hammer tightly, standing guard at the ancient labyrinth castle's main gate, blocking the swarming flesh monsters.
He shouted curses and commands loudly as he fought.
Mikhael's entire body was drenched in blood—he couldn't even tell which stains belonged to him and which belonged to the flesh monsters he had slain.
Beside him stood another moose centaur warrior—Kioris—wielding a curved blade and fighting even more wildly.
Kioris made full use of his blade's power, which absorbed flesh and blood to nourish himself.
He slashed through the monsters without pause, cutting down countless flesh creatures beneath his curved sword.
Farther away, Kioris's older brother, Scela, wielded a long spear, using his Nen ability called "Pre-Battle Inspiration" to influence and bolster the surrounding warriors.
The three of them, along with their elite troops, were like a towering dam, holding back the rushing flood.
But their efforts only slowed the raging flood for a moment, forcing it to shift direction slightly—they could not stop it.
The flood of flesh monsters surged past them, sweeping toward the other demi-humans behind.
Those demi-humans who were killed would, after some time, transform into flesh monsters themselves and be reborn... creating a horrifying and endless vicious cycle.
Despairing, some moose centaurs gave up resistance, dropping to their knees, praying for a response and help from the "Red Moon" they had always followed.
But in the next instant, one of those moose centaurs was decapitated by a rusty longsword, dying with unfulfilled eyes.
The one who struck was a skeleton clad in ancient, tattered armor, the blood-stained sword still dripping fresh crimson.
For some reason, the skeleton appeared translucent, glowing with a pale blue light.
"Ahhhhhhhh—!"
Kioris charged forward on all four hooves, shouting with fury as he raised his curved blade, intending to end the enemy in one decisive strike, relying on momentum and the sharpness of his weapon.
But the blade, which had never failed him against the fleshy monstrosities before, simply passed through the skeleton warrior bathed in eerie blue light.
It didn't leave so much as a scratch.
Kioris froze in disbelief.
He could clearly see a sinister grin stretching across the bony face of the skeletal swordsman.
And then, the long sword it held thrust straight toward him.
Shhhk—
At the last possible moment, Mikhael reached out with lightning speed, grabbing Kioris's arm.
With the raw strength of his massive war hammer, Mikhael yanked him away from the fatal blow just in time.
Still, a line of blood blossomed across Kioris's chest — the sword had grazed him.
"Why?" Kioris staggered back several steps, eyes wide as he stared at the skeleton warrior that bore no flesh, only bone.
It was Mikhael who saw through it first.
"Don told us about this once. That's a legendary Lord of Dead — a cursed spirit of the dead. We can't hurt it… but it can hurt us."
Kioris's memory sparked — Don had mentioned such creatures before.
But why was it here now?
Before the two moose-centaur warriors could think of a plan, they turned their heads and saw another skeleton soldier, also glowing with that same unsettling blue light, charging toward them.
All eight legs between them kicked hard to the side.
They narrowly dodged the sneak attack.
But before they could even catch their breath, what they saw next chilled them to the bone.
It wasn't just the skeleton swordsman and the newly arrived skeleton soldier.
There were several more figures — bluish, translucent spirits — walking over the blood-soaked remains of the flesh monsters like it was a crimson carpet.
All of them heading straight toward the two warriors.
With just one glance, they counted no fewer than ten of these undead.
Just one of them was already impossible to deal with.
But now… there were more than a dozen.
Kioris and Mikhael felt their hearts tighten.
Both of them wanted to speak, to say something—anything—but in that instant, it was as if they had been struck by a massive, invisible hammer.
Their bodies trembled.
That feeling... it was back again!
Before this brutal battle had even begun, everyone inside the Ancient Labyrinth-like fortress had already been subjected to this terrifying wave of malicious Nen.
Had it not been for Don releasing his own Nen to shield them, it was hard to say how many of them would've had the willpower to fight at all.
And now, that same sickening sensation—one that made them want to vomit and flee—had returned.
They instinctively looked up.
And there it was—the source of the malevolent aura.
A massive figure they could not possibly ignore.
The creature loomed like a mountain.
Though vaguely humanoid—perhaps once a human or demi-human—it was cloaked in a long, deep crimson robe.
Its hood and sleeves concealed its face and form, revealing only a pair of bony, skeletal hands.
Those hands were like claws—somewhere between a beast's talons and a corpse's finger bones—emitting an aura of pure dread.
The Lord of the Dead had arrived.
Without a word, he unfurled the scroll in his right hand—The Necromancer's Scripture.
Strange, archaic symbols danced across the parchment, glowing faintly.
He chanted in a low, guttural voice—a language that didn't belong to this world.
As the incantation continued, bluish, ghostly spirits—the Dead—began to emerge from the air around him.
Even in the face of this overwhelming pressure, Kioris and Mikhael still held onto their weapons, forcing themselves to remain standing.
But the demi-humans around them were not as strong.
Sweat poured down their faces as they collapsed to the ground, their wills shattered.
They offered no resistance as the spirits and flesh monsters tore into them, stealing their lives.
"Hold it together!"
Scela charged in from the distance, his spear piercing through several of the flesh abominations in one strike.
With a forceful sweep, he flung their bodies aside.
*******
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