D.I.O

Crack!

As two swords cut through the air and divided it, a group of undead soldiers’ bodies ripped apart as if ravaged by a sword-shaped dragon. If this sword skill, Heaven and Earth Dual Dragon Sword, were trained to its fullest potential, it could flip heaven and earth.

Ting!

An undead soldier took the sword strike head-on as it activated shield charge, but it was flung five meters into the air. Without much delay, it collided with another undead soldier, sending both tumbling to the floor.

“Hurry up and climb! These guys are low-level, but there are too many of them!”

“They’re Level 2 on average! Level 2! If we don’t use up all our stamina, we’ll be able to compete against them, so don’t be nervous and continue onward!”

As the party members shouted and encouraged each other, they started slowly making their way up the castle’s walls. Other than Jeros with his atrocious physical ability stats, everyone else was able to swiftly head up onto the castle walls. And so, within a short period, everyone was on the walls.

Bam!

During all of this, Merlin took advantage of the commotion and continued to snipe the relatively defenseless squad-level undead leaders. He couldn’t miss, and they were only Level 3 at best, so they were no match against his arrows.

“Good job, everyone. As for you guys, go back down!”

Whoosh!

The user who spoke had been one of the first to scale the wall, and he’d also assisted those that came after him in their climbing efforts. Now, he turned his attention to the group of undead that was trying to stack up on each other to reach the top of the wall. With a few swipes of his sword, the user had sliced toward the top layer, causing a chain reaction that nearly collapsed the entire ladder-like structure, sending many undead soldiers back to the ground.

“My magic power is dwindling… but one more.”

Bam!

With a wave of his hand, Jeros sent another fireball toward where many undead soldiers were gathered, resulting in significant casualties to the enemy side.

“W-who the hell are these guys?”

“They’re so strong.”

All the party members had experienced the Siege Quest missions during the beta test, so they knew what to expect and do in this battle. Their attacks were so efficient that the situation seemed like a one-sided massacre.

“Hey, how many died just now?”

“About 120!”

“Okay. Things are going smoothly. Hardcore mode isn’t that bad!”

Hanma whistled as he saw the tide of battle turn against the undead army. However, like always, his words signaled the start of another catastrophe.

Roar!

“Eh?”

“Huh?”

“Wait, what the hell is that!”

The users couldn’t help but gasp as thousands of undead soldiers amassed to form a giant being. And if the users with this surprised, one could easily imagine how shocked the castle soldiers were.

“Scorpion! Are undead soldiers able to bond together like that to create a giant entity?”

“Of course not! I don’t think those guys are normal undead.”

As a necromancer, Scorpion couldn’t help but feel that the undead they were facing felt foreign. Typically, they wouldn’t be able to form a Flesh Golem, as the undead’s operating power wasn’t suited or compatible with combination-type entities. Yet, the undead before him were doing just that. Scorpion had heard of low and mid-rank demons combining to form a new monster, but he’d never heard of undead doing it as well.

“Jeros!”

“I don’t have enough magic power, so you’ll need to wait!”

“Damn it; we’re in trouble! That thing is too big. Unless Jeros attacks it, there’s no other way we can fight it!”

Indifferent to the screaming, the new 20-meter-tall Flesh Golem raised its right arm into the air, freezing the castle soldiers as they saw this frightening scene.

Bam!

When the arm smashed down, it destroyed a portion of the castle wall and immediately killed an unknown number of soldiers stationed there. When the Flesh Golem lifted its arm again, Raul was in its grasp, as he’d froze from fright and was snatched by the golem.

“Ack! Damn it! It’s the guy we need to guard!”

“My precious experience points!”

“Save him!”

As the party members shouted amongst themselves, two users ran up the golem’s arm. One was Ohje with his twin swords, and the other was the bow-wielding Merlin.

“Argh!”

Raul was screaming as he was held by the various undead beings that comprised the Flesh Golem, but Merlin and Ohje were calm.

“We should cut off his wrist.”

“Can the two of us do it? It’s pretty thick.”

“I’ll use all my power and strike first. You should follow up on the same spot.”

“I thought you were an archer… alright, I’ll trust you!”

As Ohje darted up the constantly-moving Flesh Golem’s arm, Merlin started circulating his internal energy, four years, to be exact. This was almost his entire reserve of internal energy. Of course, this meager amount couldn’t accomplish much, but once those four years went through Mercury, Venus, and Earth, they would grow to 32 years. And the martial arts skill Merlin decided to deploy was…

‘Formless Blade!’

This skill allowed users to form an invisible blade at the end of their hands and use it for slash attacks.

Crunch!

Though the Flesh Golem’s wrist was thick, it was made up of various undead components, so it wasn’t exactly solid. Merlin’s Formless Blade strike cut through just over half of the golem’s wrist.

Roar!

As if in pain, the Flesh Golem roared in anguish and swung its other hand in a swatting motion towards Merlin and Ohje. It looked as if the Flesh Golem was trying to squish a few annoying mosquitos, and although this attack was frightening, Ohje had already started his follow-up strike.

“Good job!”

Slice!

When Ohje’s sword strike landed on the Flesh Golem, the hand holding Raul fell to the ground along with Ohje. In that brief moment, Ohje and Merlin’s eyes met.

Bam!

Immediately, Ohje grabbed Raul, used what remained of the golem’s hand to jump off, and safely landed on top of the castle wall. At the same time, Merlin ran up the golem’s arm.

Whoosh!

While sprinting, Merlin grabbed the external Gold Core that was above his left shoulder and absorbed the internal energy within. The external Gold Core had 45 years of internal energy, so it was an incredible storage device for emergencies.

‘It has an operating center!’

Obviously, a monster like this that was made up of so many smaller entities needed an operational core. There was no other way such an immense number of undead could combine and move in sync. The operating core seemed to be the initial undead that had rallied and gathered all the other monsters around it to create the original ten-meter-tall Flesh Golem. After being defeated by Jeros’ spell, the undead soldier seemed to have decided to gather more undead for this second Flesh Golem.

“It’s located at the head!”

As Merlin shouted, he continued to head up the golem’s long arms, his hand starting to emanate a golden glow all the while. This showed that Merlin was planning on striking with Shaolin’s strongest hand skill strike, the Great Strength Vajra Hand.

Sss!

Suddenly, when Merlin was about to launch his attack, the Flesh Golem’s head opened, revealing a monster shorter than Merlin as it spat a bone fragment at him. The bone fragment flew quicker than a bullet, so Merlin didn’t have a chance to react.

Crack!

However, Merlin blocked the bone fragment. Actually, this wasn’t exactly true. His spirit had automatically executed the order that it was given, which stated: [Defend against any attack that approaches me at a pace greater than 200 meters per second. However, I don’t want you to confront the attack head-on, just hit it to make it veer away.]

“… Huh?”

Merlin didn’t have time to be happy at the successful execution of his order.

Crack.

The spirit that acted was the one tasked with holding his egg.

Crack. Crack.

At a total loss, Merlin helplessly looked up at the egg, which had been tossed into the air. Cracks started appearing across the egg’s surface. Many thoughts crossed his mind. Most of them centered around, ‘I shouldn’t have come here,’ or ‘No! I’ve carried that around for so long!’ Generally, they were all full of regret. Since he probably lost his egg, Merlin decided to make the best out of the situation by continuing towards the Flesh Golem and landing his attack. Thus, he passed the egg that was suspended in the air and rushed forward toward the golem’s head, but…

Swoosh.

The egg flew towards the golem’s head and…

Bam!

… created a tremendous explosion equal to one of Jeros’ spells.

“W-what?”

Soon, the enormous Flesh Golem’s body started to collapse. Seeing the individual undead detach and fall to the ground, Merlin assumed that the blast had killed the monster in the golem’s head, the one controlling it.

“Nice!”

“Great! What kind of attack was that?”

“He didn’t seem like a mage at first, but he sure proved himself in the end!”

“Good job, everyone!”

The other users were overjoyed at having completed the quest. However, for Merlin…

“What the hell happened?”

He couldn’t help but feel dumbfounded.