Chapter 1430
Right now, the spatial stability of that massive passage says one thing: the top powerhouses of the Undead Plane still haven’t made a move. Deploying a level forty-seven undead is already their limit. Likewise, on the human side, the strongest force we can send to the battlefield—the highest rank—is only Sky Mage, Seventh Rank…
Time is slipping away, every second counts. If that pocket of space stabilizes completely, nothing will be able to stop what’s coming.
Hughes couldn’t detect anything concrete, but he could see that most of the six or seven thousand kilometers of the passage had already been occupied by the undead. Humanity was clinging to the final defensive line…
The Blighted Plains, once a lush green carpet, now lay in ruin—black and gray earth everywhere, every plant withered, the exposed ground stained as if polluted.
Fortresses stood along the last defensive line. From inside, gazing out over the ashen earth, you’d see endless waves of undead creatures surging toward the walls—a sea of death stretching from here to the horizon.
In front of every fortress, mages, swordsmen, and archers fought back, while magic crystal cannons lined the ramparts, hurling energy spheres into the undead sea.
Every second, thousands upon thousands of undead were torn apart or burned to ash, but the undead sea stretched on, endless. The number slain meant nothing compared to the sheer mass here—the tide kept surging forward, unstoppable.
Far off in the sky, a Bone Dragon drifted on the wind, its wings outstretched. Upon its back stood the Skeleton King, shrouded in a tattered cloak, surrounded by swarms of flying undead—his personal guard. No attack could reach him.
The Skeleton King commanded wave after wave of undead cannon fodder to charge. With every assault, the ground grew paler and grayer—the blackened earth stained by fragments of undead bones. In less than a month, over a hundred million undead had died here.
But for the undead, that number is just a statistic. The Undead Plane never runs out of cannon fodder.
Inside one fortress, boasting a mage tower over a hundred meters tall, a group of powerful figures had gathered. But the strongest among them was only a Sky Mage, Seventh Rank.
"What’s the situation? Has the Gilded Rose delivered the Golden Crown Elixir yet?"
A mage, his face pale, asked in a somber tone.
Another mage beside him nodded, then shook his head.
"They delivered it, but there’s nowhere near enough. At best, it covers those above Sky Rank Level 5. The rest… they’ll get barely enough to keep them alive."
The mages gathered around the round table all wore heavy expressions. One, clad in white robes, let out a cold laugh.
"Hmph, Gilded Rose—filthy merchants. Even now, in a crisis, they’re still looking to profit! We demand they hand over the Golden Crown Elixir’s formula and refining method, and they refuse. Filthy scum—they ought to be purified by the Light…"
Archmage Leon Merlin? Hmph, that damned man—who knows where he’s been banished to now. Lost forever in the endless void: that’s his fate. Without Leon Merlin, those idiots at the Gilded Rose actually dare to defy our orders. Unforgivable.
Knox of the Sanctum of Light was the representative here—the only Sky Mage, Seventh Rank from the Sanctum present, and currently their strongest asset.