Real Mount and Blade Game

The team bypassed the ruins and continued speeding eastward.

Chen Ping, the dwarves, and all the survivors stood there, stunned, watching the army, which surged like an iron torrent, disappear into the distance until their figures vanished at the edge of the sand dunes.

After a long while, the old dwarf finally let out a sigh of relief. He looked at Chen Ping and said in a deep voice, "Mr. Chen Ping, we... have met the right person."

Chen Ping nodded heavily, gripped the food bag tightly, and his eyes shone with an unprecedented light.

……

The further east you go, the stronger the smell of sulfur, burnt charcoal, and decay becomes in the air.

The sky, too, seemed to be polluted by that huge black cloud, presenting a depressing gray hue.

Finally, when the team crossed the last tall sand dune, the undead castle, which had only existed in the horrified descriptions of Batel and others, was revealed to Shen Mu without reservation.

Even with Shen Mu's extensive experience, his pupils couldn't help but shrink slightly the moment he saw the castle.

That was indeed a castle.

But it challenges all living beings' understanding of the word "architecture." Endless yellow sand was forcibly condensed and solidified by some evil force, forming towering city walls and crooked towers.

Within these sand walls, countless pale skeletons are densely embedded, piled up, and glued together.

There are human skulls, the ribs of huge beasts, twisted vertebrae... They are like masterpieces created by the most insane artist using the most terrifying materials, with every detail exuding an intense sense of death and despair.

Directly above the castle, a massive black cloud covering the sky for miles around spun slowly and silently, like a giant vortex leading to hell.

Thick, almost tangible gray fog descended from the base of the black clouds, swirling around the castle and making the entire fortress appear hazy and eerie.

"My lord, it's there!" Batel's voice was a little dry. Even with the lord and his elite army behind him, seeing this terrifying castle again still sent a chill down his spine.

Shen Mu didn't speak; he simply gazed silently at the distant Fortress of the Dead.

He could sense that the aura of "rules" emanating from the black cloud and the castle was completely different from the Ghostlight Dynasty and the Black Arrow Tower Dynasty he knew. It was a purer, more domineering, and also more... chaotic power of death. It was like an alien object that had just arrived in this world, brazenly announcing its existence to all around.

The moment Shen Mu's troops appeared atop the sand dune, it seemed they had triggered some invisible warning line.

The once-dead, lifeless fortress of bones suddenly came to life!
"Creak—!"

That teeth-grinding, bone-crushing sound of rubble against stone came again from the direction of the castle.

The enormous archway, inlaid with countless hideous beast bones, burst open with a deafening roar!

Inside the city gate, boiling gray mist billowed out.

Immediately afterwards, five tall figures shrouded in thick black mist shot out from the door like five black cannonballs!

It's them again! Skeleton Knights!
Their target was clear: the group of uninvited survivors on the top of the dunes!
"Watch out! My lord! They're coming!" Batel practically roared, his face drained of all color.

The Khergit archers behind him stirred instantly, instinctively gripping their bows and swords, their faces etched with tension. The oppressive aura emanating from these skeleton cavalrymen was simply overwhelming!
However, Shen Mu's face remained completely expressionless.

His gaze didn't linger long on the five charging skeleton cavalrymen, but rather on the swirling, seemingly alive black mist emanating from their bodies.

"Interesting. This power seems to be able to block the direct damage of sunlight," he murmured to himself.

Just then, a Holy Tree Knight beside him spurred his horse forward half a step and, in a calm and unwavering tone, earnestly requested to fight:
"My lord, please allow us to purify these filths."

A faint smile appeared on Shen Mu's lips. These were the words he had been waiting for.

"Go." He waved his hand lightly, his tone indifferent, as if he were merely instructing someone on a trivial matter. "Let me see if the light of the sacred tree can pierce through this darkness."

"As ordered."

There were no superfluous words, nor any impassioned battle cries.

The five Holy Tree Knights in the queue turned their horses around almost simultaneously.

They took the heavy lance from their saddles, holding it out with one hand, their movements fluid and steady, as if the weapon capable of piercing city walls were nothing in their hands.

"drive!"

With a low shout, the Swadian warhorses mounted by the five Holy Death Tree Knights suddenly exerted their strength, their thick hooves pounding the sand with a thunderous roar!
The five riders, like five silver arrows released from a bow, met the five ferociously charging skeleton riders head-on without any detour!
This was a pure, head-to-head cavalry charge!
Batel and his men were completely dumbfounded.

In their eyes, this was tantamount to suicide! The speed and strength of those skeleton cavalry were simply beyond the capabilities of ordinary cavalry to withstand head-on!
However, what happened next completely overturned their understanding and became a shocking scene that they would never forget for the rest of their lives.

A silver torrent and black lightning rapidly approached each other across the vast desert!
Just as the two sides were about to clash, the formation of the five Holy Tree Knights suddenly underwent an extremely subtle change.

They weren't foolish enough to line up and collide head-on.

The two knights at the front increased their speed slightly and lowered the angle of their spears, not aiming at the knights themselves, but directly at the head of the skeletal mount!
The three knights behind them, with an almost imperceptible tacit understanding, instantly spread out to the sides, forming a small but deadly angle. Their lances, like venomous snakes emerging from their holes, locked onto the flanks of the skeleton cavalry that were shielded by their mounts!

This is a textbook example of a cavalry charge tactic, yet it's incredibly fast!

The two skeleton cavalrymen at the forefront seemed to sense the danger as well, and they instinctively tried to raise their hideous giant blades to block.

But it's too late!

The speed and timing of the Holy Tree Knights have surpassed their rigid reactions driven by the rules of death!

"Pfft!"

Two muffled but clear sounds of flesh being pierced rang out almost simultaneously! The two knight's lances, gleaming with the light of mithril, with a faint holy light attached to their tips, pierced through the hard skull of the skeletal monster with unstoppable force and precision!
Mithril and the power of divine rules are a more terrifying poison to undead creatures than fire and strong acid!

"boom!!"

Before those two arrogant skeletal mounts could even utter a mournful cry, the eerie green soul fire in their eye sockets was instantly purified and annihilated by powerful divine force!
The massive body lurched forward with tremendous inertia, then shattered into pieces, turning into a pile of bones burning with a ghastly white flame, which crashed onto the sand!

At the very moment the mounts shattered, the skeleton cavalry, having lost their support, along with the eerie black mist covering them, momentarily froze.

This flaw is fatal!
The three Holy Tree Knights, who had been waiting on the flanks, slashed in instantly like three precise scalpels!
Their spears drew three beautiful yet deadly arcs, their tips crisscrossing in the air to form an inescapable web of death!

"Keng! Keng! Keng!"

Three crisp sounds, like metal shattering!

The menacing bone armor that the three skeleton riders were so proud of, forged from black crystals and bones, was as fragile as glass before the tip of the mithril spear infused with divine power!
The spear pierced their chests with ease and emerged from their backs!

The purifying power contained in the tip of the spear suddenly erupted!
"Zi la——!"

Like a red-hot iron being branded into ice and snow, the stubborn black mist that shrouded them seemed to have encountered a natural enemy, letting out a shrill scream, and was instantly evaporated!

Without the protection of the black mist, the three undead knights were finally exposed to the sunlight. They were skeletons taller than ordinary skeletons, with eerie, dark black bones covered in twisted runes.

However, all of this is meaningless now.

Sacred flames burned fiercely in the gaping holes piercing their chests, quickly spreading throughout their bodies.

In just two or three breaths, the five skeleton cavalrymen who had been so imposing and seemed capable of crushing everything were completely purified along with their mounts, leaving behind five piles of smoldering remains on the sand, a mixture of bone ash and sulfur burnt marks.

The entire process, from the charge to the end, took only a dozen seconds.

Clean and efficient, utterly devastating!
After completing their kill, the five Holy Tree Knights did not linger. They skillfully turned their horses around, drawing an elegant arc on the sand, and returned to Shen Mu's back, once again forming that silent and solid protective formation.

Their spears remained held horizontally, their mithril tips spotless, as if they had just completed a routine training session.

The entire sand dune was deathly silent.

Batel and his fifteen bandits from the grasslands all gaped, their eyes wide open, as if they had witnessed a miracle.

That...that was a terrifying monster that made them flee for their lives and couldn't even muster the courage to resist!
Just like that... gone?
He was instantly killed by a single charge from five knights?
They rubbed their eyes hard, unable to believe what they were seeing. The shock was far more intense and soul-stirring than even the sight of the castle of bones itself!

Even the fifty elite Khergit archers were filled with shock and awe. They considered themselves elite, but faced with the overwhelming power displayed by the Holy Tree Knights, they understood what a true ace was!

Shen Mu's face still held that calm smile.

He was not surprised by the result at all.

The Holy Tree Knights are a knightly order in the continent of Pendor that has intricate connections with the Noldor elves. Although the Holy Tree Knights are not known for their knights, their archers are their most elite unit.

However, this set of equipment, crafted using mithril, a magical substance, might not be of much use on the continent of Pendor.

But upon arriving on this blue planet, they faced off against truly evil creatures.

But it can have a miraculous effect!

Just like the Holy Tree Knights, these top cavalrymen from the Holy Tree Knights Order, their purpose is to deal with these high-level and troublesome spirit creatures!

It would be strange if they couldn't even handle a mere five undead of the skeleton cavalry level.

He raised his head, his gaze passing over the ravaged battlefield and returning to the skeletal fortress with its gates wide open.

The battle that just took place seemed to have shocked those inside the castle.

The billowing gray fog inside the city gate paused noticeably for a moment, as if hesitating whether to send out more troops.

Shen Mu had been waiting for this opportunity.

He didn't want to get bogged down in endless patchwork tactics.

"A veteran horse archer from the Khergit!" Shen Mu's voice broke the silence of the battlefield.

"Here!" the twenty fifth-tier mounted archers responded in unison, their voices booming.

"Go forward, aim at the city gate, and launch," Shen Mu's command was concise and clear: "Use rockets."

"Yes!"

Twenty experienced mounted archers immediately spurred their horses forward, stopping about two hundred paces from the Bone Castle. They then used their tinderboxes to light a specially made arrow with flammable material wrapped around its tip. After lighting it, they deftly drew their bows and shot the arrow towards the city gate.

With a few clanging sounds, the burning rockets were immediately embedded in the wooden city gate.

"Huh!? It didn't work?!" Bestur's brows furrowed, his tone filled with surprise and doubt.

As he saw, the flames of the rockets nailed to the huge bone gates hissed as if they had been doused with ice water, and their light quickly dimmed and shrank!
The thick, black mist that spread across the city gate, as if it were alive, greedily devoured the flames like a thirsty sponge, leaving only wisps of fleeting blue smoke.

However, this seemingly insignificant act of provocation was like a pebble thrown into a stagnant pond, instantly enraging the silent behemoth overhead!
Rumble——!
Above the sky, the enormous, ancient, and stagnant black cloud suddenly began to surge violently!
A deep, muffled sound, like rumbling thunder, rolled deep within the clouds. Then, an extremely dense torrent of black raindrops, emitting a strong stench of sulfur and burnt flesh, poured down like a waterfall from the heart of the churning black clouds!

That was no ordinary rain.

The moment each drop of "black rain" hit the ground, it did not seep into the sand. Instead, like ink dripping into clear water, it quickly spread out, expanded and churned violently, turning into clumps of thick, viscous, dark gray fog the size of fists!
In the blink of an eye, vast swathes of gray-black mist, as if imbued with life, writhed and coalesced into a thick, impenetrable gray "ocean." With astonishing speed visible to the naked eye, carrying with it a bone-chilling cold and a desperate intent of death, it surged towards Shen Mu and his cavalry, especially the twenty veteran Kujit horse archers at the front! (End of Chapter)