Ghost Knight King's Dungeon Project

Chapter 75 [The Dawn of Scythe Shadows and Sword Radiance]

With a piercing crash, the sword and shield Corpse Knight's shoulder armor, aided by the shoulder technique of [Lion Hunt Gladiator], slammed into the side of the flesh gladiator's body with astonishing force.

The heavy bronze armor, carrying immense inertia, disrupted the center of gravity of the flesh-and-blood gladiator, causing him to sway and lose his balance for a moment.

Taking advantage of the moment of loss of balance, the Dark Copper Knight Sword seized the opportunity to stab, the blade gliding through the chains and piercing straight through the blood-soaked muscle.

The blade pierced through thick flesh, but that was all; it couldn't cause any further damage. The granulation tissue writhed slightly, and the crack began to rot and fester. In an instant, a throbbing abscess swelled up, stitching the crack back together. The texture of the wound became like that of a rotting corpse.

Although the muscles are damaged and their strength is weakened, they can still be used normally.

Flesh Gladiators are all made from fresh giant monster corpses. These undead, made from fresh flesh, can heal and self-repair to a certain extent at the cost of decaying wounds.

Only by inflicting massive cutting damage, severing limbs, decapitating, and completely destroying the body with immense force can this repulsive "necromantic healing method" be rendered ineffective.

Bang! Bang! Bursts of blood mist erupted from the bone jet pipes as the gladiators roared, their [Pneumatic Tendons] driving their thick arms to slam down with their bronze claws.

The Corpse Knights raised their shields, attempting to block a barrage of blows from the Nether Bronze Claws. However, amidst the deafening impact, the Corpse Knights' arms trembled violently. Although the shields were sturdy, the undead arms made of rotting corpses were nearly smashed off!
"Ah, what's the point of you putting on airs like this?" Decogon's low growl came from under the blindfolded gladiator's helmet. "Pretentious, hypocritical."

"Man is a beast, only he has learned to disguise himself. He puts on clothes, speaks polite words, and pretends that he is no longer an animal, but he is still like an animal, fighting each other for food, reproduction, and the status of the group, vicious and despicable. Only the dead can see all this clearly and get rid of all this."

"Let me strip away your disguise—"

Bang! Bang bang! Bang bang! A series of heavy blows, like the beating of drums, pounded on the bronze shields, cracking sounds mixed in. One by one, the joints of the shield-wielding arms of the corpse knights began to shatter, and they were knocked down along with their shields.

The smashing continued unabated, the wild blows relentless. With each cracking sound of the pneumatic tendons exploding, the fallen corpse knight was gradually smashed to pieces, fragments of dark bronze and rotting flesh splattering until he was reduced to a puddle of mud.

“Is that so? The living people I’ve seen are somewhat different from what you’ve described.” Samael’s calm voice echoed from within the tattered bell-shaped helmet. “They are a group of brave warriors, a group of heroes—there is only one kind of heroism in the world, and that is to see life for what it is, and still…”

Bang! The pneumatic muscles exploded with a loud bang, and the spray of blood from the bony trachea obscured the sky through the bell-shaped helmet's eye.

“You are an even more troublesome opponent than Rahador.” The flesh gladiator slowly got up. “Why can’t everyone be like Ansba? Even when tearing each other apart in anger, they remain quiet, with only the sound of fists and claws whistling through the air.”

“…Still love life.” Samael’s voice came from beneath a cadaver hunter’s bell-shaped helmet.

It leaped onto the back of the flesh-and-blood gladiator, attempting to decapitate him again, but the gladiator leaned back and lay flat on his back, trying to crush the hunter.

Dust flew everywhere. But the unarmored hunter was agile and dodged before the heavy gladiator's back could press down on it.

When the gladiator tried to get up, his movements were much slower.

“Nonsense,” Decgon muttered, as the gladiators swung their bodies, swinging the chains on their shoulders and necks around their necks to protect their relatively vulnerable necks.

Another Corpse Hunter, using the leaping power of [War Dance], launched itself into the air with a backflip. With a flash of its Nether Bronze Longsword, the combat technique [Falling Strike] pierced the gladiator's shoulder.

The heavy force of the [Falling Kill] left a deep, bone-revealing wound, and the flesh-and-blood gladiator's entire arm was only connected by half a tendon, hanging loosely down.

Looking at the cross-section, the pneumatic tendon is still covered in blood on the outside, like the muscles of a living wild animal, but the muscles around the bone inside have been ruptured by repeated decompression of the air sacs. The necromantic repetitive healing has caused the flesh structure to rot and turn black.

“Every time you use [Pneumatic Tendon], you will spray out a large amount of blood mist.” Samael’s voice came from under the hunter’s helmet. “The amount of blood is limited. Frequent use of [Pneumatic Tendon] will lead to a lot of blood loss, and the explosion of the bone pressure valve will also severely damage muscle mass—that’s why you have to keep hunting monsters to replace the tendons with fresh ones to maintain your unit’s condition.”

The gladiator swung his other arm, trying to swat the hunter away, but his thick, heavy flesh and blood body was relatively clumsy. Without using the [Pneumatic Tendon], the gladiators' movements were far from agile and could be easily dodged by [War Dance] and [Focus on Footwork].

"Without the replenishment of fresh tendons, you can't maintain this condition for long." Three or four corpse hunters somersaulted, turned sideways to assume the [Blade Counter Stance], and carefully began to surround the lone flesh gladiator.

This is the first half of the battle plan: use the sword and shield Corpse Knights to deplete the gladiators' muscle strength, and then use the Corpse Hunters to reap the rewards.

"So what?" Deckgun roared. "Even without using the pneumatic tendons, I can still overpower these skinny undead."

The flesh-and-blood gladiator let out a piercing howl, activated the necromancer's combat skill [Nightmare Rush], and charged towards the front line using both hands and feet.

In the frenzied charge of the undead, [Blade Counter Stance] only managed to leave a few shallow wounds before being sent flying.

The gladiators' wounds quickly fester and are "healed" and repaired in a necromantic manner.

The Necromancer's Nightmare Rush skill, once activated, has a speed comparable to Focused Footwork and Battle Dance. If you're hoping to hunt gladiators using Corpse Hunter, the effect will still be quite poor.

"Ansba, hurry up." Samael withdrew the remaining hunters from the battlefield and used the bell-shaped helmet rotten root orb to contact his allies. "When we traded before, you also obtained that special combat skill."

“The combat skills of the twenty-five skeleton warriors have been changed... It will take about twelve seconds... Between twelve and fifteen seconds,” Ansbarr replied in a booming voice.

Clang, clang, clang... The resounding, heavy clatter echoed across the snow, trampling through the slush, flowers, and bushes.

Twenty-five heavily armored Skeleton Warriors approached step by step. Their bodies were covered in thick, dark bronze armor, as solid as city walls, almost like solid blocks of copper. Under the immense strength of the Skeleton Warriors, whose roots were fossilized, they moved forward with heavy steps, leaving deep footprints with each step.

They carried no shields, but dragged heavy spears and greatswords.

In comparison, Samael's sword and shield Corpse Knight armor appears quite light, only qualifying as medium armor.

Clang, clang, clang... On the other side, twenty-five corpse knights held huge bronze tower shields, from which sharp longswords and heavy spears extended, the spearheads bearing spiraling bronze spikes.

The two lines converged in front of the battle line, quickly forming a wedge-shaped attack formation.

The military tactics of the Ancient Erdrik Empire: the Razor Formation.

The fifty elite squads, jointly formed by Samael and Ansba, quickly formed a formidable triangular formation through coordinated combat skills.

Giant shields, spears, and longswords—fifty undead warriors instantly formed a unified whole, both many and one.

Clang! A loud bang of colliding bronze echoed through the sky—this bang was made up of the soft sounds of countless shields closing together seamlessly, but they all happened at the same time, so that the sounds of hundreds of collisions merged into a loud bang.

The Dark Bronze Knights advanced slowly, like a moving wall of Dark Bronze.

Clang, clang, clang! With the heavy thud of his bronze boots, the horns formed by his great shield, spear, and broadsword pierced the beasts ahead like sharp knives!
The flesh-and-blood gladiators roared, reactivating their necromancy combat skill [Nightmare Rush]. Using the tearing technique of [Judgment], they raised their bronze claws and slammed them fiercely into the army formation!

The shield emitted a teeth-grinding, screeching sound, like fingernails scratching a blackboard, with bluish sparks flying everywhere, leaving scratches on the shield's surface.

Bang! Bang! Bang! A series of explosions of pneumatic tendons erupted, spraying out a foul, black mist of blood! Ignoring the damage to his muscles, Decgon launched a final, ferocious attack in a fit of rage!
The powerful impact of the pneumatic tendons, which would normally have broken the shield-bearer's arm joints, now only left a few dents on the thick shield surface.

The shield's vibrations became slight, as if it were a single, cast bronze wall. In a daze, the cold wall seemed to have no boundaries, only absolute chill.

Because of the Razor Formation combat skill, the undead cooperate with each other, and the edges of their great shields are locked together in an exquisite way. When one shield is impacted, only half of the force is applied to the arm of the undead holding the shield, while the other half of the force is distributed to the shields of the other shield-bearing knights around them as the edges of the shields are locked together.

The blade pierced through the opening on the side of the shield, and the knight's sword's [Precision Combo] repeatedly struck the same spot, leaving fresh wounds on the bloodied body of the gladiator.

The necromancer's "flesh-and-blood healing technique" worked again, the abscess swelled up, and the rotting fibers glued the flesh together. However, just as the wound began to heal through decay, a second sword pierced the same spot in the body once more.

A stab wound, festering, adhesions; another stab wound in the same spot, festering again, adhesions again…

After a round of precise combo attacks, seven or eight stabs from the blade had severely spread the festering wounds, causing the muscles to deteriorate and the rot to penetrate deep into the bone marrow. The "flesh gladiator" had been degraded into a "corpse gladiator."

The heavy spears, propelled from the gaps in the shields, slammed down and then rose again, piercing the flesh and blood of the gladiators and pinning them to the spears. The necromancy technique [Piercing Sampling] was activated; the spear shaft slowly rotated, and the spikes at the spearhead shredded the flesh.

“Through unity and cooperation, primitive humans were able to easily defeat wild beasts,” Samael said softly. “Mutual assistance, dedication, unity, and mutual respect are not pretense or foolishness, but the source of true power. This is the meaning of virtues in human civilization.”

"The birth of the earliest human civilization began with a broken and healed femur—because a broken femur means that after this primitive human was injured, he was selflessly rescued by his companions. His companions did not despise him as a burden, but instead fed him, carried him away from wild beasts, and eventually helped him recover his health—this is the origin of human civilization and the reason why human civilization has been able to continue."

“I am not the dead, I am the shadow of the living,” Samael said. “I am not a ghost, I am the continuation of life.” “I believe you are too.”

The Razor Formation rampaged through the horde of flesh and blood, instantly smashing a large number of flesh and blood gladiators to pieces.

"Rahador!" Deckhon roared from beneath the blindfolded gladiator's helmet. "Why are you just standing there? Where are your troops? Why aren't they helping?"

Rahado, perched atop the low wall on the island in the middle of the lake, leaned lazily against it, watching the blood and flesh gladiators below crumble in disarray.

“If Samael and Ansba win, they will continue to attack me,” he said slowly. “And if you win, I will be your next target—you just said it yourself—and you will hang my helmet on your crotch as a trophy.”

"The snowfall and temperature drop have cleared the fog from my territory, and now it's clearly impossible for me to dominate alone—I need to find a truly trustworthy ally, not a belligerent lunatic, a socially anxious shut-in, or—a fun-loving person with a moral bottom line lower than mine."

He extended his gauntlet, within which he held the tanned corpse of Prancing's helmet.

"What does this mean, my good ally?" The little necromancer grinned with sharp teeth, his eyesless face revealing a dark, rotten, tanned leather.

"Oh, yes, what does this mean, my good ally?" Rahador's gauntlets pinched Prange's little undead, mimicking Prange's tone in a sarcastic way, squeezing its leather skin until it dented and made a creaking sound.

“Guess.” Rahado reached out and squeezed, crushing the helmet. He released it, and the mangled, tanned undead wreck fell from the top of the fortress.

As it fell, seven or eight membranous necromancers made of fish skin and swim bladders tumbled up and down, tearing it back and forth like a rag doll, ripping it into rotten black fragments.

After tearing apart Prang's messenger, the winged undead did not stop. Instead, wielding long-handled scythes and spears, they flew down towards the remnants of the battlefield like angels of death.

The shield-bearing corpse knights raised their spare kite-shaped shields above their heads, ready to deal with the attack from the sky.

However, the winged undead did not charge towards the Razor Army, but instead rushed towards the heavily wounded flesh gladiators. They attacked from unexpected angles with their scythes, using the speed and inertia of gliding to drag the scythe blades along, harassing and distracting the unarmored limbs while quickly severing them.

Rotting limbs were scattered all over the ground.

"You two-faced bastard—" the flesh gladiator roared at the sky above the swirling winged necromancers.

Snap! The scythe slid from behind, severing the gladiator's head. The blindfolded gladiator's helmet rolled on the ground, echoing Deckorn's last words:

"—You bastard!"

The army stood ready, prepared for the final battle against Rahado. However, Rahado shrugged his shoulder armor, slowly adjusted his chainmail, clattered off the dust, and walked down the fortress steps.

The leaf-footed serpent slowly rose from the lake, using its body to pave a path for Rahado.

Rahado stepped on the back of the Leaf-Foot Serpent and arrived at the front of the army.

The scythe-winged undead hovered overhead, casting their last dark shadows across the snowy dawn.

“Let’s give each other a dignified ending.” He spread his arms and opened his gauntlets in front of the army. “If I really want to fight, I do have a chance. At worst, I can crush your army with my leaf-footed serpent and harass your main bodies with flying undead. But that would be too undignified.”

“I know you still have undead earth-devouring worms and carrion legion behemoths, and you haven’t even used your large units yet. But if you use every means possible for our battle, it will only allow others—like Prange, who has been sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing—to reap the benefits.”

"Moreover, I have seen through the true nature of those so-called allies and deeply regret my past actions. I hope you two can give me a chance to make true allies and get along well with my true kind." He put one hand behind his back and the other on his breastplate, bowing slightly in greeting.

The military formation shifted slightly.

Rahado straightened up, raised his hand and waved it, and the flying membrane-winged undead landed far behind him, putting down their scythes.

The giant leaf-footed serpent slithered back to the bottom of the lake, and the lake returned to silence.

Rahado, with his hands empty and arms outstretched, calmly stepped forward and stood a dozen paces away from the army formation.

“Don’t believe it,” Ansba said.

“I know,” Samael said, “but we have to give others a chance, right?”

“…Don’t believe it.” Ansba couldn’t think of anything to say, so he stubbornly repeated it again.

Samael shrugged.

A moment later, the army slowly parted and created an opening.

Samael's true form emerged from behind the battlefield as he traversed the night-covered battlefield, stepping over the bullet holes of catapults, the hoofprints of skeleton cavalry, the claw marks of gladiators, mud, rotting flesh, shrub debris, and broken bronze weapons.

“I am delighted to be allied with you, Samael, my neighbor, my friend, and the new leader of the Skeleton Heart—” Rahado extended his hand to Samael with composure.

Samael hesitated for a moment.

“Don’t believe it.” Ansba hesitated for a while, then repeated to the rotten root bell-shaped helmet on his shoulder armor, clearly not very good with words.

“I don’t really trust you,” Samael said frankly, looking at Rahador. “You know why yourself.”

Rahado gave a dry laugh.

“But I always have the best hope for things,” Samael continued. “Everyone has flaws, but everyone has strengths. Everyone deserves to change, and everyone deserves to be trusted at least once.”

He extended his sturdy and powerful gauntlets of dark bronze and grasped Rahador's thin gauntlets of dark bronze, making a soft click.

Nothing happened.

The two men clasped hands briefly, then casually released them.

“I am not here to destroy everything,” Samael said. “I am here to unite everything. In this vast and terrifying strange world, before those incredibly glorious gods behind the scenes, we are not strong—only unity, only unity, is true power.”

"We need mutual respect, mutual assistance, and cooperation to uncover the truth of the world and break through the arrangements of the gods."

"That's quite a grand goal, boss," Rahado complimented sheepishly.

A hazy sun rose in the eastern sky. The snowfall not only cleared away the fog but also temporarily dispersed the clouds, allowing the rare sunshine to shine through.

“Come with me. You, me, and Ansba need to make further plans for the future.” Samael beckoned to Rahado and turned to lead the way.

In the instant he turned around, he saw Rahado's shadow illuminated by the sunlight in the eastern sky, projected at his feet.

Liquid metal gushed from the shadow's gauntlets, melting and forging into a scythe-shaped shadow that hesitated for a moment behind him before slowly raising itself.

Ding!
A soft sound.

Sunlight shone on the two ghostly knights. The parry of the Witch Gold Sword severed the tip of the scythe, cutting the entire blade off, which fell to the ground with a thud.

The two maintained this pose in the sunlight, the sunrise giving the bronze a golden edge.

“I already said that,” Ansba’s voice rang out.

“I know,” Samael said.

“Ah, haha, ha… uh.” Rahado chuckled dryly. “I’ll… scrape the rust off your nails, boss.”

(End of this chapter)