Lord of Rot

Chapter 482: Chapter 427: Blood Stains the Yellow Sand

Watching Leech lead the charge toward the distant force, the mercenaries gripped their weapons but didn’t budge.

From the start, they had only wanted to fight an easy battle and skim some benefits. Risking their lives was out of the question.

If the enemy defeated Baron Porcupine, they’d just surrender and become prisoners. They were professionals in that regard!

Hoofbeats stirred up wind and sand.

The thousand-strong Half-Beastman force noticed Leech’s approaching troops and dispatched a large detachment to intercept them.

The two sides drew closer and closer, neither showing any intention of yielding.

A black tide and an iron wave of glinting silver armor were about to collide.

There were no roars, only the howling wind against their ears.

They inhaled, and sand filled their noses and mouths. But there was no time to spit it out, for the enemy’s spear was already upon them.

Leech, wielding the Dragon-Slaying Sword, rode his Horse-headed Eagle, Rocket, in a low pass, leading the charge!

With twice the strength of an ordinary flesh-and-blood enhanced Transcendent, plus the inertia of his high-speed charge, his form, as he swung the Dragon-Slaying Sword, resembled a black meteor.

The first to greet them were the arrows of the Half-Beastmen. A dense volley blotted out the sky. Leech’s vision went dark. He glanced up, then took out a potion and poured it into the Horse-headed Eagle’s mouth.

It was a Stone Skin Potion, which formed a layer of hard stone skin on the body’s surface after being consumed.

At the same time, Leech cast a layer of Stone Skin Magic on himself, consuming five units of Spiritual Power.

The powerful winds from the Horse-headed Eagle’s wings blew most of the arrows off course. The few that did hit them were met with resistance. Not only were the Horse-headed Eagle’s feathers sturdy enough to block a full-powered blow from a Transcendent, but the new layer of stone skin merely cracked without shattering.

Leech’s armor, fused with Flying Dragon Bone, was every bit as tough as the Horse-headed Eagle’s feathers. Protected by Stone Skin Magic as well, the two were like armored tanks, bulldozing a path straight through the arrow volley.

The black meteor shot past.

They crashed into the front ranks of the charging Warg Riders. Like a buzzsaw, the Dragon-Slaying Sword carved a bloody path through the Half-Beastman lines.

“Rocket, up!”

A sudden sense of crisis washed over Leech, and he yanked hard on the reins.

“SCREE—!”

As it took flight, the Horse-headed Eagle snatched a Warg in its talons and beat its wings, rapidly gaining altitude. The Warg struggled desperately but was helpless against the eagle’s claws, able only to watch as it was carried higher and higher.

THWACK!!

A precisely aimed arrow pierced the Warg’s body. Its flesh offered no resistance, and the arrow continued upward, grazing the Horse-headed Eagle’s abdomen as it passed.

The stone skin from the potion was completely shattered by that single graze.

“SCREE!”

Startled by the attack, Rocket released his talons and nearly lost his balance. The dead Warg plummeted from the sky, crushing a Warg Rider below.

‘That was close.’ Leech exhaled, his gaze sweeping the area. He finally spotted the figure of a Demon Beastman holding a nine-foot greatbow. ‘Those arrows are more like ballista bolts. If that had hit, Rocket and I would have been skewered.’

‘But now…’

“Jonney! Take him down!”

Leech sent the command with his thoughts.

‘They may have Demon Beastmen, but we have Transcendents—and a Palace Level one at that!’

‘He might not be a match for their Palace Level fighters, but he’s more than enough to bully some ordinary Demon Beastmen.’

With Leech leading the charge, the soldiers’ morale soared. A few hundred men faced a thousand without fear. What’s more, Leech had deployed all his Transcendents and cavalry. With the Palace Level Corpse Ghost, Jonney, as their spearhead, the force smashed into the Warg Riders.

From his high vantage point, Leech could clearly see his cavalry acting as a long spear, piercing the enemy ranks. They followed the bloody path he had just carved and pushed even deeper.

Unfortunately, while their initial momentum was fierce, they soon began to slow.

Thankfully, Jonney was there. He alone held back a dozen Demon Beastmen.

The other Transcendents, like Bai Lu the Elf, fought with a taut expression on her pretty face. Sword in hand, she moved with fluid grace on the chaotic battlefield, her fighting style like a dance.

Demon Beastmen, Mad Beastmen, and ordinary Warg Riders—none were a match for her.

Still, she had several close calls.

‘This woman seems to have an unnatural hatred for Half-Beastmen,’ Leech thought. ‘She’s fighting with everything she has.’

There were strong and weak fighters among them. Trevor and a few other newly-recruited mercenaries lacked combat prowess. When facing the main Half-Beastman force—the ferocious Mad Beastmen—they could only retreat, and it often took two of them to handle a single Mad Beastman.

The Horse-headed Eagle circled in the air, searching for an opportunity to dive back into the fray.

Meanwhile, nearly a hundred Warg Riders had broken through the stalemate with Leech’s cavalry and reached his rear guard.

Their charge had cost them dearly.

Warhorses were more stable in a charge; the agile, leaping Wargs struggled to maintain a rhythm. More importantly, Leech had carved a bloody path through them at the start, dealing a massive blow to the Half-Beastmen’s morale.

When they saw the mercenaries at the rear standing motionless, merely raising their weapons in defense, the Warg Riders shrieked at the top of their lungs.

“ROAR—!”

…

“ROAR—!”

Kleino’s heart pounded. He nervously drew the bastard sword at his waist, picked up the Zartie Double-headed Eagle shield at his feet, and strapped it to his forearm.

Wargs, predators at the top of the food chain, charged toward them. On their backs rode ugly, ferocious monsters with jutting tusks.

Because they hadn’t formed up properly, the mercenaries’ line was instantly torn open by the charge of just a hundred Warg Riders.

They pushed deeper and deeper, leaving countless dead and wounded in their wake.

Even the Warg Riders were surprised. As cannon fodder, they were just following orders to their deaths. The cavalry they’d just faced had been too strong and had inflicted heavy losses on them. They never expected the thousands of men hiding in the rear to be so weak.

A long spear, skewering two corpses, thrust toward Kleino.

The rider’s brutal killing style sent a chill down his spine.

KLANG—!

A muffled thud.

A short figure jumped in front of Kleino. But for an infantryman to try and block a charging cavalryman was pure fantasy. The figure who had shielded Kleino was sent flying by the Warg Rider’s charge. He slammed into Kleino, and the two of them were thrown backward together.

“Will?” Kleino was incredulous. His nemesis had just saved his life.

“COUGH! COUGH!” Will scrambled to his feet. “Get off me, don’t piss on me!”

“Only a four-foot-tall pipsqueak would wet the bed,” Kleino shot back, pushing himself up. He glanced at the Warg Rider who was bearing down on them. “First, let’s get him off that Warg.”

“Right!”

The two rolled nimbly to the side, but they hadn’t anticipated the biggest difference between a Warg and a warhorse: agility. Wargs might be inferior in a charge, but in a close-quarters fight, their flexibility made them far superior to warhorses.

The stunted Half-Beastman on the Warg’s back thrust its spear at Will, who ducked behind his shield.

Without the momentum of the Warg’s charge, the spear lacked the force to send Will flying.

“Get down here!” Kleino yelled, leaping at the stunted Half-Beastman.

CRUNCH!

The Warg spun and snapped its jaws around Kleino’s left arm. Because he had the small Double-headed Eagle shield strapped there, the beast’s mouth got stuck.

“Hahaha!” Kleino roared with laughter as he thrust his sword down the Warg’s open mouth. The bastard sword slid easily through its throat and burst out the back of its neck.

The dead Warg crashed to the ground. The stunted Half-Beastman scrambled to its feet, only to be slammed by Will’s shield, staggering before it fell.

Then, Will’s sword fell in a flurry of blows, and the Half-Beastman was hacked to pieces, its head severed from its body.

Kleino couldn’t pull his shield free, so he sliced through the straps with his sword. Just then, he saw Will hack off the stunted Half-Beastman’s head. “What the hell are these things?”

“Don’t know,” Will said. “But they’re definitely not human.”

“Even a pipsqueak would know they’re not human.”

“I just saved your damn life!”

Many other counter-attacks like Kleino and Will’s were happening all over. The mercenaries, forced into the fight, had no choice but to battle for their very lives.

After losing nearly four men for every one of the enemy, the mercenaries finally finished off the charging Warg Riders.

Blood stained the yellow sand.