NEC Chapter 122: Vast Sea's New Army, First Arrival at the Fortress

Doyle was a fourth-tier undead mage of the Eternal Night level, and also the captain of the "Night’s Edge" mercenary group.

You couldn't tell from the name what connection this mercenary group had with undead mages. After all, for those wealthy merchants and rich families, being associated with undead mages always felt somewhat uncomfortable.

And these very people happened to be the big patrons of mercenary missions. A single escort mission could offer dozens or even hundreds of gold coins, while in comparison, taking missions from various governments was not much different from mining and hard labor.

If you encountered a black-hearted noble, it was equivalent to doing charity work.

Among nobles, there was no shortage of clever people, and even less shortage of bastards.

He had just been cheated by one such bastard. After completing the mission, they hadn't even earned back the team's expenses. If Doyle hadn't used undead creatures to absorb most of the damage, the death compensation alone could have bankrupted the mercenary group.

That's right, nobles could act unconscionably toward mercenary groups, but mercenary groups had to strictly follow the mercenary guild's industry standards.

This was the same principle as how large corporations could act as they pleased while small companies had to obediently follow laws and regulations. It was too easy for them to manipulate you.

Seeing that the team's funding was already struggling, continuing like this would likely make it impossible to maintain the mercenary group's qualification, and they'd be downgraded to a mercenary squad.

Doyle gritted his teeth and accepted the assistance mission for pioneering Blood Fortress.

"Night’s Edge," as a medium-scale mercenary group, had thirty-two members. Besides the fourth-tier captain and vice-captain, there were twelve third-tier professionals. After accepting this mission and carefully calculating the compensation, leaving a small number of personnel to guard the headquarters, "Night’s Edge" departed early and arrived at the Blood Fortress perimeter.

After setting up camp, the members began cautiously clearing the magical energy creatures from the perimeter, at least to leave a good impression for the approaching patron.

Vice-captain Geddy returned covered in sand and dust, looking somewhat worried.

"These magical energy creatures are getting harder and harder to handle!"

"Blood Fortress has stood for over one hundred eighty years. How could a newly arrived pioneering lord possibly attack it? Captain, are you perhaps..."

Doyle looked at this old comrade who had fought alongside him for over ten years, knowing what he was worried about.

Having the nearby Dark Knight summon pour Geddy a cup of water, Doyle patiently explained, "I've thought about this matter for a long time and feel there shouldn't be much of a problem!"

"I've inquired about it. This lord went to that place called Saltwater Flats less than six months ago, and when he went, he only brought a dozen or so mercenaries, none exceeding third tier."

"During this time they've been recruiting people everywhere, but no one wants to go to that godforsaken place, which means the other party has at most twenty or thirty professionals."

"Talking about attacking Blood Fortress and pioneering, I estimate it's just some noble young master having a whim, coming here to play around."

The vice-captain gulped down half a bag of water and wiped the water droplets from his beard, "But what if he forces us to go deeper?"

"It's still the same principle. If the other party has few people and insufficient strength to devour us, then they can't force us to go die. Don't you think so?"

"You know the group's situation. After the last war, several old brothers' injuries still haven't healed, and the duchy's compensation hasn't come down yet. It's all been advanced by the group. If we don't find a big job, we're going to fall apart!"

"Don't worry, I guarantee you, I absolutely won't joke around with the brothers' lives. Once there's danger, I'll terminate the mission and leave immediately!"

Seeing vice-captain Geddy's unwilling yet helpless expression, Doyle patted his broad shoulder, "Alright, alright, I heard that the lord of Saltwater Flats is also an undead mage. Maybe for the sake of the Underworld Lord, he'll take care of us a bit!"

Suddenly, a loud horn sounded from the perimeter.

The sentinel brought news that the other party's advance sand people had made contact with the mercenary group's outposts. The employer's forces had arrived!

"Let's go greet them!"

A few minutes later, standing before the observation post outside Blood Fortress, Doyle brought all the group's mobile personnel to watch as a red flag slowly rose from the distant sand dune peak.

A centaur holding a battle flag paused briefly on the sand dune, then waved the banner left and right.

Soon, the earth seemed to begin trembling slightly, and squad after squad of centaurs rose up from the sand dunes.

These robust and fierce creatures weren't wearing armor, but instead wore jackets with interspersed brown, yellow, and white fragments that created a blurry visual effect when they moved. At this moment, Doyle didn't yet know this was called desert camouflage.

Each centaur carried large bundles on their backs and had pouches hanging from both sides of their bodies. Like angry dragons, they swept down the sandy slopes like a whirlwind, instantly forming a large arc from the front, left, and right directions, surrounding them.

The "Night’s Edge" mercenaries nervously gripped their weapons. Doyle could already hear the muffled sound of his old comrade's arm guards hitting his waist armor.

Fortunately, the centaur troops didn't charge directly at them. The cavalry on the left and right simply bypassed the mercenary group, cutting directly toward the rear camp behind them, while the frontal forces split in two, forming two neat rows in front of the mercenary group.

Next, large numbers of camels began appearing on the sand dunes.

Following East Xia's style of never fighting unprepared battles, Vast Sea Territory had brought a full one hundred sixty camels. The long convoy had started appearing on the sand dunes over ten minutes ago and still hadn't finished passing even after another ten minutes.

However, the lord traveling with the convoy had arrived.

With one guard on each side, the left one was a minotaur warrior nearly three meters tall, the right one was a human Silver Armor Warrior in full heavy armor, and behind them followed sand people and what appeared to be translator attendants. So the one in the middle, who looked ridiculously young, must be that lord.

Doyle bowed down somewhat frantically.

The other party's scale far exceeded his imagination. This... surely they weren't really going to attack Blood Fortress!

The following scenes continuously confirmed his most worrying speculation.

Carefully accompanying this Vast Sea lord back to camp, the centaur troops that had arrived first had already established two defensive lines here.

One curved defensive line faced outward, covering all passages from the Blood Fortress front plaza area to the outside world, while a straight defensive line faced inward, positioned between the "Night’s Edge" tents and the campsite selected by this lord's subordinates.

Centaurs moved back and forth, continuously placing bundles and supplies of various sizes at different points along the defensive lines.

Then Doyle saw skeleton spearmen emerging from the bags dropped by the centaurs.

Doyle rubbed his eyes. That's right, although each joint was fitted with strange protective gear, their form and movement frequency fully proved these were the lowest-grade skeleton spearmen.

They didn't even have bone spears...

These cannon fodder among the underworld's cannon fodder, Doyle couldn't remember how long it had been since he'd seen them.

After the skeletons crawled out, they found tools nearby and began digging holes in the ground, while behind them were first-tier resurrection necromancers holding serpent staves and sporting two large horns, wandering around like supervisors.

First-tier necromancers were also quite rare.

Doyle was now completely certain that this lord was indeed an undead mage, and quite a rookie undead mage at that.

Second-tier resurrection necromancers would have a bat wing unfold on their bone staff and gain an additional skill called "Death Frenzy," which could continuously consume the life force of the living or the soul fire of the dead to dramatically increase the subject's speed and agility, allowing them to achieve "ten strikes per second, each strike severing heads!"

After third tier, the bone staff would unfold into a complete bat wing form and gain the final skill, "Soul Crippling." When successfully cast, it would dramatically reduce the opponent's speed and agility, essentially turning them into a hemiplegic paralysis patient.

The power of resurrection necromancers was more reflected in their latter two skills. Abandoning the future growth of such powerful underworld spellcasting units to bring them out early for summoning skeletons... how to put it, it felt like using a unicorn to turn a millstone.

But regardless of how rookie they were, this was a lord, currently the lord who controlled the life and death of his group.

Being able to accept the Blood Fortress mission, the "Night’s Edge" mercenary group was relatively familiar with this area.

In front of the opened map, Doyle somewhat tremblingly explained to the young lord across from him.

"The magical energy creatures wandering around the fortress perimeter are mostly dark-type magical monsters formed by the manifestation of dead orc remains. Because Blood Fortress doesn't allow them entry, they can only wander around the fortress ruins for long periods."

"These guys aren't difficult to handle. We've already cleared all the monsters in the city front plaza area, so we won't be disturbed by them for a short time."

"Blood Fortress's second layer begins from entering these city wall ruins, the black mist-shrouded outer city. Here are the manifested ruin guards of the tens of thousands of fortress warriors who died in battle back then. In the chaotic magical currents, they generally have the strength of second to third-tier warriors, with individual leaders even reaching fourth-tier level."

"As for the third layer's inner city, no one has touched it, but according to records, that was where the fortress's final battle was most brutal, with at least thousands of first-class professionals from both humans and orcs dying there..."

Doyle stole a glance at Chen Mo's expression, attempting to carefully advise, "Respected Lord, this ruin is extremely dangerous. I think you must be very careful..."

"Good! Your preliminary work is excellent! Very solid!"

Chen Mo stood up and instructed the accompanying translator, "First pay them the preliminary fees according to the contract."

"Next, we're going to start working. Time is tight and the mission is heavy. Everyone get moving!"

Doyle let out a long sigh.

"Geddy, I'll take the Dark Knights and the old brothers inside to accompany them. You... you stay outside with the youngsters!"

"Even if we don't come back, this money will be enough to support you for a while!"

Following the lord's instructions, Vast Sea Territory's troops worked through the night to dig trenches, build fixed fortifications, set up active phased array biological detection radar on the high sand dunes, and deployed sand people sentries at a distance.

The main force rested well, and the next day, they began advancing toward the Blood Fortress ruins.

Entering the black mist area, visibility dropped to less than fifty meters. The mages in Night’s Edge began casting light spells, trying to disperse the heavy gloom as much as possible.

The ground was covered with city wall bricks eroded by wind and sand to the point of being fragmented, cracking into powder with the slightest step.

From time to time there were sounds of weapon clashes, roars, and vague singing, sometimes loud and sometimes soft, floating around everyone's ears like a poorly tuned stereo system, sometimes near and sometimes far!

Suddenly, a shadow burst out of the black mist.

The Dark Knight summon walking at the front precisely struck down with one blow. The ruin guard that hadn't yet managed to touch the Dark Knight was shattered by the violent blade light, dissipating in the wind created by the weapon.

Liu Zaiyue, experiencing this for the first time, shook his head, "Isn't this quite simple?"

"Sir! These things can't be killed completely, and the more armor pieces they wear, the stronger they are. Later on, they'll be everywhere!"

The ruin guard just now had indeed only been wearing a small piece of chest armor, likely an ordinary soldier.

As Doyle had said, the deeper the team went, the more ruin guards kept charging at them, and the stronger they became.

After advancing less than three hundred meters, casualties began appearing in the team. A "Night’s Edge" warrior was surrounded by multiple ruin guards, and when the Dark Knights couldn't provide adequate cover, his waist and abdomen were torn open with a huge gash.

Doyle's lips trembled as he directed the mercenaries to frantically bandage the wound, once again making a request to Vast Sea assault captain Kaga.

"Sir, we can't... can't go any deeper. It's too dangerous inside!"

Kaga didn't even look at him, raising his right arm high, "All units attention, form assault formation, continue advancing!"

Doyle was completely in despair.

Although none of these youngsters here might be able to withstand a single blow from his high-tier Dark Knight, Doyle still didn't dare resist.

There were still brothers outside, family back home. The "Night’s Edge" mercenary group couldn't bear the crime of betraying and harming a pioneering lord in battle.

Then he heard an order that sounded like heavenly music, something he could hardly believe.

"Have your people fall back, don't block the path up front!"

A few dozen seconds later, the surviving "Night’s Edge" team huddled tightly in a small circle, watching as those warriors from Vast Sea Territory took over the battle line, forming an arrow-shaped battle formation pointing forward.

Having observed for so long, Kaga had basically understood the "Night’s Edge's" path-clearing method.

Opening the communicator and having a brief communication with Chen Mo, who remained outside the ruins observing the scene through video systems, Kaga issued a series of commands.

"Turn on the lighting system!"

"Deploy reconnaissance drones!"

"Skeleton regiment assault squad advance, maintain spacing!"

"Engage enemies freely, watch your crossfire coverage!"

"Attack!"

The light from over ten searchlights pierced through the black mist like bright swords.

Gunfire thunderously erupted in this ancient and profound fortress ruin.

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