Unbound Deathlord_Obliteration

by Edward Castle

  It took a few minutes for them to kill all fifteen enemies, but my guys finally succeeded. All the while, I lay perfectly still.

  I said. No answer, but I wasn't expecting one.

  After a few more minutes, he finally told me I could move.

  I struggled at first, but after some help I finally managed to free myself from the bodies.

  We had miraculously lost no one in the battle. I had no idea how, but I found it better not to question a gift.

  My shield was somewhere in the mess, but instead of searching for it, I checked one of the lightsteel shields from the dead minotaurs.

  Medium-Quality Lightsteel Shield

  Uncommon

  » Resistance: 80%

  Five percent more resistance than mine. I took it.

  I asked.

 

 

 

 

 

  I said and he did so; I could now talk to the zombies using the mind chat. They looked at me.

  One zombie said.

  another one agreed.

  I pointed to the stairs at the end of the corridor. <...is the ground floor. There, we'll climb another set of stairs to the second floor. Once we get there, it's almost guaranteed that we'll manage to get to the control room. The big issue is the ground floor and the stairs to the second one.> I laid out my plan before them.

  a zombie said. He was ballsy; I liked it.

  I explained.

  That was an empty promise, of course. I had no idea what the minotaurs were preparing and couldn't say for sure that we could survive.

  But I was confident enough to put my dagger away and hold the keystone in my shield hand instead, to prove to the zombies that I was serious.

  Unless we found ourselves in some impossible situation on the ground floor, it would all come down to the zombies not messing up, just like I said.

  I asked.

  Lieutenant Tank Turtle and Private Tank Eleven were nominated after a brief discussion. I invited them to the party and told them to choose constitution and willpower for the bonuses my Strategist trait provided.

  They said, impressed by it.

  I told them all. This was one of the formations Daggers had taught them, which consisted of an outer ring made of tanks, an inner ring made of fighters, and all the crossbowmen plus me in the center.

  I continued.

  They didn't reply but their faces were serious — even Bear's!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  I concluded.

  There were none and we stripped the minotaurs on the ground and took their equipment; as I suspected, the lightsteel armor provided resistance against darkness element.

  Basic Lightsteel Set

  Uncommon

  » Prevents critical hits to the head

  By wearing a complete set, you receive the following defense bonuses vs attacks against any part of your body:

  » +50 defense

  » +25% darkness resistance

  An armor set usually consisted of distinct pieces of armor protecting five regions of the body: upper body, lower body, hands, feet, and head. When each piece was used separately, they only protected its specific body part, but an armor set provided more than the sum of the parts.

  For instance, the Lightsteel Gloves of this set had a defense factor of a measly thirty and two percent darkness resistance. But with the complete set equipped, they provided effective defense of fifty and twenty-five darkness resistance vs attacks against the wearer's hands.

  I didn't have an armor set but I didn't take any equipment for myself; for now, it was more important to have better armored tanks than to get myself better equipment. Anyway, I already had a High-Quality Iron Armor and High-Quality Iron Pants, each providing the same fifty points of defense as the lightsteel armor. Plus, my Dark Archmage title gave me immunity to darkness as well as fifty percent resistance to the light element.

  Well, I kept the shield with me and gave someone my old shield. Since the lightsteel shield wasn't part of the set, it didn't matter much.

  The lightsteel armor was distributed among the zombies and some fighters turned into tanks. A few of them would stay with the fighters to close any gaps that may appear in our defense. I also kept three armored crossbowmen with me to be my defenders.

 

I ordered when everyone was done suiting up.

  We got into the Circle Formation, or as close to that as the tight corridor allowed. With the speed we were running, we would be unable to redeploy at every intersection. Having men running against the walls would provide protection when we needed it, without sacrificing our speed. I almost couldn't believe that the zombies managed to form up without Daggers' loud and impolite encouragement.

  Of the fifty zombies we'd started with, twelve had died fighting the goblins and Melkier had 'left' us. Of the remaining thirty-seven, twenty-two were now tanks, five were fighters, and ten were crossbowm
en — three of which wore lightsteel armor. I was tempted to turn all fighters into crossbowmen but there may be situations where a more flexible fighter would be better than a tank or a ranged attacker.

  I gave the order after preparing eight firebombs, a deathball and a darkball ready.

  Dictating the speed in mind chat like that was also Daggers' doing. It was a very simple solution for unsynchronized movement.

  We got to the end of the corridor without any further battles and began to climb the stairs. A few times I had to call out the pace again, but it wasn't too bad.

  Explosions hit the tanks at the front of the formation as soon as they reached the ground floor. Thankfully, their shields mitigated most of the damage, but I could tell it had been a jolting impact.

  Spells that tried to fly over the front line to get to us were destroyed by bolts; the crossbowmen were doing their job. I also contributed, using level one darkballs for that. They were perfect for the job: they took only half a second to amass and cost almost no mana.

  I ordered. Some zombies tripped on the stairs and I didn't blame them; ascending the stairs at this rate while holding the formation was hard.

  Soon, I got to the ground floor and could see what we were up against.

  It wasn't pretty, but also not as bad as it could've been. In the huge room, maybe two hundred armored minotaurs barred the path to the gates in a defensive formation, with thirty or so mages behind them. A huge minotaur statue was close to the gates and I couldn't see behind it, but I didn't expect hidden enemies behind it.

  Minotaurs also guarded each of the eight doors out the big room, and on the large stairs a hundred minotaurs were organized in eight rows. Ten mages were upstairs, sending spells at us.

  I ordered.

  A random zombie asked.

  I replied.

  Bear said and only the sword in my hand prevented me from face palming.

  The staircase we had come from was right beside the big stairway to the second floor, so the minotaurs there were too alert at the moment.

  Arrows rained down on us. Each arrow did little damage individually but with hundreds of archers, they were taking a toll. Most of the enemy spells were destroyed mid-air but not all of them.

  Most of the spells were direct damage and only a few applied negative status effects. Ice grew from a tank's legs once and we were forced to wait a few seconds until he could walk again.

  For now, I only used darkballs and didn't control my spells' paths mid-air, shooting them in a straight line, which meant they were all cut from the air. This phase of the plan was about setting low expectations.

  The two zombie tanks on the front held their hands high at the same time and stepped back, immediately replaced by a fighter and a reserve tank. A second reserve tank was moving there to replace the fighter, but I stopped him.

  I ordered.

  They obeyed. Soon, the fighter was squeezing between two tanks and got back inside the formation.

  It was a flawless execution and I admit I felt proud of the idiots.

  No, that was unfair to them.

  They had been idiots when I first met them, but after Daggers' training and some preparation, they were perfectly capable players.

  A few more tanks had to retreat inside the circle and only one of them was replaced by a reserve tank. Things weren't looking good for us even by my estimation, and I knew we were faking some of it. The minotaurs probably believed we were on the brink of breaking.

  Out of nowhere, a huge firebomb exploded above me, dealing over five hundred damage. I felt the fire burn away some of the hair in my head and melt some of my skin, but there was so much adrenaline surging through my brain, that even though I screamed in pain, I didn't stop moving.

  I said when I recovered enough from the pain. I waited a few seconds so everyone was prepared. Except for one tank, everyone smoothly turned.

  From a turtle crawl we changed to a fast pace, not quite running but walking very quickly. The zombies facing the door who now had to walk backwards, couldn't deal with it and the formation broke.

  Bear complained.

  I replied.

  I expected that to happen and waited until we were five meters away from the stairs before ordering a stop to regroup.

  From the enemy perspective, we had tried to go for the gate but gave up, then tried to run to the stairs and our formation broke. They were surely thinking we were about to die.

  Time to act.

  As soon as the formation was restored, I sent my remaining three fire morbs — the other five had been destroyed by enemy arrows — flying. But I didn't send them straight at the minotaurs; instead, the spells flew all the way to the ceiling, straight up. When they were high enough, they turned the direction of the stairs, moving horizontally until they were over the mages. From there, they went down.

  Two firebombs exploded among the mages and the third hit the middle of the first row of minotaurs on the stairs. The mages in the center of the explosions were knocked down and the ones close to it suffered damage. The minotaurs in the first row took the explosion in stride, and only the one directly under the explosion was forced to kneel by the pressure.

  I ordered.

  Before we could even start, a zombie fighter in the middle of the group yelled and died with an arrow sticking in his head. First casualty.

  I said,

  The front of the Circle Formation became a 'V' that proceeded to pierce the first row. There was no way to control the speed of our movement now, it would depend on how fast we could ram through the enemy lines.

  I ordered.

  Bear closed with the minotaur in the center of the first row and attacked. His greatsword became immaterial as its blade went through the helmet of the first guy and cleaved into his face, with dark liquid following suit.

  His job was the hardest one: he had to open a path forward. All other tanks in the V-Formation only had to push through the gap that Bear opened, but Bear had to waste his stamina in the daunting effort to drive them back before him.

  The other tanks could push at them diagonally, but Bear was forced to fight head on against an opponent that that held the high ground.

  Daggers said.

  I said.

 

  Bear's opponent ever so slowly gave way. Bear ground slowly forward like the tank which was his class's namesake.

  Bolts flew at the enemy mages who were hiding themselves behind the eighth and last defensive row. They struck back with magic but to my surprise, the fighters were now focusing on cutting the spells mid-air.

  Doing so was directly against my orders to save stamina, but only because I hadn't thought of this before. Good thing I hadn't turned them all into tanks.

  The back of the minotaur fighting Bear was finally up against the second line. The one behind it it held firm forcing the first to fight Bear one on one. When the zombie attacked the minotaur's head yet again with the armor-ignoring skill, it finally gave up and got out of Bear's way.

  I sighed in relief. Things were going relatively well. Except for the fact that Bear had only two thirds of his stamina remaining to break through seven rows of enem
ies.

  Thankfully, there were enough combatants that the game considered this a large-scale battle. Therefore, we were using only one fifth the stamina and mana normally needed for all movement and skills.

  This reduction would be to the advantage of the minotaurs if it was a direct confrontation. However, we only wanted to get the hell out of here, and so, the reduced consumption worked in our favor.

  One of our crossbowmen died right in front of me. I made sure to put the body in a position that would prevent others from tripping on him before moving on. I'm thoughtful like that.

  As soon as Bear hit the minotaur in the second row, one of the zombies yelled 'Jack!'

  I turned, and I didn't like what I saw:

  The other minotaurs in the room, the ones guarding the stairs and the doors were advancing towards our group. They had stayed in place for longer than I'd expected, but less time than I had hoped for.

  I asked.

 

  We could use her help, but at the same time it was much more important for her to stay where she was, protecting the lever. If someone managed to throw the lever things would become much more difficult for us.

  I crouched. The armored crossbowmen and a reserve tank got around me, their shields raised. I said as I began to summon ten darkness morbs.

  A few seconds after I said that, the clash of forces could be heard from our rear line. One of the tanks in the V-Formation died. Things weren't looking good.

  Five seconds after crouching, I stood with ten dark morbs floating above my head.

  I yelled. He crouched and I sent all ten darkballs at the minotaur Bear had been fighting.

  The damage wasn't high but one spell after the other found openings in the minotaur's armor and damaged him enough that Bear was able to yank his legs out from under him while he was distracted.

  I said when the minotaur fell.

  'Pierce' was a command word for the V-Formation. Bear ignored the fallen yet still alive minotaur, stepped over it, and left the formation. He went as far ahead as he could before activating his typhoon-like skill, called Fatal Whirlwind, against the third row of minotaurs. After that, he started glowing red — he had activated the Rage skill.