Heroes of Might and Magic: Grand Consul

Chapter 339 Volcanic Illusion
Sumu and Liliana retreated from the territory occupied by Isildur, leaving behind a group of skeleton soldiers to continue their attack on the town.

This won't delay things for long, but it's better than leaving immediately.

They were fighting fiercely just a few days ago, but suddenly they stopped. This will definitely be noticed by the Bastion Legion.

In fact, Su Mu didn't intend to keep it a secret for long. He moved towards Katherine's direction. Even if Isidore learned of this information, he would only think that they were going to meet up and would never have thought that the two sides would fight each other.

Just as he had thought, Catherine and her men were also searching for Uri's trail. After defeating Dino's army, they were preparing to try again.

If you still can't catch up with the vampire, retreat immediately.

To think they could invade Isildur with just tens of thousands of troops would be a complete idiot, unless they'd been eaten by zombies.

However, their progress was not smooth. Dino caught up with a large number of golden dragons and silver pegasus. This time there were more than 50 golden dragons, which covered the sky and scorched the earth with their flames. The Cold Night Skeleton had just been resurrected from the ice, but it was burned to ashes by the dragon flames and could not survive.

Katherine was forced into a retreat; his army of skeletons was too conspicuous and easily tracked, and with the golden dragons locking onto them from the sky, they had no chance of escape.

"Stop pursuing! My troops have not only failed to grow, but their numbers have actually decreased. If we continue fighting like this, we'll be wiped out sooner or later, and we won't gain anything at all."

"Let me be frank with you, Uli is crafting a special soul vessel that can be adapted to the strongest effect of the Deception Artifact. Each use only requires the loss of the wronged souls within it. He originally planned to use the Crimson Moon, combined with the Soul Fire, to complete the final step."

In this way, he could impersonate Prince Eldon and sneak back into the kingdom, undetected even by the kingdom's advanced intelligence capabilities.

"However, because this treasure is affected by the artifact of deception, it may corrupt one's mind. I am here to keep an eye on Uri in case he betrays us."

Katherine laid everything out to Fao, revealing his purpose, with another simple implication: he was now in grave danger and unable to monitor Uri, and even if he found him, he might not be able to defeat the vampire. Therefore, he needed to retreat to the ancient ruins first.

When it comes to alertness and ruthlessness, Katherine is undoubtedly a top-tier hero in the Necropolis, which may be related to his command of skeleton soldiers. He used necromancy to grow his army from a few hundred soldiers to tens of thousands, almost growing stronger with each battle. Combined with his skeleton specialties, this makes it easy for him to snowball his power.

Normally, Katherine would choose to avoid powerful enemies, resorting to bullying the weak and fearing the strong, but the effect has been quite good, except that the number of skeletons in the army is increasing day by day. The fact that they've followed this far suggests they're extremely envious of Uri's treasure.

It's quite possible that this treasure is also related to the strengthening of the skeleton soldiers, but Katherine didn't explain it, otherwise why would he be working so hard? Fao didn't quite believe it.

"When it gets dark, you take your troops and run north, making a big commotion to lure the golden dragon away. I will continue marching south. If we don't encounter Uri, we'll head straight for the Ayra Valley to escape Isildur's territory."

Upon hearing this, Katherine was initially furious—so he'd used his skeleton soldiers as bait—but then she suddenly realized something was amiss. These heroes of the ancient ruins didn't have much freedom; wasn't Fao afraid of being punished by the Grand Duke for simply running south like this?

"This is what the Grand Duke of the Dead meant!"

As if knowing what Catherine was thinking, Fao stated it directly.

Katherine immediately fell silent. He had heard that the kingdom's army had recently amassed in the valley, and that it was quite dangerous. How dare Fao lead a hundred Nightmare Knights there?

But what if there's an inside accomplice?
The eldest prince doesn't dare to go back right now, but the capital may not know what happened. If there are still loyal ministers, then things will get interesting.

The king is seriously ill, corrupt officials are in power in parliament, and the speaker is colluding with ministers to wreak havoc on the kingdom. I wonder if anyone will believe this rumor.
Perhaps it's not a rumor?

"Hehehe, leave the barrier-attracting to me, you just focus on completing the tasks assigned by the boss!"

After saying that, Katherine went to organize the legion and assign tasks.

Since they are all skeleton soldiers, there is no need to boost morale or reward them. Just give the order and do as they say.

As darkness fell, nearly half of the skeleton army headed towards the Fal Forest, slaughtering villages and damaging forest paths along the way. A small remnant fled southeast towards the border city, where they'd heard the vampire army was located; perhaps they could run into them. Since they couldn't rescue Uli, they might as well create chaos to give him a chance to escape. That guy possessed dark magic and had many tricks up his sleeve; if a battle broke out, he'd find a way to escape.

As for Katherine himself, he led several hundred elite skeleton guards and disappeared into the northern mountains.

Everyone thought he cherished his skeleton soldiers, but these undead were merely his consumables, and he would never be stingy when it came to using them.

Fao also took advantage of the chaos to head south, preparing to enter the valley along the hills.

……

The Ironfury dwarves had just finished digging their tunnel and peeked out when they saw a group of skeleton soldiers plundering the village.

Without much hesitation, they picked up their hammers and smashed the skeletons to pieces. If they couldn't beat the vampires, surely they could beat the skeleton soldiers?
The enemy was weaker than expected; almost a single dwarf could kill three or four skeleton soldiers. After the victory, everyone looked at each other in dismay.

Dragons also flew overhead at this time. They discovered the large-scale undead invasion and, like the Night King's minions, surrounded the area for a while only to find it was a group of skeleton soldiers. Flying to the rear of the designated location, they found dwarves who had been digging tunnels for days, but they too had only managed to encircle the skeleton soldiers.

Where's the vampire? Did he run away?

"Keep chasing! They can't have gone far; these skeleton soldiers are just a smokescreen."

The heroes of the Bastion quickly realized that trying to use cheap skeletons as bait was a gross underestimation of the Bastion Legion.

The Golden Dragon and Silver Pegasus have assembled their forces and are heading west. The Hill Legion has also formed an interception force; once encountered, the enemy will have no chance of escape.

……

The plan was good, but Dino ran into a problem. He had been defeated by Katherine's skeleton army last time and knew the strength of Katherine's skeleton units, mistakenly believing that the enemy's main force consisted of skeletons.

When he learned that the massive skeleton army was marching towards the Fal Forest, he was instantly terrified.

The Hills Legion's failure to halt the undead invasion, resulting in Rosalind's death, had already greatly displeased the Elder Council. If the skeleton army were allowed to storm the new city and wreak havoc, both he and Lloyd would likely be punished.

The dragon soared through the night, its wings piercing the enemy's movements. The undead were indeed attacking in all directions, likely trying to escape, but the largest force, numbering tens of thousands of skeletons, was advancing towards the Fal Forest.

Even if Dino wanted to chase after it elsewhere, there was nothing he could do; he couldn't afford to gamble.

We must stop this army of skeletons. As for the undead in other directions, other bastion legions are pursuing them, so there shouldn't be any major problems.

To be on the safe side, he used magic to report to the council of elders, hoping to coordinate with the other legions.

But speed is of the essence in war, and in the brief interval between the exchanges between the legions, Fao had already arrived in the south-central part of the hills.

Here he discovered a peculiar illusion: when the full moon was in the sky, the crimson color gradually intensified, darkness replaced light, and the entire night sky was utterly gloomy.

Fear and unease deepened, and everyone trembled from the bottom of their hearts.

Right in front of him, a hill erupted violently, ash shrouding the sky, creating an apocalyptic scene.

(End of this chapter)