Ghost Knight King's Dungeon Project

Chapter 72 [The War of the Unifiers]

Ice shards fell from the sky, as if the frozen sky were cracking.

Hordes of the dead marched beneath the gray, wintery fissures, their bronze armor clanging softly, longswords and spears standing like broken flagpoles in the snow.

"The catapults are charging," Ansba commanded.

Thump! Thump! Thump! He pounded his hammer against the heavy breastplate, producing a thunderous roar.

Due to time constraints, there wasn't enough time for large-scale smelting of the sapphire copper. Furthermore, to slightly reduce weight and facilitate assembly and driving the sapphire copper power wheels, the catapult didn't use many sapphire copper components. Instead, it was constructed from robust, rusty copper logs with the bark still attached, using sapphire copper only for reinforcement in the hinges and load-bearing sections. The rough, untreated rusty copper bark, speckled with copper, exuded a savage and violent primitive style.

Thick tendrils extended from the bodies of the two rotting corpse demons, acting as flesh springs to tightly bind and coil around the ends of the Nether Bronze Tree skeleton of the catapult chariot. The rotting corpse demons pulled on the lever arms, dragging the ammunition bags lower and lower.

The hinges, welded together with flesh and ghost copper, creaked as they slowly pulled the throwing arm, causing the counterweight, formed by the molten stone and the ghost copper block, to rise high into the air.

"First round, fire," Samael commanded.

Clang! Clang! Clang! The clear sound of swords and shields striking each other roared through the snow.

Whoosh! The counterweight pulled the catapult's arm back to the ground, sending huge rocks hurtling towards the distant territory of Rahador.

The boulder traced a heavy, powerful parabola through the sky. Upon impact, the snow and dust on the ground exploded, creating spherical clouds of smoke. The trenches and traps hidden in the territory of Rahador collapsed with a deafening roar, and the scythe-armored rotting corpse demons lurking within were also blown away by the immense impact of the catapult.

With a deafening roar, the boulder slid and tumbled along the ground, crushing the snow-covered bushes in its path, scattering broken branches and withered leaves everywhere. As the debris and snow dust settled, the boulder, through its rolling and sliding motion, left deep furrows in the ground, tearing brown cracks into the icy white earth.

The massive, fist-like boulder struck, instantly revealing the traps and trenches hidden in the bushes. The boulder destroyed the camouflage of the traps, crushing some of the lurking carrion demons in half, while others were scattered by the powerful impact, disoriented and temporarily thrown into a state of [imbalance].

"Second round," Samael commanded. "Load the small stones, put them in."

The massive boulder, powerful enough to crush the undead, had been consumed, leaving only relatively small fragments. The skeleton warriors and rotting knights hauled pre-stored stones, each about the size of a football, from the tall grass. They loaded a dozen or so smaller stones into a spoon-shaped frame to serve as scattering projectiles.

The stone bullet maintained its previous direction and angle, tracing more than a dozen scattered parabolas amidst the flying ice shards, skimming across the cracked, frozen sky, and covering a large area around its previous landing point.

Dozens of stone projectiles scattered and slammed heavily onto the serpentine chainmail corpse demons, who were now unbalanced and helpless. They broke off their limbs, knocked off the helmets of some of the serpentine corpse demons, and smashed the dazed serpentine corpse demons into a puddle of flesh and blood mixed with black copper.

“The third round,” Ansba said, “is to load the stones.”

“There aren’t many stones left,” Samael reminded them.

"Load the bronze pellets," Ansba commanded.

The skeleton warriors and corpse knights struggled to lift the massive Nether Bronze Ball and stuff it into the huge spoon-shaped throwing frame. However, the solid Nether Bronze Ball, heavier than a boulder, pressed heavily on the lever arm, causing the counterweight to be lifted up instead.

The solid bronze projectiles exceeded the catapult's load capacity.

“Solid Nether Bronze is too heavy! Change it to hollow Nether Bronze spherical bullets... No. 2 bullets,” Samael commanded.

"Reload. Advance and cover a wider area of ​​damage," Ansba gestured, thumping his heavy breastplate.

The creaking of the bronze wheels filled the air, but the ground began to freeze, and the snow made progress slow, making it difficult to advance quickly in the short term.

Across the parabolic arc and the shattered remains of the serpentine corpse demon, and across the bombardment zone of the boulder, Rahadur hid behind his knight's tomb, clutching a small undead wearing a helmet in his gauntlet.

“Prangk!” he shouted at the tanned little undead in his hand.

no respond.

“Prangk!” Rahador roared. “The Great Swamp is frozen solid. Traps, terrain, weather, and environment have all lost their meaning. If I fall, you’ll be their next target—believe me, I’ll join them right now and beat you up!”

“I believe you’re capable of doing something like this—come on right now!” Amidst the grumbling and cursing, the tanners emerged from the edge of the trench hidden in the bushes behind the Lahador territory.

Amidst Prange's mumbled complaints and grumbles, the tanners stumbled through the frosty bushes and crawled out of the trenches and pits behind them.

They half-carried and half-dragged, pulling the heavy, bronze-cast nozzles to the ground.

"Come help!" Prange roared from beneath the tannins' helmets. "My swamp behemoth has been burned. Tannin necromancers are super light; they can't withstand the recoil of such heavy weapons!"

Giant, serpentine, chainmail-clad cadavers wearing Collins-style helmets slithered out from the snow-covered bushes and between the canopies of the rusted copper trees, helping to carry the massive black copper spray nozzles.

There were seven large bronze spray nozzles, neatly arranged in a row on the ground.

The tanners stretched out their thin, rotten black hands and pulled handfuls of grayish-brown fibrous debris from another large bag at their waists, stuffing them into the spray nozzles, and then adding a fist-sized black copper ball.

"And how to ignite it?" asked Rahador's Corpse Demon.

"Dip the tip of the pole in necrotic acid and stick it into that little hole behind the cannon!" The tanner hunter shoved a bronze pole and a small jar full of diluted necrotic acid into his hands, then turned and crawled back into the shadows of the trench.

“This thing is still in the experimental stage, it’s a prototype, and it occasionally misfires and explodes—I’m not sure why, maybe the nitrogen content of the necrotic acid is a bit too high, which makes it unstable. Anyway, figure it out yourself!” The helmeted cadaver hunters of Prange poked their heads out from the edge of the trench.

The rotting demons, in pairs, carried cannon barrels and darted about, keeping their bodies low and using the snow dust kicked up by the stone projectiles as cover, quickly approaching the border. The rotting demon carrying the Nether Bronze cannon barrel aimed the nozzle at the catapult not far away, while the other rotting demon raised a Nether Bronze rod dipped in necromancy and plunged the acid-dripping rod end into the hole at the back of the cannon barrel.

Boom!

In the copper flame reaction, bluish flames roared from the nozzle, accompanied by a pungent, putrid fumes, and the strange, grayish-brown fibrous debris exploded violently. The serpentine corpse demons were thrown backward by the powerful recoil and hurled to the ground by the blast wave.

The small copper ball was propelled by the powerful explosion and crashed into the catapult frame made of rusted copper and wood!

The immense hardness of the copper projectile collided with the rusty copper log, blasting a huge crater into the rough log, as if an invisible giant chisel had driven deep into the log. Copper-containing wood chips flew up and down in the air, like broken butterflies.

Crack! Crack! A series of cracking sounds rang out as the catapult's axle and frame were smashed by fist-sized bronze cannonballs, which embedded themselves in the logs, creating a spiderweb-like pattern of cracks around the point of impact.

The wheels creaked and groaned, trying to propel the heavy catapult forward, but with a series of cracking sounds, the axle, bombarded by the projectiles from the bronze cannon, snapped and could not be repaired in the short term.

"Hahahaha!" Rahado laughed excitedly. "The catapults are useless now, aren't they? Let me show you the power of this thing—"

The chainmail-armored, serpentine corpse demons instinctively wanted to continue firing, to deplete the undead forces around the catapult, but then they suddenly realized what was happening:
Prang only gave him a batch of loaded cannon barrels, but not the propellant and projectiles that could be refilled!

Ansba's barrel-helmeted skeleton warriors lifted their heavy bronze spears and hurled them, piercing the chests of the chainmail-armored ghouls with a whooshing sound, pinning them to the ground.

Without the protection of the fog, Rahadur's undead units are surprisingly vulnerable.

“Prangh?” Rahado pinched the helmet-wearing corpse-like little undead in his gauntlet.

"No, dream on. If you get your hands on the propellant, you'll know how it's made." The eyeless, rotten black necromancer grinned from under its helmet, revealing fine, sharp teeth. "Here's a batch of prototypes for you to enjoy. If you want more later, you'll have to trade more necromancer units for it."

*Crunch!* Rahador squeezed the little undead's neck until it deflated, and the tanned corpse's head bulged out. "You'd better recognize the facts, Prange—I'm the boss." He held the little undead and poked his head out from his fortress. "Watch what happens next. I have plenty of trump cards up my sleeve."

With the catapults unable to advance further and the threat temporarily eliminated, the serpentine corpse demons wielding giant scythes and decapitation swords began to gather, cautiously lining up outside the range of the catapults' fire.

"Can we begin the cavalry charge?" Ansbar asked the bell-shaped helmet rotten root ball sitting on his shoulder armor.

After a few seconds' delay, Samael's voice rang out:

“No,” he said. “Let’s expend another wave of troops. Let’s launch one last batch of hollow bronze projectiles… You load No. 3, I’ll load No. 1 and No. 2. They’ll combine after they’re dropped and land.”

The catapult, now without its wheels, could no longer move and had become a stationary turret, but its throwing function remained intact. With a series of whooshing sounds, the necromantic springs formed by the rotting corpse demon's tendrils suddenly released, launching three enormous hollow bronze spheres.

“Just kidding… my rotting ghouls have already moved out of range…” Rahador and Prange’s helmeted little necromancers clung to the edge of the fortress, peering out to check the situation.

The hollow ball slammed into the open ground, instantly shattering the thin, brittle shell of the Nether Bronze. Fragments flew everywhere, creating a huge circular kill zone. The shattered fragments even pierced beyond the kill zone, embedding Nether Bronze fragments all over the front of the serpentine corpse demon not far away, severing its mangled limbs and denting its helmet.

At the site where the hollow copper ball had fallen, a stench slowly wafted from the smoke and dust, and clumps of undead mud made of deteriorated humus wriggled and gradually spread from the point of impact.

Inside their upper bodies was a bell-shaped helmet of dark bronze, and their lumpy, humus-like bodies writhed. A dark bronze shield was glued to the front of their bodies like a bib, and a dark bronze knight's sword and a dark bronze spear were glued to the left and right sides. As their lumpy bodies writhed, the sword and spear swung wildly, scraping against the edges of the shield and creating a jumble of sparks.

The last batch of Nether Bronze Spheres were not truly hollow; they were filled with low-level mud undead made from these degraded humus!

"Using something like this? A waste of a command helmet?" Rahador and Prange's helmeted undead peeked out from the edge of the fortress. "These slow-moving things don't even need to be bothered with..."

The next second, the mud ball wriggled and sprayed a small green ball from the viscous humus that made up its body. The ball landed directly on the face of the chainmail serpentine corpse demon. The acid ball bomb exploded, and with a sizzling sound of corrosion, the serpentine corpse demon had one arm burned off.

"Ahhh! Ahhhhh!" Rahado and Purang cried out in alarm at the same time.

"That's clearly my technology! This is plagiarism of my idea!" Prange shouted!

"This is an air-dropped turret! Those mud balls are stuffed with acid bombs, and the mud is used as a buffer layer!" Rahado shouted!

He suddenly waved his hand, creating a loud clanging sound and cracking of the ice on the gradually freezing lake surface. Cracks began to appear in the thin ice.

A few seconds later, the ice cracked with a snap, and Rahador's undead leaf-footed serpent smashed through the ice, revealing six thick bone nozzles on its back above the water.

With a series of whooshing sounds, four or five grotesque, manta ray-like undead were ejected from the nozzles, their fleshy, blood-streaked wings flapping as they glided away.

Those were membranous wings made from huge fish skin. Rahador used the flesh-fusion technique of the Corpse Demon to connect the fish skins and create huge membranous wings. He also added fish bladders filled with putrid gas into the undead body to simulate the air sacs of birds, so as to reduce weight and increase buoyancy, allowing it to glide briefly in the air.

The membrane-winged ghouls grabbed their scale-like, dark copper blades and hurled them down at the mud-filled turrets below.

If you can hit one of the mud undead lumps, pierce its mud body, and break through its outer layer of mud, you can trigger a chain reaction and detonate the acid bomb stored inside its body!

Clang! The bronze shield stuck to the muddy undead body blocked the stab of the scaled blades.

The mud clumps huddled together, merging into a massive mass, with their unprotected mud bodies facing inwards and the bronze shields, longswords, and spears clinging to them facing outwards, forming a hedgehog-like mud necromantic fortress. It slowly crawled forward toward Rahador's lines, its movements slow but unstoppable.

Rahador's serpentine corpse demon raised its massive scythe and slammed it down on the shield from a distance, but the sticky mud dissipated the force, ultimately causing only a ripple of mud.

The Corpse Demon attempted to approach the swarm of mud lumps to detonate the acid bomb at close range. Suddenly, the Nether Bronze Spear and Knight's Sword, which were wedged between the shields, trembled. As the mud lumps throbbed, they burst out in all directions like startled hedgehogs, impaling the approaching Corpse Demon on the spears!

“Let me handle this; it’s the easiest thing to deal with!” The tanner hunter from Prange poked his head out of the trench, raised his bronze harpoon, and aimed at the gaps in the mud blob’s shields to fire.

With a whoosh, the harpoon spearhead got stuck in the shield. A small, monstrous necromancer, capable of burrowing into the enemy's body, poked its head out from the hollow spearhead. Like a parasite, its upper body slid through the gap in the shield into the body of the mud clumps, leaving only half of its tail sticking out and wriggling around.

"To dare carry so many acid bombs inside his body, all he needs to do is stir them up and detonate them," Prange's smug voice rang out from under the tanner's helmet.

however……

pat, pat, pat.

The tanned necromancer's tail, still attached to the Nether Bronze Blade, was severed and fell outside the clump of mud, followed by its carapace-covered body, and finally, its necromancer head wearing a miniature helmet.

The rotten, blackened corpse, cut into three pieces, was thrown out of the gaps in the muddy clumps.

"Huh?" The tanner hunter was stunned.

Emerging from the crevice was a small, rotting undead creature wearing a bell-shaped helmet. It had no eyes, a body that throbbed like a heart, and dragged seven or eight fleshy tendrils, each tipped with a black copper blade, making it look like a bizarre, fleshy octopus.

It clung to the edge of the mud-covered necromancer's shield, waving its tendrils at the tanner of Prancing from a great distance. It then raised the blade at the end of the tendrils and cleanly severed the leather rope of the harpoon gun pinned to the shield.

This was a composite system that Samael had painstakingly researched and developed. Large units were powerful but bulky and cumbersome, while small units were easy to deploy but relatively weak. Therefore, he designed a composite system composed of a large number of small units, each with its own specific function, including throwing acid bombs, providing external protection, and expelling intruders from within.

"What is this?!" Rahado and Prange's little undead exclaimed simultaneously!

"Sokofa!" Rahado shouted, dropping his helmet and ghoul, and descending the stairs to the second floor of his fortress.

On the second floor of his Knight's Tomb Fortress, there was a spherical dome helmet with a cage-like mask, about the size of a washbasin, resembling a giant snail shell.

Rahado extended his thin, barbed handguard, grabbed the spherical dome helmet, shook the components inside with a clanging sound, and slammed the helmet heavily onto the molten stone table.

"Sokofa!" he yelled at the spherical helmet. "Sokofa! Hurry up, where's this week's friend allowance?"

The snail-shell-like round helmet trembled, and seven or eight bronze limbs emerged from beneath it, flailing about like hermit crabs, stumbling and bumping against the stone tabletop—clearly, instead of a bulky gyroscope, it had seven or eight bony support rods extending from the sides to prevent the machine from losing its balance and falling over.

This is actually a purely artificial undead that wasn't made using flesh and blood.

"I...I...I just delivered my arthropod, Little Armor, to your territory..." The hermit crab, constructed of Nether Bronze, stammered from inside its dome-shaped helmet. "I...I only have these two arthropods in my entire force. I named them Little Armor and Little Shell...I don't have any necromancy materials; they're all...all made of Nether Bronze..."

"I, I, I don't want to take sides... You... any of you can be the leader, even if it's the worst territory, even if there are no corpses or necromancy materials, I can accept it..."

"As long as, as long as you stop forcing me to socialize... I just want to be alone in the grave..."

These few simple words seemed to have exhausted all of Suokofa's social energy for the day. The hermit crab's segmented limbs, made of bronze components, scratched and made clicking sounds as it slowly retracted into the spherical dome-shaped helmet.

“No, Sokofa, you have to control that arthropod and crush Samael’s swarm of undead mud.” Rahado shook his dome helmet with a clanging sound. “If you can help me defeat Samael, I promise I’ll protect you. You can stay in your little dark room all day, rust and mold, and die and stink without anyone knowing.”

"Really...really?" The hermit crab's arthropods nervously scratched and clawed.

“Trust me,” Rahado chuckled.

(End of this chapter)