Ghost Knight King's Dungeon Project

Chapter 88 [The Undead's Arms Race]

The arena's stands were filled with the four knights' undead minions, with flesh gladiators on one side and necromancers and skeleton warriors on the other.

The gladiators roared like lions, cheering for their monarch.

Ansba slumped wearily in the last row at the very top, his massive gauntlets pressed against his helmet, obscuring his vision, as if it were none of his business.

On the contrary, Rahado enthusiastically seized the best viewing spot in the first row, clinging to the low wall in front of the audience seats, watching the spectacle under the protection of six or seven serpentine corpse demons with their scythes.

“I don’t understand why you’re backing down and distancing yourself now,” Samael asked in a low voice, standing behind Ansba in the last row of the arena’s stands. “You clearly wanted to resolve these things back then. Where did your courage go?”

“I thought I was ready,” Ansba said in a low voice, “but it turns out I wasn’t… Leave me alone. I don’t want to have anything to do with the living anymore. They only hate. I hate the living.”

His calm and serene armor finally crumbled, revealing the weary soul within.

"So, would you mind if I borrow one of your undead to participate in the gladiatorial combat?" Samael asked. "Gladiator combat tests the individual combat strength of undead... Ordinary necromancers are not very effective."

“Take whatever you want,” Ansba said in a low voice. “Take as much as you like.”

Samael extended his white iron-forged gauntlets and patted Ansba's massive shoulder armor.

“The world will always try to force us to become better people in various ways,” Samael said. “Of course you can refuse and get tired and annoyed by it. But you can also choose to become a better person and keep the world from catching up with you.”

“I personally prefer the latter – as I have been doing since I came here.”

“People call me a necromancer, but I always feel that my life journey has never really stopped—I am still alive in some form, and like a rusty copper tree, I continue to grow over time.”

"I will become the tallest rust-copper tree in the world, supporting every inch of the collapsing sky. Regardless of success or failure, right or wrong, at least I have tried my best to grow."

He left, leaving Ansba in silence in the last row of the audience.

"How about it?" Decgon roared. "There are three gladiatorial matches in total, best of three. The first two are between undead, and the third is between our main bodies. Have you chosen your undead opponent for the first match?"

“I’ve made my choice,” Samael answered loudly. “Let’s begin.”

He sat in the first row of his own audience section, making it easier to control undead units.

The sounds of thumping footsteps and scratching echoed at the end of the passageway below the arena.

As the footsteps drew closer, a colossal undead creature, somewhere between a giant ape and a lion, strode out of the shadows.

Its blood-soaked skin was covered in bone spurs, it wore a gladiator helmet, crawled on all fours, and its claws, inlaid with dark bronze blades, scratched the ground, leaving a trail of marks.

Its throat was swollen and covered with some scales.

The flesh-and-blood gladiators in the stands roared and cheered, encouraging their side of the undead. Blood mist sprayed and splashed onto the stands, forming crimson clouds.

"Hoo! Trash!" Rahador raised his gauntlet amidst the cheers of a group of beast undead, gave a thumbs-down, and jeered at the undead of the Decgon.

This guy never seems to mind the danger when he's watching the excitement.

Samael stared at the scaly throat of the enormous, fleshy gladiator.

Its appearance was strangely familiar; I seemed to have seen it on an old acquaintance with dark skin.

[Biological Structure Detection: Polarized Glands]

[Polarized glands (and their associated high-temperature resistant structures) utilize biochemical energy structures to ionize gastric acid, generating a mixture of high-temperature ionic plasma and combustible gas. Upon contact with oxygen, this mixture explodes and is used in biosmelting, bioforging, or high-temperature heating.]

[Manufacturing Requirements: Fresh, organic flesh and blood rich in psionic energy]

Samael paused slightly and raised his gauntlet.

As the thumping sound of footsteps echoed from the end of the passage, a tall, two-headed skeleton warrior entered from the other side. Its entire body was made of thick, semi-petrified bones, with copper-containing rusted tree roots running through its limbs like marionette strings, connecting them into a giant puppet.

It was clad in heavy bronze plate armor, carrying a spiked dragon tooth club in one hand and a thick bronze chain in the other, with a huge flame-shaped greatsword on its back.

Large undead are often difficult to control, with their limbs frequently moving uncontrollably or reacting slowly. The simplest way to solve this problem is to add multiple implanted helmets, each controlling a different limb, thus improving operational efficiency.

Therefore, large undead behemoths require numerous implants to be installed in order to achieve normal control.

Although this skeleton warrior is three or four meters tall, with the precise manipulation of the two bell-shaped helmets, it drives the entire body to move normally, just like the left and right hemispheres of the brain, and is even capable of performing some "interesting" operations.

This is a necromancer borrowed from Ansba and modified by Samael. In order to deal with the gladiators of the Decgon as a single necromancer, it must have strong frontal defense.

The combination of a hardened fossil skeleton warrior, heavy bronze plate armor, and dual helmet controls, which increases reaction speed and operational precision, is perfect.

"Oh oh oh oh oh oh! Boss is mighty!" Lahaduo excitedly raised the bronze flagpole and waved a piece of animal skin flag that he had picked up from who-knows-where.

The serpentine corpse demons raised their scythes high, waving their fists and claws in cheering them on.

"What kind of crap is this?" Decgon scoffed.

Bang! Bang bang! The flesh lion leaped into the air, its pneumatic tendons erupting instantly in mid-air, spraying blood mist, and crashed headfirst into the two-headed skeleton warrior like a race car accelerated by nitro.

With a flash of steel-like claws, it gripped the armor of the two-headed skeleton warrior tightly, attempting to break the warrior's joints and tear it to pieces by using the pneumatic tendons, just as it had done before, while the warrior was slow to move.

However, the dual-implant helmet's design enhanced the large undead's reaction speed. Before the claws could strike, the club slammed down, smashing the flesh lion to the ground.

"Whoa! Even though this necromancer was designed by that big oaf Ansba, still... Go for it, beat up Decgon!" Rahado cheered and waved his fist at Decgon in the first row of the opposite audience.

The flesh lion was smashed away by the dragon tooth club, landing with a loud bang. Using the recoil from the pneumatic tendons, it flipped over, its claws digging into the ground, and landed steadily. It roared and pounced again.

This time, however, when it leaped up, it did not pounce. Instead, it opened its huge mouth and spewed out a cone of phosphorescent flame!
The blazing flames instantly covered the armor, but a chain flew out from the fire, sweeping across and knocking the flesh-and-blood fire-breathing lion to the ground. The chain clanged and rattled as it wrapped around its limbs and yanked hard, pulling the flesh-and-blood fire-breathing lion over.

If it were a Corpse Demon, it might be quickly incinerated into a pile of ashes by such intense flames, but standing here are skeleton warriors made of petrified bones and thick copper-containing roots.

Flames and high temperatures are of no use in this regard.

The flesh-and-blood fire-breathing lion roared, and with a series of cracking sounds from its pneumatic tendons, it used its terrifying force to break its chains and charge fiercely towards the two-headed skeleton warrior!

Decogon has realized that his current methods are no longer sufficient to inflict enough damage on the specially modified Skeleton Warriors. Therefore, the only way to win has changed from "breaking the opponent apart" to "knocking the opponent out of the arena".

The two-headed skeleton warrior threw down his chains and drew his flame-shaped greatsword from his back. With the flame-shaped greatsword in his left hand and the dragon-tooth mace in his right, he prepared to meet the charge.

The moment the flesh-and-blood fire-breathing lion charged, the two-headed skeleton warrior assumed the [Lion Fighting] stance with his right half, sideways using his shoulder armor to deflect the force downwards and sideways, and rammed the fire-breathing lion's head with the ram of his shoulder armor. His left hand, holding a flame-shaped greatsword, assumed the [Charging Impact] stance, and he swung his arm sharply upwards!

This is another unique feature of the two-headed undead. In situations where certain combat techniques require full-body coordination, the two-headed undead can utilize the special structure of its two heads to allow each half of its body to use two different combat techniques that require full-body activation, thus fusing the two techniques to achieve a synergistic effect greater than the sum of its parts!

With the combined effects of two full-body combat techniques, the flesh-and-blood fire-breathing lion was thrown off balance by the immense force. Before it could dodge using its pneumatic tendons, the flame-shaped greatsword, propelled by the momentum of the [Lion Hunt Gladiator] attack, swung violently upwards, dragging the greatsword along its left arm armor.

Despite the necromantic ability to heal itself from festering sores, the Bloodfire Lion was still unable to resist the power of its armor-piercing combat techniques and was cleaved in two!

Amidst the gushing blood mist, the two-headed skeleton warrior held aloft the two halves of the flesh-and-fire lion, circling it to show it to the surrounding audience before throwing the two halves outside the arena.

Ansba had a lot of experience fighting against Deckon, and the characteristics of his undead units were deliberately designed in many ways to counter Deckon.

"Ohhhhhhh! The undisputed winner!" Rahado excitedly waved his little flag, taunting Dekgon in the first row of the opposite audience, "First match, Boss Samael wins!"

He seemed to be enjoying himself, and started playing the role of referee on his own.

Decgon raised his gladiator helmet and glared at Rahador with a dark expression.

Rahado paused for a moment, then suddenly lay down and hid behind the low wall of the stands.

"You win the first round. Prepare for the second," Deckhon growled. "If you need more Nether Bronze, there's a Rust Bronze Tree over there; take as much as you like."

He raised his helmet to Samael and pointed to the piles of rusty copper logs at the edge of the arena.

Despite his nasty and brutal nature, Decogon still shares some strange similarities with Ansba, such as stubbornness, obstinacy, and the desire to crush you head-on in a fair and square manner.

"Thank you." Samael nodded in thanks. "That's enough for now. Let's begin the second match."

Amidst the roars of the flesh-and-blood beasts, the sound of footsteps echoed from the opposite arena passage. As the footsteps drew closer, a slender figure emerged.

The impression that Decogon has left on people so far is mainly based on brute force and violence, so how could he use such a thin undead? Samael was slightly taken aback.

The scanner is now enabled.

[Biological Structure Detection: Biological Nail Gun]

[The biological nail gun (and its associated tendons, eyeballs, and air bladders), with the tendons forming a one-way pneumatic valve, uses a powerful respiratory system to fill the air bladder with compressed gas. The force released at the moment the valve releases propelles the nail-shaped calcium stone.]

The accessory eye will provide precise aiming ability.

[Nail-shaped calcium stones require prior secretion.]

The valve-launching tendon can only withstand one launch. The organism must use it in conjunction with a powerful psionic repair ability; otherwise, the tendon will become a consumable.

[Commonly used in industrialized biological slave labor and biological weapons.]

Only fresh, strong muscle can withstand the air pressure of a structure; the tendons of weak organisms or rotting tendons that have been dead for too long cannot create this structure.

The database has been updated.

[Burn to the "Artificial Life Sciences - Biological Structure Materials" content library]

[Lacking an organic psionic structure, the body is temporarily unusable.]

It was a blood-soaked, humanoid undead, its grotesque human form pieced together from fresh monster flesh and blood.

Its legs are in a beastly posture, with recurved knee joints. Below the grim brute helmet is a large, pale yellow eyeball. Where should it be a mouth is a long, thin, black tube connecting to a complex series of attached fleshy tubes and air sacs, like a massive, high-caliber, living sniper rifle!

Its two arms are lean claws, but on the outside of the arms are a series of thin bony tubes, with three irregular tendons haphazardly pieced together to form the shape of a bio-rifle with bone bayonets!
[Biological Structure Detection: Reverse Joint]

The recurve joint (and its associated cartilage and ligaments), with its spring-like cartilage and backward-bending ligaments, forms a powerful spring-like structure that significantly enhances jumping ability.

The database has been updated.

[Burn to the "Artificial Life Sciences - Biological Structure Materials" content library]

[Lacking an organic psionic structure, the body is temporarily unusable.]

Samael was startled.

These undead... the defenses of the skeleton warriors are meaningless, because the opponent will accurately target the helmet and neck, easily sniping them.

Could we borrow Rahadu's winged necromancer?
Membrane-winged necromancers are agile, and bio-nailing air rifles may not always hit them—however, they are light units primarily used for reconnaissance and harassment, limited by their flight capabilities and unable to carry overly heavy weapons. If they cannot defeat the enemy, they will ultimately only be able to buy time.

If you want to win...

He pondered for a moment, then finally waved his hand, sending out his second undead.

A bare, bell-shaped helmeted Corpse Hunter leaped and somersaulted out of the shadows. It carried a bronze harpoon gun, a long curved knife at its waist, two spare harpoon gun tips, a mud bag filled with acid bombs and an acid spit, and two heavy, loaded bronze hand cannons slung across its back.

These were undead pieced together from Prange's spoils of war—when Prange attacked, he led a group of tanners armed with bronze hand cannons and harpoon guns, but before they could even use those cannons, they were disrupted by a small-scale holy light, lost control, and were crushed by the Legion's behemoths.

There were nine unfired hand cannons scattered on the ground, which Samael picked up and distributed to a small number of undead as backup weapons.

Obtaining those fibrous explosive fragments requires extensive preparation. It necessitates gathering large quantities of materials in the swampy area, papermaking, drying, soaking, capturing Rot Roarers, and even constructing a complete workshop. Due to time constraints, Samael hasn't had time to do all that yet, so these Nether Bronze Hand Cannons are currently disposable.

"Whoa whoa whoa!" Rahado activated the scanner and, after figuring out the situation, shouted excitedly, "Human combat skills versus beastly bodies, a clash between two firearms—biological structure versus human intelligence—even getting hit by stray bullet fragments is worth it!"

Despite saying that, he still scrambled over the backs of the seats in the stands, crawled back two or three levels, and hid in the middle area. There, he directed the serpentine corpse demons to merge their dead flesh together, forming a protective wall of rotting flesh in front of him to shield him from stray bullets, leaving only an observation hole exposed. He then held his Heroic Spirit Winged Helmet to the observation hole to watch the gladiatorial combat.

Two gaunt necromancer gunners paced slowly, facing each other at the edge of the circle.

No one fired first, as both sides possessed powerful but limited ammunition. Running out of ammunition without killing the opponent was tantamount to surrendering the match.

Snap! Samael's Corpse Gun Hunter was the first to pull the trigger of the Nether Bronze Harpoon Gun, since the harpoon head could be retrieved.

A powerful spring forcefully ejected the harpoon head, along with a flexible rope woven from rotten black leather and sinew.

With a soft pop, as the tendons of the flexed joint relaxed, the cartilage and ligaments pulled the joint bones, forcefully stretching out! The Decgon flesh-and-blood sniper leaped into the air using its jumping power.

The harpoon head pierced the air beneath its claws, and then, the instant the flesh-and-blood sniper fell, it raised its claws and stomped hard on the rope. Its claws stomped forward repeatedly, pressing one section of tanned rope after another under its feet, trying to force the Corpse Gun Hunter to drop its harpoon!
Click! The Corpse Gun Hunter deliberately cut the harpoon gun rope, flung the broken tanned leather rope to try to distract his opponent, grabbed the hand cannon handle with his left hand, straightened his legs to counteract the recoil, raised his hand, took a quick aim, and thrust the acid slurry rod into the barrel!

Boom! The roar of the hand cannon echoed through the arena, and the specially treated bronze sphere shot out with the smoke, turning into fragments in the air and covering a large area in front!

However, the time required to manually insert the detonator is too long. The moment the opponent pulls out the gun, the Flesh Sniper has already sprinted to the side and leaps up as the detonator is pressed down.

Fragments and shrapnel from the copper bullets grazed its side and below, embedding fragments in one of its legs and damaging the recurve joint of that leg!
In the instant he leaped into the air, the massive, corpse-like, disintegrating yellow eye on the flesh-and-blood sniper's head suddenly focused, and the bio-gun barrel on its head twitched slightly, aiming at the direction from which the smoke and fire erupted—

With a strange hiss, blood mist vaporized under high pressure sprayed out, and nail-like bone fragments whistled through the air, piercing through the body of the Corpse Gun Hunter. The powerful impact tore a large hole in its chest!
Its body swayed, struggling to hold on for a few milliseconds before finally kicking its legs and falling forward.

The flesh-and-blood sniper, in the instant it pauses in mid-air, is then thrown backward by the enormous recoil of the sniper shot!

Rahado, who was watching the battle, was stunned for a moment, then suddenly realized Samael's intention:
During the standoff just now, both sides stood at the edge of the arena circle, while the flesh-and-blood sniper was in the air with nowhere to grab leverage. The recoil from the sniper shot would just push him out of the circle!
Samael's Corpse Gun Hunter was prepared in advance and fell forward, landing inside the arena. Although he was seriously injured and on the ground, he had not completely lost his fighting ability and had not yet completely lost!
However, before the flesh-and-blood sniper landed, it raised its arms behind it, pointed the gun to the back, and with two ear-piercing screechs, the recoil from the spraying blood mist propelled it forward and back into the circle!

Clang! Clang! Two nail-like bone fragments pierced the audience seats, creating two large holes in the bodies of the two gladiators!

*Crack!* In this extreme maneuver, Deckon, in the first row of the opposite audience, gripped the low spectator wall in front of him with his claw-shaped gauntlets and forcefully snapped the stone wall in half.

*Thud.* The flesh-and-blood sniper, dragging his leg joints wounded by shrapnel, limped into the inner circle of the arena, raised his arm, which was covered in intricate tendons, and swung it upwards.

With a series of complex tendon movements, a pile of discarded bits of flesh fell out of the blood-smoke-filled arm joint, and another pre-prepared valve tendon automatically switched to the inside of the arm joint, like a gun reloading, and pressed against the bottom of the second nail-shaped bone block.

It raised its fully loaded bio-air gun and aimed it at the fallen corpse hunter in front of it.

The Corpse Hunter's body was severely damaged, too mangled to stand properly. Facing the impending gunshot, it suddenly used its only remaining functional arm to grab the long curved knife at its waist, and with a mighty pull, slashed at the Flesh Sniper's remaining intact leg.

The flesh-and-blood sniper lost its balance, swayed slightly, and fired in the wrong direction. The nail-like bone fragments sprayed blood mist and flew into the audience, embedding themselves in the flesh wall of the rotting demon in front of Rahado, creating a deep dent.

Rahado yelled and scrambled back half a step, then excitedly pressed his helmet against the spectator slit, as if afraid he would miss the final scene.

While the opponent was reloading the tendon for the second time, the Corpse Gun Hunter struggled to raise his arm and flung away the acid bomb bag that his scimitar had just slashed!
The bag, torn open by the blade of the scimitar, dripped mud as it flew toward the flesh-and-blood sniper.

With a bang, the nail-shaped bone fragments fired again, detonating the acid bomb bag in mid-air.

With a crackling sound, the necrotic acid burst into green fireworks in the air, splashing onto the ground with a sizzling sound.

Click, click. The flesh-and-blood sniper moved his right arm, but all the spare tendons in his right arm had been used up.

“You… are more difficult to deal with than I imagined.” Instead of tugging at the tendons of the bio-air gun, it dragged its limping, fleshy body, kicked away the remaining hand cannon of the Corpse Gun Hunter, and threw its opponent’s crawling remains out of the circle.

“A… cunning opponent…” Deckon seemed quite excited, roaring gleefully, “A desperate battle like a cornered beast… a truly vibrant gladiatorial contest.”

"I won the second match."

Samael nodded slowly.

"Amazing reflexes," he said readily.

"Come on, I can't wait!" Deckgun roared. "You could even say I came here from the very beginning specifically for a real-life battle!"

"What necromancer battle? It's just because necromancers wearing helmets can reflect their master's characteristics, which is used to observe your fighting style!"

Deckard rose from his seats, his massive body leaping over the wall and heading towards the gladiatorial arena. His bronze claws scratched excitedly in the air, making a squeaking sound.

"The third match, a clash of the original forms!"

(End of this chapter)