Witch Troupe and the Undead

“Strange…” He didn’t dwell on the problem too much. As mentioned before, no matter what trouble these demons were causing, rushing in and killing them all would solve 99% of the problem. As for the remaining cleanup issues… he was a paladin, so he just needed to kill them. The priests were responsible for appeasing the people and communicating with the nobles afterwards.

Chapter 370 Lord of Hell

A putrid wind blew incessantly through the passage, carrying with it the stench of demonic sulfur and the stench of blood. The runes on the wolf-headed sword seemed to burn in the darkness, illuminating the surrounding environment. The walls of the sewers had transformed into a fleshy, bloody structure. Leon was certain that the nearest hellish rift was just ahead.

He was completely lost down there, relying entirely on his sense of demons to find his way. While this might lead him headlong into the encirclement of the demon army, it was actually a good thing for Leon, who had been holding back for a long time.

"Boom!" A faint explosion sound came, seemingly the sound of some kind of magic exploding, along with the sound of electric arcs tearing through the air, and the buzzing sound of some kind of terrifying energy surging.

"Are there other people fighting?" Leon frowned slightly. He wasn't sure if the people fighting were his own. After all, demons weren't exactly a united species, and it was very common for them to fight amongst themselves when there were no higher-ranking demons to suppress them.

Leon decided to follow the sound. Whether it was other human warriors or demons fighting, it meant he would find his enemy instead of wandering aimlessly in this place filled with stench and disgusting flesh.

On the other side of the sewer.

"Crackling~" A beam of blazing white light, condensed into plasma, almost grazed the shield, burning an extremely ferocious clone to ashes.

"Don't just stand there!" The red-haired battle mage's palms were covered in burn marks, and arcs of electricity connected the metal staff to her arm. The magic power surging around the ritual staff had clearly exceeded her control limit, and her mental fatigue was directly reflected in her decreased ability to construct spells.

"Ha!" The knight in front of him braced his shield against the horde of clones that nearly filled the passage, pushing them back. Blood-red veins covered his muscles as his life force was being frantically extracted for superhuman strength. "You... monsters!" The shield gradually deformed, and with a crisp cracking sound, the knight stumbled backward and fell, instantly overwhelmed by the horde of clones.

"..." The battle mage closed his eyes, released the ritual staff, and held his hands out to his sides. Arcs of electricity flowed down his fingers and fell into the ground, like water sliding from his fingertips. "Boom!" The entire small space trembled and collapsed amidst the roar of thunder.

A few minutes later, Leon heard the increasingly faint crackling of electricity entering the area. The clones were digging something out of the rubble. Several naked Royal Guard knight corpses were impaled on spears made of flesh and bone, their limbs severed, leaving only torsos and heads.

The clone, which was scrambling for equipment, looked at Leon, and its blood-stained, hideous face suddenly revealed a look of delight at the intrusion of new prey.

"Look, another new monster is coming!"

"I'm going to chop off his head and use it as a wine bowl!"

"..." Leon held his sword level, remaining silent. "Clang!" The blade deflected the incoming bone spear, and he naturally stepped forward, rotating his body half a circle around his lower leg. The blade, which had been swung low, spun back up to a high position, accumulating enough potential energy before slashing fiercely at the unbalanced, spear-wielding clone.

"Pfft!" The blade cleanly sliced ​​off half of its shoulder and slid out of its chest. Leon stepped forward and slashed horizontally again. Before the second clone, wielding a bone shield and a longsword of flesh and blood, could react, the shield was opened from the side by a single sword strike.

Leon took his third step, the blade swinging back, slicing across the replica's throat. Using its neck bone as a scabbard and whetstone, the strange sound of the blade rubbing against the bone was followed by the head being severed in a bright arc of light. This arc of light also hung on the replica's wrist, which was holding the Royal Guard Knight's rune sword.

The moment the rune sword fell to the ground, the wolf-headed sword pierced the man's heart from under his arm. In the blink of an eye, the three clones became three rapidly decaying corpses. Leon didn't even use divine grace or holy flame; he achieved a triple kill simply by relying on the passive buffs from his extraordinary physique.

The remaining clones paused for a moment. However, Leon's performance was not much better than that of the Royal Guards. Even the Royal Guards were exhausted by the continuous attacks of the clones and were successfully killed and captured.

"Lord..." Leon leaned on his sword with one hand and gently touched his forehead with the other. As the simplest sacrificial ritual, it was difficult to obtain a response from the gods and divine grace, but it was just a habitual action.

“Come on…” Leon swung his sword to meet the approaching clones without any concern. His sword, fists, and even his helmet and the feet encased in his boots were all weapons. Moreover, once these clones were killed, they had almost no chance of being retrieved and would be burned to ashes by the holy flames.

The regenerated clones, before they could even pick up the flesh and bone weapons generated in sync, would have their heads pierced by a wolf-headed silver sword. Even though they could regenerate and revive continuously, the simulacrum was not so kind as to shield them from perception. Endless death, endless pain, and sometimes even the feeling of being killed before they could open their eyes finally instilled fear in the clones.

Leon tirelessly continued to kill the clones, burning them to ashes with holy flames whenever he had the chance, and severing their limbs and disemboweling them whenever possible, making them struggle in agony for a longer time before they could die and be reborn.

"Aaaaah!" The clones screamed and scattered in all directions. Leon did not give chase. He knew that chasing these soulless creations was pointless. Only by destroying the original demonic entity could these clones be completely eliminated.

"Sigh~" Leon, who had come out of his hunting state, looked at the corpses of the knights, sighed, reached out and pulled them off the bone spears, placing them together with the pile of severed limbs. Flames rose from his palm, and holy flames gradually devoured the corpses.

Their souls may have fallen into the hands of demons, or they may have gone to the realm of the gods they believed in, but Leon still managed to recite the only scripture he could remember as a kind of restorative ritual.

"And you?" After doing all this, Leon turned to look at the head in the corner that was almost completely buried by rubble. Strands of red hair peeked out from under the rubble, and the exposed golden eyes slowly closed.

"..." "Understood." Leon walked to the edge of the rubble, sword in hand. "May your soul be free from the torment of hell."

"Thud!" The sword pierced down suddenly, then burst into white flames. He was a paladin, not a priest, and the healing spells he knew were of no use other than prolonging the suffering of this brave soul.

"Boom!" He slammed his fist into the wall, causing the bricks to collapse further, forming a simple grave. Leon picked up the almost completely deformed and melted ceremonial staff from the ground and planted it in front of the grave.

He buried the ashes of those knights nearby, placing their armor and weapons in front of them, the crisscrossing short spears and rune swords resembling tombstones.

"..." Leon stood silently for a moment, then turned and left. In his opinion, the best way to honor the dead was with the head of a demon. Rather than grieving here, he would vent his anger and sorrow on the demons who created all this and those cultists. He was good at speaking with his sword, and only good at speaking with his sword.

Sewer platform.

"Ugh~" Her light golden eyelashes trembled slightly as she slowly opened her eyes. Her emerald pupils stared blankly at the ceiling. After a few seconds, she finally reacted. "Hmm~" Livia rubbed her eyes and yawned slightly. The staff beside her automatically jumped into her palm.

"How was your rest?"

"Hmm!" The little witch nodded, making a strong gesture, though her thin arms weren't exactly convincing. Roach sat on a small stool, holding several hell crystals he had collected from demons. These hell crystals had been transformed into runestones, with the rune patterns of magic energy bursts inscribed on them in an extremely crude and rudimentary way.

Only Roach can use the rune grenade launcher. To be precise, anyone can use the grenade launcher, but only he can use the explosive runestones. Some of the slightly refined runestones are inserted into the rune plate so that he can release the spell configurations on them normally before the runestones break, although they are all the same: magic blasts and magic lightning.

During the rest period, many worms and low-level demons infiltrated, but Alessina easily dealt with them all. Although her true strength was probably at the level of a high-level warrior, it would be a bit difficult for her to deal with several demons at the same time. However, you can't help it if she has good equipment.

Neither the Unparalleled Sword made by the little witch nor the glowing fragment lent to her by Roach could withstand the damage from the demon's defenses.

After leaving the platform, they continued forward, and the traces of flesh and blood became more and more numerous. Eventually, the entire passage was almost completely transformed into flesh and blood. Crimson flesh membranes writhed, and thick, pale blood vessels pulsated beneath the flesh and blood. Even the little witch had to increase her protective magic to prevent the putrid smell mixed with the rich stench of blood from invading.

"Don't get entangled with this flesh and blood. Destroying more of these flesh and blood channels of the simulated demon is meaningless. We must go straight for the core." Roach stopped Leslie from trying to attack the flesh and blood, so the group could only move forward by stepping on the soft, fleshy ground.

After walking for about 15 minutes, the fleshy wall closed in front of them, turning into something like a door. Normally, they should find some mechanism or some other way to make the fleshy wall open by itself. However, here, no one had the patience to stay in this increasingly depressing environment for too long.

"Poof!" The little witch forcefully pulled out the stopper, and the four-colored elemental light ball inside quickly rose up. "Bang!" The four-colored spiral elemental spear suddenly pierced through the other end of the flesh wall and shot out. Several clones hiding behind it did not have time to react before they were swept into the elemental storm and turned into fragments along with their resurrected flesh pods.

"Let's go~" The little witch lowered her hand expressionlessly. A straight passage had appeared in front of them, and the startled clones exchanged glances before rushing towards Roach and the others.

The Greatsword slammed heavily onto the head of the foremost clone. Then, two arrows made of rock fragments exploded on the archer beside him, who was wielding a crossbow made of bones and tendons. The flying rock fragments sliced ​​through flesh like sharp knives and embedded themselves into the walls of blood and flesh.

"Magic Explosion!" Black and red hellish lightning leaped in Roach's palm and lashed out at a clone. The arc of electricity tore through the clone's armor made of skin, revealing its twisted and mutated body underneath.

"Whoosh~" The splattered flesh and blood reconnected before they even hit the ground. Countless fleshy tentacles rose from the ground, frantically lashing at these clones, crushing them to pieces or rolling them up and twisting them into a lump of mud. Then, these tentacles withered and decayed on their own, turning into the mud-like substance on the ground.

The hundreds of clones that filled the passage were quickly wiped out by this combined magical bombardment, with only a few fast ones escaping.

"How disgusting..." Leslie led Livia carefully over the corpse on the ground. The little witch also kept her eyes closed. She had been casting spells with her eyes closed and just randomly throwing them out. Fortunately, Alessina was used to the witch's random spells and was not hit.

“There seems to be a fairly open space ahead,” Alessina said after reaching out to feel the airflow in the passage. “Hopefully, there won’t be too many enemies there.”

"It's hard to say..." Roach didn't have much hope for this. This place felt like the inside of some kind of giant beast, and it seemed that the simulated demon was growing very fast.

Meanwhile, Leon finally fought his way through the last group of clones and reached the depths of the sewers. Even the paladin, who was used to silently slaying demons, showed an expression of amazement.

The depths of the sewers had completely collapsed and been gnawed into a huge pit. Countless fleshy tentacles spread outward from the pit, penetrating into the various tunnels of the sewers. The ceiling was covered with densely packed cocoons of flesh, numbering at least tens of thousands, huddled together like swarms of entangled maggots.

Inside the deep pit, flesh and blood twisted together, with a mouth full of spiraling teeth at the center. Putrid blood mixed with worm-like creatures tumbled down from the hellish rift in mid-air and fell into the mouth of the simulated demon.

This is why the monster grows and develops so quickly, and why it can still continuously create clones without choosing to build its power through religion and spiritual control.

The flesh and monsters gushing from the rifts of hell are the best nourishment, while the demons attacking fortresses and sanctuaries are merely a means to delay humanity, keeping them busy and preventing them from checking the sewers.

After all, there aren't many clones on the ground. In most people's eyes, the artificial demon is just a means to attract attention, while the real purpose is to use the Hell Rift to summon the Great Demon into the world.

In reality, the battle on the ground was a feint. The real purpose was to allow a large number of worm demons to catalyze the artificial demon to mature as quickly as possible, ultimately turning the capital and even the surrounding plains into a second "Flesh and Blood Plain" or even a more terrifying scene, becoming a projection and anchor point of the "Flesh and Blood Twisted Domain" hell in the real world.

Leon glanced at his silver sword, then at the massive, mountain-like lump of flesh, and looked troubled. Demons of this size required a magic cannon to deal with; a single sword was far from sufficient.

"However..." We can close the rift first to stop the simulated demon from feeding and growing further.

Just as Leon was preparing to use holy magic to close the seal rift, a figure appeared in front of the rift. "I thought the food had gone bad, turns out some celestial bugs have sneaked in..."

A cloak made of skin with tiny blood vessels wrapped around her slender and graceful figure. Four pairs of demon horns held her long, blood-red hair back like headbands. The soles of her feet, exposed beneath the cloak, were a corpse-like bluish-black, with toes as long and thin as apes and covered in black claws.

On his androgynous face, three jet-black eyes without whites stared at Leon, and a deep-seated fear rose within him, accompanied by unnatural twitches in his blood and muscles.

“Lord…” Leon practically spat out the word through gritted teeth. The worst-case scenario wasn’t some great demon, nor some high-ranking demon at the sub-lord level, but a true lord of hell.

The master of the Flesh and Blood Twisted Domain, once the messenger of the God of Life, occupied a layer of Hell after falling into Hell. He is the creator of distorted and twisted life and one of the domain lords of Hell.

“King of Shapeshifters…” Leon slowly uttered the word. He wasn’t so irrational as to say the name of a hell lord in front of him, which would instantly connect him with this terrifying being. Perhaps the name of an ordinary demon, as long as it’s not its real name, can only cause a little interference, allowing the other party to better identify itself.

However, if the opponent is a hell lord, then it's not so simple or easy to escape.

“What…what an awful name~” The other person unfolded their cloak, revealing arms that were all different from each other. The right upper arm was as slender and fair as a young girl’s arm, but the hand had six fingers with more knuckles and nails like needles. The palm held up a skull. The left upper arm was a strong male arm, dark blue-black, with bulging muscles, and it held a greatsword made of flesh and blood.

The two limbs below are respectively beast-like claws covered in scales and bone spikes, gripping a long spear made of bone; and an insect-like limb covered in a green carapace, ending in a terrifying insect head that constantly drips venom and corrosive liquid.

Its body also clearly showed traces of a combination of many strange and bizarre species, making it look like a twisted creation pieced together from the corpses of various life forms. "Shouldn't my perfect body deserve a more beautiful name?" Its mouth, full of needle-like sharp teeth, split open, and its pair of elfin leaf-shaped pointed ears trembled slightly.

“Disgusting…” Leon did not answer, but simply raised his sword, the holy flame almost extinguished by the storm from hell.

Even if the Hell Lord cannot exert his full strength in the mortal realm, he is still roughly equivalent to the combat power of a properly ascended saint. Even for Leon, he is certain that he can only hold out against him for a little longer at most. How long he can hold out depends on how much power the lord is willing to expend in the mortal realm.

Chapter 371

A foul-smelling storm swept past his ears. The wolf-headed silver sword barely touched the flesh-and-blood greatsword when an unparalleled force swept the entire blade away. Leon had to tilt the sword to deflect the impact, and even the blade, forged from the finest light-forged holy silver, showed slight signs of twisting and deformation.

However, he didn't even have time to pay attention to the damage to his weapon, because the bone spear was heading straight for his chest at an even faster speed. Leon suddenly dodged to the side, and his chest armor instantly had a tear, exposing the cracked chainmail rings of the inner chainmail and the surface of the innermost lining.

The moment Leon regained his footing, a whip-like arm lashed across his back, causing him to stagger forward a few steps. He barely managed to turn the blade to catch the insect's bitten head, and corrosive saliva dripped onto his shoulder armor, emitting billowing, foul-smelling smoke.

The moment he inhaled the smoke, he felt dizzy. The smoke was poisonous, and Leon had to use the divine power within him to heal this hellish poison.

"Boring, boring, really boring. This magnificent body has such weak strength..." The Lord of Hell complained, even though it had held back as much as possible, this little toy looked like it was about to break.

"...Huff~" Leon gasped for breath. In just a few moments of fighting, he had completely fallen into a disadvantageous position, while his opponent was merely playing around. It seemed that his judgment was wrong. If a normal Hell Lord appeared in the mortal world, if he did not want to attract the attention of the gods and be directly attacked, and did not want to expend too much power, then he could only maintain a fighting strength of around Saint level.

However, this place is near the rift to hell, and this hell lord is clearly much stronger than an ordinary saint.

He had thought he could buy some time, at least enough to exchange a few moves, but now it seemed he had been overthinking things.

"Whoosh~" Holy white flames emerged from the blade and body. "This disgusting power again, knight, is this what you seek? The power to burn everything to ashes?"

"..." The knight remained silent, only unleashing a white arc of light towards the enemy. The Holy Flame Sword left a negligible burn mark on the bone spear. "Violence, savagery, devoid of skill and physical beauty..." The Hell Lord looked at the mark on the bone spear with displeasure. "Then this game is not fun at all."

He raised the skull in his hand, blasphemous words swirling around it, and a twisted rune burned on the skull's forehead, leaving a blood-red glow that then enveloped Leon in crimson.

"Boom!" The moment the holy flame came into contact with this twisted power, it exploded, just like water being dropped into a boiling oil pan, making a crackling and popping sound. Leon felt as if he was trapped in purgatory, being torn apart by countless sharp blades.

His armor was covered in layers of red rust at an alarming rate, his skin was cracking, and every drop of blood and muscle was twitching and twisting as if it were about to be peeled off his body. Just when he was about to give up, he heard the sound of some kind of heavy weapon being thrown.

"Clang!" A sound like the striking of a church bell rang out, followed by the sharp and furious roar of the Hell Lord. The moment the black blade slashed out, all its dull color faded away, replaced by a beam of silver starlight. The bone spear used as a block was directly sliced ​​off half of its head, and the blade even left a terrible scar on the opponent's claws.

As for the Wupeng Sword that was thrown out, it embedded itself in the fleshy cocoon on the ceiling, causing several clones to scream as they fell into the giant maw of flesh below.

Alessina nimbly dodged the claws' counterattack, lightly stepping on the air that had suddenly solidified. This beast-human warrior was actually more skilled at using agile dual swords and short blades in combat; he used the Greatsword of the Unrivaled simply because the weapon was too appealing. After all, when not targeting a special attack target, the Luminous Fragment was just a fairly sharp ordinary hand-and-a-half-sword.

However, now, facing the Demon Lord, this divine sword is at full power, and it is even about to lose its physical form, becoming a non-physical entity composed of darkness and stars.

"Damn it, what kind of power is this?" The lord felt that his control and authority over the realm had weakened by a tiny bit. Even if it was only a tiny bit, it meant that the power of this weapon was enough to destroy his throne and foundation as the lord of hell.

However, no one answered it. Alessina stood on the air, dancing around the Lord of Hell as if in mid-air, launching a frenzied attack, completely abandoning defense. Each counterattack of the Lord of Hell was blocked by a mysterious force, as if the entire space, matter, and time of the world were on the enemy's side.

"..." Livia gripped her staff tightly with both hands, her eyes fixed on Alessina with a weary yet determined gaze. Beads of sweat dripped down her fair forehead. Performing high-intensity operations in this environment and under these conditions was an immense burden for her.

Seemingly silent, it uses its power to issue commands and requests to every being and every concept, causing slight shifts in space to deflect the murky beams of light fired by the lord; causing the atmosphere to condense and become the solid ground beneath the warriors' feet; causing the rock walls to shake and crumble into countless stone spears to obscure the enemy's vision.

Fire, lightning, and frost formed a storm surrounding the lord, forcing it to divert some of its attention to protect itself. For the lord of hell, the entity constantly casting spells and even attempting to seize control of its hellish magic was a major headache; however, for two reasons, it was unable to intervene.

First, the little witch's manipulation ability is merely a distraction; it poses no real threat to the little witch, at least not now. However, every strike of that divine longsword inflicts true damage—the kind of true damage that directly wounds the very essence of hell.

Secondly, the blonde girl was its target, the target designated by the demon god. Before the demon god showed signs of fatigue, it did not intend to disobey the order—perhaps for the lord who wanted to advance further, the demon god could also be replaced.

But for something like it, a demon is like a crossbow that can kill anyone it shoots; no matter how many arrows it has, it only has one life.

Moreover, those lords who tried to take a step further would die with a single arrow. Therefore, every time they attempted to seize the position of the Demon God, several of them would act together, betting that the other side only had one arrow or that the number of arrows was one less than that of the lords participating in the rebellion.

Even so, there are often cases where one perishes alongside the demon god, allowing other lords to inexplicably reap the benefits. Therefore, to seize the position of a demon god, one needs great patience and persistent probing, allowing those overly reckless individuals to deplete the demon god's power and reduce the number of arrows the demon god has, so that one can launch a surprise attack when the success rate is highest.

The probability of ultimate failure is almost 100%, otherwise Hell would not have such a relatively stable division of territorial authority, and the deep demon gods would not have remained almost unchanged for countless years.

For those who haven't done any of this preliminary work, provoking a demon god and openly defying his orders will inevitably lead to their doom.

"Enough!!!" The Lord of Hell swung its limbs violently, summoning a hellish storm that even the little witch couldn't quell, blowing Alessina away a distance. "I'm tired of this!" It began to absorb the power of the simulated demons, trying to tear the rift wider so that its own body and power could more easily pass through.

"Hey!" Livia stretched out her hands, as if grabbing doorknobs, and forcefully brought them together in the center. Her face turned bright red, and an invisible storm of magic swirled around her body.

The other party began to realize that some powerful force was forcibly closing the rift little by little. Even though the rift was supported by the power of the demon god, it was healing steadily and slowly. This made the King of Shapeshifters realize that there was a reason why the demon god specifically asked for a human girl.

"Demon!" In the instant it was distracted, the beam of the holy sword rushed towards it. Although it only cut a negligible wound on its cheek, the disturbance caused it to pause its thoughts for a moment, and the Hell Rift also contracted inward a little.

"Damn bug, you really deserve to die!" A giant hand made of hellish magic suddenly reached out from the crack and grabbed Leon. Roach and Leslie's attacks could only create insignificant ripples on the giant hand.

His other hand reached out towards Alessina, but was stabbed hard by a fragment of the glowing light, forcing him to retreat back into the rift.

"Whoosh~" The holy white flames continued to burn the Hand of Hell, allowing Leon to barely maintain his condition. However, everyone knew that once the last bit of divine power was burned away, his fate would be to be crushed into a meat pie.

Not only that, the flesh cocoons were also awakening at an accelerated pace, clearly indicating that the simulated demon had also awakened its clones, which were frantically climbing up the flesh pits and rushing towards Roach, Livia, and the others.

The little witch is clearly focused on fighting the demon god's power and trying to close the rift, while Leslie needs to interfere with the Lord of Hell as much as possible to prevent Alessina from being captured. So, all that's left in front of the clone is Roach and... his machine gun.

"Click!" A row of pyramid-shaped ammunition was fastened to the feeding system, and the bow-shaped spring was already wound up. "It'll take another six months to accumulate this time." Roach glanced at the ammunition box next to him and complained. He, the arcane mage, had to handcraft all of this ammunition. Not only that, but he also had to handcraft the several power-generating rune stones connected to the rune plate.

While the ammunition itself could be obtained with some of the apprentices' labor, the rune disk truly required his own hands.

"Forget it, it'll just be a burial item if I don't use it." Roach gripped the handle tightly. He didn't need the trigger; he only needed to control the output frequency and intensity of the rune disk to adjust the muzzle velocity and rate of fire of the ammunition. And now was certainly not the time to consider the consumption.

With the firing rate and initial velocity at maximum, the bullets, accelerated to near-elemental distortion speeds, turned into streaks of fire and landed on the foremost clones. One clone didn't even feel any pain before disappearing completely.

The kinetic energy of a large-caliber, high-velocity bullet is enough to tear a human body apart. Moreover, this is not a bullet from Earth, and its killing power does not rely on kinetic energy, but also includes the effects of flame combustion and wind element blast.