Chapter 191: Left and Right Blocking

"Praise Mannan'en!"

"The raging waves shall surely drown them!"

"What a pity; that thing is being driven by Necromancy after death, otherwise, with that Divine Art, it wouldn't even have a chance to struggle!"

The surrounding Humans cheered, but Salazar did not react slowly; he immediately cast the Curse of Nehek on his mount, attempting to restore its injuries.

The two mages began a contest of magical power from a distance, one trying to completely destroy the behemoth, the other trying to save it. Salazar certainly possessed greater power from his long accumulation of mana, but Lady Shuman had prepared in advance and could barely hold on by relying on sacrifices.

"Are these people fighting a war or watching a play?" Sinuoli muttered to himself. The surrounding Humans and his own kin had all stopped firing to watch this rare display of magical combat, and the Undead army, lacking a commander to drive them, also halted in place; for a moment, the battlefield fell into an eerie stillness.

Sinuoli stood up from his seat, selected a skill, swung his arm in a full circle, and launched a Storm Hammer. Considering the Corrupted Leviathan's thick hide, he did not expect this hammer to secure the kill, so he aimed at the Undead captain who was casting spells.

"Despicable, Dwarf, you actually want to, sneak attack me!" The Warhammer trailed with radiance as it headed straight for Salazar's head, but he reacted quickly, ducking to dodge the blow.

"Return!" Sinuoli triggered the Master-class Flight Rune before the hammer even hit the ground, and the Warhammer spun in mid-air to turn back. Salazar did not guard against this move and was struck in the back, which also interrupted his spellcasting.

"Pfft!" Lady Shuman also spat out a mouthful of blood and collapsed to the ground; the consumption of releasing such a Divine Art is positively correlated with the volume of liquid manipulated, and a Leviathan of such size was clearly somewhat beyond her capacity.

"What are you staring at? Hit them hard!" Sinuoli roared, suspecting that his comrades nearby had watched too many jousts and held a unique passion for such duels.

"Artillery, prepare! That thing really has tenacious vitality!" Seeing the Corrupted Leviathan struggle to stand up after being healed by another Vampire and advance toward the low wall again, Sinuoli issued a new order.

Just then, screams came from the Coast Guard's artillery position, "Air force attacking ranged units? What are the covering Peasant Archers doing?"

Considering that he was ultimately an allied force, Sinuoli had not specifically arranged tactics for the defenders of Bordeleaux, basically letting them perform according to the conventional tactics they had practiced repeatedly, but he had not expected the quality of these remaining troops to be so poor.

"Those Coast Guard and navy units are not much stronger than the Infantry Regiment! They lack the most critical thing—Plate Armor—which leaves this group with almost no ability to resist when facing things with enough lethality or numbers sufficient to drown them!"

A realization dawned in Sinuoli's heart; he had previously felt that Bordeleaux's non-Knight units were better in combat experience and morale than the other duchies he had passed, and thus he had held high expectations for them.

But these could not compensate for the fact that their equipment was inferior, and in the Mountain Kingdom, this was precisely a problem that was less of a concern. Even the poorest Dwarf would step onto the battlefield wearing a full set of Plate Armor,

and this was something only the highest-level infantry found in Bretonnia—the Battle Pilgrims—possessed. It was almost impossible for these Reserve Knights to integrate into a team to confront enemies with high impact; most of them were each commanding a unit of infantry or a squad of Peasant Archers.

"No, it's not an air unit!" A Knight of the Sea God ran over in a panic, his Plate Armor bearing several terrifying scratches. "A group of monsters, only upper bodies, no one, no one knows where they popped out from!"

"I'll go take a look!" Sinuoli nodded; the importance of artillery was self-evident, and his Anvil Guard had limited lethality, so staying here would not be of much use.

First, he struck the Hearth and Home Rune to stir courage in the hearts of the troops on the low wall, then struck the Speed Rune to buff his own guards, and Sinuoli sat on the accelerated Doom Anvil and headed straight for the bunker where the Artillery was placed.

"What kind of things are these?" Sinuoli looked at the creatures in the bunker, which were gorging themselves; they had long arms, almost no lower bodies, were as thin as razors, and had bodies covered in frost-cracked bones.

"Ghouls; these things are more common further north of Karak-Kadrin." Captain Qiangsen was more knowledgeable and had taken over for Balin, who had not come to the front line, to increase Sinuoli's knowledge base.

"I heard from a bartender over there that poor souls who unfortunately lose their way will endure long hunger and the mountain cold, while also being exposed to the most insidious influence of the Winds of Magic. The weak will be torn apart directly by the great power of nature, while those who are strong enough and have firm enough wills will mutate into such devilish bodies."

"They aren't spirits!"

Although they kept communicating, the Dwarfs did not stop their hands; they split up and surrounded the Ghouls, attacking while parrying their sharp claws.

Although they looked terrifying, they still had physical bodies, which made them much easier to deal with. After spending a few minutes tearing apart these guys who had attacked the artillery position with their eerie stealth ability, Sinuoli rushed back to the main battlefield.

"Grimnir above, may you have a good place in the halls of the ancestors!" Sinuoli saw a scene that pained his heart; the Corrupted Leviathan was advancing while enduring the interference of ranged fire, and many Slayers, excited by the sight of the behemoth, charged up, but they found death almost instantly.

"Don't be impatient, the initiative is on our side! Those corpses will block the path of the big crab!" The captain of the Coast Guard was directing the battle, and the situation was indeed so; as the distance closed, it was easier for the ranged units to aim at the behemoth itself, and the cannon fodder units that originally acted as meat shields had instead become roadblocks.

"Something's wrong! What is that Vampire preparing!" Sinuoli saw the Vampire captain from last night, who was riding a large Corrupted Magic Crab, with a surge of Winds of Magic condensing around him.

"Move over there, absorb it for me!" Sinuoli directed the Anvil Guard to lean toward that side, and then he struck the Mana Decay Rune carried by the Doom Anvil.

As the complex Rune bloomed with mysterious light, all the spellcasters on the battlefield felt a portion of the Winds of Magic slip out of their control and gather toward the city wall; the Vampire who was preparing to cast a spell bore the brunt of it.

His strength was inferior to Salazar, and his control over the Winds of Magic was poorer; he watched as the blood-red power he had struggled to condense spiraled out of control, and he himself was blasted away.