Lord of Rot

”What is that thing!”

The Necromancer stared in shock at the enormous figure that had just crushed all the Undead Race Soldiers he had summoned.

It was an unimaginably huge lizard with yellowish-red scales.

The only thing out of place was the strange pot on its head.

Skeletons were pulled to their feet by some unseen force, but the Giant Lizard just turned and swiped its tail, and the bones were swept away, scattering and collapsing with a CLATTER.

”Another dead thing! Where did it come from!”

The Necromancer couldn’t understand what this dead thing in front of him was. ”And it’s not from the Undead Race!”

The Corpse Demon Giant Lizard moved as if through an empty battlefield, reveling in the slaughter.

Seizing the opportunity, Guy shrieked and dove forward.

He faced the ground, opened his mouth, and roared, the sound waves propelling his body as he glided through the air.

Whenever he was about to hit a tree trunk, he would nimbly swerve to dodge it.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The Corpse Demon Giant Lizard was even more domineering, using its immense body to charge forward, snapping every tree in its path.

The two Corpse Ghosts moved in tandem, rapidly closing the distance to the Necromancer.

Leech also commanded Aina, ”Go help them!”

Although the Necromancer had seemingly turned himself into a dead thing and might be immune to poison, Aina was an Extraordinary Corpse Ghost. Even if her poison was useless, her individual combat prowess was not to be underestimated.

He multitasked, each Corpse Ghost’s eyes serving as his own.

Likewise, he didn’t need to control their every move. He only needed to take over their bodies at critical moments to fight with the greatest advantage.

It was like playing a real-time strategy game.

Aina drew her scimitar and spun, her long hair fanning out like an open black umbrella.

The scimitar was hidden beneath her dark hair.

CLANG!

With a spinning slash, she decapitated a zombie.

She landed on the tips of her toes and paused.

Then Aina suddenly leaped into a backflip as the Corpse Demon Giant Lizard charged past, brushing against the ends of her hair.

BOOM!

The skeleton Soldiers that had just been pulled up were shattered again. The Corpse Demon Giant Lizard pressed forward, charging straight for the Necromancer.

The ground shook violently.

”Come out! All of you, come out!” The Necromancer realized the situation was spiraling out of his control. He raised his hands, and the ground cracked open. Skeletal hands and some still-fleshy hands clawed their way out.

They frantically grabbed at the Giant Lizard’s legs, trying to hold it back, but all of them failed, crushed into bone fragments under the Corpse Demon Giant Lizard’s feet.

Controlling the Corpse Ghosts’ battle from afar, Leech also sensed that something was wrong. ’These newcomers are different from the previous zombies.’

’This is a graveyard! The ground beneath our feet is full of corpses!’

’My opponent seems careless, but his methods are actually a lot like mine—fully prepared before making a move.’

Leech even suspected the Necromancer knew that Leech knew he was tailing Guy. So, when Leech used Guy as bait, the Necromancer turned the tables, using himself as bait to lure Guy in.

’You lure me, I lure you... let’s see who’s playing the final layer of the game.’

The most direct evidence was that their battlefield was a burial ground, which gave the Necromancer a massive advantage.

Countless corpses crawled out from underground, finally swarming the Corpse Demon Giant Lizard and managing to hinder its advance.

The sheer number of bodies slowed the Corpse Demon Giant Lizard down, its clumsy, enormous frame making it an easy target to bog down.

”Deter!” Seizing the opportunity as Guy closed in, Leech used Guy’s body to cast the spell. He was the only Caster Corpse Ghost, and only his body could be used to cast Magic.

Despite taking a direct hit, the Necromancer was completely unaffected.

The Necromancer looked at Guy. ”My dear Guy, heh heh heh, what were you just doing?”

Leech thought grimly, ’His Spiritual Power is greater than mine!’

The Necromancer had already summoned hundreds of skeletons. Although they shattered at the slightest touch, he was still controlling hundreds of units. ’Could it be that he also has Spiritual Power equivalent to hundreds of units?’

It took Leech a great deal of effort to increase his own spiritual unit cap now. With Deter being useless, another one of his trump cards was gone.

The poisonous claws on Aina’s back extended. She leaped onto the Corpse Demon Giant Lizard’s head and began rapidly tearing away with her claws, freeing its head from the horde.

The Corpse Demon Giant Lizard’s scales had been torn and shattered by the relentless skeletons, and it looked absolutely miserable.

”RAAAGH!” Guy roared, changing direction. He decided to rescue the Corpse Demon Giant Lizard first.

His shriek sent another wave of skeletons flying.

Taking advantage of the opening, the Corpse Demon Giant Lizard rolled on the ground and managed to struggle free.

While the Necromancer was distracted, Leech took control of Aina—the Corpse Ghost whose body he was most adept at using—and had her throw her scimitar.

However, two skeletons shot out and intercepted the throw, shattering their own bodies to block it.

The Necromancer was startled by Aina’s surprise attack, and blue flames flickered in his eyes.

He began chanting a Spell.

The cow carcass that had been piled behind the Necromancer vanished.

The air suddenly warped, and amidst a blue mist, a Space Gate opened.

A skeletal head, taller than a man, emerged from the Space Gate.

An Undead Bone Dragon!

Dragon horns grew from its skull.

Its eye sockets burned with the same soulfire as the Necromancer’s.

”ROOOOAR!!” It let out a guttural roar.

Its body, devoid of flesh, muscle, or scales, was completely transparent at a glance.

Only the top half of its body had come through. Its clawed forelimbs gripped the ground, and its white bone wings were folded, tucked against its forelimbs down to its ribs.

The moment Leech saw the Bone Dragon, he knew this was bad. A dragon, in any state, was always a sign of extreme danger.

He commanded his Corpse Ghosts to charge the Necromancer. ’If I can just kill him, the Space Gate might collapse on its own.’

”Breathe!” Seeing this, the Necromancer immediately shouted at the Bone Dragon in the Space Gate.

The Corpse Ghosts were already in his face, giving the Bone Dragon no time to climb out completely.

At the Necromancer’s command, the Undead Bone Dragon, still only halfway through the portal, opened its mouth.

A blue breath weapon gathered in its hollow chest cavity.

It let loose!

BOOM!!

The azure Dragon Breath instantly engulfed everything in front of it.

It enveloped all three of Leech’s Corpse Ghosts, as well as the swarms of skeletons.

The flames spread far, setting the forest ablaze and sending up thick smoke.

HUMMM—the air suddenly vibrated. Then, with a SNAP, the Bone Dragon’s Space Gate slammed shut, shearing its entire body in two.

One half was on this side of the Space Gate, the other on the other side.

Half of the Bone Dragon’s body, severed by the collapsing space, fell to the ground.

The top half of the Undead Bone Dragon was still struggling, trying to get up. But without its chest cavity, it seemed even Magic couldn’t make it use its Dragon Breath again.

”Who’s there!” the Necromancer cried out in alarm.

A hint of terror could be seen on his withered face.

The instant the azure Dragon Breath died down...

WHOOSH—a figure wreathed in a black cloud of poison shot out. It was Aina, her body scorched by the Dragon Breath!

She dashed in front of the Necromancer, brought her hand up under his chin, and shoved upward with sudden force.

CRACK-SNAP! His entire head was torn from his neck.

The headless corpse fell to the ground.

With the Necromancer dead, the Bone Dragon struggled a couple more times before going still. The skeleton hordes also collapsed with a clatter, falling into piles of bones.

Aina turned, holding the head.

Leech was controlling her body at that moment.

Half of the Corpse Demon Giant Lizard’s body was burned by the Dragon Breath, causing it to lose a large swath of scales. Combined with the scales that were gouged out during the skeleton siege, it looked absolutely wretched. Repairing its injuries would cost at least a thousand Jinri.

Guy was in better shape. He had been protected by the Corpse Demon Giant Lizard, and being an Extraordinary himself, he only had a few minor injuries.

Aina’s self-healing was kicking in, and she was gradually recovering.

’The fire is spreading. I have to get out of here quickly.’

He ordered Aina to take the Necromancer’s corpse and had the Corpse Demon Giant Lizard bite down on the half-Bone Dragon, which was about its own size, before they quickly departed.

Meanwhile, Leech followed the thread of Spiritual Power to the Water Nymph’s cave.

In his mind, each Corpse Ghost was a thread, and all the threads connected to his body to form a web. That was how he could instantly locate the owner of each thread.

”Thank you,” he said to the Water Nymph.

It was the Water Nymph who had attacked the Necromancer’s mind just now, forcing him to close the Space Gate and even severing the Bone Dragon in half. Otherwise, even if Leech could have won, he would have lost at least two Corpse Ghosts.

The Water Nymph replied, ”You’re welcome.”

Leech couldn’t talk with the Water Nymph for long; his attention returned to his Corpse Ghosts.

’I’m not the only one who goes all-out in a fight. My enemies do too. I can’t underestimate anyone,’ Leech admonished himself. He didn’t have much experience fighting Transcendents. If he had used more tactics in this battle instead of just a direct assault, he might have been able to deal with the Necromancer with minimal losses.

Of course, the biggest problem was not knowing his enemy’s abilities, which made it impossible to prepare beforehand.

The importance of pre-battle intelligence was self-evident.

Still, the outcome wasn’t bad.

He had obtained the corpse of a Necromancer, whose head surely contained many useful Magic spells.

And the corpse of half an Undead Bone Dragon.

’A Bone Dragon has no flesh, and this one is missing half its body besides. The corpse is inherently incomplete. I guess I won’t be getting a dragon of my own.’

’But dragon bones should be valuable, right?’