Lord of Rot

Kill!

The two sides didn’t speak the same language, but the moment they clashed, it was clear this was a bloody battle from which no one could retreat.

As invaders from another continent, the Half-Beastmen were not human. They were encroaching upon humanity’s living space and had to be killed.

By the same token, the Half-Beastmen wanted to seize this land for themselves, so they naturally sought to slaughter its human inhabitants.

Mennen rushed back into his tent to grab his weapon.

Just as he charged out of the tent again, he heard the urgent thunder of hoofbeats.

”This is bad!”

Mennen’s expression changed drastically. The Warg Riders hadn’t returned, but the enemy’s cavalry had arrived.

He didn’t even know who these new arrivals were.

But his younger brother, Mengo, had almost certainly met a grim fate!

The Wandering Knights raised their longswords, their cloaks, called Night, billowing as they rode like the wind.

A single charge.

CRASH—!

The dwarf Half-Beastman infantry were scattered before they could even react!

The leader of the Wandering Knights, Buerwell, raised the longsword in his right hand. The cavalry halted and wheeled their horses around.

”Charge!”

he roared.

The first charge was a surprise attack, conducted in silence to catch the enemy completely off guard.

The shout accompanying the second charge was to build momentum. The dwarf Half-Beastmen were already bewildered, and the furious roar of the charge instantly shattered what little morale they had left!

Heavy cavalry at a full charge was the most powerful, most unstoppable military unit of the age!

Iron hooves shattered the dwarf Half-Beastmen’s ranks, leaving a trail of severed limbs and flying blood as the cavalry punched through them a second time. The dwarf Half-Beastman formation completely collapsed, unable to regroup. However, a few Wandering Knights were cut off by the enemy, unable to break away, and found themselves bogged down in a desperate fight.

The Demon Beastman Mennen, acting fast, unchained four Mad Beastmen.

The Mad Beastmen’s initial shock at the chaos quickly turned to rage.

The ground boomed and rumbled.

The nine-foot-tall giants lumbered forward on heavy, clumsy feet, chasing after the Wandering Knights and the foot soldiers.

One Wandering Knight, bogged down by dwarf Half-Beastmen, struggled to swing his longsword. He managed to take three Half-Beastman heads and sever an arm from his saddle, but he was also stabbed several times by spears. If not for the superior protection of his plate armor, he would already be dead.

His besieged warhorse circled anxiously, then... it lashed out violently with its hind legs.

A Half-Beastman standing behind it was sent flying. The body sailed several paces before slamming into the sand, sliding to a halt with its chest caved in.

”ROAR!” A Mad Beastman strode over and crushed the skull of the dwarf Half-Beastman who had been kicked.

The dwarf Half-Beastmen surrounding the Knight saw the Mad Beastman approach and quickly scattered.

The Wandering Knight turned to face the giant. Standing on the ground, it was nearly as tall as he was on horseback. He raised his longsword.

He might be a Wandering Knight who had forsaken his oaths and faith, but he would never yield to an enemy!

”Monster, die!”

The Mad Beastman’s palm slammed down on the Wandering Knight’s head. The Knight’s once-straight neck instantly vanished.

SQUELCH—!

The immense force drove his helmeted head down into his torso, and blood squeezed out from the gaps in his plate armor.

The warhorse couldn’t withstand the tremendous blow either, its body instantly went limp, and it collapsed to the ground.

The arrival of the four Mad Beastmen changed the tide of battle once more.

Fortunately, Lin Nuo and the other Transcendents joined the fight.

The elven girl, Bai Lu, was the first to charge in. Sword in one hand, she nimbly dodged a Mad Beastman’s flailing arms, leaving a light cut with her blade after each evasion.

After a series of quick thrusts, before the Mad Beastman could react, she drove her sword up through its chin and out the top of its skull.

She withdrew her sword, flicking away the disgusting, foul-smelling blood.

Surprisingly, the next to make an impressive kill was not the barbarian woman, Lin Nuo, but Vendra. He managed to clumsily yet cleverly evade all of a Mad Beastman’s attacks. With a running start, he slid between the creature’s legs and thrust his sword upward into its groin, piercing its entrails. The Mad Beastman howled and collapsed.

Vendra stepped forward and delivered the finishing blow, easily dispatching it.

The four-armed Trevor, however, was in a terrible state. He was a flesh-enhancement type Transcendent, but against the iron fists of a nine-foot-tall Mad Beastman, his four arms seemed as slender as a praying mantis’s. After taking two or three punches, he was sent flying, coughing up blood.

Allen was also pushed to the brink. His scorpion-like poison abilities seemed to have little effect on the thick-skinned, dull-witted Mad Beastman. He, too, was sent reeling and vomiting blood from a single punch.

Meanwhile, Lin Nuo directly engaged the Demon Beastman Mennen. Her skill with her short-handled axe was superb, and combined with her own physical strength, she managed to trade blows evenly with him.

During the fight, she realized that Mennen’s technique was decent, but he relied more on brute force.

While she was slightly weaker than him, her technique was superior.

’As long as I can drag this out, our side is guaranteed to win!’

Mennen, however, grew more and more agitated.

He watched as those human ”Demon Beastmen” killed two of the Mad Beastmen. The remaining two were quickly overwhelmed in a four-on-two fight and were on the verge of being slain.

Elsewhere, the human heavy cavalry, no longer tied down by the Mad Beastmen, began to slaughter the dwarf Half-Beastmen.

Slow-moving human infantry had also advanced, cutting off any path of retreat for the dwarf Half-Beastmen.

There was even one young man who kept disappearing and reappearing.

Each time he materialized, his blade would pierce the throat of another dwarf Half-Beastman!

But Mennen was pinned down, unable to break away.

Finally, Lin Nuo wounded Mennen’s arm with her axe. She then spun behind him, leaped onto his back, and pressed the handle of her short axe across his throat. Kicking out with her knees for leverage, she pulled back with all her might.

Mennen’s expression twisted. His throat was constricted, preventing him from making a sound as his strength was drained away, bit by bit.

Mennen’s mind grew hazy, and then his vision went black...

The surprise attack ended in a decisive victory for Leech’s side.

The enemy was annihilated. Leech’s forces suffered seven deaths, including two Wandering Knights, and three wounded, none seriously.

From start to finish, the Corpse Ghosts had only been spectators.

By now, Leech had a general grasp of the Half-Beastman race’s strength. The dwarf Half-Beastmen were physically superior to human Soldiers, but their discipline and obedience were poor. Thanks to their fearlessness, they could just about trade one-for-one with elite human Soldiers. Against green recruits like the ones from the Bonta market, however, they could trade one for three, or even one for ten.

The Demon Beastmen were on par with Transcendents. Mennen hadn’t displayed any special abilities, but his physique alone left ordinary flesh-enhancement type Transcendents in the dust.

The Mad Beastmen’s physical strength was no less than that of the Demon Beastman Mennen. Against melee-type Transcendents like Trevor, they were overwhelmingly powerful. If not for Bai Lu and Vendra’s help, Trevor and Allen would surely have died at the hands of the Mad Beastmen.

’Half-Beastmen are like natural raw material for the Undead!’

Leech’s mind raced with excitement. Even if he didn’t use Extraordinary precipitates to turn the five corpses into Corpse Ghosts, simply reanimating them with basic gold would be a huge boost to his power.

’Half-Beastmen are the perfect material for Corpse Refining!’

The troops stayed behind to clean up the battlefield; they would transport the bodies back to the Bonta market for processing later. Leech, however, simply changed direction and flew straight back to the Bonta market.

He needed to find out what important information was inside Mennen’s head so he could plan his next move.

Instead of using Extraordinary precipitates to turn Mennen into a Corpse Ghost, Leech simply stitched the body together and revived it with gold.

Leech was already well-practiced in the art of Corpse Refining.

But the moment he saw the Demon Beastman Mennen’s memories, his composure shattered.

’The shipment of equipment from Prince One-Ear was meant for the Half-Beastmen?’ Leech was stunned. Certain things that hadn’t made sense before suddenly clicked into place.