Chapter 699: Chapter 463: Harvest Festival Activated? The Black Dragon Displays Its Power! (Part 2)

Fang Zhou threw out a few Corpse Warriors with lighter injuries from his graveyard, ordering them to tie up the knight.

The armor of these Corpse Warriors was already cracked, some bearing the marks of magic energy attacks. Their combat effectiveness was less than sixty percent of what it was in their peak condition.

The condition of the other Corpse Warriors was even worse; if Fang Zhou hadn’t recalled them so quickly, they might have already been pulverized by the Earth Demon Bears.

The enemy’s Wind Dragon Tornado Skill had landed right in their midst, and the clustered formation of the Corpse Warriors had maximized the spell’s effect.

Wielding spears and axes, the Corpse Warriors approached the knight, their skeletal jaws clacking open and shut in silent war cries.

After briefly entangling the knight, Fang Zhou resolved to leave.

He continuously cast Undead Sky Screen to cover the entire battlefield, blocking the line of sight of the enemy Forest Wanderers. Then, riding his Skeleton Warhorse, he turned to make a strategic withdrawal.

Although the Undead Sky Screen could temporarily obscure the vision of the enemy Forest Wanderers, it had no effect on the enemy mages.

"He’s there!" the bald mage shouted, giving his teammates a target.

A few Forest Wanderers drew their bows and fired toward that area.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Arrows imbued with a massive amount of Battle Qi landed all around Fang Zhou. Some struck his Skeleton Armor, causing his defenses to plummet.

The enemy mages also continued casting, relentlessly bombarding him with violent spells.

Wind Dragon Tornado Skill!

Wind Blade Skill!

Arcane Beam!

Another volley of spells struck, directly shattering Fang Zhou’s Skeleton Armor.

SIZZLE!

Poison Shadow Strike!

A hidden assassin appeared, holding a short blade imbued with black Battle Qi that tore through another layer of Fang Zhou’s Skeleton Armor.

However, this was of little consequence. Fang Zhou had lost countless layers of Skeleton Armor in this battle, and Soul Link was distributing the damage. Despite the bandit group’s members being exceptionally skilled and powerful, their various methods were unable to break through the magical defenses covering Fang Zhou’s body.

The only one who posed a real threat to Fang Zhou was the opposing Knight Commander, a Lower Bronze rank. It was this Knight Commander who drew most of Fang Zhou’s firepower, preventing him from unleashing a slaughter upon the other members of the bandit group.

Corpse Explosion Skill!

Facing the assassin who had closed the distance, Fang Zhou remained calm. He gripped the Soul Summoning Magic Ball in his hand and pointed it at the corpse of an Earth Demon Bear beside him.

The Corpse Explosion Skill erupted with a boom.

The body of the Earth Demon Bear, which contained immense energy, exploded violently. A gruesome spray of flesh, blood, and bone fragments, mixed with terrifying Death Energy, slammed into the unsuspecting assassin.

Before he could even scream, the enemy assassin died, consumed by the torrent of flesh and gore.

After all, the Corpse Explosion Skill was a battlefield-clearing superweapon that Fang Zhou had developed for Undead Mages. Adventurers out in the world had no knowledge of it.

The instant the assassin died, the entire battlefield fell deathly silent.

This bandit group had been active for years and had experienced many failures. But this time, they were facing a lone Undead Mage whose summoned army was tied down by fierce beasts. What they had assumed would be an easy ambush had turned into an arduous struggle.

However, they were veteran bandits who had survived in the Fierce Beast Mountain Range for years. Another assassin was only momentarily shocked before quickly composing himself and charging forward, heedless of death.

Of course, he wasn’t a fool. He deliberately circled around the fierce beast corpses near Fang Zhou.

The deep blue glint on the assassin’s short blade made Fang Zhou shiver. A mere scratch from that could be fatal.

Skeleton Cage!

Activating the control magic on his Marvel again, Fang Zhou successfully trapped the assassin.

Fang Zhou vowed that when he returned, he would prepare more Marvels and enhance all his equipment to the absolute limit. These enchanted items are just too useful. The Shield spell on the Dusk Mage Robe has already saved me from dire peril twice.

Horror Aura!

Under the pressure of a life-and-death battle, Fang Zhou’s casting speed increased significantly. He unleashed a negative spell, which landed squarely on the assassin before him.

The assassin was immediately reduced to a cowering wretch, filled with fear.

However, despite being under the influence of the undead mind-control magic, his rich combat experience and instincts, etched into his very bones, still compelled him to choose the most advantageous action: retreating. All he needed to do was wait for a teammate’s Dispelling Skill or for the debilitating negative effect to fade on its own after a few seconds.

Foolish!

A cold sneer touched Fang Zhou’s lips. He wasn’t about to give him that chance.

Skull Shattering Strike!!!

The Skeleton Warhorse beneath him shot forward. Using the momentum, Fang Zhou fiercely swung the Magic Ball in his hand.

He was an Undead Mage with 57 points in strength, after all!

His Magic Ball was made entirely of bone, making it incomparably hard, and it was also inlaid with many sharp gemstones. In an emergency, using the Magic Ball as a hammer was no problem at all.

BAM!

The assassin, terrified by the Horror Aura, couldn’t perceive Fang Zhou’s attack. A heavy blow landed squarely on his head.

The assassin’s head exploded like a watermelon struck by a giant hammer, sending red and white matter splattering everywhere.

After eliminating the two Black Iron assassins who had closed in on him, the path before Fang Zhou was wide open. No one had expected Fang Zhou, an Undead Mage, to be so ferocious and powerful. The inescapable net the bandit group had so carefully laid had been violently torn open.

With no one left to interfere with his casting, Fang Zhou immediately activated the Skeleton Flash Skill. He vanished from the spot, reappearing in an instant behind a Corpse Warrior.

As the distance between them widened, the members of the bandit group grew frantic, but they were helpless under the desperate resistance of the Earth Demon Bears and Corpse Warriors.

As professions that lacked speed, the Forest Wanderers and mages found it difficult to chase Fang Zhou on his Skeleton Warhorse. The sole Knight Commander was now entangled by the Corpse Warriors Fang Zhou had left behind, unable to break free anytime soon.

Meanwhile, the Earth Demon Bears were in a complete frenzy. Although they had all suffered injuries of varying severity, the powerful life energy of fierce beasts meant they wouldn’t die so easily. They couldn’t distinguish between these new enemies and Fang Zhou; to them, all two-legged creatures looked the same and were all enemies.

They furiously chased and hammered the Bronze Knight, and even went after the Forest Wanderers who were constantly shooting arrows.

"Ah! Damn it!"

Tangled up with the Corpse Warriors and Earth Demon Bears, the knight could do nothing but parry and block. Watching Fang Zhou get further and further away, he roared in fury.

The others, seeing they couldn’t catch up, finally gave up the chase. They turned their attention to systematically killing the remaining Earth Demon Bears.

Although letting the mage escape cost them a fortune, the hundred-odd Earth Demon Bears were still a sizable prize. Taking them all down would still net them seven to eight thousand, maybe even over ten thousand, Magic Stones.

...

"Leader, we lost two brothers!"

After the battle ended, a Forest Wanderer dragged the mutilated remains of the two assassins over to the knight.

"Useless! For an assassin to have his head smashed in by a mage... pathetic!" the knight snarled, his face contorted with unconcealed anger as he stared at the corpses.

"Baldy, the kid got away. What do we do?" The leader reined in his temper and asked the mage.

"I told you not to underestimate him, but you wouldn’t listen. Now look what’s happened!" the bald mage muttered, venting his frustration in a low voice.

"Hurry up and clean up the battlefield! We’ll head back and bypass the outpost. After that, we’ll disperse inside the base to ask around about a lone Undead Mage.

"We must find a chance to take him out! Leaving him alive makes him a lingering menace!" The bald mage’s eyes flashed with a cold, murderous light.

...

Sprinting and flashing his way to safety, Fang Zhou’s expression was just as icy.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

This bandit group had dared to target him, and they would pay the price in blood. The lives of two mere assassins were not nearly enough to sate his rage.

That didn’t even account for the immense wealth represented by the hundred-odd Earth Demon Bears he had worked so hard to trap. He refused to do all the hard work just for someone else to reap the rewards.

Furthermore, he had suffered heavy losses among the hundreds of Corpse Warriors he had painstakingly cultivated through both Artificial Undead and his Tomb.

Not to mention the many Magic Scrolls and Mana Recovery Potions he had used during the battle.