The Skeletal Dragon’s roar tore through the night sky.
Under the reinforcement magic of the Zuranon officers, its enormous body had become like an indestructible mobile fortress.
Each sweep of its claws gouged several deep trenches through the hard stone street.
“Damn it!
There’s no way around!” Gazef gripped his greatsword with both hands and braced himself against the Skeletal Dragon’s sweeping tail.
His boots carved two broad tracks across the ground as he was forced backward.
He only managed to stop after being driven all the way to the edge of the city wall.
Gazef breathed heavily.
As the Kingdom’s battle-hardened Warrior Captain, he understood the situation perfectly.
The reason the Skeletal Dragon had suddenly become so difficult to fight, to the point that even his prized Martial Arts could no longer penetrate its defenses, was obviously the continuous support coming from the magic casters behind it.
If they could sever that magical connection and eliminate those casters, the Skeletal Dragon would be nowhere near as difficult to handle as it currently appeared.
The problem was that Gazef could not reach them.
The Skeletal Dragon’s enormous body completely blocked the street leading to the rear.
Its attacks came too frequently.
Simply defending against it from the front already required everything Gazef had.
Breaking through the line was nearly impossible, and slipping around the massive creature was completely out of the question.
Worst of all, every time they finally inflicted meaningful damage, necromantic magic immediately restored it.
The Skeletal Dragon seemed to possess limitless vitality.
They could not wear it down.
Was magic really capable of everything…?
“Sir Momon!
We can’t keep fighting like this!” Gazef shouted.
“We need to get past it and kill the summoners behind it!” “I know.” Momon answered in a low voice.
He blocked another strike from the Skeletal Dragon with one of his greatswords, but made no reckless move forward.
“You and Miss Nabe cover me!
I’ll force my way through!” Gazef shouted again.
He was already preparing to risk it.
Trying to get past the Skeletal Dragon would be extremely dangerous.
And even if he succeeded, there was no telling what level of enemy was waiting behind it.
But Gazef was the Warrior Captain of the Re-Estize Kingdom.
E-Rantel was land belonging to His Majesty the King.
It was a place worth risking his life to defend.
“Wait a little longer.” Ainz raised his voice as much as possible, deliberately changing its tone so Gazef would not recognize him.
Trying to break through was too dangerous.
Anyone attempting to circle around would immediately become the Skeletal Dragon’s highest-priority target.
After that, they would still have to confront the hidden magic casters directly.
Ainz did not know whether Gazef could survive such a maneuver.
And he could not allow the Warrior Captain to die.
Ainz still needed this famous royal warrior to spread the deeds and reputation of Ainz Ooal Gown.
More importantly, Ainz knew there was someone far better suited to attacking the enemy’s rear line.
A hundred meters away, hidden within the shadows of the ruined outskirts, Lucien crouched silently behind a broken wall.
His eyes remained fixed on the ten Zuranon officers maintaining their spells.
The ten clearly believed victory was already theirs.
They had even started talking arrogantly among themselves.
“Did you see that?
Even the Kingdom’s strongest Warrior Captain is nothing special!
In front of our Skeletal Dragon, he’s being chased around like a beaten dog!” “Hahahaha!
Keep pouring in magic!
The Skeletal Dragon is Zuranon’s ultimate weapon!
With our enhancement spells, nothing can break through it!” “Once we crush that wall, all of E-Rantel will become our paradise of the dead!” “But we can’t forget Khajiit’s death!
Once the city falls, we’ll find whoever killed him, tear out his soul, and condemn him to eternal torment!” “It had to be that lunatic Clementine!
She’s a traitor already.
Who else in this city could kill Khajiit instantly without anyone noticing?” Lucien’s eyes shifted slightly.
At last, the remaining pieces of the puzzle fit together.
First, the ten men had explicitly called the Skeletal Dragon their ultimate weapon.
That meant that aside from the enormous number of low-level undead serving as disposable troops, they had no stronger trump card remaining.
Second, and far more importantly…
They still suspected Clementine of killing Khajiit and were openly talking about finding the murderer to avenge him.
That meant these fanatics were absolutely not the ones who had resurrected and removed Khajiit and Clementine.
At the very least, they could not have been responsible for Clementine’s resurrection.
If they had resurrected her themselves, they could simply have questioned her directly and learned Lucien’s identity.
“So this is deeper than I thought.” Lucien gave a cold laugh internally.
In addition to the organization in front of him, another hidden force existed somewhere in the shadows.
That second group possessed high-level resurrection methods.
It might also have been monitoring Clementine.
If so, there was a strong chance they had already learned something about Lucien through her resurrection.
Fortunately, very little useful information had been exposed.
The only truly valuable thing they had was the name Lucien.
Future problems could be dealt with later.
For now, this job needed to be finished.
Since he had confirmed the enemy had no other obvious trump cards, Lucien saw no reason to waste more time.
Even so, standing in the shadows, he remembered an important principle.
Even when hunting something weak, never become careless.
He still had a slight doubt about the intelligence he had just overheard.
There remained an extremely small possibility that the conversation had been staged specifically for someone like him, a stealth-specialized combatant who might be listening from nearby.
Perhaps the false information was intended to mislead him, while they secretly held additional weapons in reserve.
So no matter how weak the enemy appeared, once he attacked, he would make absolutely certain the first strike was lethal.
[Shadow Killing Intent] Lucien began applying enhancement skills to himself.
Aside from the very first battle after arriving in this world, this was the first time he had used one of his signature abilities.
It was one of the assassin class’s core burst-damage skills.
For five seconds after breaking stealth, it tripled critical damage and granted extremely high armor penetration.
The drawback was that Lucien’s own defense dropped sharply during that period.
[Darkwalker Enhancement] [Authority Execution] Three high-level enhancement skills layered over one another.
A deep black sheen faintly appeared across Lucien’s body.
With Darkwalker Enhancement active, his speed reached an almost absurd level.
The hundred-meter distance vanished in an instant.
Not even the faintest sound of displaced air followed him.
The ten Zuranon officers were completely focused on controlling the battlefield and maintaining the enhancement magic flowing into the Skeletal Dragon.
None of them realized that death had already arrived behind them.
The man farthest from the center opened his mouth, preparing to mock the Warrior Captain again.
The words never left his throat.
Lucien appeared behind him like a ghost.
His short sword passed cleanly across the man’s neck.
[Authority Execution] instantly shattered the low-level defensive charm hidden beneath his robes.
Before the wound in the man’s neck had fully opened and before his head could even begin falling, Lucien was already moving toward the next target.
Every movement of the short sword took a life.
A heart was pierced.
A cervical spine was severed.
A brain was destroyed.
Ten people.
From the instant Lucien began attacking, less than two seconds passed before the last corpse hit the ground.
Only then did blood finally begin spraying from the neck of the first man he had killed.
Lucien stood among the bodies and flicked blood from his short sword.
After confirming just how helpless the entire group had been, he could not help shaking his head.
They were absurdly weak.
It felt exactly like defeating the so-called Wise King of the Forest.
There was no sense of accomplishment that should have come from an assassin eliminating worthy opponents.
“At this level, they thought they could destroy a city?” Lucien sighed.
Using all those enhancement skills now felt like nothing but wasted mana.
He turned toward the battlefield.
To notify Ainz, Lucien deliberately released his stealth for a single second.
His figure appeared briefly in the darkness.
Then he raised one hand and gave a thumbs-up toward the Skeletal Dragon.
Ainz had been keeping a small part of his attention on the rear.
The moment he saw Lucien appear and give the signal, the red lights beneath his helmet flickered.
Message received.
The enemy backline had been eliminated.
Lucien immediately disappeared into stealth again.
He had no intention of joining the frontline battle.
Without those ten support casters constantly refreshing its enhancements, the Skeletal Dragon was nothing more than a fragile low-level monster.
Ainz and Gazef could easily deal with it.
It was only level sixteen.
Lucien, however, had noticed something more interesting.
The rear position occupied by those ten officers was directly above the entrance to the underground fortress he had investigated earlier.
He decided to go down and take another look.
Following the dark stone steps downward, Lucien soon entered the fortress.
The scene inside was disturbing.
The humans he had previously seen imprisoned and forced to work were all gone.
Their cells were covered in blood, most of it still wet.
It looked as though they had all been killed.
Their bodies had probably been converted into undead and added to the army fighting above.
Inside the central ritual chamber, Lucien found the only person still remaining.
It was another partially undead man similar to Khajiit.
He wore the same clothing as the ten officers above.
The corpse was kneeling behind the altar.
Blood had run from every opening in his face.
His eyes bulged outward.
His expression was horribly twisted.
But the corpse itself was not what caught Lucien’s attention.
It was the crown on the dead man’s head.
It looked like the same magic item Lucien had detected during his earlier infiltration, the one radiating an unusually powerful magical presence from behind the sealed room.
Lucien approached.
Following habit, he used Appraisal.
[Item Name: Crown of Wisdom] [Quality: Rare] [Item Effect: Greatly enhances the user’s overall abilities after equipping and allows the activation of abilities beyond the user’s normal limits.] [Side Effect: Once equipped, the user’s thoughts will be restricted, and the item cannot be removed through ordinary means until the wearer dies.] Lucien’s pupils contracted sharply.
The familiar YGGDRASIL-style system window was displaying actual item information.
Appraisal had worked?
Only items originating from the game could be identified this precisely by the system’s built-in Appraisal skill.
And now an item from YGGDRASIL had appeared inside this mysterious organization’s stronghold.
That confirmed it.
Lucien and Ainz were definitely not the only people who had been transported to this world.
Countless thoughts flashed through Lucien’s mind.
A sense of danger began rising within him.
If other players truly existed here, then the situation became far more complicated.
Who were they?
Where were they?
Had they arrived like Ainz with an entire guild base and organization?
Or were they independent players like Lucien?
Most importantly, did any of them also intend to rule this world?
Back in YGGDRASIL, players fighting each other over resources and boss kills had been ordinary.
If two players came into conflict in a real world where death might actually be permanent, then an actual life-or-death battle would be nothing like a game.
No wonder this group of weak, half-undead cultists had managed to create such an enormous undead army.
They had relied on an item originally brought over by a player.
Lucien took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.
Fortunately, the fanatic in front of him had apparently forced himself to wear the crown in order to activate the ritual.
The item’s terrible side effects had killed him.
Since the wearer was already dead, the binding restriction had naturally ended.
Lucien reached out and removed the Crown of Wisdom from the corpse.
Then he placed it directly into his system inventory.
From now on, he would have to pay more attention to the possibility of encountering player-originated items.
This crown itself was only Rare quality.
But that did not rule out the existence of more powerful items that had somehow spread among the native population.
Perhaps even World Items.
Some extraordinarily dangerous items had almost no meaningful usage restrictions.
It was entirely possible for an otherwise unremarkable old man on the roadside to possess something capable of trading Lucien’s life for his own.
That meant one thing.
Do not create enemies carelessly.
And if conflict became unavoidable…
Eliminate the threat completely.
After storing the crown, Lucien quickly searched the rest of the underground fortress.
Only after confirming there were no other useful items or valuable pieces of information did he turn around and retrace his path to the surface.
The frontline battle was already nearing its end.
Once Lucien eliminated the ten Zuranon officers, the flow of magic supporting the Skeletal Dragon had been cut off.
Its existing enhancement effects gradually expired.
No new buffs replaced them.
Without constant healing and defensive reinforcement, the previously indestructible skeleton rapidly accumulated damage under the combined attacks of Ainz and Gazef.
Crack!
Gazef spotted an opening.
He delivered a powerful horizontal slash and completely severed the Skeletal Dragon’s right leg bone.
The enormous creature lost its balance and crashed to the ground.
Ainz immediately seized the opportunity.
He leaped high into the air.
The two greatswords in his hands crossed into an X.
Then he drove both weapons down with tremendous force into the Skeletal Dragon’s hollow skull.
Boom!
The crimson flames inside the creature’s eye sockets flickered violently several times.
Then they went out completely.
Without magic supporting it, the massive body collapsed into a scattered mountain of bones.
The defensive line had finally held.
“Strange.” Gazef wiped sweat from his forehead and looked down at the fallen remains.
“Why did it suddenly become so much weaker?” “Could it be that there actually wasn’t a summoner supporting it from behind…?” Nabe had already finished clearing away the surrounding low-level undead.
She returned to Ainz’s side.
Hearing Gazef’s comment, she could not stop herself from giving a cold snort.
“Foolish.
Naturally, that was because Lord Luc…” “Nabe!” Ainz immediately cut her off.
They still had not confirmed that the entire situation had been resolved.
The unknown force responsible for resurrecting the two dead attackers remained unidentified.
Until that mystery was solved, they needed to remain cautious.
Nabe only then realized what she had nearly said.
She slowly covered her mouth.
Regret filled her eyes.
Once Ainz confirmed she would not reveal anything else, he turned toward Gazef.
He deliberately altered his voice again.
“Such a large undead outbreak was undoubtedly a disaster.” “The exact circumstances should probably be left to E-Rantel’s defenders to investigate.” “But regardless of what caused it, the city itself suffered no catastrophic damage.” “And we managed to reverse the situation.” “That is what matters most.” Gazef nodded.
He looked toward the black-armored warrior beside him with open respect.
“Sir Momon, Miss Nabe, E-Rantel owes both of you a great debt.” “Without your help tonight, countless people might have died.” “You are too kind, Warrior Captain.” “Protecting the city is also part of an adventurer’s duty.” As Ainz finished speaking, he suddenly felt an unusual cool breeze pass beside him.
He glanced slightly to the side.
That was probably Lucien.
It seemed Lucien had finished whatever he was doing and was now urging Ainz to leave.
Fortunately, E-Rantel’s defensive forces were finally arriving in large numbers.
Only a handful of low-level undead remained on the battlefield.
The central threat had already been eliminated.
Ainz therefore excused himself by saying he still had unfinished business elsewhere and left the scene.
(To be continued.)