Chapter 196 - Recruiting (2)
Currently in the towers city that now we're mere ruins.
Vast amounts of blood were mixed through the sand.
"Gweaaggh!"
Stepping down on the blooded sand, various skull wolves were running while howling in desperation.
And the 3 particular skull wolves that were with their tails behind, didn´t understand what was happening.
To them, it was the same day that they were experiencing their whole lives.
Waking up from the buried sand, they would usually roam freely around the ruins in search of food while the everlasting sun was burning their body.
But those things were normal to them.
Experiencing months of starvation and the harsh sunlight was something that they learned to handle by their birth.
Sometimes, some of the two-legged creatures would come into their territory which would make a fine meal from them.
Where do creatures come from was unknown to them.
But what they did know was the pleasure of eating fresh meat that had lots of red juice in it.
Not only those who eat that two-legged creature would sate their hunger and thirst, but would also become much stronger.
Be it having stronger claws or a larger build, they would gain great strength by eating those creatures.
But even though those creatures came rarely, they still had to give their spoils if they have any to `Strongest´ as tribute.
If they did not, the `Strongest´ residing in the large stone mass would come and make a meal of them. Further strengthing the `Strongest´.
And by the end of the day, they will go back into the sands and sleep to hide from the cold.
Such was the life of them, the skull wolves.
But that circle was soon broken by a terrifying enemy riding `Strongest´ who hunted them done.
At first, they thought that the `Strongest´ was angry and that she will just eat one or two of their group and as usual go sleep in the stone mass.
Followed by a group of their injured kin, the `Strongest´ started to slaughter their group without any signs of stopping together with her kin. What confused them more was that they didn´t eat them, but simply tore their kin without even trying to eat them.
Recognizing the situation, they made haste to escape to avoid their death.
But that was also a fruitless effort.
Huge stone walls would rise and cut their escape paths only to be slaughtered by being cut into pieces by the mouth of the many injured of their kin.
By that many of them died, but few survived.
But even those who survived were soon killed by a howling sound that they didn´t understand was.
And what they didn´t understand made it fear it ever so much.
As they knew, once the sound appeared...
One of them would die.
And those three remaining skull wolves who were pathing...heard soon after that certain sound.
*Fsheeeeen!
With a wind-cutting sound making this presence known, a glitch of dark green wind took shape of a moon blade and flew towards one of the running skull wolves.
Without being able to respond in any sort of way as the streets were small enough with them three runnings, the one in the middle soon got to experience mass amounts of pain.
The air blade soon reached the middle skull wolve and cleanly cut through one of his legs, making it fall to the ground while screaming in pain.
"Gwaaaagh!" Yelling out of pain, the skull wolve turned his head back to see what was awaiting him.
And what it saw terrified him.
Jumping above him, he saw it.
The `Strongest´ together with the creature that was on top of her.
It thought that it will meat his end through the large fangs of the `Strongest´.
What surprised it though was that the `Strongest´ just left him to the ground.
Making it believe that it was somehow spared.
`Kill him´
Then there it was.
A command that the living skull wolve couldn´t hear.
But those who heard it, went instantly to finish the command given by their liege.
Jumping in the laying down skull wolve, a wave of undead opened their large mouths and started to devour the skull wolve, who in turn was screaming from the tormenting pain.
The liege of said undead who looked at this shook his head bitterly before looking ahead on the two remaining skull wolves.
"I should even tell them to be more gentle with him since I got to raise him later on," He said as he guided his mana to the ground.
"But first those two take priority..."
Raising his palm, he cast his spell.
`[Stone Wall]´
With a small grumble through the ground, a stone wall rose up and blocked the path of the remaining two.
"Gweaaagh!?"
"Gweaaagh!?"
`Stop´
Commanding Skull Claw to stop at his cracks, Danzel jumped off her and looked at the two exhausted Skull wolves.
"You are the last ones remaining. But don´t worry...you soon shall the ranks of my army." Danzel said as he dashed forward towards the two.
Seeing the speed that the hooded two-legged creature was running at them, they imminently forgot how to escape and put all their effort into crushing the fool into underestimating them.
Rushing towards Danzel, the first one to arrive rises his mouth and shallow Danzel whole similar to how it did to all other two-legged creatures.
"Too simple..." Danzel muttered as he jumped to the side and dodged the skull wolf's bite.
Not only did he know how those beasts fought, but his [Greater Sense Danger] also warned him.
Swinging his sword to the skull wolve body, he cut through a big chunk of flesh. But he wasn´t done yet.
Ignoring the other coming to him, he activate [Mortal Reminder] which made the injured skull wolve feel like someone else pierced through his heart. Though the small window of it being distracted, he swiftly cut his neck and ended his life.
[You received 25 000 XP]
"Five hours worth..." Danzel said as he stared at the incoming skull wolve.
Guiding his dead mana to his hand, he jumped back to create distance between the other skull wolve.
Although he was stronger than them, he knew that being careless would make him armless once more.
"Gweaggh!" the skull wolve yelled, as it saw its enemy and pray running away.
"Be made to serve~"
As soon as the creature muttered those unknown words while raising his hand towards him, his comrade that fought against the enemy a few seconds ago rise from the ground and bit at him with much ferocity.
"Gweaaaagh!?"
What are you doing!?
It tried to say.
But sadly, it was no more his comrade, but a loyal minion of their enemy.
An undead.
"You forgot about me?" Danzel spoke with a whisper-like voice.
Swinging his longsword, he directly decapitated the remaining skull wolve.
[You received 21 000 XP]
"Sigh, now I done it." Shaking his head, he repaired both the two skulls solve body and made them into his own minion.
'Skull Claw, come over here'
Applied ing to his command, Danzel jumped on top of Skull Claw before starting at the bunch of undead that he gathered through around the ruins of the city.
He spend more than 6 hours going around together with his undead to find if there were any more skull wolves to find.
Although 6 hours were about 30 000 XP worth of time, he was glad that he made the decision.
Just those two skull wolves alone made the whole thing worth this time.
And that was not talking about all the other skull wolves that he found in the ruins.
Though he had lost a few undead in the process, he gained many more to turn as undead.
Since he lost around 10 and gained 30 more.
He had a little bit more than 40 undead skulls wolve into his command.
Or to be more accurate, he now had 26 undead skull wolves while the remaining ones were still corpses that were being carried by his undead.
Though he had lots of mana that he could use to fight without worrying about mana.
Fighting multiple fights and creating undead was way too taxing for Danzel.
Maybe he went with the magic caster root, he would have enough mana now.
But as this wasn't the case, he could only use the corpses for later when his mana recovered.
"I only have 56 mana left... I guess that should do it for today. I am pretty sure I got every single of them, and if not that's also fine. " Danzel said while looking through his status.
Seeing on the bottom, he sighed internally.
"6 780 425 XP, huh? Quite the improvement from the last time I checked. I guess do bandits and skull wolves were quite the XP bags. But just thinking of the required XP though makes the progress that I made seem not that impressive."
Making the status window fade away, he and his undead arrive back on the tower.
'Let the corpse inside the tower. And don't throw them atop of each other! Place them in a line!' Danzel send out his command. While observing the bunch.
He would bet if he didn't make his command so direct, then they would just throw them like some carriage bags atop of each other.
Seeing them finishing their job, he thought for a moment before sending his command out.
'Except you two and Skull Claw, everyone one of you bury yourself in the sands. If there is someone were to enter the tower or try to attack you, kill them.'
The reason for giving them such a specific order to attack was because do guys were dumped.
If he didn't, then does guys would just reveal themselves upon the look of a living being.
As for how he knows that is because that already happens today as he tried to bait the skull wolves into a trap but didn't work out because of that reason.
"You all too, follow me" Danzel ordered the skeletons.
Letting their training with their weapon was, although somehow expected...useless.
So instant of letting them swing their weapons aimlessly, he decided to put them somewhere much more fitting in the tower.
Moving up the floors, he let the two undead skull wolves that were the bodyguards of him once together with the Skull Claw into the library floor to guard.
Guiding the skeleton of his into the staircase room, he halted and looked around as if searching for something.
"There they are..."
Putting his mind into it, two dark green hands appeared in the air.
"Go"
Flying through the air and into the holes of the wall, they trapped one of the hiding wraiths and brought them out by force.
"Khaaaa!"
Raising his hand and activating the runes of his gauntlets, he dragged the wraith towards him and grabbed into the undead neck.
Angry of that, the wraith was about to attack Danzel before it noticed the overwhelming dead mana flowing from his body.
"Wraith's...a 2nd-tier undead who near-invincible by physical damage and a weakness to magic.As long as I am aware you guys should hold some intelligence. Don't you?"
The wraith who heard that looked directly into Danzel's eyes, before yelling at him.
"Leave! Leave this tower!"
Though the language was different from what Danzel was used to hearing, for some reason he was able to understand it.
"So that counts my question as yes."
Without any hesitation, he there the wraith towards the tower's wall, making it explode with his sand body.
Soon after though, the sand started to merge once more and create the wraith's body.
"Khaaaa" the wraith screamed at Danzel, angry at what he has done to him.
"Though I ain't planning to stay here forever, for now, I won't be leaving any time soon. If you don't like that I don't mind erasing a fellow undead."
Seeing the wraith leave, Danzel stared at his skeletons.
'You guys spread through the staircases and make sure not to fall. This floor will be under your protection.'
Having finished his arrangements, he went to the throne room before greeting the child of the towers king.
Since that guy gave him such a nice treasure, he started greeting him for the fun of it.
"I guess the rest XP I would have to farm by training...." Shaking his head, he started once again doing his swordsmanship training together with his shield