Chapter 1643 1643. Slaying a Zombie Dragon
Arlcard created a shadow clone and summoned a giant blood bat during the fight. This clone and the blood bat never stopped assaulting Eurdrasill who was trapped by Tiemezzys' rock hill. The vampire himself was preparing his rune technique not far away.
Jack ran out of big skills to deal meaningful damage to Eurdrasill. But if Arlcard's rune technique hit, Eurdrasill was for sure finished. He just had to make sure to summon his Runestone of Luck when Arlcard took action. Too bad he had also used his Superior Acceleration spell.
"You are lucky the Necronomicon restricts Eurdrasill," Peniel remarked. "He is a true dragon who has exceptional healing spells. It will be hard to reduce his HP to this extent if he can be affected by healing spells."
"Which makes Master's feat of killing him that more impressive," Jack said. "Uh… This makes me think. Master received exp and loot when he killed Eurdrasill, didn't he?"
"Yes."
"We also get exp and loot when we kill his zombies. So, if he kills his own zombies, won't he get twice the exp and loot?"
"If he kills his own zombies, or if his allies do it, they won't receive exp and loots for the second time," Peniel answered. "You can't cheat the world system like that."
"I see… Oh! He is trying to break out!"
Tiemezzys' rock hill prison was a heavy rock that pressed upon Eurdrasill. The sight was similar to a certain monkey king who was wedged by a mountain. This rock hill was currently full of cracks. Eurdrasill had been struggling since the spell hit. His effort was finally showing results.
The rock hill shattered from Eurdrasill's forceful effort to get up. He immediately struck at the nearby shadow clone and blood bat. The shadow clone was fast enough to dodge Eurdrasill's claw but the blood bat failed. It was bitten by Eurdrasill.
The blood bat was trapped inside Eurdrasill's mouth while Eurdrasill repeated his chomps. Each chomp took out a huge chunk of the blood bat's HP. The blood bat died after four bites.
Jack advanced to draw Eurdrasill's attention. Arlcard picked a position behind Eurdrasill when he prepared his rune technique. Since Eurdrasill couldn't sense mana, he wasn't aware yet of what Arlcard was doing.
Eurdrasill flapped his wings at the incoming Jack. A destructive gale was produced. Jack received wind damage from the gale. He was unable to fight the gale's force. Both the shadow clone and he were swept away by the gale.
Before he was driven away by the gale, he managed to cast Hundred Mirages. The created copies were imitating him because the spell had no star upgrade yet, but he could decide where to place the copies as long as it was still within range.
He was close enough to Eurdrasill when he cast the spell. He placed all ten copies grouped behind Eurdrasill. They covered the dragon's line of sight to Arlcard. When Eurdrasill turned back, all he saw were Jack's copies stumbling haphazardly. While the real Jack stumbled away from Eurdrasill, his copies stumbled at the same spots, creating a weird scene. They served their purpose, though. Eurdrasill didn't see Arlcard behind all these copies.
Arlcard finished his rune technique then. He turned into a shadow and blitzed through Jack's copies. His speed was even faster now that he was an eternal grade. Eurdrasill wasn't reactive enough because he was only aware of the assault when Arlcard's shadow zoomed past Jack's copies. Arlcard's shadow pierced into his wooden skin.
Jack summoned his runestone of luck as numerous black swords stabbed in and out of Eurdrasill. The wood dragon didn't exhibit any pain like others who suffered from this technique. He instead proceeded to hunt for Arlcard's shadow clone while his HP continued to drop.
Eurdrasill's HP hit zero just a few seconds after Arlcard's Unrelenting Purgatory hit. Loots were dropped. Jack flew in and snatched those loots up. His monocle detected several purple-marked items from the loots, but he would have to leave the checking for later. The battle was still ongoing.
The area around where eternal-grade beings did battle was largely deserted. Hence, the exp points from slaying Eurdrasill were all shared only between Jack and Arlcard. They didn't receive the full benefit because most of the damage dealt to Eurdrasill was Tiemezzys' effort, but it was still enough to level up Arlcard by two levels.
Arlcard received a new skill when he leveled up to level 80. He gave the skill a test without delay. His body burst with a large torrent of dark mana.
"What the…!!" Jack was taken aback because he stood right next to Arlcard.
What he saw next to him was no longer the elegant vampire. It was instead a dark creature with no discernable features. Jack felt as if he was staring at a bottomless abyss when he looked at Arlcard's new form. What he saw was pure darkness in the shape of a human.
"That is Dark Lord Incarnation," Peniel informed Jack of Arlcard's new skill.
Arlcard didn't say anything. He suddenly vanished. Jack turned and saw Arlcard was already above the zombie army. When he swung his arm, a torrent of darkness followed. This torrent crashed into the zombie army and dealt darkness elemental damage.
Arlcard also cast his Perpetual Sword of Death. Before, he needed to stay still to maintain this spell. This time, he zoomed around delivering attack after attack while the energy swords continued to wreak havoc.
Jack didn't stay idle. He joined Arlcard and together, they slew the zombie soldiers.
*
Linda, who saw the events from afar, wasn't given enough time to react to the consecutive losses.
She was still lamenting Suzaki's failure in slaying Broidrireg even after sacrificing Uddroth. She had no fear for Suzaki's safety because of Suzaki's immortality. But before Suzaki disappeared, she heard the firebird's cry. It was full of panic. She had never seen Suzaki in such a state. That prideful firebird was always calm and collected. This was the first time she saw Suzaki like that. She didn't think the firebird's death just now was any normal death.
Then, they lost their only remaining eternal combatant, Eurdrasill.
Currently, Broidrireg and Tiemezzys went around killing their zombie army like it was an all-you-can-kill buffet. There was nothing she could do about those two.
Not only against those two, but their army could still do nothing to the mobile fortress which continued to rain artillery fire on everything around it. Not to mention the Themisphere king had joined the fray. Among players, that person's ability to kill weaker opponents en masse was only matchable by Master. To make things worse, there was also an unknown dark creature near the Themisphere King who seemed no less powerful than the two dragons flying above.
Even the zombie soldiers inside the capital were decreasing at a steady rate, and they still couldn't get into the palace.
Linda let out a long sigh. She didn't see a way to turn this around. She gave the command for the army to retreat.