Faced with the horde of monsters surging up from below, the senior necromancer could not help showing a somewhat annoyed expression on his face. Not feeling the slightest bit of fear after sensing that the strongest monster within the approaching horde had only barely reached the S Rank with most of the monsters being far beneath that in terms of strength.
If anything, these monsters weren’t anywhere near enough to destroy the undead legion under his command and only really served to delay him and prevent this legion of his from joining up with the main undead legion at the main battlefield. For this reason, he was more annoyed about the situation he found himself in than anything else, as he understood he was going to get even more delayed than he had originally thought.
The little time he had wanted to save after being delayed by the living forest earlier had essentially been wiped out with the arrival of this sudden ambush. Making it impossible for him to arrive on time even if he pushed forward through the desert with all his strength.
Even worse, because of how close the monsters were, he didn’t have much time to react when they first emerged. Losing not just the three or so hundred undead and skeletons that had been controlled by his little assistant but also losing another two or so hundred before he managed to properly establish a defensive line to fend off the monster horde surging towards him.
Although the total size of the undead legion under his command exceeded ten thousand. Losing over five hundred in such a short time was a painful endeavor to say the least, as recreating those fallen skeletons and undead abominations using their left behind remains and the attacking monsters when the battle came to an end would add another few hours to their journey through the desert.
After all, though it was possible to continue forward without replenishing the fallen, doing that would not only risk safety in a future engagement, but would also result in arriving at the main battlefield with a far smaller legion than originally promised, something that could result in a direct punishment from the senior figure in charge of the assault on the dungeon core... And with them already arriving late, adding a few extra hours wouldn’t be considered that bad given how it was still possible to use the corpses of the monsters to expand the undead legion significantly after the battle had come to an end. Making up for arriving late by showing up with a somewhat larger undead legion.
"I just hope the dungeon core doesn’t end up launching another ambush and only wants to delay us a bit..." Silently whispering this to himself as he already drew out a plan for how to handle the large number of monsters swarming his undead legion from all sides, the senior necromancer focused his full attention on the battle. Commanding the vast legion made up of undead and skeletons into pushing back the monsters swarming up below. Intending to use the overwhelming strength of his undead legion to crush this horde of monsters before the monsters properly emerged from below.
In the process, he didn’t just stand behind the lines covering but decided to personally step up and use curse magic to directly weaken the stronger S Rank Monsters before commanding the skeleton guards originally tasked with keeping him safe to jump forth a take down the weakened S Rank Monsters.
Given the fact that they weren’t on the main battlefield and the fact that he was still in the middle of a massive undead legion, he didn’t feel the slightest bit of fear of doing something like this. Feeling certain that even if an SS Rank Monster emerged, he would have more than enough time to pull back these powerful guards to protect himself... And even if he didn’t have the time, he could always use the vast undead legion surrounding him to create enough time.
Understandably, as a necromancer who had reached the rank of soul weaver within the Eternal Life Sanctum, he didn’t lack methods for staying alive and had countless techniques to ensure his own safety in any kind of deadly situation he might find himself in.
As for the little assistant who had already retreated from the battle and found himself busy creating more undead, he couldn’t care less, as this little assistant had no time to think about trying to attack him from behind with how busy he found himself.
But contrary to what the senior necromancer expected to happen, after killing off the monsters surging up from below, the battle didn’t come to an end, as the monsters charging the undead legion had seemingly understood they wouldn’t be able to emerge so close and decided on another exit point farther away.
Even though this meant the battle would last longer, it did at least mean the undead legion could start making progress towards leaving the desert while fending off against the attack of the monsters. Leaving behind a few weaker skeleton carriers to pick up the dead monsters and other materials along the way and bring them into the undead legion where they would then be used to either create new unique undead or skeletons.
If a few more necromancers had been around, the terrifying creation speed of undead would have outpaced the speed at which the undead fell to the monsters. Unfortunately, with only two necromancers around and the stronger one focused on managing the battle, the overall replenishment speed was a bit too slow and thus inevitably slowed down the marching of the undead legion. Not that either of the necromancers cared much about this, as they instead found themselves far too busy to care about a somewhat slower than expected marching speed through the desert.
...
While the undead legion in the desert found itself clashing with the monsters under the control of the dungeon core, Scaly and Verdell found themselves stepping into the desert that this battle was taking place. Following the traces left behind by the undead legion when it had passed through in the past, as even without the undead legion being engaged in battle, it was difficult to mask its path, with skeletons, undead or even just bones and rotting flesh being left behind naturally in places that an undead legion of such size passed through.
Still, though it could be considered a desert, the layer of clouds above letting minimal light pass through also made the desert cold to the point where snow had already accumulated on top of some of the taller sand dunes.
A weird experience considering how the other deserts found within the swirling sands dungeon looked like, but not one to stop Scaly for even a second as she continued flying along the path that had been left behind by the undead legion. Feeling a sense of growing anticipation knowing she was getting close to finally laying eyes on the undead legion she had been chasing for so long while also feeling somewhat nervous thinking about what she might encounter when she finally got to the undead legion.
Like this, another ten minutes flew by before a large army of undead and skeletons finally appeared at the very edge of her vision-
So... So few and so weak...
But instead of excitement, Scaly was left with a sense of profound disappointment upon seeing this army of undead and skeletons fighting with an equally large number of monsters.
Compared to the vast battle she had expected to witness, what she witnessed was far below anything she had anticipated, as not even a single SS Rank Monster could be seen in this seemingly large battle.
"Huh? Are we at the main battlefield between those necromancers and the dungeon core?" Seemingly sensing the sudden shift from Scaly, Verdell who had been deep in meditation recovering his mana suddenly opened his eyes before his gaze shifted towards the battle in the distance. "Oh, I thought we got to the main battlefield, this is just a subordinate legion led by a somewhat weaker necromancer. Likely to gather material for the main army." And quickly understood what the army of undead in the distance was.
After all, different from Scaly, he understood that this wasn’t the main battlefield and the legion of undead they had encountered was merely a subordinate legion far from comparable to the main one leading the war against the dungeon core.
Huh? Only a small subordinate legion...?
And with Verdell’s words, Scaly quickly recovered from her disappointment. Realizing that she had been disappointed for no reason.
What stood before her was just a small subordinate legion of undead, far from comparable to the main one she was targeting, it was understandable that it was a bit weaker compared to what she had imagined thinking about the main army of undead attacking the dungeon core.
Still... Weak as this army of undead was, it would undoubtedly still prove to be a great appetizer before the main course...