Chapter 227: Emblem

The undead scourge wasn't a spell of direct attack, so Olinna felt a headache looking at the over one hundred ordinary people in the great hall, filled with hopeful eyes – gardeners, cooks, servants, and coachmen of Ansel Castle...

The effect of Mechanized Mind had worn off, leaving the noble lady greatly troubled. The most rational action would be to leave these ordinary people in the castle, escape Ansel City with her trained guards, and seek refuge in Asriel City.

However, she couldn't do it. Remaining in the region covered by the undead scourge, death was the only outcome for ordinary people, and it was too cruel and heartless.

Moreover, those ordinary people working in the castle, their relatives, fathers, sons, or husbands, had dedicated their lives to the Cecil family, granting them the privilege to work in the castle.

Therefore, she decided not to abandon any of the ordinary people in the castle. She planned to lead everyone to escape this city that would soon become a death trap.

...

When the gates of Ansel Castle opened, the ground trembled slightly. Two silver-ranked knights, covered in a faint layer of fighting spirit, holding long spears and riding dragon-blooded warhorses, charged out side by side.

These were the only two silver-ranked knights in the castle, now tasked with leading the way for the Ansel Castle escape team.

Behind these two knights, twenty bronze-ranked cavalry, also holding long spears and wearing heavy armor, riding horned horses, followed and charged out.

However, they didn't have the glow of fighting spirit. Human fighting spirit, only when reaching the silver rank, could be projected outside, enhancing weapons, armor, or even mounts.

At the bronze level, fighting spirit could only be used internally, but it still enhanced one's physical abilities beyond normal human limits.

The twenty-two knights, possessing extraordinary strength, followed Olinna's command and swept clean the skeletons, zombies, and ghouls wandering around the castle gate.

After clearing the visible undead, a silver-ranked knight made a safe gesture to the guards observing from the castle walls.

Then, a nearly ten-meter-long, tough-scaled land dragon pulling a fully enclosed metallic carriage charged out of the open castle gates, crushing the remains of the low-level undead scattered on the ground under its massive body. Following the coachman's shouts, it rushed towards the misty, ominous streets ahead.

After this land dragon carriage left the castle, seven more identical ones roared out one after another.

Once no more land dragon carriages emerged, the remaining guards, riding horned horses, charged out of the castle gates. Some dispersed on both sides of the convoy, while others stayed at the rear to protect it.

After traveling for a while, the eight land dragon carriages formed a 2-3-3 formation. Among the two silver-ranked knights opening the way at the front, one stopped, waiting until the last three land dragon carriages passed him, then he patted his mount, much larger than the horned horses ridden by the bronze-ranked cavalry, and followed at the rear of the convoy.

On top of the middle carriage in the second row of three parallel land dragon carriages, Olinna, wearing a loose mage robe and holding a wand, vigilantly surveyed her surroundings.

"Undead Mist." The blonde, blue-eyed girl looked up at the gray mist in the sky, her face filled with worry. Due to her extensive reading, she knew what this mist was – a byproduct of the undead scourge.

"It should be the brightest noon now." Olinna murmured softly. Under the cover of the gray mist, visibility was less than fifty meters, and not a single ray of sunlight fell.

Had there been sunlight, the skeletons, zombies, and even the stronger ghouls constantly swarming towards them would not need the knights to handle them; they would have turned to ash and smoke directly.

"Woo! Woo! Woo..." At this moment, Olinna faintly heard a sobbing sound of a woman, her face instantly darkening: "Wraiths!"

Following her words, transparent figures of various sizes appeared in the mist around the convoy, freely moving through the low houses on both sides of the road.

Suddenly, the cavalry team protecting the convoy became somewhat chaotic. The living naturally fear the dead, especially those that still move. The faint sobs of women coming from the mist intensified this fear.

"Trouble!" Seeing the chaos in the team, Olinna took a deep breath and then used a simple trick: Amplification, making her voice audible to everyone in the team.

"Stay calm, these are just the lowest level of wraiths. You all have cultivated fighting spirit; they can't hurt you, don't be afraid."

Hearing Olinna's shout, the panicked cavalry team quieted down a bit, but many were still in a state of chaos, as ordinary swords couldn't harm ethereal entities.

"Ah, they're attacking!"

Just as the turmoil in the team subsided, wraiths attracted by the aura of the living accumulated more and more. Reaching a critical point, they surged towards the land dragon carriage team like an avalanche.

These wraiths, born from the souls of ordinary people, posed little danger to humans with extraordinary powers, except for their immunity to normal sword damage.

But to ordinary people, they were unstoppable monsters. So when these wraiths attacked, screams of fear and despair came from the seven outer land dragon carriages. These wraiths retained some human intelligence, knowing what they could provoke and what they couldn't. As for the seemingly solid steel carriages, they just passed through them.

Only the carriage surrounded in the middle, where Olinna was, remained scream-free. The outer carriages drew most of the wraiths' attention, and the presence of Olinna, a silver second-rank mage, played a part. Seeing the wraiths attack, she abandoned all caution.

Fiery Fireball, Explosive Flame, Fireball Spell, Lightning Spell... Spells capable of causing extra damage to ethereal entities but creating a huge noise were cast.

...

"A bunch of ants!" Olinna's use of spells to combat the wraith tide attracted the attention of a black-robed, bone-staff-wielding "skeleton" hovering over Ansel City.

This "skeleton," with every bone inscribed with dense runes, turned its "gaze" towards the land dragon carriage team, then opened its jawbone without any flesh, making a laughing gesture.

"I seem to have discovered something very interesting." The lich, standing hundreds of meters in the air, focused its "gaze" through the thick undead mist, landing on an emblem on the land dragon carriage.

Then it turned its head, looking at a dark knight standing by its side, shrouded in dense death aura, wearing heavy armor, riding a skeletal warhorse, holding a lance in one hand and a long sword at his waist.

Because of the faceplate, the lich could only see the blazing soul fire in the knight's head, but that was not what it wanted to see. Its gaze rested on the chestplate of the dark knight.

There, an emblem was engraved, one identical to the emblem on the land dragon carriage below.

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