ONE VS TENS OF THOUSANDS.

"YOU BETRAY ME BECAUSE YOU FEAR ME?!!!" Francesco exclaimed.

"They did all this just because of a silly thing like that, thinking I might turn my back on them... Hahaha....hahaha....hahaha, I should have suspected... Of course... Hahaha... Cowards," Francesco laughed internally, his hand on his face as he lay on his bone bed.

"Lee, destroy every one of them. I was never going to be what they feared, but now I shall make their fears their reality," Francesco commanded the lich.

The lich, incapable of speech, nodded as it left its master's side, joining the battle that had already started.

Soldiers clad in different armor, ranging from black to bronze-colored armor, charged at the thousands of undead soldiers with their swords, spears, and shields in hand.

The undead army, like a small bone lake, rushed forward with no hesitation, practically immortal as long as their master's mana pool was not depleted.

*CLASH!! CLANK!! CLASH!!!! CLANK!!!! BOMB!!!*

Living and the dead clashed. The estate was filled with the noise of battle, swords hitting bones, bones tearing flesh, black flames engulfing and shearing flesh and bones alike as the bone dragons breathed black flames, claiming the lives of the weaker soldiers.

"JUST LOOK AT THIS, WE OUTNUMBER YOU BY TENS OF THOUSANDS, BUT YOU HAVE THE UPPER HAND... HOW CAN I LIVE UNDER THE SAME SKY AS SUCH A MONSTER?" The king's voice echoed through the battlefield as he stood behind the light barrier, safe from Francesco's minions. They could not cross the light barrier, turning into dust when they made contact.

"Hahaha... He is really doing this, after all that I have done for you, after all... What I have done... Hahaha." Saddened by the king's words and actions, Francesco laughed, tears filling his rage but sorrowful eyes.

"I guess I will always be a demon, a monster... Mom left me because I was a monster... Saying I would bring death... I wanted to change my fate, so I became a warrior who used his abilities to fight for his country... Mom, you were right... I am a demon; I will show them what a demon really looks like," Francesco muttered under his breath. Slowly levitating with each word, his bone bed covered his body, forming a thick suit of armor. Its helmet adorned with a pair of curved horns of bone dragons.

"Is that a devil?" A soldier clad in silver armor exclaimed as he saw Francesco's new appearance, floating behind his army, a black aura oozing out of his body like forced-out compressed steam.

"YOU HAVE MADE A MISTAKE, EVEN WITH THIS LIGHT, EVEN WITH MY INJURIES, YOU FLIES ARE NO MATCH FOR ME." Francesco's voice reverberated through the battlefield, momentarily halting the marching enemy soldiers.

"Ca...Can ... We win against that?" A soldier clad in bronze-colored armor stammered, fear gripping his heart, dulling his senses and allowing a wolflike skeleton to bite into its neck.

"ARGH!!!"

"AHHH"

"NOOO!!!"

"..."

"..."

"..."

Screams of soldiers echoed through the battlefield, dying screams as they were killed by the undead skeleton soldiers, standing there gripped by fear.

"Snap out of it, he is just one man, we are an army, let's continue to move, let's continue to destroy till he depletes his mana," William shouted, trying to give morale to his men.

In response, they roared in unison as they continued to fight, now filled with more vigor as the mages behind the light barrier cast reinforcement magic, healing magic, and other support magic on them.

Sounds of bones shattering filled the battlefield as the living gained the upper hand over the dead.

"Foolish cowards," Francesco snickered as he tried to manipulate his mana to revive his army, but once again, it was to no avail.

"This stupid barrier is a nuisance, has to go." With that thought, he raised his hand towards it, the black mist around him converging at his fingertips. The mist converged until it formed a large spherical dark energy ball, which compressed, becoming smaller by the minute.

"Vanish." He launched the sphere, which was now the size of a tennis ball, with increasing velocity, crashing into the barrier, a large crack forming at the point of impact.

"Monster!!!" The king exclaimed.

"Reinforce the barrier quickly..."

"Yes, Your Majesty," an elderly white-robed mage exclaimed as he rushed to the altar, four other mages joining him.

"For the glory of our country," they shouted as they poured their mana into the altar, their bodies turning into dust in the process.

"At this rate, we would lose all of our strongest mages," Logan exclaimed, standing beside the king.

"I know dammit, this f*king monster... Send the wyvern troupes in. If they fail and the barrier falls again, I will not have any choice but to ask them for help," the king said, feeling at a loss at what to do.

"I should have killed him sooner, what a monster. We did not even suffer like this when facing the demon king's army," the king thought to himself, looking at Francesco through a magical projection of the battle.

On the screen was what looked like a demon, clad in armor made of the bones of humans and beasts alike. On its head was a pair of curved horns of a great dragon. The being was clad in black mist, which seemed to protect it from the light of the barrier.

"He looks more demonic than the demon king," the king's thoughts rang as he gazed upon Francesco.

Meanwhile, on the battlefield, Francesco was overwhelmed as half of his forces were destroyed, the remaining weakened by the bright light.

"Ah... Hahaha... I didn't want to use this because I wanted to prove Mother wrong, but to survive I guess I must," Francesco thought to himself as he noticed that he could lose.

His undead army was dwindling, even though they had taken out most of the human army. The human army had sent reinforcements, who bombarded his army from the skies with magic arrows and spells.

"Sanguis est vita, sanguis est vitalitas." He muttered the spell under his breath. In response to his spell, the blood of the dead soldiers crept on the ground like a stream, slowly rising towards him.

[ NB: Sanguis est vita, sanguis est vitalitas~Blood is life, Blood is vitality ]

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