Chapter 328 - Who's Luring Them Over?
Leon never realized how big the Black Swamp region was until he triggered the so-called Bone Calamity.
After the Black Swamp was revealed, he realized it was much bigger than he had assumed. He could not see the ends of it. Only the tip of the iceberg had been revealed. The deeper parts of the Black Swamp were still obscured by the darkness of miasma.
If Leon had headed in a different direction, it was unknown how long it would take him to leave the Black Swamp region.
Chances are, he would not have survived. The deeper parts of the Black Swamp were demon territory.
If he had not left the Black Swamp and encountered the humans, he would have found himself in the middle of an ocean of undead skeleton soldiers.
When Leon thought of this point, he could not help but break into a cold sweat. Sure enough, the other side was dangerous, incomparably dangerous.
Subconsciously, Leon labeled the Black Swamp as a Perilous Land, a place on the same level of danger as Extreme Misty Forest, if not more dangerous.
Leon observed the changes of the Black Swamp with an incomparably serious gaze.
The colossal demon figure just now was only a remnant will, but it was the will of a mighty ancient demon when it was alive.
Archdemons were only comparable to Void Realm practitioners in strength, but what Leon sensed from the colossal demon figure seemed stronger than that.
A being of a higher level than Archdemons could only be Demon Lords. These were powerful existences with the ability to comprehend the Laws of Death.
The miasma from the outer parts of the Black Swamp had not truly disappeared. They were infused into the millions of bones that rest within the Black Swamp.
Threads of darkness weaved around the bones like snakes and pieced them together to form the bodies of undead bone soldiers.
Their empty eye sockets were dark as the abyss, and no sign of life could be seen from them—only a strong feeling of death and oppressiveness.
However, a dot of red light soon appeared in their empty eye sockets, and the menacing feeling of oppressiveness and death was magnified by twofold.
Their bodies erupted with miasma, and a layer of darkness wrapped around them like a cloak made of black flames.
Bone soldiers were one of the weakest types of demons, but these Bone Soldiers cloaked in black miasma gave off a different feeling.
Although they were weaker than Lesser Demons, their sheer numbers made them a terrifying force to behold.
As if this army of a million Bone Soldiers were not enough, a more terrifying Bone Soldier rose from among them.
This Bone Soldier was thrice the size of the average Bone Soldier, and its eye sockets flashed with a more profound and brighter ray of red light. It was the spark of intelligence.
This Bone Soldier was called the Bone King, and its entire body was comprised of ancient bones. Its strength was naturally different from the average Bone Soldiers. It was a Lesser Demon with power on par with Transcendents.
The surrounding Bone Soldiers did not display an ounce of intelligence, but despite this, they still knelt in the subservience of the Bone King.
There was no sentience in the Bone Soldiers. There was only a will to carry out the Bone King's orders, the servant of their master.
As if that was still not bad enough, there was more than one Bone King. Within every 100 thousand Bone Soldiers, a Bone King would rise to command them.
Rumble…
The Bone Army began to march on the spot in unison, and their collective might shook the earth.
The Bone Kings issued commands with a mighty roar, and the marching stopped. Shortly after, a bunch of Bone Soldiers collided into each other. Their bone dislocated and began reconstructing themselves to form one giant bone weapon after another for their Bone Kings.
There were giant hammers and buster swords among other varieties of strange weapons such as spiky maces and giant sickles.
After grasping their weapons, the Bone Kings each pointed their weapon towards a different direction leading outside the Black Swamp and gave a mighty howl.
"KILL!"
With that, the army of bones began marching out of the Black Swamp. Gradually, they started picking up the pace before finally charging in all directions.
As undead beings under the influence of the Death Law, the Bone Soldiers were quite sensitive to the lifeforce of living beings.
Seeing a portion of the army heading their way, Leon quietly muttered, "I hope this works."
A layer of Divine Will soon wrapped around Leon and masked away his presence, body, and lifeforce, blending himself into the background.
For some time, it seemed like Leon had turned invisible. One would not notice anything amiss if he did not move or paid particular attention to his location.
"Huh? Leon? Where did you go?"
Lumi was surprised to see Leon disappear before her eyes. She began to panic as she thought she just got ditched.
Seeing her reaction, Leon knew that his Divine Will was working as intended. He immediately patted and assured her.
"I'm still here."
Lumi calmed down slightly after hearing his words. Nevertheless, her surprise and curiosity grew. She could see some sort of distortion in the air. After reaching out her hand to touch the distortion, she asks, "Eh? How are you doing this, Leon? What kind of ability is this?"
"Just some ability to bend light and darkness. Alright, you can stop picking my nose now."
Lumi was immediately given a fright and retracted her hand, but Leon was not serious. After she found out, she pouted with annoyance.
Leon ignored her and focused on the group of humans below.
Things had gotten a little chaotic after a portion of the Bone Army entered the Weeping Forest.
"Dammit, they sensed our presence! Keep retreating! We can't fight here!" The group leader shouted with a stern and desperate look.
"It's just a group of 50 Lowly Bone Soldiers. There isn't even a Bone Knight among them, Big Brother! We should make our stand here and fight them off! On the other hand, it'll be much dangerous if we continue retreating deeper into the forest! Our gas masks aren't made for venturing that deep in the forest!" The youngest male spoke.
"Dammit, what do you know?! If we fight them here, we will attract more of them over! We can fight off 50, but what about 500? 5000? They will just keep coming until they exhaust us to death! We have a better chance if we fight a bit deeper inside the Weeping Forest!" The group leader shouted.
"What Big Brother said makes sense. If we fight here, we will soon find ourselves overwhelmed. But don't you think this strange, Big brother? How did they sense our presence? The forest should have helped us mask our lifeforce…"
"I do find that strange, but there's no time to think too deeply. We need to retreat for now!"
Once the group leader finished his piece, there were no more objections.
If they were to learn that Leon was the reason why a group of 50 Bone Soldiers was headed their way, they would have been livid with indignation. Leon was like a disaster magnet for them. Perhaps one of them would even think that they may have been archenemies in their past life or something.
After reaching 100 yards deeper into the Weeping Forest, the group leader spoke, "This should be deep enough. The other Bone Soldiers shouldn't be attracted if we fight here. Let's quickly finish these off these small fries and head back. We can't stay here for too long."
"Haha! I was just waiting for those words! How dare these lowly Bone Soldiers forced us this deep into the Weeping Forest?!" The youngest member roared.
"That's right, this is the first time I've been this deep into the Weeping Forest." The only female member said.
"It's the same for me too."
"Are you guys going to help, or are you all just going to stand around and talk?" The youngest member asked.
After charging into the group of Bone Soldiers with his heavy bone staff, the first Bone Soldier was directly pulverized from head-down in a single swing. The group joined him shortly after he took down another five Bone Soldiers.
After the group of Bone Soldiers was finished off, they were revived shortly after by the Death Law's lingering power.
However, the Bone Soldiers were noticeably weaker than before. The group of Bone Soldiers stopped reviving after they were killed over ten times.
Just when the human group thought they were done, another 100 Bone Soldiers made their way over and forced them to battle. Among the 100 Bone Soldiers were 5 Bone Knights.
The strength of Bone Soldiers is usually between 1-6 Stars, but the Bone Knights were all slightly stronger than 9-Stars.
"Dammit! Why is there another group coming?! Who the fuck is luring them over?" The group leader cursed with red eyes.
"I think someone has a grudge against us or something. Today is such a bad day. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong..." The female member said with a depressed look.
Back on the treetop, Leon scratched his head with distress.
'I swear I didn't do it on purpose!'