Chapter 755: Silent Ambush

“When fighting against the undead, especially against the Undead Calamity being led by Undead Lords, you can never follow the so-called “common sense” in war. The undead can easily ambush you at any unexpected time and location. Seas and rivers are natural camouflage for the undead. Snow mountains that no living person could pass through are no obstacle at all for the undead. Even powerful sandstorms in the desert will only serve to obstruct the undead’s enemies. Sigh, all of this is so correct.”

“Which military strategist said such a thing?” Harloys inquired.

“Yep, the amazing military strategist Roland Mist. I was quoting myself from my 300 year old diary.”

We were currently still in human territory. It seemed that not only were our movements exposed, the undead enemy had even prepared a trap for us.

I could hear screaming right next to me. The mages who had taken off their clothes and shoes due to the rain were in a panic. It was understandable that others would be panicking since it obviously wouldn’t be good to suddenly be ambushed by the enemy during a torrential downpour.

However, only Harloys and myself continued to idly drink our coffee while chatting with each other. We had no intention of leaving the comfortable horse-drawn carriage.

This wasn’t because we were that confident that we could remain completely uninjured during an undead ambush. Rather, it was because we had already managed to determine the enemy’s military strength since we were some of the few undead mages here.

No matter how the undead had managed to fool our senses and the scouts, once the undead actually began their ambush, it would be impossible for them to conceal their forces anymore. It would be impossible for any low-level undead to hide from the soul senses of an Undead Emperor. Since high-level undead would be connected to the low-level undead through the soul in order to give commands, it was a basic ability for any Undead Emperor to have the ability to follow the trail and determine the enemy undead forces’ overall power level.

An Undead Lord would have to use their soul net to give commands once a battle started. That would instantly reveal their position.

Of course, the Undead Lord could choose to conceal themselves, but that would greatly reduce the undead army’s attack power since nobody was controlling it.

“Six Undead Lords in total. Three are in the air, two are following behind, and only one is leading from the front. The undead number less than 20,000. More than 70% of them are skeletons and ghouls who have become undead only recently. Isn’t it too obvious that this is only probing?”

The undead’s numbers would always be quite scary. Other species would be attacking with everything they had if they could manage an army of 100,000 or 1,000,000. Meanwhile, the undead could easily raise armies of several tens of millions.

However, the tradeoff was that the undead’s basic troop types were really weak. A skeleton sea without any mid-level commanders would be nothing more than pure cannon fodder that could only be used for trying to decrease the enemy’s stamina and mana. It would take more than 10x the numbers advantage for a skeleton sea to be able to defeat another species’ army.

“…The rain’s affected your senses after all. There’s still one more underground.”

I chuckled to hear Harloys saying this. I had sensed that Undead Lord long ago, but hadn’t counted it as an enemy.

“That’s probably an undead tunnel spider or something similar. Although burying itself and waiting for someone to come above it for an ambush is a fine strategy, I think this spider’s luck wasn’t very good…”

Harloys doubtingly continued to sense around the spider when she heard my words. She then gave a subtle sigh.

The undead spider had hidden itself underground not far away from us, at a place where the royal dragon knights had just marched over. The pit that the undead tunnel spider had dug was filled in completely by the soldiers’ stomps. Moreover, rain and mud had filled in the pit, followed by the steamroller-like knights’ march. The spider Undead Lord was likely completely trapped underground now.

How come we knew all of this?

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“Such a cowardly junior. He actually started shouting to save him before the fight even began.”

I could sense his shouting through the undead’s special soul communication wavelengths. This Undead Lord tunnel spider was pitifully shouting to be rescued after being compacted into the ground. He probably hadn’t expected that digging a pit to hide himself in would result in a steamroller knight formation marching over him. Not only that, he had to wait for his undead allies to surround the humans first, so he could only bear the pain of countless knights marching on top of his head.

His feelings were probably quite complex at that time.

Even though a battle had started, we were still having an easy time.

The rain was far too heavy. The sound of rain crashing into the ground could be heard everywhere. Apart from the occasional explosions, I couldn’t even hear the sounds of weapons clashing or commanders shouting that should have been present there.

The rain was so heavy that it obscured all vision and sound. Commanders couldn’t be relied on at such a time, as their orders couldn’t be heard. Each individual soldier’s skill level would be the most important here.

In a way, it was quite lucky that our enemy here was the undead. This meant it was quite easy to differentiate enemy from ally. Otherwise, friendly fire would have been quite possible. Then again, an enemy that wasn’t undead wouldn’t have chosen such a time to commence their attack.

With visibility and hearing so seriously affected by the rain, any command system would be useless. Even the most well-organized army would still be reduced to individuals fighting for themselves.

Meanwhile, most undead didn’t need to use the five senses to sense the world around them. Their command system used soul communication, which wouldn’t be affected by the torrential downpour at all.

I could sense that the royal dragon knights on the frontline were already clashing with the undead army. However, the torrential downpour blocked off all of my senses. I would have to either get closer to ascertain the situation or passively wait for the results.

The “soundless” battle was ongoing. Inside the luxurious horse-drawn carriage that we were in, the archmages all glanced at each other but decided to sit down in the end. Not a single one of us decided to set out by themselves to support the battle.

A torrential downpour would be quite difficult for mages as well. The mage might make a mistake with spellcasting movements. Most critical of all was that since the mage’s senses were greatly impeded, the mage would be in far more danger of dying from an unexpected attack.

Worrying about assassins during the rain was one thing, but the foundational reason was that the mages didn’t want to risk their lives for the sake of the Bardi Empire.

Every country would have their own way of using mages, but in normal situations, the mages weren’t part of the military. Even if a mage was nominally in charge of leading an army, an actual military officer would still be assigned to the army.

Only when magical assistance was necessary would the military issue a request for help. This illustrated who held the upper hand in this relationship.

The mages and I were both guest armies. Attacking without the main force requesting us to would break the unwritten rules of allied warfare.

It would likely take a personal invitation from Bardi to have these archmages attack right now. However, Bardi hadn’t sent anyone here at all. It was likely that Bardi Emperor Halent didn’t want to lose face by having to ask his allies to help right now.

The chaotic battle outside continued. I was still doing my best to sense the situation outside, while the archmages continued playing around with what they had been doing previously.

But this time, they obediently put on their mage robes and picked up their staves, preparing for possible combat at any moment.

“An Undead Lord has died.”

I suddenly sensed that a gargoyle Undead Lord in the sky was no longer alive after a magical explosion.

“Dragonbreath? It’s just a bunch of skeletons, yet Bardi has already sent out multiple dragon knights?”

I was rather worried as I looked at the torrential downpour outside. If it was no coincidence that the undead had chosen such a time to ambush us, there likely was a big problem of some sort after all.