At this moment, all the zombies and skeletons no longer paid any attention to the coalition forces teetering on the brink of collapse. Instead, they surged madly toward the figures behind the radiant sword light. The undead, which had always been eerily calm, now seemed utterly deranged, trampling over one another, crushing and climbing in a frenzy even more ferocious than the orcs. In an instant, the undead tsunami had risen to an unprecedented peak, crashing down upon them like a raging inferno.
Amidst this endless horde, the Holy Light Cross Sword seemed almost insignificant—like a mere dagger against the overwhelming tide. Yet, every undead that approached—whether zombie, skeleton, ghost, or even the necromancers' dark magic—was instantly shattered upon contact with the sacred white blade, reduced to nothingness.
This was not just Lancelote's strength alone. Roland's strike, infused with the sword aura and will of every holy knight in the legion, still lingered in its trajectory. The Holy Light Cross Sword reawakened and magnified that force, unleashing its full power. This was the combined strike of the two greatest swordsmen on the continent.
No zombie could withstand such a blow. No matter how agile, no matter how much they had regained the combat prowess, strength, or dexterity of their former lives, none of it mattered. All power was concentrated into this one strike—a fusion of sword energy and intent, made tangible and absolute.
Like a razor-sharp blade slicing through the fiercest wave, this single strike cleaved a narrow but unstoppable path through the raging sea of death. With that, the warriors behind the blade pressed forward, breaking through the monstrous tide, piercing straight toward the abyss.
This was the long-planned strike—a charge spanning dozens of miles, an army of tens of thousands reduced to blood and flesh as mere stepping stones, all for the sake of unleashing this single, ultimate blow at the threshold of the final barrier. Their goal was to use this one supreme strike to carve a path straight to the heart of the deepest darkness.
But reality never conforms perfectly to plans. The seemingly unstoppable force, a sword cleaving through all obstacles like an unrelenting tempest, was finally halted before the ranks of colossal skeletal beasts.
Eight Titan zombies raised their hands high. Vast torrents of air elements, fused with the sinister aura of the Dark Star, coalesced into existence. In their grasp, eight immense gray thunder spheres materialized.
With the bound Titan souls sealed within the Dark Star, these undead behemoths could not truly rival the legendary Titans of old, those who commanded the storms themselves. But even so, each possessed a fraction of that supreme power—more than enough. What's more, unlike the Titans of legend, these zombies shared a single will, a single purpose.
From eight different angles and distances, the massive thunder spheres were unleashed—each strike calculated to perfection, converging at the exact same moment upon the streaking Holy Light Cross Sword.
Had it been just one, or even two, three, or four of these thunder spheres, no matter how vast or condensed their energy, they would have been scattered and erased beneath the might of that sword's radiance.
But there were eight. Their combined force warped the very fabric of space around them. The sheer energy, condensed into a singularity of destruction, exceeded even forbidden magic.
The tangible sword light, sword aura, and sword intent—everything collapsed into oblivion, swallowed by the overwhelming gray storm.
A thunderous explosion, as if the heavens and earth were collapsing, sent massive shockwaves and streaks of gray lightning scattering in all directions. The towering tide of undead, once surging like an unstoppable tsunami, was now torn apart, disintegrating into the finest dust midair, like a sand dune caught in a raging storm.
The Holy Light Cross Sword had vanished, yet its unparalleled sword intent and energy, though shattered, had still managed to neutralize the zombie titans' devastating strike. The warriors trailing behind remained completely unharmed. Now, they faced monstrous creatures towering dozens of times over them.
Above, more than a dozen skeletal dragons beat their wings, their maws flickering with eerie green flames—not ordinary dragon breath, but deathly fire that could dissolve flesh and erode bones. Yet, before they could unleash their attack, the colossal creatures suddenly plummeted headfirst toward the ground.
Crack!
A series of sharp shattering sounds rang out as the skeletal dragons smashed into the earth, their reinforced bones splintering into pieces. These were not fragile remnants; the Dark Star's power had strengthened their undead skeletons to be harder than granite. And yet, they crumbled upon impact.
It wasn't just the dragons. The skeletal behemoths around them also collapsed with thunderous crashes. Even the swarming zombies and skeletons that had been relentlessly charging forward all fell to the ground, their bodies suddenly paralyzed, unable to rise.
Beneath them, the once frozen and solidified sand had inexplicably turned into quicksand, silently swallowing their bodies into the earth.
Master Granden's face was showing a grayish color as a corpse. Seated cross-legged on the ground, he continued chanting his incantations. Even with the church's specially crafted holy protective amulet, the overwhelming presence of death and darkness here was suffocating. The white glow surrounding him flickered like a candle in the wind, struggling against the corrosive aura of the Dark Star.
Beside him stood Lancelote, Grutt, and Asa. Yet, trapped at the center of the gravitational field, even they found it difficult to move. Each of them was surrounded by the glow of their fight spirit, barely holding themselves upright and resisting the pull of the sinking sand beneath them.
Gravity magic was perhaps one of the few spells that could have a significant impact on the Necromancer King. Not even the Deathlord nor the Dark Star could completely defy the fundamental laws of nature. That was why Master Granden had been chosen to spearhead the final assault. However, under the current circumstances, he had no choice but to deploy his gravity field here instead.
The zombie titans, skeletal dragons, and behemoth corpses were all now partially submerged in the shifting sands of the desert. But even that was not enough. Their massive bodies, like rotting logs, continued to collapse under the crushing force of gravity.
For ordinary skeletons or zombies, this gravity field might have been nothing more than an advanced slowing spell. But for these towering skeletal monstrosities, the abrupt increase in weight—several dozen times their original mass—was a burden their bone structures simply could not withstand.
The sky was no longer merely filled with ghosts—it was as if a boiling, exploding blizzard had erupted. Gray, translucent, skull-shaped wraiths layered and tumbled over one another as they surged toward them. These were the only undead unaffected by the gravity field.
"Get away!"
A thunderous roar shattered the air. Grutt stood tall, his longbow in hand, facing the swarm of incoming spirits. There was no fear or hesitation in his gaze—no rage, no hostility, no battle fervor. To him, these vengeful wraiths were even less significant than raindrops.
Ghosts did not listen. They did not obey. But every wraith near him was instantly obliterated by the sheer force of his voice with nothing left. Those that had not yet approached froze in place, unwilling to come any closer.
This was not the effect of magic or fight spirit, nor was it the power of words. It was the raw force of his very soul.
All the remaining wraiths surged toward the skeletal behemoths, converging like a tide upon the skulls of several skeletal dragons. Their translucent forms began to melt and merge into one another. As the last of the ghosts vanished from the sky, what emerged atop the dragon skulls were several pale, spectral figures.
No longer mere phantoms with mist-like, transparent bodies, this form was eerily slender, drifting unpredictably, yet now tangible as if solidified. The face was no longer the vague, grotesque skull of ordinary ghost but instead pallid, haunting, emaciated female visage. This was the most fearsome of undead creatures—Banshee—formed from the fusion of tens of thousands of lost souls.
The banshee opened her mouth wide. Instantly, the darkness in the air was drawn toward her, funneling into her gaping maws like an abyss, devouring the black energy of the surroundings. In mere seconds, she was poised to unleash the most devastating of necromantic spells—the Banshee's Howl.
But she never got the chance.
Before even half a second had passed, the banshee, her gathering howl, and the skeletal dragon head she stood upon were all obliterated in an instant. Streaks of green light flashed through the air, slicing everything into countless fragments that scattered like dust.
Grutt remained standing at the very center of the gravity field. At last, he raised the Phantom Devine Bow he had been holding. He hadn't aimed, hadn't even looked—he simply pulled back the string and let it loose. In that effortless motion, several streaks of green light shot forth, unerringly reducing the banshees to nothing but drifting remnants in the air.
It was unclear whether it was due to his elven blood, but although Grutt had never used a bow and arrow before, his posture while holding the longbow to shoot was far more proficient and natural than that of any elven archer or bowmaster. The bow in his hands had ceased to be just a weapon; it seemed as though it had become a part of his body, something he had used for years, as natural and familiar as his arms and legs. The light shooting from the bow no longer resembled the arrows fired by the elven patrols. If the arrows shot by Kaylin could still be considered "arrows," then this was something more akin to a siege crossbow.
Grutt's fight spirit began to shine, and even larger green lights continuously shot from the bow. Whether it was the Zombie Titans or the skeletal dragons, these relentless arrows quickly formed a massive green dragon in the air, tearing through everything in its path and turning anything that stood in the way into nothing but dust and ashes.
The gravity field was slowly weakening. After all, this was a magic spell comparable to a forbidden spell, and even though Master Granden was a master of earth magic, he couldn't maintain such a colossal force for long. Some of the giant beasts that had been sinking into the sand began to struggle, trying to rise again, but the green light from the arrows flashed by in an instant, and those giants were immediately shattered into countless fragments.
A long, earth-shattering howl echoed through the air, and a ball of green and white light shot up into the endless darkness. This light wasn't extremely intense, but it was dazzling, and surprisingly, the surrounding darkness began to retreat.
Beneath this not-so-intense light, the skeletons and zombies faltered for a moment. The light now resembled the sudden appearance of a sun in this sea of death. With the howl, this "sun" erupted in mid-air, blasting out a thousand-foot radius of green light.
The surrounding skeletons and zombies had already piled up like mountains, with one mountain after another, each taller than the last. But under the dazzling green light, the mountains formed by these undead were beginning to crumble and disintegrate into dust.
For the first time, the sea of undead was truly and forcefully stirred. Anyone witnessing this scene felt as if the boundless darkness around them was on the verge of shattering.
That wasn't a true sun. It was Grutt, who had unleashed all of his battle energy. The light scattering through the air wasn't sunlight, but the arrows fired from the Phantom Divine Bow in his hands.
This wasn't a moment to be surprised or to marvel at, but everyone, including Lancelote, was astonished. Although many had known that Grutt with a weapon would be a sight to behold, no one could have imagined that such a scene could be created by just one person and one weapon.
Only Asa, standing beside them, didn't appear particularly surprised.
"Leave the reinforcements behind to you," he said in a grave tone, glancing back once before shouting up to Grutt in midair. Then, with a swift motion, he charged forward toward the deepest and darkest part of the black void.