Chapter 544 – Moving Forward
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“I found it!!”
The wizard shouts.
Amidst the endless waves of ghouls, a small light stays at a distance from the punitive force.
The ice spear, emitting cold air, rose from Priscilla’s hand and flew out quickly, piercing the head of the ghoul under the light.
-Pow!!
The ghoul with its head exploded, wiping out the surrounding ghouls.
After the first ghoul explosion, it was the second explosion that occurred half a day later.
The bomb ghoul’s attack was blocked in advance and there was no damage, but the atmosphere in the punitive force was not very good.
That’s because, just like before, you have to keep fighting against ghouls that might explode.
The battle itself with the ghoul is not difficult.
I only saw two bomb ghouls, but that alone increased the difficulty several times.
Wizards had to constantly use search magic to prepare for unexpected bomb ghouls.
The mental fatigue of the knights who confront the ghouls in front is bound to increase.
Even Demon Lord Gregory probably knows that he won’t be able to do anything with the punitive force that can barely burn him.
Perhaps ghouls are expendable goods.
Ghouls are created using humans.
They took over the territory and brought hundreds of thousands of people to Crea.
What if you turned those humans into ghouls?
If that’s really true, the ghouls that the punitive force has dealt with so far were just the tip of the iceberg.
The intention to harass the punitive force seemed blatant.
“Lord Bark. Look at that.”
Bianca said, pointing to the floor with her finger.
Ghoul blood was seeping into the cave floor.
If it had been a dirt floor, I might have understood.
The floor was made of a bumpy stone-like material that looked like hardened lava.
It was a clear anomaly that the stone was absorbing blood.
‘I guess it was intentional.’
It seemed to have something to do with the ghoul’s experience being overly salty.
The subjugation team captured so many ghouls… But only rose 1 level.
Let’s focus a little more on the flow of life force that a ghoul possesses.
The falling sword splits the ghoul’s head and cleaves its heart.
It seemed like the ghoul’s life force was dissipating into the air, but then it was sucked into the floor, walls, and ceiling of the cave.
There were some that came towards me, but they were no more than dust, and most of them were absorbed into the cave walls.
‘What are you planning…? .’
Because I’m working hard at chopping up the ghouls.
Those who attacked like crazy animals retreat like the tide.
The ghouls were seen quickly disappearing like cockroaches into the hole in the cave wall.
You could think about tracking them down… But the punitive force didn’t do that.
First, the hole was barely big enough for one person to crawl through… And there were countless other holes like that in the wall.
And soon they would come crawling out again.
Even though the ghoul’s attack stopped, the punitive force did not stop moving.
Although the ghoul attack was not a big threat.
The problem was that if the battle continued like this, fatigue could not build up.
And that worry became reality.
The ghoul’s attacks, which repeatedly advanced and retreated, showed no signs of stopping, and as the attack continued for more than a day, the punitive force began to feel the severity of the situation.
The punitive force, having defeated yet another attack by ghouls for an unknown number of times, decided to stop moving for a moment and discuss countermeasures.
Burwell spoke first with a serious face.
“It’s only been a day… Two, three days… I can’t guarantee how far we will have to travel to get out of here. We have to assume that there will be constant attacks from ghouls until the punitive force leaves here. It’s the same. You have to decide before it’s too late. Whether to turn back from here… Or keep moving forward.”
Everyone in the punitive force could not say anything, like they were dumb.
It was literally a dilemma.
It is not difficult to go back to where the pit was.
To the punitive force, ghouls were still a nuisance, but not scary.
The problem is that if you look back, there is no clear answer.
Going back means attacking that hole again… I can’t guarantee that something that has already failed once will succeed again.
If I had seen the end of the cave, I would feel refreshed and go all in in the pit.
Even if I went back and attacked the pit like this, if I failed there again… It was obvious that I would be reminded of the endless cave.
And the crucial reason why the punitive force was so confused was because this cave was steadily heading upward.
The path is not as complicated as a maze.
It is a one-way street.
If the cave had been connected to a place that no one could see, the punitive force would not have even had this discussion.
It was a structure that made you think that if you move forward, there might be an exit.
If the devil had been aiming for this… No, he would have been aiming for this, but it was effective.
In the end, the method chosen by the punitive force was.
“Then… I will move forward.”
The reason the punitive force made this choice was simple.
First of all, the cave was an artificial structure, and no matter how amazing the Demon King’s minions were in construction, it was thought that there would be a limit to the scale that could be built during the short construction time.
The punitive force, thinking that it would be a long-term war, began to study in earnest how to effectively deal with ghouls.
“Marquis Liu. How about starting a fire?”
It looked perfect for setting fire to the dense attacks of ghouls.
In response to Count Hubert’s opinion, the Marquis Rio seemed to be lost in thought as he stroked his chin for a moment.
“Okay. Let’s give it a try.”
A sea of fire was created by wizards.
The ghouls are on fire.
It wasn’t that it wasn’t effective.
But the problem was that it took time for it to burn to death. The life force of the ghoul was persistent… And a burning ghoul was born.
Rather, problems arose with the breathing of knights using swords, and soon the method of using fire was abandoned.
It’s not that I haven’t thought about using area-wide magic instead of fire. Since there were so many ghouls, the effect of area magic was also good.
However, when using magic, it only feels cool for a moment… Soon other ghouls fill the empty space.
The number of wizards is limited.
There were only 10 wizards in the punitive force.
There was a limit to the magical power they could use.
Because wide-area magic requires a considerable amount of magical power, it could not be used recklessly.
It is impossible to always use such magic on ghouls who have no intention of shrinking.
In addition, the wizard must maintain detection magic to burn any bombs that may be present.
On the other hand, there were many articles.
Excluding the paladins, there were over 200 knights from the Kingdom of Laun.
In the end, it came back to its original state.
Like the first time, the tactic is for the wizards to search for the explosive ghoul, and the knights to withstand the ghoul’s attack.
Instead, it became more efficient.
I took a break in rotation and advanced while withstanding the ghoul’s attack.
Even if you call it rest, you can’t even dream of a comfortable rest.
It was just a matter of leaving the battle for a moment and grabbing a quick bite to eat or drinking water and walking in the center of the safe formation.
The punitive force moved forward, silently enduring the attacks of the ghouls.
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The center of Daejeon, where the devil resides.
There, a translucent bird’s-eye view emerged that clearly revealed the structure of the Demon Castle.
Gregory was sitting on his throne, looking at a bird’s eye view of the devil’s castle.
You can see a shiny yellow dot moving in the basement of the Demon Castle.
It was the location of the Terra Bridge punitive force.
Pantera also had magic, and it is not that there was no magic that could be used to check each race, but there were many formidable beings in the Terra Cult subjugation team.
Even if you install that kind of magic, you will soon be found out.
However, there was no problem in examining the movement status of the Terra Bridge subjugation force using data measured from the outside on the amount of magical energy.
Divine power was also easy to measure.
This handling of the Terra Bridge punitive force was very important.
The first button is important.
As long as we could stop this punitive force, 90% of the mission could be considered accomplished.
And the reason I did it so carefully was because there was no one I could trust.
Gregory did not believe in the demons inside the Demon Castle.
They are absolutely useless.
Their mission this time was to unilaterally beat down the punitive force climbing out of the pit and send them down.
Even though they fought at that advantageous hill, the heads of more than five demons were blown away.
It was absurd.
It was a shame because he was waiting nearby. If he had left it to them, there was a high possibility that it would have been breached.
How can you trust people like that?
Most of the useful troops were in the Slover Labyrinth.
I can’t even dream of a frontal power struggle.
So, I prepared a trap that was as risk-free as possible.
It’s not that I didn’t think about burying it deep underground.
But I soon gave up on that idea.
Even if you bury it.
Not only elemental elves.
There are also dwarves who are good at digging like ghosts.
There is a higher chance of failure.
And it was a shame to use the trap that was made with so much effort only once.
The plan went smoothly.
Gregory also did not have the unscrupulous thought that a mere ghoul would cause great damage to the Terra Church subjugation force.
The punitive forces are living things.
If you couldn’t sleep and the battle continued continuously, fatigue was bound to accumulate.
Ghouls were made anyway using hundreds of thousands of panthera collected from each territory, and the warlocks were still working hard to make them, so it didn’t matter if they died as many times as they wanted.
The number of ghouls dealt with by the punitive force is not that many compared to what they had prepared.
And the dead ghouls were being used frugally as daily food to raise monsters that would be the final decoration of the Terra Church punitive force.
In the basement of the Demon King’s Castle, a little distance away from the sparkling yellow dot, a black dot stirs.
It was also the final destination of the Terra religion punitive force.
