Chapter 632: Volume Seventeen: Dark Descends on Earth - Four: Human Hearts
Regrettably watching Bronin escape the dark grasp and flee towards life, Uma shook his head slightly. It seemed like a long time since he had last practiced, and even his limbs had become somewhat clumsy. Although the body he occupied was of decent quality, it was still somewhat inconvenient for him, especially since it was a male body.
Bronin, who had narrowly escaped with his life, no longer dared to be overly confident. The dark forces were too strong, and his own knights were no match for them. If the silent Storm Infantry were to go into battle again, he feared it would be the same story. Just as Saliman, Bronin, and Carl Libukneisi felt a sense of despair, a glimmer of sunlight finally appeared on the horizon. As if struck by a deadly blow, the dark mass of skeletons and zombies suddenly began to loosen, as if they were trying to avoid the sunlight from the heavenly realm. The skeletons and zombies involuntarily crowded towards the man in black, seemingly relying on the dark magic power seeping from his body to counter the natural lethality of the sunlight.
Taking a deep breath, Uma knew his performance had to come to an end. Although these skeletons and zombies had not undergone any special tempering, the sunlight alone was insufficient to harm them, but the act had to seem convincing. After a deep howl, he left a message, "We’ll meet again at night!" and leaped into the sky. Following his departure, a group of zombies and skeletons seemed to want to evade the sunlight, quickly disappearing outside the blown apart doors of the fortress.
Saliman and Bronin found this incredible. If sunlight could harm these dark undead, it would be too laughable. But the undeniable fact before them was that it was the appearance of the sunlight that had caused these undead beings to flee in panic. However, the warning of "We’ll meet again at night!" caused Saliman and Bronin’s hearts to tighten once more. Of course, they could not have known this was all a play orchestrated by Komer, and their priority was to avoid further damage from these dark undead.
What followed was logical. No matter how strong Carl Libukneisi was, he could only feel disheartened when faced with these undead creatures. The soldiers appeared helpless against the undead, even with their specialized anti-magic training, they had never anticipated an undead attack. Such an unexpected event would leave anyone flustered. The conclusion they reached was to immediately retreat. If a larger-scale attack occurred that night, the already exhausted Bronin and the nearly collapsed Mejernov would have no strength left to counter these dark demons, and the Storm Infantry Corps might completely collapse.
To prevent chaos that might attract the attention of the Half-beast Army lurking at the edge of the floating bridge on the other side of the Nissai River, the defenders of Bruce Fortress swiftly completed all preparations within half a day. They even refrained from destroying the floating bridge; Bronin worried that doing so might alert the beastmen and lead to a failed retreat. They kept the common people outside the fortress in the dark, and under the pretense of a large-scale military exercise in the Greenland Forest, the troops hastily retreated to the Greenland Forest Plank Road in batches after lunch.
By the time the civilians outside the fortress realized what had happened, Fran, leading the Caucasus-Leon Self-Defense Army, had already crossed the floating bridge and charged towards the fortress. The empty Bruce Fortress hoisted the Bear Head Flag of Baron Komer of Caucasus-Leon at the first opportunity.
When the civilians outside the fortress finally understood the situation and fell into chaos, Komer had already commanded the Half-beast Army to rush through the market and streets, firmly blocking the road to the Greenland Forest Plank Road. Seeing the fierce Half-beast soldiers completely blockade the docks at Bruce Fortress and the road to the Plank Road, all the civilians were terrified. They were clueless as to why the Homer soldiers hadn’t put up even the slightest resistance, and whether these terrifying Half-beastmen intended to capture all the mortal citizens in one fell swoop.