Blacksmithing Is Child’s Play for a Dark Mage - Chapter 85

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 85
The Bone Wizard had evidently concluded that his opponent possessed a relic of the same kind as his Black Gem.
It was a faulty judgment, but an unavoidable one. He could not possibly imagine the existence of the Hunter System itself.
The Bone Wizard’s eyes blazed with fervor.
“Then.”
A split grin leaked from his skull-grinning mouth.
“I’ll crush him and seize that power!”
Kill the one who holds the relic, steal the artifact, grow stronger. That was how the Bone Wizard calculated.
“All forces. Breakthrough.”
The Bone Wizard issued his command.
Hundreds of mid-rank undead surged forward in unison.
Leading the charge: skeleton warriors mounted on skeletal steeds!
The skeleton warriors radiated a ghastly necromantic aura, and it seemed the Bone Wizard had further refined these mid-rank undead beyond their original state.
The first skeleton warrior slammed into Tay’s Skeleton Soldier formation.
A devastating cavalry charge!
Tay’s Medium Skeleton Soldiers shattered and flew backward in an instant.
In a single collision, the upper body of the soldier at the front disintegrated utterly, and the Skeleton Soldiers behind it were pulverized in seconds.
The third and fourth soldiers met the same fate.
The mounted skeleton warriors maintained their breakthrough momentum, driving forward through the ranks.
Simultaneously, as the Bone Wizard’s skeleton warriors swung massive bone swords, the heads of two of Tay’s Skeleton Soldiers flew off at once.
The skeleton warrior kicked the staggering torso, and the Skeleton Soldiers behind it toppled like dominoes.
The breakthrough was swift!
From the moment the mounted skeleton warriors pierced the formation of Skeleton Soldiers, scarcely more than the blink of an eye had passed!
Ghouls followed in their wake.
The ghouls too ranked among mid-tier undead. With flesh and muscle intact, they possessed superior raw physical strength compared to the skeleton warriors.
The ghouls that trailed the mounted skeleton warriors bounded forward on all fours like beasts, descending upon Tay’s Skeleton Soldiers.
With swift precision, they seized their prey’s legs, hoisted them, and hurled them into adjacent soldiers.
Two Skeleton Soldiers shattered simultaneously.
Before the bone fragments could scatter, the ghoul’s claws shredded the next soldier’s armor.
The bone-forged armor tore like paper. The skeletal framework within was split asunder.
If a single ghoul could do this much—
Dozens of them were running at once.
The formation was melting away rapidly.
Partan spoke from beside him, his voice tense.
“My lord! The formation is breaking through!”
Tay stood with his arms crossed.
Not a trace of disturbance crossed his face.
‘Indeed, mid-rank undead are a different tier from lower-rank ones. A more skilled necromancer than I. Impressive, certainly. But.’
Tay let out a soft chuckle.
Swift breakthrough, was it?
Good.
But what lay beyond the breakthrough?
A barrier of Skeleton Soldiers.
An endless, impenetrable wall of them.
Ten thousand—that was a number of a different sort entirely.
Elite few in a wedge formation.
The most classical tactic for overcoming numerical disadvantage: concentrate your strongest units at a single point, shatter the enemy’s ranks, strike at their commander directly.
But could they actually break through?
Tay observed the sight and laughed.
‘Tsk, tsk.’
Tactically, it was sound judgment. In the face of numerical inferiority, breakthrough was the only choice.
But it would not suffice—they would learn that soon enough.
“Crush them.”
Tay issued a brief command.
Ten thousand Skeleton Soldiers responded.
They abandoned the very concept of formation. No lines, no ranks, no tactics.
They simply began pressing forward from all directions at once.
The Skeleton Soldiers threw themselves bodily into the breach.
Ten Skeleton Soldiers rushed the lead skeleton warrior and locked their arms around him.
The skeleton warrior cleaved through two or three Skeleton Soldiers with his Bone Sword, but their severed torsos clung fast to his legs.
Another Skeleton Soldier leaped up and added its weight to the assault.
The ghoul crushed the Skeleton Soldier’s head with its claws, but the dead creature’s arm refused to release the ghoul’s leg.
In the chaos, five more Skeleton Soldiers rushed forward and piled onto the ghoul’s body.
Then twice as many shattered soldiers came pouring back in.
This could hardly be called combat—it was more akin to burial.
Soulless bone constructs hurling themselves forward to crush their enemy under sheer mass.
Even a mid-rank Undead couldn’t withstand the weight of ten thousand corpses pressing down. It would be physically impossible to move.
But that wasn’t all.
“Bone Crafting.”
The shattered remnants of the Skeleton Soldiers snapped together in an instant, fusing as one.
The bone warrior became entombed beneath mountains of bone, while the ghoul’s claws thrashed uselessly before stiffening into immobility.
The other undead—and at the center of them all, the invader himself, the Bone Wizard—all became prisoners in a tomb and cage of bone welded together.
Boom!
In desperation, his opponent unleashed Corpse Explosion, but it scarcely mattered.
Ten thousand corpses pressed down from above.
Tay watched the spectacle unfold, arms crossed.
“Numbers. It always comes down to numbers.”
Rant exhaled heavily beside him.
“…though aesthetically, it leaves something to be desired.”
“Beauty has no place in war. Victory is all that matters.”
“I suppose that’s true enough.”
Even Rant couldn’t argue.
Before her eyes, a colossal mound of bone had taken shape.
* * *
Burying the enemy Necromancer beneath that bone tomb had been satisfying.
But.
“How do I actually kill this thing?” Tay muttered aloud.
He stared up at the towering bone structure before him.
A massive mountain of bone jutted from the center of the battlefield.
Thousands upon thousands of bone fragments—the remains of countless Skeleton Soldiers—fused together through Bone Crafting into a single monolithic structure. Trapped within lay the Bone Wizard and several hundred mid-rank undead.
The problem was simple: they were imprisoned, not destroyed.
He’d confirmed his opponent was an undead Necromancer. The Bone Wizard.
That sort didn’t die from mere burial. They were already dead to begin with.
Suffocation, starvation—such things meant nothing to them.
The mid-rank undead trapped inside faced the same truth. They were immobilized by the bone tomb, but not destroyed.
And worse still.
Thrum.
The bone mound trembled slightly.
From within, the Bone Wizard was continuously channeling Black Magic, desperate to escape. Corpse Explosions detonating from the inside, necromantic mana pushing fragments outward—for now, Tay’s Bone Crafting held steady, continuously reinforcing the structure. But prolonged attrition would drain his reserves.
And mana, while theoretically infinite, wasn’t truly inexhaustible.
‘My mana can handle this… but I can’t stay locked in this stalemate forever,’ Tay thought.
While he deliberated, As emerged from the shadows.
“Contractor. What if you summoned a demon?”
“A demon?”
“Yes. There are demons among my kind who can etherealize themselves, passing through physical barriers to strike at their targets.”
As gestured toward the bone mound.
“They’re called Shadow Hounds. Low-mid tier demons. Bestial in nature, not particularly intelligent—more akin to animals. But they’re obedient to command, and in ethereal form, they can pass through physical barriers to attack their prey.”
Etherealization.
It meant piercing the bone tomb and striking the trapped Bone Wizard directly.
Tay paused to consider.
Summoning demons, though. That gave him pause.
Tay had learned Black Magic during his time as a Debt-Slave Mercenary.
When he’d first studied that dark art, he’d sworn several binding oaths, one of which strictly forbade the summoning of dangerous demons.
This was no mere verbal promise—it was a magical oath with real power behind it. Breaking it would carry a terrible price, a backlash of its own.
“Are Shadow Hounds the kind of demon I swore never to summon during my time with the Debt Mercenaries?”
Tay asked carefully.
“They are not,” As said flatly.
She spoke with absolute certainty.
“Shadow Hounds are bestial demons, not sapient ones. The oath forbids summoning intelligent demons, not lesser beasts. You think I wouldn’t know the terms of your own contract?”
As was his bound familiar—she would naturally know every clause of his magically enforced oath. If she said it was safe, it was safe.
“Then teach me. How to summon them.”
“Ten human hearts.”
“Again?”
“There is no transaction without a price.”
As laughed.
Tay exhaled heavily. This demon had a talent for extracting hearts whenever the opportunity arose.
But the situation was urgent, so there was no choice.
“Okay, deal. Things are tight—let’s go deferred payment on this one.”
“Deferred, you say…… Hmm.”
As considered for a moment, then nodded.
“Very well. I shall accept deferred payment. Only—you must not forget.”
“I’ve got no nerve to stiff a demon, so don’t worry.”
Tay grinned and reached out his hand.
As’s fingers brushed his palm.
A brief contact.
In that instant, the knowledge of summoning the Shadow Hound poured into Tay’s mind—a demon’s gift of understanding, swift and precise.
And the Hunter System responded.
-You have acquired the skill “Shadow Hound Summon.”
Learned and mastered instantly. The Hunter System truly was a cheat key.
Tay cast immediately.
“Shadow Hound Summon.”
Tay’s shadow roiled. Black energy billowed from within it, and something burst forth.
The shape of a hound.
But a hound made of insubstantial black mist, without solid form.
Only its eyes burned red, while its body rippled like smoke.
It was the size of a large dog.
When it opened its mouth, there were no teeth—only a writhing black void where its jaws gaped.
The Shadow Hound lifted its head and looked up at Tay.
“Kill what’s inside.”
Tay pointed at the bone tomb.
The Shadow Hound bolted toward the bone tomb.
And instead of crashing against its wall, it passed straight through.
Etherealization. Physical barriers meant nothing. It drifted through the bone fragments like smoke and vanished within.
A brief silence.
Then.
The Bone Wizard’s scream leaked from inside the bone tomb.
“Kwaaaaah! This is……! A demon’s hound……!”
The screaming stretched on, then cut short.
That instant.
-You have acquired Experience Points.
The system message appeared.
The Shadow Hound dispersed like smoke after completing its task. It seemed to be a one-time summon.
Tay nodded.
‘Clean work.’
A Black Mage made the blacksmith’s work far too easy.
Author |
Automaton G
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Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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