The Archmage’s Destruction Strategy - Chapter 83

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#083. The Decisive Move (1)

-Clatter, clank, clatter-

What awaited Sung-jun upon arriving at the 90th Floor was a legion of skeletons that filled his vision so completely he couldn’t see the end.

And these weren’t crude skeleton soldiers with cracked skulls and rotting flesh hanging like rags, but rather troops that looked like ‘elite soldiers’ – snow-white skeletal frames properly equipped with armor and weapons.

Some of these forces were holding noticeably superior equipment, aiming toward where the attack team was positioned.

‘They didn’t just dispatch skeleton soldiers, but even gave them artifacts.’

Of course, artifacts worthy of being given to mere skeleton soldiers wouldn’t be particularly high-grade equipment, but even so, artifacts taken from Pandora’s Box, the legacy of a Demon Lord, could pose a great danger to the attack team.

Moreover, the skeleton soldiers filling their vision were also beings closer to ‘artifacts’ created by one of the 9 Great Demon Lords.

Sung-jun recalled the information about skeleton soldiers he had heard from his teacher in the past.

‘Physical resistance, magic resistance, self-repair, collective learning, consciousness sharing, experience absorption… I think?’

Befitting creations painstakingly made by one of the 9 Great Demon Lords, who could be called the founder of necromancy, each skeleton soldier sleeping in the ‘Bone Ossuary’ – the lowest-level subspace accessible with the Lion’s Key – possessed combat power exceeding that of the Empire’s regular knights.

Basically, each individual had completely different weak point locations that needed to be destroyed, and unless the ‘core’ in that area was destroyed, they had the characteristic of self-repairing even if their bones were broken.

Furthermore, all skeletons could learn how to fight through the battles they experienced, and could share such acquired information with other skeletons.

Even the bones composing the skeleton soldiers had been strengthened through chemical treatment and magic infusion to the point where ordinary attacks couldn’t even scratch them.

Recalling this fact, Sung-jun immediately shared this information with the attack team members following him through amplification magic.

“Don’t underestimate them because of their small size. Think of each skeleton as having swordsmanship skills at the level of a master.”

Then Amano Jugo, who was behind Sung-jun, struck his large shield into the ground and muttered as if dumbfounded.

“Each and every one is a master of swordsmanship?”

“That’s right.”

“Even a rough count shows over several thousand?”

“It would be fortunate if that’s all there is, but the actual deployable forces are probably ten times what we can see now.”

The fortunate thing was that the enemy was only using forces from the ‘Bone Ossuary’, the lowest-grade subspace among those accessible with the Lion’s Key.

While the undead forces sleeping in the next grade, the Tomb of the Mournful Soldiers, might be one thing, if forces sealed in higher grades like the Shrine of the Necromancer or the Palace of the Deathless King were deployed, Sung-jun couldn’t guarantee victory even at full power.

However, even if the enemy could only summon the lowest-grade undead, it wasn’t entirely without problems.

The presence of giant monsters visible here and there among the endless skeleton soldiers blatantly revealed the enemy’s intention to annihilate the allies here.

‘The monsters themselves are strong, but the artifacts they’re holding are at least legendary grade… Some monsters are even carrying mythic-grade artifacts.’

Sung-jun immediately cast large-scale enhancement magic on all allies.

Then he spoke toward the leaders of the Four Major Clans behind him.

“To destroy skeleton soldiers, you must destroy the ‘core’ that exists in different locations for each skeleton. If you don’t do that, they’ll reattach destroyed parts and rejoin the battle.”

“Is there a way to identify the location of the core?”

“There’s no way to identify it immediately with the naked eye. They’re inside the bones where you can’t see them anyway.”

“That… that’s…”

“If the creator wasn’t an idiot, they wouldn’t place cores in visible locations. So you have to identify them by watching the enemy’s movements.”

Seeing the masters’ eyes demanding explanation, Sung-jun spoke.

Basically, skeleton soldiers’ movements relied on their self-repair function and used strategies of giving up flesh to take bone, so they possessed boldness on a different dimension from ordinary human soldiers’ movements.

Since they could be repaired anyway, they thought it profitable if they could stab the enemy’s heart even if an arm flew off.

However, even such skeleton soldier movements had one weakness: when you tried to attack the area where the core was located, they instinctively took movements to protect that area.

“So while facing that massive number of skeleton legions, and with masters of swordsmanship who think nothing of losing an arm in front of us, we have to analyze each enemy’s movements one by one to find and destroy their cores?”

“Theoretically, yes.”

“That seems impossible…”

Seeing Shindo Ayaka muttering with a fearful expression, Sung-jun smiled.

Then he nodded and cheerfully admitted it.

“That’s right. It’s impossible.”

“Excuse me?”

“Another way to deal with skeleton soldiers is to break their bones into as small pieces as possible. Not with the feeling of cutting with a sword, but with the feeling of smashing with a hammer. Then strike the bones that fall to the ground to divide them into small fragments.”

The ‘self-repair’ ability of skeleton soldiers wasn’t magic that instantly regenerated severed limbs.

It was simply magic where reattaching severed parts would melt the bones in that area and stick them back to their original state.

In that process, small bone fragments could be automatically regenerated by melting part of intact bones, but repairing bones broken into pieces was impossible even with the self-repair function.

“Of course, they’re not bones weak enough to break from being stepped on. Since they have durability that barely gets scratched even when struck with a greatsword, we’ll need to organize adventurers with blunt weapon equipment into destruction teams to crush the bone fragments that fall to the ground.”

Despite Sung-jun presenting an easy-to-understand solution, the attack team members’ expressions didn’t brighten much.

In a situation where the enemy’s numbers easily exceeded their own, performing the ‘method’ Sung-jun described was by no means an easy task.

Then, Shindo Ayaka, who had been listening to Sung-jun’s words, carefully asked him.

“But how do you know that information, Sung-jun?”

Her question was natural.

Though they had fought together countless times against new types of monsters, Sung-jun had never once explained ‘strategy methods’ as precisely as he was doing now.

After thinking for a moment, Sung-jun said to her.

“The reason I know that information is because those skeleton soldiers are items created by my predecessor teacher.”

“Predecessor…?”

“My teacher was also a Pioneer. The story is long so I can’t give detailed explanations, but basically all items granted to Japanese Awakened from Pandora’s Box are magical relics created by my predecessor teachers. Pandora’s Box is like a key to a treasure trove where magical relics collected by those past teachers are stored.”

Sung-jun explained that the skeleton soldiers were also items summoned by a magical relic called the ‘Lion’s Key’ created by his predecessor teacher.

Then Amano Jugo, who had been listening to Sung-jun’s explanation, said in a trembling voice.

“Are you saying all those many skeletons are summoned by a single artifact? That level of forces could handle more than half the adventurers in Japan.”

“Ah, that’s only a portion. Those skeleton soldiers are the weakest summons, and actually stronger undead can be brought out. Whether the enemy doesn’t know this fact or is deliberately not bringing them out…”

“At that level, it would be a Genesis-grade artifact…”

“Well, I didn’t assign the grade given to the magical relic so I don’t know the exact grade, but I think it’s not an item worthy of being called ‘Genesis’. If the Lion’s Key had been a powerful enough item to overturn the world, it wouldn’t have ended up stuffed in a treasure warehouse.”

Having heard explanations about the ‘Lion’s Key’ from his teacher, Sung-jun had rough information about what abilities the undead sleeping within the Lion’s Key possessed.

However, even mobilizing all the Lion’s Key undead he remembered, it didn’t seem like they could defeat with the Lion’s Key the Yejigwi with future-reading abilities or the Silermantis with absolute regeneration and resistance evolution characteristics.

Moreover, the ‘Skeleton Knight Unit’ before his eyes had a fatal weakness that even its creator didn’t know about.

“Well, I’ll hold back the skeleton legion for now. Please focus on eliminating the other monsters, not the skeleton soldiers.”

“Are you saying you’ll block that many by yourself?”

“I’m a mage, after all.”

Throwing an answer that seemed explanatory yet not quite explanatory, Sung-jun waved both hands.

Then a tremendous number of magic circles appeared above the skeleton legion’s heads and began radiating bright light.

“Kwaaaahhh!”

“Graaahhh!!!”

Seeing the magic activating, the skeleton soldiers raised their shields to cover overhead with lightning speed.

Then ‘protection’ series magic barriers that granted resistance to all kinds of magic began protecting the skeleton soldiers’ entire bodies.

‘Each one is weak individually, but it’s protection magic that synchronizes with surrounding magic circles to increase defense. With that many gathered, they could even block Heaven-Piercing Spear?’

Even though the ‘collective protection magic’ that had blocked even dragon breath when the 9 Great Demon Lords were alive revealed itself, Sung-jun didn’t stop casting magic.

The attack he intended to make wasn’t magic with ‘attack power’ that could be blocked by defensive magic, but entirely different magic.

“Hyper Bonding.”

As Sung-jun chanted the spell, dark green slime began pouring down like sticky rain from the magic circles floating in the air.

And the slime that fell began instantly sticking to the skeleton soldiers’ bodies and blocking their movements.

“That, that’s…”

“Just some sticky stuff?”

Seeing the adventurers with dumbfounded expressions at such a simple solution method, Sung-jun said.

“The master who created the skeleton soldiers developed steel-like bone frames through all kinds of chemicals and magical treatments to compensate for the skeleton soldiers’ weakness of durability. Moreover, to compensate for the low intelligence characteristic of undead, he developed learning-type magic circles that could process thoughts collectively. But there was one weakness that person overlooked.”

“Wh-what’s that?”

“That you can’t make beings without muscles to grow stronger in the first place.”

When you think about it, it was natural.

Skeletons could move like humans without muscles because they borrowed magical power that could substitute for muscles to move each bone.

Of course, the necromantic magic the 9 Great Demon Lords embedded in skeleton bones could produce power easily exceeding an Empire knight’s strength, but that was all.

Unlike living beings that could become stronger through training as needed, the ‘strength’ of skeletons without muscles to develop was inevitably fixed at the point when the skeletons were created.

Sung-jun mass-produced sticky substances with viscosity exceeding that ‘strength’ to block the skeleton soldiers’ movements.

-Clatter! Clank! Clang! Clatter!-

“Grwaaahhhhh!!!”

The skeleton soldiers’ movements as they struggled to move somehow created a vicious cycle that made them tangle with each other even more, and the struggling skeletons became several giant masses, screaming while making bone-clashing sounds.

“This should be enough. Let’s go. To catch the boss.”

Sung-jun, who had been walking forward with light steps as if out for a stroll, suddenly stopped in place.

Then he spoke to the attack team members in a calm, warning voice.

“Oh, and by the way, I’ll be taking the Lion’s Key. I’m the one who neutralized the skeleton army all by myself.”

It was a ‘notification’ rather than a ‘suggestion,’ but none of the Attack Team participants could bring themselves to object to Sung-jun’s statement.

In front of someone who had neutralized that many skeleton soldiers with a single spell, there wasn’t a single person bold enough to argue about ‘ownership rights.’

Having secured the promise of ownership for the item he wanted in advance, Sung-jun began preparing for the real battle.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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