The Martial God Becomes a Necromancer and Conquers the Tower - Chapter 61

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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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Chapter 61
Episode 61
“……Ten thousand?”
Wow. That’s actually a lot, isn’t it?
If this is the Goblin Great Invasion, they’re certainly living up to the name with these numbers.
That prefix “Great” isn’t there for nothing.
But they’re sending ten thousand just to wipe out one tiny village? These bastards are insane. The cost-benefit doesn’t even make sense for this kind of operation….
“And, of those, two thousand are all Hobgoblins.”
“What?”
That was troubling information.
Hobgoblins were a superior species to goblins.
Standing between 1.6 and 1.8 meters tall, they possessed physiques that rivaled humans.
Though they lacked the muscle mass of orcs, they made up for it with agility and ferocity—in general combat ability, they outclassed average humans by a considerable margin.
Compared to ordinary goblins, which ranged from 1.3 to 1.5 meters and were mere riffraff, these creatures were in an entirely different tier.
In other words, two thousand elite monsters mixed in among the common rabble.
‘Hmm. I’d better run the numbers on this.’
I mentally pulled up my combat strength assessment.
The majority of my walking corpses were goblins.
They were mostly ones I’d captured and turned into zombies in this forest and mountains, so the composition was inevitable.
I did have some Hobgoblins and orcs mixed in, but altogether there were fewer than a thousand.
And there was one critical problem on top of that.
Walking corpses could only output roughly eighty percent of their combat strength from when they were alive.
A walking corpse goblin was weaker than a living goblin.
Even in a fair matchup between goblins, mine would lose—and the enemy had two thousand Hobgoblins holding the line.
‘Of course, there’s the option of flooding them with Necromantic Power to boost performance.’
Infusing Necromantic Power could temporarily enhance an Undead’s capabilities.
The problem was output capacity.
Sure, thanks to the Necron Ossuary I had unlimited recovery ability, but unlimited recovery didn’t mean unlimited instantaneous output.
Even if a faucet flows infinitely, if the water pressure itself is low, there’s a limit to how many buckets you can fill at once.
Infusing all ten thousand Undead with Necromantic Power was beyond my current capacity.
I could realistically buff only about a hundred to two hundred at a time.
Out of ten thousand troops, I could boost only a hundred or two? That was like trying to extinguish a fire with a cup of water.
‘But. I have a new card in my hand.’
The area-of-effect skill I’d obtained as a reward for clearing the third floor before.
Wave of Death.
A skill that spread the power of Death itself as a wave, dealing death to the living while empowering the Undead—that broken ability, in other words.
Eliminate enemies and buff allies in one go. An area-of-effect technique that killed two birds with one stone.
I’d never properly tested it in actual combat yet, but a ten-thousand-strong mass battle was the perfect testing ground for it.
This would definitely create a game-changer.
‘Besides.’
A smirk spread across my face unbidden.
What if my numbers were inferior and my individual units were weaker?
I had a trump card from my past life.
A Martial Formation.
‘What happens if I deploy a Martial Formation with ten thousand units?’
The One Hundred Eight Arhat Formation had guarded Shaolin Temple with only one hundred eight warriors.
But I had ten thousand troops at my disposal—troops that never tired, never panicked, and obeyed commands with perfect precision.
When living martial artists formed a formation, they could extract several times their individual combat power. So what would happen when ten thousand perfectly controlled Undead formed a Martial Formation?
I had no idea, since I’d never tried it before.
In my past life, I’d never once formed a Martial Formation with ten thousand troops.
‘Hah. Just thinking about it makes my heart soar!’
Ten thousand goblins versus ten thousand Undead Martial Formation.
This was straight-up fantasy war film scale.
I could practically hear the dopamine surge of the audience already.
“Lord of the Manor, if the enemy is coming, we should prepare to meet them here. I have an excellent strategy in mind.”
“A strategy?”
“Yes. As for what the strategy entails….”
Listening to Zhuge Youyan’s words, I found myself wearing a contemplative expression.
And then one of the viewers sent a donation.
[Meatball303 has donated 1 DP!]
How utterly vile. What in the world is the Zhuge Clan doing….
Mm. I agree with you. This is rather…. wicked, isn’t it?
But that’s precisely why we could make the decision so easily.
“Let’s do it now.”
And so we began preparing to meet our enemies.
* * *
Katyu, a foot soldier in the Goblin army.
His mind was filled with extraordinarily simple thoughts.
‘I’m hungry. I want to eat human flesh.’
That was all.
Marching, invasion, noble causes—such things had no place in a foot soldier’s limited capacity for thought.
Only hunger occupied his mind.
In a way, one might call it a purely innocent soul.
“Grrr.”
The wolf that Katyu had tamed growled low beside him.
It was whimpering about being hungry.
Katyu wordlessly pulled jerky from his pack and tossed it to the wolf.
‘My jerky….’
He felt the loss keenly, but there was nothing to be done.
If he didn’t give it to the starving beast, it would devour its master first.
Rather than a pet, he was serving a master.
‘I’m hungry too. This is frustrating.’
He continued marching onward, grumbling all the while.
Whoooosh.
Fog began seeping across the ground around them.
‘Fog? Can’t see. What is this?’
It was a thick haze so opaque that he couldn’t see even a hand’s breadth ahead.
The silhouettes of the comrades walking beside him faded and blurred away.
Then it happened.
Crack.
Something seized Katyu’s ankle.
“Huh?”
Katyu stared down blankly.
Something had burst from the ground.
But its appearance…. It looked like a corpse of one of his own kind.
A decomposed face with hollow, vacant eye sockets.
It was unmistakably the form of a dead Hobgoblin, yet it moved with eerie vitality, gripping his ankle.
“Kyeeeek!”
Katyu shrieked in terror.
And as if that scream were a signal flare.
The ground all around split open at once, and corpses erupted from the earth.
Crack! Crackle!
“Kyeak! Kyeeeeek!”
Katyu collapsed to the ground, and a corpse climbed atop him, tearing at his throat.
He thrashed and writhed, but it was futile.
The foot soldier Hobgoblin Katyu ended his short, hungry life in that very moment.
Even his final thought was ‘I’m so hungry’—the pure soul remained true to itself.
Multiple corpses fastened themselves to the wolf beside him.
“Kraaaaagh! Arf!”
The wolf fought back fiercely, befitting its savage nature.
It tore at the corpses with its fangs and raked them with its claws, reducing two or three of them to tatters.
Then.
Whoooosh!
A sinister and malevolent wave of power rippled through the fog like a tide.
It was the Wave of Death itself, draining the life force from all living things.
“Whine…. Whimper….”
The wolf trembled in agony and weakened, eventually torn apart by the corpses until it breathed no more.
And moments later.
Rustle.
The corpse of the dead Katyu rose to its feet once more.
With hollow eye sockets brimming with an awful light.
Katyu, now a walking corpse, turned his direction and began rushing toward his former comrade—the living member of his own kind.
* * *
Kaltun, supreme commander of the Goblin legion.
He stood at a rank far above the common goblin, even surpassing the Hobgoblin Lord.
A true Hobgoblin Lord.
His frame towered at a staggering two and a half meters—taller even than an orc.
Corded with lithe, densely packed muscle, his head bore two imposing horns that radiated menace.
The apex of goblin-kind.
In essence, the final boss of the common monster evolution tree.
Following his command, they would invade the human kingdoms!
In fulfilling his orders, they would rise to positions of glory!
As these ambitions churned in his mind, Kaltun sat astride an enormous wolf, commanding the advance of his host.
While a mere foot soldier like Katyu thought of hunger, the commander dwelt on glory.
Such was the difference in rank.
And yet.
Shhhhh.
Mist began rolling across the march route.
“Mist? Shaman!”
“Yes, my King!”
“Is this sorcery or witchcraft?”
“Neither, Sire! We’ve found no traces of such magic!”
“Natural fog, then….”
Kaltun’s brow furrowed.
No magical traces meant it truly was a natural phenomenon.
‘Something feels wrong.’
The instinct of a veteran commander was sounding an alarm.
And that instinct proved accurate.
“Kyieeeek!”
“Kyaaaaaah!”
From all directions came the anguished screams of dying goblins.
“What’s happening!”
As Kaltun bellowed the words—
Whoooosh!
A malevolent wave tore through the mist, washing across his entire body.
A Wave of Death that seeped down to the very marrow!
“Your Majesty! It’s a Necromancer’s magic!”
The shaman cried out in alarm.
“An ambush!”
Kaltun instantly assumed a combat stance, eyes sweeping the fog in all directions.
But all that met his gaze was murky haze.
All that reached his ears was the death cries of his falling soldiers.
The enemy remained invisible.
Then.
“Gaaaaaaah!”
The shaman beside him let out a final, strangled scream.
When Kaltun whirled his head around, something clad in strange raiment had erupted from the earth itself.
And its hand had already pierced straight through the shaman’s heart.
“Undead!”
Kaltun reflexively swung his Great Sword.
With a commander’s blow potent enough to cleave stone, it would surely kill this thing!
But the creature in its bizarre vestments simply hoisted the shaman’s corpse as a shield, took the full force of the strike, and then glided serenely back into the fog.
The precision of its strike-and-retreat was worthy of a master assassin.
“Necromancer! You wretched filth!”
Kaltun’s fury erupted.
Not honest open combat, but this craven gnawing away in the fog—such contemptible tactics!
The wolf howled savagely and plunged into the mist.
The sight that unfolded as they charged was ghastly.
All around, comrades and Undead were locked in a hellish struggle of death and slaughter.
Most horrifying of all: soldiers who had just fallen now rose again, transformed into enemies.
A hellish structure where each death only swelled the enemy’s numbers.
“Show yourself! Necromancer! Show yourself!”
Kaltun’s roar tore from his throat.
But the enemy refused to reveal themselves.
Then.
A deafening boom shattered the air.
Malevolent force erupted again, spreading outward as a devastating wave.
Kaltun took the brunt of it directly.
“Ugh!”
Pain shot through his entire body, burning and tingling.

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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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