Black Sails-Chapter 60: Necromancy

Fen could not let those guys get close at any cost;
he was even willing to destroy the pier. When Li Site and the others returned, they could just lower the small boat to pick them up, or they'd swim over and throw down ropes and nets.
More gusts of wind blades ripped through, splintering the wooden planks of the T-shaped pier into flakes and opening a gap more than four meters long.
Those heavily armored Priests couldn't possibly jump across.
Marcus murmured a prayer. At the broken section of the pier, shoots began to sprout at a visible pace. Then countless thick vines inflated wildly, forcibly forming a vine bridge.
Fen's face was smeared with blood and his brow tightened. As a cleric of the Eternal Sect, it wasn't surprising that he knew some spells.
Wolman hefted his giant battle-axe and leaped off the pier. Since these damned people were from Arlan, it was useful to slaughter a few big guys;
dying here didn't matter.
He charged like a hurricane, colliding with more than twenty armored Priests. He reversed his axe and slammed the heavy iron butt into one man's helmet.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Wolman's torrent of blows dented the dragon-faced helms, caving them in by more than half. By rights, the skull inside should have been crushed and burst.
Marcus sneered.
Those Priests had all been "blessed" by the Dragon Lord's miracle—so long as enough parts remained to sustain bodily movement, even if their heads were blown apart, they could still fight.
Their heavy armor also contained specialized Magic Rune Construction. Priests sent from Arlan's headquarters were no ordinary grunts.
Thud!
A Priest whose helm had been caved in hammered a spiked maul into Wolman's waist, smashing through the scale armor that could resist iron and metal, blood spurting out.
The other Priests didn't just stand by;
they swarmed in. Some used spiked mauls, some used flails, all focusing attacks on Wolman.
Despite repeated armor breaks, Wolman, covered in blood, kept holding on.
"Damn you…"
Wolman mustered every ounce of strength and swung his great axe, sending several Priests flying.
These fanatics were individually ferocious;
twenty-plus together was another matter entirely.
Wolman went berserk. He threw down his poleaxe, went empty-handed, and when a Priest lunged with a spiked maul, Wolman grabbed his wrist with one hand and shoved the Priest's shoulder with the other.
Those heavy iron plate armors were superbly defensive and airtight. If they couldn't be destroyed from the outside, what about the inside?
What happened next was brutal and savage.
Wolman tore the man's arm, ripping the shoulder blade to shreds. All the tendons snapped;
the relatively weak connection came apart, and he ripped the entire arm—armor and all—off.
Wolman, using this "customized flail" violently, began beating another Priest, knocking his spiked maul away. Again he abandoned weapons, tackled the man to the ground and used his terrifying weight to pin him, pressing both hands on the head.
Incredibly…
Wolman tore the head right off, then hurled it like a cannonball at another Priest, smashing him into the water. With that armored bulk, the man simply drowned.
Two down at last.
Even so, two fists couldn't match four hands. No Priest was easy to deal with, and more surged forward.
Haywood couldn't stay idle any longer. The ship's backbone members had always treated him like a tool, but he wasn't useless—just relatively weaker. He still had value.
Haywood jumped down from the rail and... removed his helmet.
"Lord Haywood is going to fight too?"
Wolman knew Haywood's existence couldn't be exposed.
"If they all die and there are no witnesses, isn't that the end of it?"
Haywood's head bore black goat-like horns and blood-red skin. He had three pairs of eyes—each an eerie gold—and a pair of insect-like mandibles at the mouth, revealing two rows of teeth like saw blades when he grinned.
Not just the Priests, even Marcus froze. Could the Dragon Lord's guidance refer to this creature? Whether on the Western Continent or anywhere else, it was unheard of—eerily similar to the demons described in forbidden tomes.
Haywood used no weapon;
he lunged at a Priest.
Marcus had wanted to capture alive, but now wasn't the time. He could only let this Priest be killed—at least they'd bring back a body.
A spiked maul crashed toward Haywood's neck.
The sight was too unnatural.
Haywood, though a low-tier demon, was a true member of the demonic race.
His belly and chest split open to form a horrifying, gaping maw. Layer upon layer of dozens of rows of razor teeth clustered so densely it was terrifying. At the center, bone spikes protruded outward—horrifying in every way.
Haywood rose over the Priest;
the gaping mouth swallowed the man's head completely. The teeth chewed frantically—iron armor was no protection at all.
Only the Priest himself could know what he suffered.
The central bone spikes grew like mad, piercing the dragon-faced helm's eye slits and then driving into the neck, tearing and writhing through the viscera.
Haywood only stopped when the Priest had lost all capacity for movement.
Bang!
A flail smashed off one of Haywood's arms, but not a drop of blood came out;
the arm simply disintegrated into red sand.
He clamped the torn shoulder and backed away several steps. He had pushed himself too hard. If his superior, the sergeant, were here, these bastards wouldn't be so bold;
they'd be downed in seconds and served with drinks.
But after so many years, they had marched much farther. He was alone in this untraveled place.
Twenty-odd Priests were each ferocious.
Behind them were dozens more Military Police and zealot guardians who could still move.
They were charging toward the ship;
the chain shot was nearly loaded. At such a close distance there wasn't enough time to properly adjust elevation, and misfires could hit their own people.
Fen had no choice but to start using Necromancy.
The same scene as before: an apparition slowly emerged beside Fen, but this one was fully a ghostly violet mist. As it stepped out, it dissolved into a puff of purple fog.
The purple mist seemed alive, quickly pouring into the corpses on the shore.
Because the number he was manipulating had reached near-critical levels, black blood began to seep from Fen's nose—his concentration was rapidly draining.
Over two hundred corpses, once rotted flesh and broken bones, crawled up from the ground. Missing parts regenerated into black flesh;
their eyes were entirely ghostly violet. They no longer distinguished friend from foe;
they charged, killing anyone in sight.
Their physical power seemed bolstered by secret force;
they ran amok, tearing at former comrades with their teeth. Some retained pre-death instincts and could still swing weapons.
"What the—?"
A Military Police turned and froze in terror, immediately bitten in the neck by a reanimated corpse, spraying blood everywhere.
The remaining men's morale completely collapsed.
"Necromancy, huh..."
Marcus saw the tide turning and urgently shouted the giant's name.
The injured, slow-minded giant rose again, mumbling incoherent chants—his vitality astonishingly resilient.
The giant was still so exaggeratedly huge.
There were a few half-ruined ships anchored in the Secret Port. The giant roared, clawed onto a vessel, and ripped off ten-meter-long planks from the railings as a weapon, wildly sweeping through the reanimated horde.
At that moment...
Archer outside the Secret Port didn't dare to come in—this was terrifying.
Then Archer heard hooves.
Li Site and the others had returned.