Chapter 135: The Despair Knight

"What just happened?"

"A level-70 dragon, gone. Just like that."

"What was that spear? How does ice do that?"

"It has to be one of the Hollow Legion’s big names.

That wasn’t any ordinary soldier."

The dragon’s blood was still falling through the cold air in thin red streaks, scattering across the sky, when the entire battlefield seemed to hold its breath.

Every defender who had seen the strike stood frozen, and along the upper ramparts, even the Bulwark’s own veteran commanders had lost their composure.

High-level NPCs, men and women who had stood watch on this wall for years, turned toward the north as one, expressions hard and grim, searching the storm for the source of that spear.

A roar rolled out of the blizzard.

Not the cry of any beast Kael had heard. It was lower than thunder, heavier, a sound that seemed to carry its own weight of cold, and the swirling snow itself seemed to freeze in place beneath it.

Across the length of the wall, players and soldiers alike staggered, their minds ringing with the pressure of it. Every face lifted north.

Out of the white, something vast emerged.

A dragon, but not a living one. A colossal skeletal wyrm with a wingspan of well over a hundred feet, every bone of it bare and bleached and gleaming like old ice.

A cold blue fire burned in the hollow of its great skull, and jagged spurs had erupted from its ribs and spine, giving the whole creature a ravenous, thorned look.

With each sweep of its enormous wings, a gale tore across the snowfield, throwing up whirlwinds of ice and sending a freezing wind howling over the wall.

Beside it, the golden-scaled dragons of the Dragon Knights suddenly looked small, like children’s drawings of the real thing.

And on the skeletal wyrm’s back stood a figure.

He was well over ten meters tall, wrapped from head to heel in black plate, rough and cold, without ornament.

Nothing of his face was visible. But through the narrow slits of his helm, a pale blue light leaked out, and everyone watching understood at once that whatever stood beneath that armor had never been a man.

Some terrible, ancient thing wore that steel like a coat.

Kael’s pupils contracted.

He had recognized the dragon before the figure came into focus. In his first life, he had seen this creature on the server’s boss rankings for as long as the game had run.

Malachar, the Despair Knight. A level 95 Legendary boss, ninth among the Ten Great Bosses of the server, and one of the architects of the Hollow Legion’s assault on the Bulwark.

The Despair Knight’s gaze swept across the human defenders, slow and contemptuous, and he raised a long greatsword wreathed in frost until its tip pointed directly at the wall.

"A wall of insects." His voice rolled across the plain, flat and dead. "They think they can stand against the Hollow Legion. They have no idea what they’re facing."

"Go, my loyal ones. Slaughter them. Bring annihilation to the living."

Behind him, from the heart of the storm, a thousand wings began to beat.

Skeletal dragons. Not one, not a handful, but hundreds, bursting out of the snow one after another with cries like tearing metal, jaws gaping, frost breath already gathering at the back of their throats as they hurled themselves at the wall.

Some of them bore undead knights on their backs, spears of black bone clutched in their fists, steering their mounts straight at the Dragon Knights circling above.

"The Frost Bone Dragon Legion!" someone screamed. "It’s Malachar’s flight!"

"How many of them are there?!"

"Send up everyone! Every Dragon Knight we’ve got, now! And bring the wyrm-slayer ballistae to bear.

Do not let them reach the wall!"

Orders crashed across the battlements. Along the parapets, rows of enormous crossbows built specifically to bring down dragons ground into position, their heavy bolts rising toward the sky.

From behind the wall, fresh waves of Dragon Knights lifted on their mounts and surged out into the air.

Among them was one of the Solarian Empire’s greatest. Its mount was a titan, nearly as large as the Despair Knight’s own dragon, scales a jagged, brilliant gold that threw back the morning sun like a second sunrise.

The Empire’s Imperial Dragon Knight rode straight at Malachar without a moment’s hesitation.The two champions met in the middle of the sky.

Golden fire and pale blue frost crashed together in a boiling cloud of steam and shrieking air, and every blow that landed between them shook the heavens. Neither side gave an inch.

As the dragons fought, the Hollow Legion’s ground forces redoubled their assault. Behind the first wave came creatures that had not yet been seen on the field: corpse-demons wrapped in raw sorcery, lumbering abominations stitched from the remains of a hundred different bodies, gluttonous ghouls that grew stronger with every mouthful of flesh.

They hurled themselves at the Bulwark with a roar that made the first rank of earlier attackers seem like a rehearsal.

The wall itself was no longer safe, not even its highest platform.

A skeletal knight on a Frost Bone Dragon plunged out of the sky and swept low across the topmost rampart.

The dragon’s jaws opened, and a cone of pale blue frost swept across the stones. Soldiers caught in its path froze mid-step, turning into statues of ice, and a heartbeat later the whole row shattered in a spray of glittering fragments.

The wave of cold rolled toward Kael and Elara.

Sir Gareth Thorne moved before any of them could react, dropping into a stance in front of the princess and drawing his blade in a single flash.

He roared and flung a great arc of sword force straight into the dragon’s skull.

He was level 70. The rider, a Bone Dragon Knight, stood at level 79.

Even a blow from the finest swordsman in Elara’s guard barely managed to stall the beast, the dragon rocking back in the air, but not falling.

The undead knight lifted his head, and two pale, hungry lights flared under his frosted helm.

They found Elara.

Kael’s blood ran cold.

Of course. He had known the Frostbound Throne would not hand him an easy road.

An SS-rank quest line did not give one of its central figures away for free, and the Hollow Legion had just made its priorities clear.

He did not hesitate.

His eyes narrowed, and he thrust a hand out toward Wraithlord, who stood at his side, spear in hand and ready.

[Warden’s Mandate.]