Chapter 54 - 21: [Undead Legion and Undead Elite]

Chapter 54: Chapter 21: [Undead Legion and Undead Elite]

WHOOSH! Holding the heavy Hammer Spear horizontally, she gave it a swift twirl in the air. Dragging the weapon behind her, she stepped steadily toward the fallen Dragon Vulture.

The faint blue light beneath the Demon Horned Black Helmet flickered out, signaling that the control had been lifted.

Freed from the Monarch’s forced attack command, the Dragon Vulture shrieked in terror. It flapped its injured wings frantically, managing to take flight and wobbling away into the distance.

"Ah... thank you, Talan Cultivator," Randall said with a respectful nod.

"Randall, you all should go back inside and look after Eliot. We’ll stand Guard outside the camp," Samael offered warmly, taking the initiative to assume the duty.

[Nether Copper Resonator activated.]

CLICK. Hidden behind his back, he snapped his fingers lightly, sparking a faint cyan ember.

[Attack signal released.]

"Watch out!" Randall suddenly shouted, swiftly drawing his Longsword and thrusting it downward!

CLANG! With a deafening metallic crash, a rusted, broken sword clashed against Randall’s Longsword right at Samael’s feet.

A Skeleton Warrior had thrust its arm out from the loose wasteland dirt near Samael’s feet, slashing at his calf. However, Randall’s blade had intercepted the strike.

"...Sorry, I overreacted," Randall said as he snapped back to his senses. He realized the person standing in front of him wasn’t some low-level, lightly armored teammate, but a heavily armored Samo Cultivator. An enemy of this caliber probably couldn’t even scratch a Samo Cultivator’s armor.

"No, no, thank you, Randall. I zoned out for a moment and almost didn’t notice." Samael thanked him profusely. He leaned down, smashing the skeleton’s skull with his shield, and then kicked the Skeleton Warrior away, sending its broken bones and rusted iron armor clattering to pieces. "You all just go inside and take care of Eliot. We’ll stand Guard out here."

"Well... thank you. We’ll come out to relieve you shortly." Randall nodded sincerely. He glanced at the two standing side-by-side before heading back into the ruins with Selena to check on Eliot’s condition.

The dim stone room was littered with the bandits’ mattresses and hammocks, along with a hodgepodge of scattered gear. Strips of dried Split Claw Bird meat hung on the walls, right above stacked sacks of grain.

In the corner, Ruby sat in a daze, staring at that blood-red Longsword as she tried to formulate a specific Healing Potion to counter its effects. Meanwhile, Glad had taken a teapot out to the well behind the Bandit Camp to fetch some water.

Upon entering the room, Selena jogged over to Ruby, and the two began discussing how to accelerate the healing of the wounds inflicted by the blood-red Longsword.

"Cough, cough... cough..." Eliot lay flat on the bed in the center of the room, his eagle-claw-like fingers tightly clutching his Skull Gold Coin. Panting and coughing, he looked up at Randall, who had just walked in. "I heard fighting outside... What’s going on?"

"The usual, Magical Beast and Undead attacks," Randall explained. "The two Cultivators have already helped drive them off, so don’t worry—"

"Wait a minute, cough, cough... cough. Are you saying those two engaged in combat with a Magical Beast and the Undead?" Eliot struggled to prop himself up.

"Hey, don’t move around so much, or your wounds will tear open again." Randall hurried over and helped support him into a sitting position. "It was a Dragon Vulture just now, along with a Skeleton Warrior. But the two Cultivators have already handled it, so don’t worry."

"When they fought the Demonized Creatures, cough... were the Demonized Creatures targeting you guys or them?" Eliot asked.

"Well... they were initially targeting us. But after the Talan Cultivator appeared, they shifted their focus and actively attacked her instead. However, the beast was wounded and fled," Randall answered.

Eliot fell silent for a moment.

"What about the Undead?" he pressed.

"It was an ambush-type Undead. It thrust a broken sword out from the dirt, trying to slash the Samo Cultivator’s calf. I managed to parry it—though, given the Samo Cultivator’s armor, he would have been perfectly fine even if I hadn’t..."

Eliot nodded, rubbing the Skull Gold Coin in his palm to show he understood.

"What’s wrong?" Randall asked.

"Nothing." Eliot scoffed. "Damn it, it’s all your fault, you paranoid kid. Hanging around you for so long has made me jumpy and suspicious too! It’s nothing."

He slowly lay back down on his bedding. Lying flat, he held up his Skull Gold Coin and quietly gazed at the brilliant, ancient patterns etched into it.

"So it was just luck, after all," he murmured, staring blankly at the skull relief on the Gold Coin.

"Speaking of which, you carry that large Gold Coin on you every single day. Is it your lucky coin?" Randall asked.

"Cough... why ask that all of a sudden?" Eliot gave him a sidelong glance.

"It just suddenly hit me today that you’ve been in the team for almost a year, yet we know so little about you—we don’t even know your last name." Randall sat beside him, looking a bit lost in thought. "Also, things like... the fact that you’ve killed a lot of bandits and robbers in the past. If I had known that sooner, maybe we wouldn’t have wasted so much time arguing over similar decisions."

"I’m not like you guys. I don’t want my last name. I’m just Eliot." Eliot rolled his eyes and sighed. "Bah! My worthless old man was a drunken hooligan and a gambling addict who was drowning in debt. My worthless mother ran off with another man, and she conveniently forgot to take me with her—though I can’t rule out the possibility that she simply didn’t want to drag along a burden like me.

"I wanted to run away too, but I failed several times, and every attempt only earned me a beating from my worthless old man. He would cry while kicking and punching me, totally plastered, slurring his words about destiny and the Goddess of Luck. He complained that no one was on his side, not even his own son, who was trying to run away.

"As if being a drunken gambling addict wasn’t bad enough, his luck was incredibly rotten. He gambled away all our valuables and our land. Refusing to repent, he then mortgaged the house and took out loans from loan sharks."