Chapter 262 Huge Loss

The troops quickly went to suppress the rebellion in the fortress. But when they arrived at the camp where the gremlins were, they found that the scope of the revolt seemed to have expanded.

Now, not only were there gremlins but also some mage apprentices…

In the first wave of mage apprentices that were bitten to death by the gremlins, the virus finally spread all over their bodies, causing their corpses to rise!

When the suppression troops saw these mage apprentices, they were stupefied. They finally realized that something was wrong because these mage apprentices wobbling toward them looked like dead people! Their bodies were full of dried, dark red blood, and their faces, arms, thighs, and even their stomachs were covered in b.l.o.o.d.y wounds. How could they still be alive with such injuries?

How could Astral and the others not be familiar with the appearance of the mage apprentices? Weren’t there such zombies among the undead troops led by Arantir?

“b.a.s.t.a.r.d!” The wizard heroes trembled in anger and roared, “Attack! Kill all these d.a.m.n zombies!”

After receiving the order, a large number of iron golems rushed toward the zombies formed by gremlins and mage apprentices. They mechanically waved the blades in their hands and slashed at these zombies. Unfortunately, the zombies infected by the T-Virus in Roy’s demon blood were different from the zombies in this world. To put it bluntly, the zombies in this world were just resurrected corpses that had not been buried for long. They were not much different from skeleton soldiers wrapped in flesh and blood and were easily killable. But the zombies infected by the T-Virus could not be killed after merely being slashed a few times.

Under the attack of the iron golem troops, many zombies at the scene had their limbs cut off, and some of them were even cut in two. But these zombies that had been cut into pieces were still wriggling tenaciously on the ground. Even though they only had half of their bodies left, they still made bloodcurdling roars as they struggled to crawl toward the mages.

The iron golems were only puppets and did not have flesh and blood to attract zombies, so the mages and nagas at the rear became the most attractive targets for the zombies.

There were already more than three thousand zombies gathered in this area. They relied on their bodies that felt no pain to withstand the attacks of the iron golems while surging forward. They actually overwhelmed the iron golems with their weight and drowned them.

Seeing that the zombies were about to lurch onto them, the mages finally could not help but fire. Numerous fireb.a.l.l.s and magic arrows flew toward the zombies. But even though they were on fire and pierced by the magic arrows, these zombies still struggled for a distance before finally stopping. Everyone soon realized that flames seemed to be more effective against these zombies than magic arrows, so the mages tried their best to use fireb.a.l.l.s to attack. After a while, this group of zombies finally turned into a pile of scorched corpses.

When Astral saw this scene and smelled the disgusting burnt smell, the muscles on his face twitched. He remembered what he had seen earlier. The expressions of unprecedented ferocity and desire on the faces of these meek gremlins made even Astral’s hair stand on end.

Astral knew very well that the zombies gathered here were just a small amount. In the entire Dendera Fortress, the number of gremlins was the largest. He did not know how many of these gremlins and mage apprentices had become such strange zombies, and with the suppression troops scattered around, he did not know whether they could complete the task of suppressing them.

After finis.h.i.+ng the suppression here, Astral thought about it and left some people to clean up the scene. Then he immediately brought his troops and rushed to other places to provide support.

Similar to him, Solmyr and the other wizard heroes were also suppressing these zombies that suddenly appeared everywhere in the fortress. Although the suppression process went smoothly, they found that these zombies were still constantly emerging throughout the entire fortress! Although there were merely a few of them, it always gave people the impression that they could not kill them all.

Moreover, these zombies gradually grew from the initial gremlins and mage apprentices to some of the nagas and mages…

The spread of the T-Virus did not necessarily have to be done through biting, and it could also transmit through the air. In addition, the contaminated water source was made into food and distributed to the night guards all over. Therefore, even though the Bracadans were constantly destroying the infected zombies, new zombies were still continually appearing Gelu and the elven rangers led by him did not partic.i.p.ate in the suppression of the zombies at first because they judged it to only be the riot of the gremlin slaves in the beginning. They regarded it as the internal affairs of Bracada, and the elves were not suitable to partic.i.p.ate. It was basically the heroes of Bracada who were busy with this matter. However, when some of the elven rangers in the army transformed into zombies and began biting the companions around them, Gelu realized that things were troublesome! Therefore, he immediately ordered his troops to kill the zombies and immediately informed this news to Astral and the others.

After hearing this, similar to Gelu, a word instantly appeared in Astral’s and Solmyr’s minds: plague!

Zombies alone were not terrifying, but what was terrifying was that this might be a kind of plague! This was because once a plague occurred, it meant that there was a possibility of infection. Especially in a sealed city like the fortress, the contagious plague would exert the greatest power!

In a short time, the heroes were unable to find the source of the plague. While they were anxiously destroying the zombies, they could only steel their hearts and isolate all the soldiers suspected to be infected!

Among the mages of Bracada, some of them knew how to use the Cleansing spell. However, when they cast Cleansing on their companions who had turned into zombies, they found that it was utterly useless! These zombies were produced by the virus, and it had nothing to do with any negative status, so the Cleansing spell could not remove this infection. They had no choice but to endure the pain and personally kill their former companions with their own hands!

The only place in the entire Dendera Fortress that was free of these zombies was the camp of Arantir’s undead army. The reason was simple. The zombies craved fresh flesh and blood, so the undead army did not attract any zombies at all.

Of course, Arantir had discovered this shocking change in the city. Zombies were a kind of undead, and Arantir could feel the strong aura of death from these zombies. But because no one had informed him about the plague disaster, Arantir could only feel uneasy in his army camp but did not dare to bring his troops out to help.

Arantir was very smart. He realized that the sudden appearance of these undead in the fortress had caused a huge commotion. If he brought his troops out to help at this time, it might end up being counterproductive…

The truth was the same. The troops of Bracada and the elves were now terrified of their companions turning into zombies. On the one hand, they were afraid of being bitten to death by their former companions, and on the other hand, they had no choice but to kill their companions in grief. The nerves of the living people in the city were already stretched extremely taut, and they could collapse at any moment. Once Arantir’s undead troops appeared in front of them, they might attack without hesitation!

At this moment, many mages had already thought of Arantir. Why did this undead plague erupt in the city the moment Death Lord Arantir came?!

To begin with, the mages of the kingdom of Bracada hated necromancers. Although Arantir had become their ally by virtue of his reputation, the vigilance in their bones made mages blame this incident on Arantir! Therefore, after working all night and finally calming the chaos in the city, the remaining troops of Bracada in the Dendera Fortress spontaneously surrounded Arantir’s camp!

Iron golems and stone gargoyles stood expressionlessly around the army camp. Behind them were blood-stained nagas and a small number of mages. The djinns were already floating in the air. They formed a tight surround over the undead army camp.

Under the protection of a group of t.i.tans, Astrals, Solmyr, Gelu, and the other wizard heroes rode their warhorses toward Arantir’s camp. All of them had the same terrifyingly ashen expression.

The casualties had already been reported. In the fortress, there were about seventy thousand gremlin troops, almost all wiped out. Only a few of the thousands of mage apprentices were left. In addition, the elven ranger army had lost one-third, and the mage troops and the naga troops had suffered varying degrees of casualties. Only the iron golems, stone gargoyles, djinns, and t.i.tans had not suffered any losses.

In other words, in just one night, the entire fortress had lost more than half of its population!

Previously, they did not think much of it during the suppression, but now that the numbers were out, both Astral and Gelu felt so pained that they could not breathe.

In particular, Astral’s group usually thought that it was not a big deal to lose a slave of a lower race like the gremlins. But after really losing the gremlins, they realized that the factories and workshops of the fortress could no longer produce iron golems and stone gargoyles, and there were no more laborers to strengthen the city defenses and build structures…

This plague was so strange, but they had to find an explanation!

Thus, when he stood in front of Arantir’s camp, Solmyr was the first to make a move. He raised his hand, smashed the gate of the camp with a powerful bolt of lightning, and roared, “Arantir, get out! If you don’t dare to come out, I’ll break all your bones into powder!”