Bang!

They heard another explosion, followed by the lich’s shriek. It sounded like he was vomiting blood. 

—Kyaaaaah!

“Dieeee!”

Chi-Woo didn’t stop even after the lich’s loose robe fell. He didn’t stop to take a breather or shout out lines about unleashing his true skills and whatnot. Chi-Woo simply gritted his teeth and swung his club like mad again and again. 

–No!

“Die! I said, die!” 

–Wait!

“Die! Please die!” 

–I am already dead, so s-stop! 

“Die you bastard!”

The lich’s robe had turned into flattened laundry since long ago. While watching this unfold, Ru Amuh suddenly realized that he had been freed. He recollected himself and as soon as his feet touched the ground, he looked around. His eyes widened in surprise. The uninjured mutants were still battling the other heroes like before. However, the ones whose body parts had grown back and the ones that had attached severed limbs all over their body were acting strange. They looked deeply pained and ran widely everywhere while pouring out a fountain of blood until they exploded. Some of them even clutched to an unwounded mutated before their destruction. 

The situation was progressing in favor of the heroes now. The majority of the reassembled mutants ran rampant without caring whether they were hitting friend or foe, and the uninjured mutated ones soon fell victim to them.

“Is it a rejection response?” Zelit murmured calmly. “Managing life requires one to meet all the extremely delicate and detailed conditions of creating a habitable environment. Everything could go awry even with the slightest mishap. For this reason, it’s an act limited to the realm of gods and is taboo for everyone else.”

“I’m not sure what you are talking about, sir. Could you enlighten me about this matter? I think right now is a very good time.” Ru Amuh soon rushed forward. “Everyone please move towards the able-bodied mutants that are a distance away! We can immobilize them right now!” Ru Amuh shouted, and the rest of the surviving members gained a new glint in their eyes.

“Yes! Now is the time! Let’s finish them off quickly!” Eval Sevaru shouted. He jumped up suddenly and started running with vigor after having stayed on the ground the whole time. He had been avoiding the mutants and only going after the cursed ones. Meanwhile, Chi-Woo continued to pound on the lich like before.

“Stop, stop it.” Zelit approached Chi-Woo and intervened. “I think you can stop it now.”

“Please wait.” Chi-Woo flicked Zelit’s hand away and took out a talisman. The robe burst into fire at contact. 

–Kuaaah…!

The lich shrieked in pain from the burn. 

“See! It’s still alive!” Chi-Woo said and began swinging his club again. Zelit quickly spoke up to stop him.

“This guy is from a faction we have never met since coming to Liber. Also, I believe he ranks pretty high within his faction.”

Hearing this, Chi-Woo stopped swinging. 

“This is an opportunity for us to gain information.”

After leaving the base camp, the recruits had been forced to wander listlessly due to a lack of information. 

‘Knowledge is power.’ Knowing how important additional information was, Chi-Woo heeded Zelit’s words.

“Hey,” Chi-Woo nudged the distorted robe with his feet and said, “Spill out everything you know right now. If I’m satisfied with your answer, I might let you live. Of course, that means there’s still a possibility that I might not let you live.”

Chi-Woo’s way of interrogation left Zelit speechless.

—….

It was the same for the lich.

—Kuh…just kill me…

Chi-Woo raised his club and smirked. “If you don’t want to get another taste of my club, I suggest you start talking.” Chi-Woo’s line would’ve been perfect if he had added an evil cackle at the end.

—…Crazy bastard…

The lich shuddered in horror. His life vessel had already been crushed into dust, but now this guy was blabbering about maybe letting him live. Crazy bastard, his captor was. 

“Hmm?” Zelit flinched suddenly while he was wondering how he should carry out the interrogation. He scanned his surroundings with narrowed eyes. The situation had clearly turned for the better. No, it was basically over now, as shown by the fact that Chi-Woo and Zelit were able to stand here undisturbed. Ru Amuh had almost finished taking care of the able-bodied mutants that were separated from the rest of their group. Now, they simply had to wait for the mutants that had gone haywire to crush the rest. Then it would be easy for them to clean up the battlefield. At least that was what he had thought.

Dudududu, dududu…

But what was that noise?

—Kihihihi…!

He suddenly heard a cackle. A burst of mocking laughter escaped from the robe. Zelit opened his mouth in shock. Could it be? A possibility struck him.

—What a pity…a pity…

The lich said.

—If we had gone a bit farther, you guys would have been the lab rats locked in cages.

Zelit’s eyes narrowed at the lich’s words.

“As expected…is there another troop at the fortress?”

—Kuh. Of course. The one you’re heading to isn’t the only fortress. It seems the ruler of this territory spent a lot of time and energy strengthening his borders, which of course, spared us a lot of trouble in enforcing the frontlines.

“Frontlines?”

—We’re not in a good place. That’s why we tried to earn some breathing room with these disposable pawns. 

Zelit gained pieces of information from the lich’s words. First of all, there were several fortresses along this territory’s border, and each fortress was filled with mutants.

‘Why?’

The lich said they weren’t in a good place. It seemed the group that the lich was part of was attacked by at least one other force. That could mean this territory’s border currently existed to separate multiple existing factions. It seemed the lich’s group had gathered mutants in fortresses in many different places to attack their enemy from all sides so that their enemy would focus most of their attention on defense and give the lich’s group some leeway. In other words, the destination that the recruits were planning to go to had troops waiting to attack another force’s troops. And now, the lich had called upon the mutants in the fortress to him.

The recruits and the natives were completely surrounded. There was no place for them to go.

Finally, Zelit began to see a swarm of mutants running towards the burning hill, proving his speculation right. Their numbers were insurmountable. It was a whole army of them, composed of only mutants, crowding to their location like ants on top of a hill. Zelit quickly gestured at Chi-Woo. 

“Stop this right now.” Chi-Woo raised his club threateningly, but the lich snorted. He might have sent the mutants away in exchange for his life. However, it was impossible for the lich to revive himself now. Chi-Woo had crushed his life vessel in one go, guaranteeing his eventual disappearance. Thus, there was no need for him to accept Chi-Woo’s offer. The lich responded by laughing out loud. 

It was then that the recruits realized the situation they were in. How many were there exactly? Five-hundred? One or two thousand? Perhaps there were more. They all watched the army rush towards them with frightening speed. There were even some heroes who lowered their weapons or dropped them. Feelings of absolute helplessness overcame their entire bodies. 

“It…really… is over…” Zelit also muttered with complete despair. All they could hear was the lich’s echoing cackle.

“…Huh?” Then somebody gasped, and Chi-Woo furrowed his eyebrows. 

Under the night sky faintly illuminated by soft moonlight, the distant army of mutants gradually turned obscured. As if the mutants were on their last closing act on a stage, a giant curtain came down from the sky and covered everything. Not long afterward, the curtain rose again, and there was no one on the stage. The mutants that had caused the grounds to rumble had all disappeared; only remnants of what seemed to have been the mutants remained. It was like they were witnessing a large-scale vanishing magic show. 

–What?

The lich was also surprised. Even though the mutants were single-use disposables, how could so many of them have all disappeared in one go? The only one capable of such a thing was…

–It can’t be! It doesn’t make sense!

The lich screamed his heart out. Chi-Woo looked down at him, wondering what the lich’s problem was. The sky darkened again, covering even the stars and the moonlight. It wasn’t a simple darkness that encompassed them. It was like they were staring into a deep, deep pit that didn’t let even a speck of light in. In this pitch blackness, a single whitish form eventually showed itself.

“…A skull?” someone murmured. The skeleton was tied to a long, black pole that hovered in the air. It wasn’t alone but surrounded by mysterious and flowy whisps, which burned and circulated like they were guiding and escorting it. 

–The Witch! It’s the Witch—The Great Abomination of Bably!

The lich cried out. 

–How could that bitch! Is it—

Chilling energy poured down the burning hill.

“The fire is…” The growing fire gradually died down, and in many places, the fire was completely extinguished. The newcomer seemed to be declaring their distaste for the fire, and everyone watched in stunned silence. Complete darkness descended upon the heroes. No one spoke or even let out a breath. Everyone knew instinctively that this was how they were supposed to behave in front of this figure. Chi-Woo was the only one who didn’t find the skeleton particularly threatening and was instead curious about the skeleton’s identity. 

A strange tension and silence permeated until the skeleton slowly lifted her arm. She raised her skeletal index finger and pointed forward. Then she arched her finger repeatedly as if to beckon them over. All the heroes turned to the direction the finger was pointing at, and saw the smoky figure near Chi-Woo.

—Ah…!

The lich’s body surged up like it was getting forcefully dragged by a mysterious power and flew through the air until it was within the skeleton’s grasp. 

–Uh…Uh…

The lich trembled speechlessly as the skeleton stared down at it. Soon, a blue light flashed from the skeleton’s eye holes. A lich was quite a high-level necromancer, and he was likely to be an elite among his kind considering that he had been conducting experiments in this area. The skeleton had probably taken the lich to salvage whatever values he might have, only to find to her surprise that he was beyond hopeless. He had been shattered completely. 

The skeleton was curious who exactly had taken the lich’s life force so easily. She clenched her hands tightly once without hesitance, and the lich dissipated without being able to even let out a scream. Smoke scattered, and the shriveled-up piece of robe floated in the air. Then the skeleton looked up at one person with her empty eye sockets—the one who had rendered the lich into this state.

The skeleton remembered hearing something about another of her enemy’s plans going haywire at the forest due to an unknown variable; that was why she had come all the way here to investigate. Swish. She pointed her index at Chi-Woo and paused. Then she curled her index finger at an exhaustingly slow pace like she was struggling. Furthermore, the tip of her bony finger slightly trembled. After a couple of minutes, a smothering silence followed.

—…This could be…a bit dangerous.

The heroes heard a beautiful voice that could have belonged to a mature and sensual woman. The skeleton’s index finger stretched out halfway and folded again. She had done what she came here to do, but now, she had a new curiosity. That, however, wasn’t a good enough reason for her to risk herself. Although the lich and she were from different groups, they weren’t that different on a fundamental level. Thus, the skeleton crossed her arms and decided to turn back. Shrouded by her wispy followers, she went farther and farther away. Once the skeleton that looked large enough to pierce the sky was out of sight, the darkness faded. Stars and the moon cast their light on the burnt hill again.

“Ha…Haaaa!” Having been standing like a statue the entire time, Ru Hiana finally let out the breath she had been holding. She wasn’t the only one who reacted this way. Many others let out their breaths and collapsed to the ground. The enormous mutant army was annihilated, including the mutants and the cursed ones they had been fighting. A monumental power that was strong enough to completely overwhelm an entire territory peacefully left, leaving only the recruits behind.

“Did they spare us…?”

“I think she just backed away. I heard her say something.”

“It’s both,” Zelit said. His face was blank like he had just seen a ghost. “She probably saw value in keeping us alive rather than killing us.”

It was clear that the lich’s and the skeleton’s factions were at odds, as evident by the fact that the skeleton had destroyed the army of mutants as soon as it appeared. It just seemed too much of a coincidence, and they had a few theories as to why the skeleton had let them live.

“They might expect us to undermine the lich’s faction as we did tonight.”

Using outsiders to fight against their enemies was a common tactic. However, some heroes questioned the validity of the theory.

“Us?”

“The skeleton looked really strong. I feel like she could have easily taken care of a couple fortresses by herself.”

Zelit shook his head. “She might not want to leave her post, or there are some other reasons we aren’t aware of. We can’t really make any concrete speculations now. And the most important thing is that we survived.”

That made everyone quiet down. Even though their number had dwindled from a three-digit figure to a two-digit figure, they had succeeded in surviving this battle somehow. Just like how rain might come after a drought, if they kept persevering, perhaps, an opportunity would come by in the future.

“…Let’s go.” Zelit got to his feet. They had survived the battle, but the ones chasing after them weren’t their only enemy. Coldness and hunger were invisible enemies that were far scarier than any other. It wasn’t time for them to dawdle and converse leisurely. They had to work hard to keep themselves alive exactly because they had survived this time. 

Immediately, the heroes collected their weapons and left the hill. They were hungry and tired from the intense battle, but they continued marching to the now empty fortress.