In front of the Necropolis stood the various Adepts and Journeymen from 122 factions within Andrato. They had formerly been 124 in number, but the Royal Faction and Darius Stone's unnamed faction had solidly exited the building.
As such, the remainder continued to bombard the shield in order to stop Goiter. It had only been 5 minutes since Darius had started his negotiation with Stonekeeper Marasmus, yet the shield was already showing signs of breaking.
However, a bright green glow emerged around Goiter, blasting out like a misty shockwave that reached far into the distance. The Adept Protector seemed exhausted and sat down on the stairs of the necropolis, boredly watching the various factions of the living trying their best to reach him.
This act naturally chilled the living, for it meant that he was totally unconcerned about their attempts to reach him. If that was the case, just what was the source of his confidence?
A random Journeyman who was assisting his Adept leader turned around and noticed something. His mouth opened and closed many times like a fish trying to breathe on land, his eyes widening with horror every second.
"S-Sir… l-look at the … s-sky!!" He finally managed to cry out when his horror reached a peak.
His voice had been very loud in this anxiety-filled situation where everyone was silently contemplating what exactly the undead before them had up his sleeve. As such, as if choreographed beforehand, the entire crowd turned to look up as one.
When they saw what was rapidly approaching them, their eyes widened in shock. It was none other than the rotten bones of the recently defeated Bone Dragon that were rushing towards the necropolis at shocking speeds.
Before anyone could stop them, the bones crashed through the protective barrier of the necropolis and entered the bright green lake that formed under the floating building.
It was silent for three seconds before the entire lake began to rumble with such force that the ground shook, knocking many of the still shocked fellows off their feet.
They speechlessly looked on as the entire form of the Bone Dragon began to slowly rise from the pool, its bones reattaching themselves to its body.
By the time the whole dragon exited, the lake had lost more than half of its content, but the fully powered Bone Dragon was before the various factions of Andrato Kingdom once again.
So that was what Goiter was up to! Instead of fighting them himself, he 'simply' resurrected the Bone Dragon using a means only high-level undead could achieve.
That meant that the factions of Andrato had to kill an entire Bone Dragon once more. However, after a bit of worry, they all calmed down and got into formation.
After all, the reason they had feared the Bone Dragon previously was because they had a loose grasp of its battle power and weaknesses!
Now that it no longer had the help of the other Adept undead and was all alone against over 500 living forces, of which 2/5ths were all Adept stage experts, things would not be so easy.
Not to mention that its trump card, Cyclone, was no longer a secret and they could find ways to avoid it!
So when the Bone Dragon roared menacingly and rushed over with hate in its eyes, the Adept stage experts calmly gave out commands to their underlings and began bombarding the monster from afar.
The saying that even ants could eventually defeat an elephant if they were plentiful enough always held true! A single projectile attack from one Adept might not faze the Bone Dragon at all, but a minimum of a hundred of them forced it to come to a halt and dodge as best as it could.
Still, its defense was not something that could be broken this easily. It took to the sky and began raining down its own skills, Wind Blade Barrage, Frostflame Breath, Hail of Ice Swords, Flame Explosion, and Wind Scythe.
It took no more than five minutes for the forces of the living to be pushed into a desperate situation.
Their previous confidence had evaporated before the might of the Bone Dragon, and they realized that they had forgotten to factor in a very important element in their previous victory.
Baron Stone's two Pureblooded Vampires!
Without them, it was impossible to tank and kite the Bone Dragon, preventing the weaker human forces from suffering the frontal assaults of this undead beast.
Now that things were getting really bad, they suddenly began searching around for Darius and his aides. It was at this time that the various powerhouses of Andrato noticed that the fellow was nowhere to be found.
With their situation getting increasingly worse, despair and fear began to emerge in their hearts. Since none of these fellows were bound here by a noble cause, purely greed, many leaders started considering an immediate 'tactical' retreat.
As for the fate of the other factions or their weaker subordinates?
Well, there was the story of the two brothers who encountered a bear in the forest to give you a clue as to how they felt. The very famous saying from that story was all one needed to know; 'After all, I don't need to be faster than the bear to escape. I just need to be faster than you.'
However, this became difficult really quickly as the Bone Dragon intensified its assault. It seemed determined to exact total vengeance for its earlier death, and as many as 40 Journeymen had already fallen after just 10 minutes of battle.
At the 15 minute mark, as if certain fellows had already pre-determined it, various factions leaders began to retreat to the back of their formations while loudly invigorating and commanding their subordinates to fight.
In fact, the damage output of these leaders suddenly increased, greatly inspiring their men to fight harder! As their leaders had said, there was no escaping this battle, so they should all fully commit in order to claim victory!
Once their men had fully committed, a subtle wind passed over the area. Before any of the subordinates could even turn around, their leaders had vanished from their spots.
