Truth be told, Darius had greatly underestimated the amount of undead in the Plains of Death. Describing them as infinite did not seem to be too much of an exaggeration.
He could only bitterly laugh at his former naivety in thinking that hiring those Andrato fools could thin down their numbers. Even if the entire Fallon continent's armies and legions had answered his call, he estimated that they would have only been able to cull, at best, 70% of the undead in these two early bands.
That's not even counting their own troops who would die and later be raised as servants to the Plains of Death.
From the way Thanatos had spoken about them, it was clear that he encouraged invasions to his two early bands. When else were his weaker undead supposed to gain combat experience and rise to become Adept stage experts?
How else would his cannon fodder be able to increase in size without a regular infusion of idiotic living armies who die in battle?
Around 3 hours later, Darius and Gunner were flagging greatly. They had crossed through the entirety of the Journeyman band in this time, barely avoiding many places where they could have been dragged into a new encirclement.
The only silver lining was that due to their mad dash without conserving anything, they were relatively close to their goal.
Right now, they were halfway through the Amateur band, about 150 kilometers away from the Baratuo outpost. However, these 150 kilometers felt far longer than the previous 750 kilometers to Darius.
Gunner was much better in that regard. With his physical stats boosted to the Adept stage, he had been able to conserve more Stamina and regulate himself better.
Ever since they had broken through the Journeyman band to enter the Amateur one, about an hour ago, the Branded Servant had put his master on his shoulders.
No matter what, the human body had limits and the Itemancer had hit his. If it was possible to chug potions endlessly, then there would be no surprises to combat. Whoever had a better alchemist friend would come out the victor. Skills, spells, techniques, and equipment wouldn't matter at all.
Everyone had a hard limit for their potion tolerance within a set period of time. Some were more resilient like Gunner and could drink away for longer and last longer.
Others were more fragile like Darius and were not able to drink too many within a few hours. It was more of a thing linked to one's Endurance and natural affinities.
Although, the irony was that the higher one's Endurance, the less likely they would rely on such potions. This was not only due to their much better physique that could regulate their bodily functions, but due to the fact that potions that were useful at the higher levels were scarce and expensive.
Take the Bone Dragon for example. It had a Health of 13,200, with 10,860 Mana. Even the Common health potions that Darius made only restored 25 HP per potion and the same amount for MP or Stamina.
Exactly how was such a thing supposed to help someone who needed multiple hundreds of potions to reach their maximum?
The Darius of right now was hanging of Gunner's back like a sickly patient, panting heavily while sweating. One could see deep fatigue bordering on deliriousness in his eyes as he barely registered the world around him.
His attire was in tatters and his body was quite bloody. If it weren't for the polymer suit underneath his clothes that was almost on full display, he would have sustained far worse injuries.
Darius had long returned the steel spear to his Inventory, forced to rely completely on Gunner. With how fatigued he was, he was unable to even cast Heal on either one of them anymore.
His current condition was no better than the him on the first day in Faust, who had exhausted himself to the point of passing out in the open.
This was a weakness Darius would have work on in the future... assuming he survived this and became a Journeyman.
During their escape, he had vowed to never let a situation like this repeat itself. He should have absolutely gathered more means to further their ability. Or at least, some equipment that boosted speed or could summon flying beasts to carry him away!
Of course, as they always said, hindsight was 20/20. What mattered now was getting out of this situation, not lamenting on preparations for outcomes outside his predictions.
The plans he had made had centered around using a way of teleportation, be it his Blink spell, a Teleportation scroll, or a House Portal scroll, and later by using Mikey and Joneson's control over other undead as he had believed that this had been the hint Caesar had given him.
Gunner himself was faring much better than Darius. The half-giant still had his polymer suit mostly intact and he was hardly wounded. However, one could see veins across the entirety of his skin, and his eyes being bloodshot.
His mind was in shambles, and he would have been in a similar situation to Darius mentally if not for his master's protection.
The question was, what exactly had happened to the duo? What had occurred to render Darius useless aside from basic fatigue after an extended period of exertion?
It had to do with that very same moment they had crossed over the threshold of the Journeyman band to enter the Amateur one. Lined up there was a group of malicious undead that had sensed the First Resurrection Stone's homing beacon and decided to wait ahead for Darius and Gunner to arrive.
While this worried the duo, they were not scared. After all, the relative levels of the undead had greatly dropped from 35-39 when they were near the border of the Adept band to 20-25 near the Amateur band.
In fact, Darius and Gunner had been convinced that as long as they reached the Amateur band, everything would be smooth sailing from that point on.
They could both one-shot any Amateur undead there easily, so reaching their destination should be a given.
However, an ambush had ruined their flight of fancy and had sent the duo into the depths of despair!
For among the group of undead, there had been more than 200 wraiths of different kinds, as well as other lower rank spellcaster undead!
