The inner walls encircling the heart of Faradel.

From atop the high ramparts, voices broke into near-screams.

“Everyone to your positions! Hold the inner wall—defend it!”

Carlisle, knight of House Lester, bellowed as he directed the soldiers. Beyond the walls, a vast horde was pressing forward.

“D-d*mn it…! What the h*ll are those things?!”

Terrified soldiers shook as they looked upon the pale, stinking army. From the earth itself, skeletons that had once been buried rose, their bones clattering as they lurched toward the walls. Shrouded in fog, their numbers were impossible to count. Even when struck by arrows, they did not falter.

“Th-those are revenants—skeletons!”

A priest who had arrived belatedly spoke in a trembling voice. Skeletons were the spawn of black magic—corpses roused by corrupted spells.

“Arrows won’t pierce bone. They will only lose their strength by shattering the marked bones imbued with black magic.”

The priest shared what little knowledge he had. Thanks to Shed, the methods of countering revenants had been known since the heretic hunts a few years earlier.

“Where on earth did those things suddenly come from?”

Carlisle gnashed his teeth. Hadn’t they ended the heretic purge and secured peace? High Priest Dietrich had confirmed as much, and the Pope had declared the heresy extinguished. And yet here they were, forced to face this nightmare once again.

The knights of House Lester pressed the priests for answers, but they knew nothing either.

“How on earth did they breach the warding barrier?”

Hedrick, another knight, muttered, brushing cold rain from his cheek with the back of his hand. Those grotesque skeletal soldiers were striding brazenly past the sacred ward and advancing. Their eyes turned towards the northeast and the collapsed watchtower, from which black mist was boiling forth. Whoever was behind this atrocity must surely be there. But to reach them, they would first have to cut through the countless skeletons outside the walls.

“Where has our lord gone?”

Carlisle wanted to deliver his report, but Shed was nowhere to be found. Werner had told him that their master had set out to search for Liana at dawn.

‘D*mn that woman, always the cause of trouble.’

The thought of her made Carlisle’s jaw clench. Whenever he became involved with her, he stopped acting like the master of the house.

At that moment, the priest beside him spoke up hesitantly.

“Well, Lord Lester… he came to the temple earlier, and…”

The priest explained why they had arrived so late.

“He collapsed the underground passage?”

“We don’t know why, but it might be connected to what’s happening now…”

The priest’s gaze shifted toward the skeleton horde. Perhaps the creatures had already been inside that tunnel, and Shed had destroyed it to keep them from spilling into the temple. At least, that was what the priests assumed.

“Then you left our lord there alone?!”

“We returned to the temple to regroup and devise a plan. But before we could, this disaster struck…”

“This isn’t the time for useless bickering! We have to stop that first.”

While Carlisle and the priests argued, Hedrick stepped forward to steady them. The absence of their lord weighed heavily on them, but they couldn’t simply stand idle and wait. Carlisle and the priests fell silent, seemingly agreeing with him.

Hedrick brushed the rain from his face and raised his head.

“Form ranks! If the inner wall falls, it’s over!”

The soldiers quickly straightened their formation, their faces taut with tension. By now, the skeletons had reached the foot of the walls. The lifeless figures, soaked in rain, tilted their hollow skulls back and stared upwards. The soldiers shuddered, as if the chill of death itself were crawling up their spines.

“What are they trying to do?”

The question had barely left someone’s lips when the skeletal bodies began to latch onto the wall. They climbed like insects, contorting grotesquely as they scaled the stone. The sight of the corpses crawling upwards was sheer horror incarnate.

“Cut them down! Don’t let a single one reach the wall!”

Hedrick and Carlisle shouted as they raised their blades. Soldiers struck at the skeletons, hacking at their bones and sending them tumbling down. Carlisle swung his sword in a great arc, the sound of shattering bones cracking through the storm as dozens of them crashed down in a heap, swept aside as if by a wave.

But the undying enemies climbed without end, trampling their own, using broken bodies as footholds. They twisted their forms without hesitation, clawing upward like an endless swarm of ants clinging to their prey. Together they built a foul tower of mud and bone.

“Disgusting wretches.”

Hedrick sneered as he struck another skeleton, shattering it midair into fragments that scattered through the rain. Spears and swords thrust relentlessly, cutting down as many as they could.

But the shards of bone piled up at the wall’s base, forming mounds that only made the ascent easier.

“D*mn it!”

“Fall! Get back down!”

The soldiers shouted, fighting desperately to hold them back.

Then came a cry from below the walls.

“Sir Carlisle! The gate—it won’t hold much longer!”

While they fought to keep the skeletons from scaling the ramparts, another mass of the creatures had bound themselves together into a massive lump and hurled their combined weight against the gate.

Thud, thud, thud!

Like war drums announcing impending doom, the massive city gates shook. Each time the skeletal horde threw themselves against the wood, the front rank shattered into fragments, only for the next rank to surge forward and smash into it again. The deafening booms reverberated through the heavens, as though the gates themselves were about to be torn apart.

“I’m scared, Mommy…!”

Inside the walls, people clung to one another, weeping in terror.

“How could mere skeletons… move like that?”

Such coordinated tactics could not have been devised by mindless revenants alone. They must be commanded by someone intelligent.

“Reinforce the gates! Raise another barrier!”

The priests chanted prayers, weaving fresh wards to shield Faradel. But before the incantations could be completed, the skeletons shattered them. It was as though the horde knew exactly how to break the spell while it was being cast.

‘Only a priest deeply versed in the mysteries of barriers could strike their weak points so precisely…!’

The priests faltered, shaken to their core.

“Where is the High Priest?”

Hedrick demanded. If not Shed, then at least Dietrich should have been there to stand against such dark sorcery. But no one knew where the High Priest had gone.

Then—

“What in the—!”

“Watch out!”

Soldiers screamed as skeletal corpses came hurtling through the air above them.

“Aaagh!”

“Ugh!”

Those who could not scale the walls began to use each other as catapults, flinging themselves over like stones from a siege engine. The undead poured down with the storm, unfeeling and unthinking, crashing onto the battlements like relentless hail.

And yet, even after the sickening thud of broken bones on stone, the skeletons rose at once, unshaken and unhesitating. They seized whatever was to hand: the femur of a fallen comrade, a jagged branch or a discarded blade. With clumsy, graceless swings, they struck — and it was enough.

The stench of decay, the black void of their sockets and the grotesque twisting of their limbs made soldiers gag and stumble back in horror. Some, unable to bear the sight, turned and fled.

“Stand your ground! Crush their skulls—only then will they fall!”

Carlisle barked above the chaos, steadying the terrified men. He struck at the rain of skeletons pelting down on the wall.

Crack!

His blade cut the air with the sharpness of a storm wind. Bones scraped against stone as skeletons split apart, collapsing on either side.

But once the line had been broken, the defense spread open like a ruptured dam, letting more pour in.

‘D*mn it—at this rate…!’

Hedrick’s sword slashed relentlessly at the endless monsters climbing the wall. But it was as though he were cutting water. No matter how many he cut down, they just kept coming, undaunted and unbroken.

Cold rain and sweat drenched his entire body. As dusk deepened, the air turned as sharp as frost, cutting into his flesh. Weariness settled more heavily upon his drenched frame and his vision blurred in the storm and fog.

The living were exhausted. The dead knew no exhaustion.

Would this battle ever end? Could they even win?

Hedric’s wet hand clenched the hilt of his sword tighter.

‘If only our lord were here…!’

The longer the fight went on, the worse their odds became.

Then, suddenly, the skeletons climbing the walls stopped attacking.

‘Is it over?’

For a moment, a fragile thread of hope flickered. Then, the scattered bones on the ground shifted towards a single point, from which black energy seethed. The skeletons, which had been standing still, followed suit.

The wreckage of death gathered and piled up, twisting into grotesque shapes. Soon, the mound of corpses and smoke fused into one massive form.

“Wh-what is that…!”

The fused mass rose higher and higher, surpassing the height of the walls.

It was a skeletal leviathan.

The soldiers stood frozen to the spot, their mouths agape and their swords forgotten. It was not just fear that seized them; it was also the sheer unreality of the sight before them.

The leviathan of bone lifted one colossal arm, the sound of countless bones grinding and clattering together echoing like a death rattle.

“R-run! Run!”

Reality crashed back, and the soldiers shrieked in terror, scattering.

‘The wall will fall…!’

Carlisle knew it instantly. One strike from that monstrous arm would shatter the wall, and once it collapsed, the horde would pour in unchecked, slaughtering and dragging the living into their ranks.

‘D*mn it…!’

The wind howled eerily as the looming presence of despair grew stronger.

Just as death’s shadow was about to engulf them, a blinding flash of light tore through the storm.

The fused mass of bones shattered and scattered into pieces that crashed to the ground. The wind and rain sounded like the shriek of a dying leviathan.

And in that moment, the Knights of House Lester knew that Shed Lester had returned.