Chapter 184: Chapter 180: Thanatophage Vs. Necrophage (2)
Blaze expected more from the one Anur called his rival. It seemed that even though she had enormous strength, she lacked common sense.
He had employed the same trick he had used to take down Lo Da’s crew. So many undead only served to exhaust Lian. Blaze never expected they’d kill her.
She had to use her stamina and energy to kill them, but Blaze? He didn’t need to consume anything. If she killed two, he could just use their flesh to create another undead from scratch.
Lian seemed to have noticed it as well. Earlier, she was exclusively hitting the undead brains, as even if they were combined, they wouldn’t work without a brain.
However, her calculation was off, and her knowledge was outdated. Blaze could create a corpse from scratch, but raising it was a different matter. He needed the spire to turn them back to life since he no longer had the necroseed.
However, it wasn’t a problem, thanks to the blightspores in the fog. As soon as Blaze created a corpse, the Blightspore took control, raising the undead as a sporeform.
Not to mention, the sporeforms only had one weakness.
Fire.
Even Thanatophage was useless against them.
Even if Lian chopped a sporeform into infinitesimally small pieces, Blaze could use corpse pits to create more corpses. It was truly an endless horde.
She’s already panting...
Blaze clicked his tongue, seeing Lian struggle against mere zombies.
She’s already done.
He looked above, staring at the multiple ships, and smiled. It was an open challenge. It was like an ant taunting a dinosaur.
Blaze’s taunting skill was equally impressive because a moment later, two more pods dropped, this time behind him.
He turned around and noticed two humanoid beings stepping forward. The one on the right belonged to Anur’s race, while the other was a massive glob with nearly a thousand pounds of loose skin surrounding it.
"So that was your plan?" Blaze mumbled, staring back to see Lian smile.
She was a mere distraction. According to the plan, she would have slaughtered the zombies, and then Blaze would have had to fight the three of them alone.
Though the plan didn’t work, it forced the two aliens to join the fray earlier than planned.
[Careful, Blaze, both of them have reached Grade-8.]
What about their abilities?
[...I can’t access that information. It seems they know a higher-up has betrayed the collective.]
That’s troublesome.
Grade-8s with unknown powers. If that wasn’t a recipe for disaster, then he didn’t know what was.
"Go deal with the girl," Blaze said, increasing his body mass. "I’ll deal with the rest."
Meanwhile, the ships above also went into action. They seemed to have realized the other weakness of the blightspore. Without the spire, Blaze couldn’t control them.
Hence, they began bombarding the lair once again. Even if the thick fog hid the spires, it couldn’t protect them.
However, with a blinding explosion in the sky, one of their flagships was taken out. It came tumbling down, hitting two assault ships on its way down.
The humanoid aliens turned their gaze above and saw their missing fleet emerge from the fog and attack the collective ships. Lo Da was in charge of the fleet that was commandeered by zombies.
It meant that even if the ships crashed, the loss of life would be minimal. However, even if they had all the knowledge of battle maneuvers, they couldn’t overcome the numbers.
For every three ships the zombies shot down, one of their own dropped as well. Despite that, Blaze wasn’t worried at all. After all, he had another card up his sleeve.
While the ships were engaged in a dogfight, something hit one flagship, but it wasn’t an attack from Lo Da’s fleet. The thing had been launched from the ground!
"Is that... our drop pods?" The elf-like alien mumbled.
"Indeed," Blaze smirked. "A pod filled with something special."
Seconds later, another pod hit the ships. At first, nothing happened, but then strange vines burst from the pods and began infiltrating the ships, breaking them from within.
These were Cyclops’s seeds that Alaric had worked hard to produce. It was the first time cordyceps had been used to infect a plant-life, giving them the aggression of the Cyclops’s vines and a high ability to spread akin to cordyceps.
As for how the pods were being launched to such high heights, it was all thanks to the Cultists.
They had set up multiple catapults propelled by magic to launch the pods. The only downside was... they literally had to use their life force to launch it. Each pod was taking anywhere from ten to fifty lives. But who cared about that?
As the pods exploded, the vines within latched onto the ships. Their energy shields flickered before turning off. This made it possible for the zombies from Lo Da’s fleet to board enemy ships with ease.
That was all Blaze needed to infect the resident ships with [Contagion Chain]. Despite their preparation and awareness of Blaze’s ability, he still took them by surprise.
The two aliens on the ground saw it, and their eyes turned red with fury.
"Don’t look at me like that," Blaze shrugged. "You’re the ones who want to destroy the planet. I’m just trying to save myself, you know."
"You’re seeking death!" the belly rolls roared.
"...you’re learning English from her?" Blaze asked, pointing his thumb at Lian. "Seriously... what’s next? You’ll say I’m courting death?"
"..."
The elf was about to say something, but turned quiet when Blaze called them out.
"Seriously... were you trying to kill me with cringe?"
Belly-Rolls dived to the ground, turning into a ten-foot-tall ball that went barrelling towards Blaze, threatening to crush him.
Zombies noticed it and jumped to stop it, only to get crushed and turned into gooey paste under the ball’s weight.
The elf wasn’t one to be kept behind. He slammed his fists together, and his suit turned into armor akin to a fictional Playboy-philanthropist.
Blaze eyes shone. Now he wanted that armor for himself.