The few Undead who now knew the truth once again witnessed how vile Facundo was.

They were furious, yet utterly helpless at the same time.

This was exactly the sort of thing Facundo would do; once they understood, their rage cooled and they didn't even feel surprised.

If Facundo weren't that vile, there wouldn't have been not even a single Undead willing to stay loyal the moment he cut the link.

Those Undead who were "loyal" to him simply had nowhere better to go, no better option at all.

"An idiot is an idiot. Even if he's strong, that just makes him a stronger idiot."

Once he figured it out, the Zombie couldn't help laughing as he spoke.

What he was laughing at were precisely those three Kings of the Undead, who thought they'd gotten a heaven-sent opportunity.

In the end they were still in Facundo's grasp; not only would they gain nothing, they'd even incur the wrath of the god here.

Compared to those idiots, their own situation could actually be considered pretty good.

Sure enough, whether you're human or Undead—

Happiness is ultimately built on someone else's suffering.

With that thought, the anger of these few Undead instead faded away.

They were even itching to see how furious those three Kings of the Undead would be once they learned the truth.

"Let's go. Time to get to work."

As he spoke, Steel Bone stretched out a sharp finger and tore open space.

A crack in space appeared before them; Steel Bone pulled it wider, then slipped inside.

The other Undead followed close behind.

......

After parting ways with those Undead, Kane returned to the camp with the information he'd obtained.

He immediately convened a meeting in the Guild Hall.

Both Kreya's side and Kane's own side had to speed up their offensive during this stretch of time.

But there had to be a limit. Once the ranked Undead on the list were wiped out to a certain degree, they would need to slow down.

They had to leave a certain number of Undead to maintain the apparent solidity of the defenses.

They needed to make those three Kings of the Undead feel that the defenses were loosening, but not actually give them a real gap to exploit and break through.

Everything depended on the news from Steel Bone's side.

As soon as that group of Undead in the core region was dead, Kane planned to lead an elite squad to face those three Kings of the Undead head-on.

If Kane's group wanted to complete the mission of obtaining Fakundo's corpse, they had to confront those three Kings of the Undead directly.

There was no avoiding it.

Since it was inevitable, they had to bring the situation under their own control.

Only with the initiative in their own hands could they better grasp the situation!

At the right moment, it would be Kane and the others who chose when to attack.

Only then could they reduce casualties and take out these Undead at a lower cost.

And this stretch of time in between was the best window for Kreya and Longbei to get a firm handle on their own upgraded strength.

With their power raised once more, each of the two could handle one King of the Undead by themselves with no problem.

Kane had a great deal of faith in his teammates.

They'd been here for more than a month, and they finally had a chance to end the battle quickly.

Of course they had to seize it tightly.

After the meeting, the Undead on the front lines felt the humans' attacks grow even more aggressive.

Especially that "Reckoner," who was practically cutting down powerful Undead Lords at a rate of two a day.

He'd even made quite a few cowardly Undead start thinking about quitting the field.

Far away, within Undead Influence that had yet to be affected, Kreya had likewise stirred up a huge storm.

With her overwhelming strength and frenzied warlike behavior—

And those black-and-white flames that were a special bane to the Undead—

Kreya raised a huge army. The strongest Undead under her command even ranked seventh among the notorious Undead on the list.

This Undead was also a fanatic of war and voluntarily came under Kreya's banner.

This caused the entire Undead Influence to plunge into wild turbulence.

It gave the intelligent races' forces in the snowfield region an opening, and they likewise began a counteroffensive.

In just a little over a month, because of Kane and the others' arrival and targeted strikes,

The Undead Influence had gone from their former arrogant, world-ending, "local natural disaster, invincible" status to a region ablaze with war on all sides.

It felt like even the heavens were no longer on their side.

…Actually, it did seem like the heavens would never stand with them.

Not only would they not stand with them, they had even sealed them off.

When you set yourself against the world, destruction is inevitable.

Even without Kane and the others, they would have been wiped out eventually by other means. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

The Mist would never truly allow them to run rampant.

......

At this moment, in the core of the Undead region—

The place that had once been Facundo's prepared Divine Kingdom.

This was the true death zone, saturated with Undead elements and aura.

Aside from the Undead shuffling across the surface, countless skeletal shells lay buried deep beneath the earth.

The entire region was filled with bone-piercing chill, a cold that could make a Soul shudder and a will collapse.

No sunlight could possibly break through the layers upon layers of Evil Spirit clouds overhead.

The whole area lay in gloom, not even a breeze stirring, utterly dead and still.

At the center of this region stood an enormous skull.

From its sheer size and shape, it was obvious this was no humanoid.

It was the skull of some monstrously huge Beast.

The rest of this Beast's bones had been pieced together to form a towering bone spire.

And the skull had become the doorway into this tower.

In this region, the dark clouds in the sky swirled into a spiral, converging downward and pouring into the top of the tower.

Black, white, and eerie green mists coiled around this tower.

These mists condensed into distorted, faceless visages, then into grotesque, misshapen dried bones.

They circled the surroundings, screaming as they flew.

Those screams followed a strange rhythm—piercing to the ear, yet making one's Spirit tremble.

Anyone whose strength and will were not firm enough would fall into chaos and unconsciousness just by approaching and hearing that sound.

Then die in a muddled daze.

Within more than ten li around this giant tower, there was not a single Undead, not even a mindless Skeleton to be seen.

Inside this high tower.

A pale, semi-transparent sphere floated at its center.

Within it was Facundo's body.

His entire body was wrapped in a white Long Robe, and the exposed face actually had no features at all.

The face was a smooth expanse of skin, as flat as a back.

He simply floated quietly inside the sphere; one could even see the blood vessels beneath his skin still faintly flushed with red.

This was a living corpse.

A Divine Body.

And beneath this sphere sat three powerful Undead, each occupying a different corner of a triangle.

These three Undead were precisely the three monarchs of the Undead Influence.

They were converging the Magic Power within their bodies into force, blasting it toward the sphere above.

Three pillars of eerie green light struck straight against the protective barrier.

Every so often, one could feel the defense weakening.

It was exactly this weakening defense that gave these three Undead confidence.

The three Undead looked very different from one another, but their immense power was obvious at a glance.

One Undead was like a withered Skeleton, wearing heavy, finely crafted giant Armor, a delicate Golden Crown upon his head.

On his left was a figure whose body could not be seen at all, completely wrapped within a fine gray-white Cloak.

On his right was an elegant man in a refined Long Robe, like some noble.

If not for the long, thin scar on his forehead and that pale, bloodless skin, no one would have taken him for an Undead.

The Soul Fire within the Skeleton Monarch's skull suddenly flared, and he spoke: "Madio, I hear your territory is already a complete mess. You're not going to take care of it?"

Although they had been in this high tower all this time, they were not ignorant of what happened outside.

Hearing the Skeleton Monarch's words, the pale-faced man opened his eyes, a glint of blood-red light flashing in his pupils.

His voice was elegant and rich with magnetism.

"It doesn't matter. As long as I obtain this body, however vast the territory, however many lives, will all kneel beneath my feet."

"It's you, Hardy, whose territory has been plunged into civil strife, hasn't it? I hear there's a Ghost Knight waging war all over your domain. You can't even control your own Undead? What trash.

Why not quit early, hand this body over to me, and then kneel at my feet."

Madio replied, then struck back, viciously needling the Skeleton Monarch.

At his words, the Skeleton Monarch likewise showed not the slightest anger.

For the three of them, so-called territory and subordinates were nothing more than tools they had used up to now to achieve their goal.

All to stockpile enough Souls and power to break through the defenses around Facundo's body.

Now, under their combined assault, that defense was already slowly weakening.

So that so-called territory naturally no longer meant much.

The important thing was the body above.

And the two rivals before them.

"You, obtaining this body? Stop dreaming. You know your own strength."

"Hmph."

Madio snorted, saying nothing more.

Although the gap between the three of them was not huge, there was still a difference.

And he was the weakest of the three.

The reason the three could remain as peaceful as they were now was mainly because any fight between two of them would let the third reap the fisherman's profit.

After all, even if he was the weakest, if he truly fought with his life on the line, he could at least leave whoever wanted to kill him grievously wounded.

There was no way they could take him down easily.

It was precisely because of this that the three Undead formed a delicate balance.

And because breaking the defense alone would take far too long, with no guarantee of success.

So this delicate balance had lasted until now.

As the defense grew ever thinner, the balance between them grew ever more fragile, liable to shatter at any moment.

"Your power is weakening."

The figure hiding his form beneath the gray Cloak spoke suddenly.

At those words, the other two closed their eyes again, stabilizing the power they were channeling.

Whatever else, their top priority now was still to break this defense.

Even with the barrier somewhat loosened, it was not yet something any one of them could shatter alone.

"Crack!"

A faint, crisp thread of a fracture.

Hearing the sound, the three immediately opened their eyes, focusing their attention on the semi-transparent sphere above.

On that semi-transparent sphere, a hair-thin crack had appeared, almost impossible to catch with the naked eye.

"Don't stop! Increase your power."

At the Cloaked figure's words, the other two stopped dawdling and poured in more power to continue breaking it.

This sudden crack meant the defense had truly developed a problem—success was no longer far from their grasp.