The Necromancer's Servant

The Steel-Piercing Anti-Magic Arrow was over a meter long, slightly thicker than a thumb, and could almost be considered a small spear. The intricate engravings on it—three magic formations for reducing air resistance, armor penetration, and force concentration—were far superior to ordinary enchanted weapons, making it ideal for ranged attacks. Most crucially, the strength, technique, and battle aura behind this arrow likely belonged to one of the strongest individuals on the continent.

Grutt caught the arrow, stepped back, and hurled it back. A flash of surprise appeared on Welleskay's face, but he did not dodge. Behind him stood several Holy Warriors, and he knew that even if he could evade, they might not. So he nocked another arrow, drawing the bow again, and released his second shot just as Grutt threw the arrow back at him.

Golden light once again radiated from the Temple Knight's massive golden war bow, transferring into the newly fired arrow. Although this second shot lacked the overwhelming power of the first due to the urgency, it was still formidable. As the arrow left the bowstring, the air was instantly filled with a deafening roar, as if the entire atmosphere was rumbling and vibrating.

By contrast, the arrow Grutt hurled back moved silently, like a streak of swift, intangible white light. Beneath its trajectory, the ground began to rupture silently, dirt flying, leaving behind a trench in the earth.

The silent white light collided with the majestic golden arrow, and in an instant, the thunderous sound and golden brilliance ceased abruptly, as if a god wielding a golden weapon had been decapitated in one clean strike. The white light, seemingly unhindered, continued its trajectory toward the Temple Knights.

All of this happened too quickly for any sound to fully register.

Welleskay, having barely released his second arrow, had no time to evade. Although clad in Glory Armor, this armor—or even a Radiant Shield—could not possibly withstand such a blow. At this critical moment, a figure leapt into his path—it was none other than Holy Warrior Jarvis.

Jarvis had already anticipated this scenario. The moment Grutt caught and hurled back the arrow, Jarvis noticed Grutt's gaze fixed on Welleskay, along with his throwing stance. Without hesitation, Jarvis grabbed a shield from a nearby knight, rushing forward while shouting to Talice behind Welleskay, "Sacred Guard Shield!"

Welleskay's second arrow had barely shattered when Jarvis planted himself before him, raising the shield to meet the oncoming white light.

The shields wielded by Holy Warriors were of extremely high quality, capable of withstanding most forms of attack. However, the arrow heading toward Jarvis was anything but "most forms." Against the white light, the steel shield disintegrated soundlessly into countless fragments, as fragile as paper.

And yet, Jarvis and Welleskay were not torn apart by the arrow. Astonishingly, the white light veered slightly as it shattered the shield, grazing Jarvis's arm before changing course toward Talice.

When Jarvis had rushed forward and shouted the warning, Talice, though still unsure of what was happening, had already activated the Sacred Guard Shield on her Glory Armor. A gem embedded in her arm guard shattered, conjuring a magical shield of pure energy in her hand just as the redirected arrow closed in on her.

The Sacred Guard Shield required the immense magical power released from shattering a high-grade sapphire, which the Glory Armor would then convert into a shield. While the Sacred Guard Shield could only last for a few minutes, a single sapphire's cost was enough to outfit an army of a thousand. Aside from Celeste Temple Knights, no one could afford such extravagance.

Despite its cost, the Sacred Guard Shield's defensive strength, powered by a knight's will, surpassed even legendary artifacts.

The target was clear, and the shield in Talice's hand condensed to its smallest, thickest, and strongest form—a one-foot-square wall of impenetrable light. The arrow struck the glowing shield.

Finally, a deafening explosion erupted. It was the cumulative sound of Grutt's arrow slicing through the air, shattering Welleskay's second arrow, destroying Jarvis's steel shield, and colliding with Talice's Sacred Guard Shield. The sheer speed and ferocity of these events made it impossible to separate them audibly.

The clash of the two forces—the arrow's white light and the shield's brilliance—resulted in an ear-splitting roar. Talice was thrown backward like a stone launched from a catapult, slamming into a tree over ten meters away. Wood splinters flew as the trunk caved in under the impact. Talice dropped to the ground, half-kneeling, her face pale as snow, with a streak of crimson at her lips standing out sharply.

The Sacred Guard Shield had fully dissipated, and the arm plate where the shield had been conjured was crushed inward, bent at an unnatural angle as if it had been hollow. Blood poured from the cracks in her armor.

Jarvis's shield arm fared no better, reduced to a mangled mess of flesh and blood. He had not blocked the arrow directly but rather angled the shield to deflect the arrow with the smallest possible tilt, redirecting it just enough to aim toward Talice—the only one capable of stopping it.

The Anti-Magic Arrow now lay embedded in the ground where it had struck, its massive steel shaft still faintly glowing with residual white light. Its metallic sheen carried an oppressive aura of lethality, as though it were a wild beast finally tamed after exhausting its monstrous energy. But taming this beast had required the combined strength and skills of two Temple Knights and a Holy Warrior. Together, their combined efforts barely neutralized the arrow's threat.

Even so, the defense was perilously close to failure. A single mistake would have seen Jarvis, Welleskay, and the knights behind them torn to pieces.

The surrounding knights, including Bishop Adela, were left momentarily stunned by the sheer ferocity of the arrow and the razor-thin defense. They all realized what would have happened if they had been the target of this strike.

Even Grutt, the one who had hurled the arrow, momentarily paused, his breath and movements faltering slightly. After all, this had been his full-power attack in his current state.

This round ended in a stalemate.

While Grutt had caught and thrown the arrow, Lancelote and his two allies saw both the danger Welleskay was in and the opportunity presented. Lancelote charged at Grutt, while Christian and Ederick lunged at Theodorus.

But they were unsuccessful. Theodorus single-handedly blocked all three of them.

For a mage to hold off three top-tier warriors at close range—a situation nearly akin to melee combat—would typically lead any seasoned fighter to conclude the mage was either insane or seeking death. Yet Theodorus was neither insane nor dead. In fact, he nearly knocked down two of the knights.

Empowered by dozens of supportive spells, Theodorus's reflexes and movements were far beyond those of an ordinary person, although still inferior to the knights. Nevertheless, his intervention bought Grutt the time needed to intercept Welleskay's arrow. The coordination between Theodorus and Grutt was seamless, born of mutual understanding and precise reading of the battlefield.

The Temple Knights' strategy was sound. An archer is the bane of spellcasters, and Theodorus, a mage with powerful but fragile defenses, was a natural target. Thus, Welleskay's initial arrow had been aimed directly at him.

However, archers are also vulnerable to close-range attacks. In this uneven battle, Theodorus and Grutt's only chance of victory lay in eliminating the archer who posed the greatest long-range threat. This led to Grutt's full-force counterstrike, which allowed Theodorus to focus on holding off Lancelote.

If the earlier triple-layered spells had merely surprised the Temple Knights, Theodorus's next series of mixed-element spells shattered their understanding of conventional magic.

With a wave of both hands, Theodorus conjured a towering wall of flames, over three meters high and two meters thick, stretching across the knights' path. The intense white-hot flames radiated such heat that even Hilton and his group, standing far away, could feel its scorching intensity.

The wall of fire was standard, its power no less than what a flame-specialized mage from the Tooth Tower could produce. Yet the knights did not hesitate. They charged forward as though the flames were an illusion, neither attempting to bypass nor leap over the barrier.

For them, any delay would waste precious seconds of opportunity. Moreover, the fire itself was nothing to fear; against the Glory Armor's magical resistance, it was insignificant. The distance of just two meters would take them less than a heartbeat to cross.

But as soon as they stepped into the flames, they realized the ground beneath was no longer solid. Instead, it was loose quicksand.

Quicksand was not a high-level spell, and any skilled earth mage could cast it instantly. However, controlling the quicksand's range so precisely within the fiery wall—or perfectly aligning it with the fire—required mastery possessed by fewer than five mages on the continent. Casting the quicksand immediately after conjuring the fire wall, and doing so with such precision, was a feat only Theodorus could accomplish.

The flames concealed the quicksand, while the quicksand gave the flames more time to deal damage. This synergy between the two spells was potentially deadly to most foes but proved insufficient against the Temple Knights.

However, after breaking through the wall of fire, their movements slowed slightly.

Though the flames did not cause significant damage to the knights, struggling free from the quicksand had taken some effort. Additionally, the inability to breathe properly in the intense heat left their bodies somewhat disoriented. The fiery barrier had also slightly impaired their vision, and this combination made it impossible to avoid the three brilliant streaks of Thunder Frost Ice barreling toward them.

Faced with the bolts of Frost Shock Ice directly before him, Lancelote surprisingly felt a sense of relief. No matter how deep Theodorus's magical reserves might be, his continuous casting of spells—while extraordinary—had not involved anything too high-level. These three Thunder Frost Ice were likely his limit.

For the Glory Armor, the destructive power of Frost Shock Ice was akin to an itch through boots. The only real concern was the freezing effect it carried.

At that very moment, the deafening clash of the arrow against the Sacred Guard Shield Shield echoed in the background, and Grutt's aura faltered slightly. Lancelote seized the moment, slashing forward with his sword in a swift arc, dispersing the icy lightning before him.

At the same time, Christian swung his massive silver greatsword, cleaving through the Thunder Frost Ice in his path. The ease and fluidity of their swordplay, effortlessly cutting through these magical attacks, were feats that solidified their place among the continent's top ten knights.

Only Ederick, having lost his weapon, had no choice but to brace himself and endure the magical assault head-on. In an instant, a thin layer of ice began to form over his body.

The Thunder Frost Ice covered a wide area, clearly enhanced by additional magical power from Theodorus. A seasoned combatant like Lancelote immediately recognized that these spells likely represented the mage's limits.

Sure enough, after the sword light swept through, Theodorus's face was visibly fatigued. While his successive, rapid-fire spells had been nothing short of spectacular, they had also taken a heavy toll on his body.

Yet, despite his exhaustion, Theodorus did not stop. Though he was clearly unable to cast any more spells, that did not mean he had lost his ability to attack.

In his hand, he held a wand.

The wand was crafted entirely from the horn of a unicorn, its tip adorned with a skull whose tongue protruded from its mouth, holding a magic gem in its jaws. This was the highest grade of wands, peerless in both material and craftsmanship. It could store multiple high-level instant-cast spells. Even within Celestian Temple's vast treasures, such advanced wands were rare.

However, this priceless magical artifact was already damaged. The skull at the top had cracked, and the gem it held was crumbling into shards, scattering to the ground.

Theodorus had not been using the wand, hidden until now at his back, as a mere melee weapon. Its destruction was simply due to being overused too quickly and too frequently. Although the spells stored in such wands could be released instantly, there were limits to how fast and how often they could be cast. Even the most finely crafted wands, made from the rarest materials, could not withstand the strain of firing three or four high-level spells consecutively, like a crossbow pushed beyond its limits.

Now, four perfectly spherical orbs of light hovered in front of the three Temple Knights.

These orbs, about the size of a fist, radiated a pure white glow and crackled with surrounding arcs of electricity. In a different context, their appearance might have been considered beautiful.

But to the Temple Knights staring at these four Thunderclap Bomb, their faces turned pale as sheets.