Taming Master

The Falcacio Castle was in darkness.

In the midst of the magnificent space, a purple energy rose at the center.

Woong-!

From the top, a shadow fell down, and soon they all knelt down and opened their mouth in an urgent voice.

“King, the enemies are entering the castle. The forces of the enemy are much stronger than expected!”

The voice resonated all over the place and echoed.

The interior was huge enough to be compared with that of a dragon’s lair; the ringing went on for quite some time.

After a while, with an awkward sound, the throne rotated.

Kkkik- Kiiki-!

Subsequently, a raging voice flowed through the enormous shadow of the throne.

“Do not tremble. I already know.”

Flutter!

With black energy flowing all through him, his shadow slowly rose from the throne.

His cape moved and fluttered.

In fact, before his minion even reported to him, he already knew of the situation outside.

When the outer wall was pierced, it wasn’t noticed by them. However, the moment they stepped through the castle wall, the enemy invasion was immediately detected.

It was because the walls of the castle were the last point where the power of Chalian reached.

Feeling the unpleasant aura trampling the land of the dead, Chalian took a heavy foot forward.

He was cursing the Asmodians inside his head.

‘Haa! I shouldn’t have believed those stupid Asmodians.’

Of the ones sent by Daedmon, Limlong was the only one who passed through the gate and survived and completed the mission.

Chalian deemed him worthy and was even given an elite troop to lead.

But somehow, as soon as that guy went out of the castle, all the defense broke.

A commonly understood situation.

Unless he betrayed and opened the gate, such a situation would have never occurred.

‘It doesn’t matter now. Everyone will kneel before my power.’

Kukung-!

While his cape was flapping, Chalian raised his hands high.

Three shadows rose before him immediately.

“Did you call us, King?”

“Rockper. I will receive the command from the king.”

“I see the king of the dead.”

All three shadows bowed their heads in front of Chalian at the same time.

Looking at their bowed figure, Chalian opened his mouth to speak.

At the same time, a black energy began to pour out of him.

“I command by the power of the King of…”

The more his words extended, the more vigorously the room shook.

Kukung-!

“Destroy all the living things on my land!”

And later, many dark shadows began to make an appearance throughout the dark castle.

* * *

Out of all the fortresses on the continent of Colonar, the Falcacio was one of a kind since it had a complex structure.

Even the space between the castle’s outer and inner wall was full of defenses, and it might be more precise to say that the structure was rather ‘ignorant’.

In cases of a normal castle, the space between the outer wall and the inner was usually filled with a lot of commercial slots and residential areas.

However, the inside of the Falcacio Castle grounds had a structure that was rather perfectly opposite to the word ‘complex’.

Far from being a defensive facility, it was desolate; nothing was visible; however, a large number of monuments were lined up.

At the center was a sharp towering vault with a magnificent height that seemed to pierce the sky.

The situation was so weird that it forced the viewers to be appalled.

“Phew, we’re finally meeting Chalian…”

While looking at the throne of Chalian which was in a distance, Ian confirmed it and took a look around.

Hoonie who was right behind Ian moved closer and mumbled in a low voice,

“Uh, there is something eerie in here?”

“What?”

“This place isn’t like any normal cemetery. It’s like a ghost land.”

Ian smiled and asked him,

“By any chance… are you scared?”

“What!? No, I’m not!”

“Ey, aren’t your legs shaking now?”

“No, hyung, you saw it wrong… I, the Monarch of Darkness can’t be afraid of such places, no!”

“Speak without stuttering.”

“…”

Ian was laughing as he saw Hoonie hide behind him.

What Hoonie was doing was rather very cute.

‘You look like an elementary kid. No, now that I think about it, you always looked like an elementary kid to me.’

In fact, Hoonie’s reaction wasn’t so unusual.

The scene that was in front of the users were so bizarre that it would even scare off an adult, even Ian was creeped out by it.

In the middle of the dark, with a bloody sunset hanging on the horizon, skeleton rocks were piled up on the snowy field, and numerous tombstones were up and down between them.

It wasn’t strange to even see a zombie pop out from between their feet.

Shakran who was next to him asked with a heavy voice,

“Is Chalian going to be inside the castle?”

“Maybe.”

“What are you going to do, kid? It does feel good to get this in once, but…”

Shakran finished his words and pulled out the sword that was on his waist.

Ian too pulled out the sword, taking a step forward.

Srrrng-!

A beautiful sword that shined brightly into the sky.

It was the Bloody Revenge he took from Limlong.

Ian, who met eyes with Shakran, nodded.

“Obviously, that’s what we need to do. But…”

“But?”

“We shouldn’t slow down. We don’t know what kind of traps are placed in there.”

“Huhu, I agree.”

After the quick exchange of thoughts, the two leaders quickly began to rearrange their guild forces.

Even Ian, who was in a hurry till then wasn’t rushing.

Since they were restlessly running until now, they had some time to spare, and they were already in the last step.

They weren’t aware of how tough it was going to be to defeat Chalian, but it was clear that they would see the end of the episode by clearing this final hunt.

The rearranged Lotus and Titan troops began to march towards the castle.

Tat-ttat-!

The users ran across the cemetery with a nervous expression.

By the time the users reached the middle of the cemetery, a loud voice rang out.

[I command you by the power of the King…]

Kukung-!

A weird and bizarre voice that could send creeps to anyone rang out throughout the place.

The whole castle began to vibrate, and Ian was turning extremely nervous.

‘Are you trying to trigger a large area trap?’

Lich King Chalian was the strongest warlock in existence.

He was more powerful than the Dragon of Darkness, Lugarix.

And among the black magic, there were numerous attack spells that could cause powerful wide-area damage.

Since their current location was a desolate wide-area plain, that didn’t seem like a bad idea.

That was the reason why Ian immediately thought of the possibility of a wide-area spell being activated.

“Nick, get ready!”

Kiyaa-!

Ian waited for Nick’s unique ability, which could counter a wide-area spell.

The next moment proved Ian wrong.

[Destroy all the living things on my land!]

Kiik-

Kiyaaa-!

Chalian’s voice resonated throughout and countless undead monsters began to rise from the ground.

In addition, the identity of the undead monsters wasn’t just regular undead monsters.

Most of them were warriors or knights or an undead monster with higher rankings.

‘What’s with their crazy level?’

[Judgement of Death: Lv 485]

The average level of the undead monsters appeared to be around level 480.

Ian instantly judged the situation.

‘We can’t go against these ones. If we fight like this, then we won’t even last 30 minutes before getting wiped out.’

Of course, Ian and Shakran would be able to deal with those monsters without much problem.

But the others in the expedition might not be able to deal with them so well.

More than half of the expedition wouldn’t be able to handle a level 480 death knight, and they would surely die one after the other.

And without the support of the other users, Ian and Shakran couldn’t face them.

‘What the? LB wouldn’t be destroying it like this. There has to be a way…’

Ian quickly took control of the troops and began to arrange them into a formation.

The original unit formation was a triangle to penetrate the enemies’ defenses. He quickly changed their formation into a circle to close in on the defense.

He chose to not push through.

Ian was determined to preserve as many troops as he could.

‘Breaking through the level 480 undead monsters is insane. Even if we have to hunt those crazy numbers, we’ll have to take them down one after the other.’

Ian moved his camps a bit closer to Shakran’s and stayed in the highlands as long as they could.

Until he could figure out the idea of the planners, he was going to operate the troops while staying on the defense.

“No one should die. Surely, if we survive here, there will be a way!”

Ian was moving around the camp and kept thinking about survival.

In the overwhelming force, if one of the camps was broken, all of them could be wiped out at once.

“Hunting isn’t important! Hold it and please bear this for now!”

Their vitality was likely to fall by getting hit a single time. The undead monsters were trying to lure the users.

However, the users kept their position and kept up their defense, and as time went by, the camp was turning much more solid.

10 minutes have passed.

A huge sound started to enter the ears of the users.

Woong-!

“…!”

Ian’s eyes turned to the place where the sound was coming from.

A bloody red glow was hanging on the horizon.

A black crescent was rising up.

[The ‘King of the Dead’ manifested his power]

[The Dark Moon came to the sky.]

[‘Dark Legion’ soldiers are now in ‘Dark Bondage’ state.]

[While the ‘Dark Moon’ is afloat in the sky, the combat ability of the Dark Legion is increased by 25%.]

[After the Dark Moon, the state of dark widening will be removed.]

[Duration of dark Moon: 00:39:59]

Ian sighed with relief after seeing the system message rose up.

‘If we are forced to break through, we’ll get wiped out.’

Undead power of level 480 with a 25% additional combat ability buff meant their levels were close to 600.

If it were an attacking faction rather than defense in the situation, the faction would collapse, and the power of the users would have been destroyed.

In addition, the planners intent was clearly understood.

‘This surely was a vertigo. With 40 minutes of vertigo, it is worth a try.’

Ian saw for the first time what was called the Dark Moon, but he was familiar with the dark buff.

It wasn’t just Ian; it was for the other users, too.

‘Darkness widening’ was a darkness buff that any warlock knew about.

But a warlock’s widening darkness was only a single target buff. The Lich King’s widening darkness could strengthen all of his allies.

’20 minutes of the dark buff. We’ll have to sweep everything within that time.’

Darkness widening was a powerful buff that could be triggered without any conditions but had one side effect.

After the duration was over, the same factor debuff took place with the same amount of time.

It was a 25 percent dark buff that lasted for 40 minutes, so the debuff was going to last for 20 minutes.

Once the debuff got activated, that would be the best time to attack the undead monsters.

‘Nice. To our defense again!’

Ian, who moved at the center, raised his hand.

The shoulders of Ian that was holding Bbookbbook’s shell began to shine with a blue light.