Chapter 711: Weapon Upgrade.

Thoren stood at the mouth of the narrow passage and stared at the horrifying battlefield.

His undead were being pummeled from every side. The undead Horn Lizard King hung between two chains with one horn snapped off at the base.

The undead Scorpion Men King lay buried beneath a mass of rusted bodies, and only a thin flicker of its soul fire showed through the gaps.

At the center, the two Drowned Processions kept hammering the undead Storm Tyrant, and every blow landed with a boom that shook the sand under his boots.

A thought rose in his mind, cold and clear.

’It’s not that my undead are weak...’

His fingers tightened at his sides.

’What they need is better equipment.’

He had planned to replace the gear of the whole undead vanguard before.

But he had wanted to wait and buy something superior, something worth the gold coins, and so he had put it off and told himself Peak Bronze Grade would be enough for now.

He had been wrong.

Watching his undead break against enemies of level 47 and 48, he understood it plainly. Peak Bronze Grade equipment was not enough for this kind of brutal battle.

Their armor split on the first clean hit, and their weapons bounced off stone skin. Their strength was real, but their tools could not carry it.

Thoren did not hesitate.

He opened the Abyssal Market in his mind, and the listings flashed past his eyes in a bright blur and went to the Silver Grade equipment.

He ignored the armor and swords and went straight to the weapons, scanning for the heaviest, the hardest, the one that could break stone.

His gaze stopped on a single entry, and he bought it without a second look at the price.

Whoosh!

The air in front of him rippled, and a weapon dropped into his hands.

The weight almost pulled him to his knees. He caught himself with a grunt and planted his feet in the sand, both arms trembling as he tried to hold it up.

It was a massive hammer, taller than his waist, its head as wide as a barrel.

The metal was a dark, intimidating red, the color of old blood, and it gave off a heavy, patient pressure that made the air around it feel thick.

He could barely lift it.

Two runes were engraved into the head, one on each face, cut deep into the metal and glowing with a dull crimson light.

The first was the Vibration Rune. \

Its lines ran in tight, rippling circles that spread outward from a central point, like waves on still water, and when he looked at it closely, he felt a faint hum tremble up through the handle and into his bones.

The second was the Hardness Rune. Its shape was sharp and angular, a dense knot of interlocking lines.

A look of appreciation settled on his face.

This was a weapon built for one purpose. The Vibration Rune would send shock through whatever it struck, and the Hardness Rune would make sure the hammer never broke.

Together, they were exactly what the undead Storm Tyrant lacked.

"Stonewall!"

He opened his Undead Space, and the undead Royalty Stonewall stepped out of the dark. It slid its dark blade into its sheath and looked at him, its soul fire steady.

"Carry this," Thoren commanded through the link. "Give it to Tyrant."

The undead Royalty Stonewall bent and took the hammer in both hands. It lifted the weapon without effort, the dark red head resting against its shoulder, and turned toward the battlefield.

Then it broke into a run.

At the center of the plain, the undead Storm Tyrant was losing.

Its armor was covered in cracks, long fractures running down its chest and across its shoulders, and pieces of metal fell away with every step.

The haft of its old hammer had split in two places, and the head hung crooked on a bent shaft.

The wax that sealed its arm had spread, locking its elbow in place, and the fist that had slammed into its chest had left a deep dent that leaked dust.

It tried to stand.

It pushed up on one knee, planting its good hand against the sand, and the first Drowned Procession stepped forward and drove a fist into its back.

Boom!

It was flattened against the ground, and sand sprayed in every direction. It dragged itself up again, and the second Drowned Procession swung a backhand that threw it sideways.

Bang!

It rolled across the plain, left a trench behind it, and pushed itself up a third time. A fist crashed down on its shoulder. A knee slammed into its ribs.

Every time it tried to escape from between them, it was beaten back to the ground, and every time it fell, the cracks on its body grew wider.

Its soul fire dimmed.

The yellow flame that had burned so fiercely in its sockets shrank to a faint, trembling ember, one more blow away from going out.

Thoren’s chest tightened.

’Hold on. Just a little longer.’

The first Drowned Procession raised both fists high above its head. The urns on its body clashed together, and the shadow of its arms fell across the undead Storm Tyrant’s cracked chest.

Just then, a dark red streak cut across the sand.

The undead Royalty Stonewall burst out of the dust, the massive hammer gripped in both hands.

It did not stop to hand the weapon over.

Whoosh!

The weapon tore through the air with a deep, droning hum, and the Vibration Rune flared bright red.

The hammer struck the Drowned Procession’s ribs.

The sound that followed was not a boom. It was a crack, sharp and enormous, like a mountain splitting in half.

A ripple of crimson light spread from the point of impact across the giant’s stone body, and the vibrations tore through it from the inside.

Cracks raced up its chest and down its legs in a heartbeat. Its robes burst into shreds.

The urns chained to its torso shattered one after another, spraying fragments of clay and ash wax across the sand.

The Drowned Procession’s body lifted off the ground.

It flew backward in a spray of gray rubble, its stone limbs flailing, and crashed into the dark with a deafening boom.