Chapter 71: Garrick, the Rotting Phalanx (2)

"Auris, shatter the front line!" Leon commanded. "Break their formation!"

The Glacial Sovereign roared, lunging forward with terrifying speed. Auris didn’t use his breath; he used his massive, sapphire-plated claws. The dragon’s physical strikes were infused with raw Aether-magic, allowing them to bypass standard physical resistances.

Auris tore into the wall of rusted shields and fused bone. The massive claws ripped through the front lines of the Phalanx, shattering iron and crushing dozens of skulls into dust. Entire chunks of the Level 90 boss were ripped away, exposing the dense, interwoven layers of skeletons beneath.

But Leon’s Origin Eyes immediately saw the retaliation.

The Legion’s Bulwark talent activated. The Rotting Phalanx didn’t stagger from the loss of mass. Instead, the bones shifted. Skeletons from the rear of the massive construct fluidly moved forward, seamlessly replacing the destroyed shields and plugging the gaps in the armor. It was a perfectly self-replenishing defensive wall. The boss was effectively regenerating its armor plating in real-time by sacrificing its own internal mass.

"A self-repairing testudo formation," Leon observed, his golden eye tracking the shifting bones. "Physical damage alone is inefficient. We could spend hours hacking away at the exterior, and it will just keep rotating fresh bone to the front. We are not playing a game of physical attrition today."

Leon stepped back, signaling for Auris to disengage and take to the sky to avoid being swarmed by the grappling, grasping skeletal hands that were beginning to reach out from the Phalanx’s torso.

"Let’s see how you handle a true bombardment," Leon said, his eyes burning gold as he stared up at the towering wall of the dead.

He sheathed the Blade of the Dragon God. This was not a job for a sword. This was a job for overwhelming, concentrated magical artillery.

He planted his feet, squaring his shoulders toward the Level 90 boss. He didn’t cast Arcane Requiem once. To cast a Gold-Rank spell requires a significant gathering of mana, a brief moment of mental calculation, and a steady release. Most Adepts would need several seconds to cast it a single time.

But Leon was not a standard Adept. With his SSS-Rank Eternal Mana keeping his reserves practically infinite, and the 200% buff amplification of the Battlefield Realm supercharging his casting speed and neural processing, Leon bypassed the standard limitations of magical theory.

He turned himself into a magical Gatling gun.

"Arcane Requiem! Arcane Requiem! Arcane Requiem!"

Leon threw his hands forward in a blur of motion. Massive, localized beams of poison, black decay, and erratic blue lightning tore across the Gravesite Plain in rapid, blinding succession. He didn’t aim for a single spot; he swept his hands in wide, devastating arcs, painting the entire forty-foot structure with high-tier magic.

The Gravesite Plain was illuminated by the strobing, apocalyptic light of the continuous bombardment.

Leon bombarded the colossal bone structure relentlessly. The sheer volume of raw, high-tier magic was staggering. The erratic blue lightning superheated the rusted iron shields, melting them into useless slag. The highly toxic poison seeped into the marrow of the ancient bones, turning them brittle and weak.

But it was the decay that was the true executioner.

The decay effect of Arcane Requiem aggressively rotted the fused skeletal armor faster than the Phalanx could possibly regenerate. The Legion’s Bulwark tried desperately to rotate fresh bones to the front line, but the decay spread like a conceptual virus. As soon as a new skeleton locked into place, the black rot immediately leaped onto it, dissolving it into ash in seconds.

"You have discipline, and you have mass," Leon projected his voice over the deafening explosions of lightning and shattering bone. "But an army is only as strong as its logistics. And I am completely severing your supply lines!"

Leon didn’t stop casting. He felt the intense, burning heat in his mana pathways, the physical toll of channeling such an absurd amount of destructive energy without pause. But he pushed through it, his Aura of the Undying constantly repairing the micro-tears in his magical circuits as fast as they formed.

The sheer volume of raw, high-tier magic shredded the Level 90 Boss layer by layer. The forty-foot monstrosity was reduced to thirty feet. Then twenty. The deafening war-cry of the thousands of skulls turned into a hollow, static screech of system failure as their collective mana pool was entirely overwhelmed by the barrage.

Finally, the magic breached the center of the mass.

Leon’s Origin Eyes detected the Indestructible Core hidden deep within the remaining structure—a massive, singular knot of concentrated void energy that acted as the anchor for the entire legion.

"Checkmate," Leon whispered.

He poured the last surge of his immediate mana reserves into one final, concentrated beam of Arcane Requiem. The massive pillar of decay and lightning slammed directly into the exposed core.

The core did not shatter; it simply succumbed to the absolute decay, dissolving into a harmless, gray mist.

Without the central anchor, the magic holding the thousands of skeletons together instantly failed. The remaining bones collapsed in a catastrophic, cascading avalanche of rusted iron and ash, completely burying the spot where the Phalanx had stood just moments before.

The Gravesite Plain fell entirely silent once more, save for the soft, freezing wind generated by Auris’s wings as the dragon landed beside his master.

Leon lowered his hands, letting out a long, measured exhale. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the tension bleed out of his muscles as the massive influx of experience points prepared to hit his system. He looked at the mountain of ash and rusted iron, offering a brief nod of acknowledgment to the fallen legion.

"A flawless defense against physical warfare," Leon stated quietly. "You would have broken an entire guild of Vanguards. But magic always finds the cracks."

Ding!

[You have killed "Garrick, the Rotting Phalanx (Level 90, Boss)"]

[Experience Multiplier: 35X Applied. 6,500,000 EXP gained.]

[Congratulations, you have leveled up to Level 70!]

[Congratulations, you have leveled up to Level 71!]