The horde of undead were overwhelming and even after their bodies were hacked they kept moving and attacking.

The Royal Knights had never once encountered such a situation or enemy. It was worse than the creatures in Serpentwood Forest. They didn’t know what to do but just keep cutting through the wave upon wave of the undead that crawled on the grounds and bit down on anything that moved.

More than half of the horses were injured and knights had to abandon them and fight on foot. But they couldn’t even move freely, they could only defend themselves and thank their armours for the least bit of protection.

"We can’t handle this on our own!"

"Get reinforcements!"

"The reinforcements are engaged in a battle in southwest!"

"What the hell?! Nobody’s coming then?!"

The knights were barely able to keep up, they had been fighting non stop in one of the largest towns of West which was at some distance from the Emerald Harbor but they couldn’t move from this point because of the undead.

The Royal Knights numbered around twenty thousand, but they were nothing against the nearly one million undead, most of whom had once been commonfolk. They tried to rescue those who were hiding away but the injured or bitten individuals were turning at an alarming pace that they were thrown into chaos.

Duke Esmertia couldn’t do much either as he stood atop a hill watching the royal knights and his own family’s knight order fighting below. From above it almost seemed like the knights were being swallowed up.

"Your Grace, we might not be able to hold up for long. We need to get help from the Princes!" Sir Henry Redwood, Captain of the Royal Knights spoke.

Duke Esmertia clenched his jaw, he didn’t want to admit it, but Sir Redwood was right. Esmertia had assumed that Marquis Ocean was simply boasting when he had said that he would remove his personnel from the area but the moment the knights arrived the black shadows which were already handling the situation up and left without a word. Since then the numbers of the undead had exponentially grown and the knights had proven useless.

"We need to think fast, Your Grace." Sir Redwood said before watching one of the knights rushing up to them.

His horse was huffing hard and Redwood could see the scratch and bite marks on the animal’s body. It was about to turn.

"H-Help." The knight gurgled as he fell from his horse.

Redwood hurried over and unsheathed his sword, looking at the horse which was neighing loudly and kicking its hooves. Redwood had lost count of how many horses his knights had to put down to keep them from turning into undead and attack their own forces.

Redwood stabbed the horse and decapitated it before turning to see the knight from earlier missing, his eyes widened as he turned only to see Duke Esmertia stabbing the knight. The knight twitched and growled while being impaled but still moved, inching towards the Duke.

Redwood felt the sense of pity and helpless frustration as he watched his men like this. These were men from respectable families who had trained hard to become knights. What would he tell their families? Their sons, husbands, brothers and fathers were reduced to the state of mindless monsters and were killed by their own brothers in arms?

Redwood grimaced at the thought and watched as Duke Esmertia decapitated the undead knight before looking at him with a sour look.

"Fire the signal." He ordered and Sir Redwood almost breathed a sigh of relief.

He rushed over to the nearest tent and grabbed the signal firework. He lit it up but then wondered if anyone would be able to see it in the rain. Regardless, he had to try.

He lit the firework and then stepped out before watching it explode in his hand and then fire off in the sky. He saw the faint red light but it was largely obscured by the clouds. He could only hope that someone would see it and come help.

Back in Oasis, the Domina had torn up three more pages summoning three different calamities.

One of them was called Iron Maw.

[Iron Maw

A quadrupedal construct-like beast composed of reinforced, curse-bound metal. Designed for siege and destruction, its primary function is to break through barriers, armor, and defensive structures. Its jaws exert overwhelming crushing force capable of shattering enchanted defenses and bone alike. Resistant to physical damage and difficult to destabilize.]

Its surface gleamed dully under the rain, jagged plates of darkened metal fused together as though hammered in place without care for symmetry. It dragged itself upward with a grinding sound, each movement accompanied by the screech of metal against stone.

The creature stood on four legs, its structure massive, compact, built for force rather than speed. Its head was little more than a reinforced frame housing a maw that opened far wider than its proportions should have allowed. Layers of interlocking metal plates formed its jaws, each lined with blunt, crushing ridges rather than teeth.

Before the sound of its movement could fully settle, another distortion followed.

From the broken structure its form unfolded like a vertical stretch that lengthened, thinned and separated, taking on form as it detached itself from the shadows. Its limbs extended, long and narrow

Its movements were awkward, bending at angles that did not align with natural joints, its body elongating as it placed its frame on the ground. It resembled humanoid only in the loosest sense; it was tall and skeletal, limbs stretching beyond proportion, ending in thin, needle-like fingers that flexed.

Its head tilted slightly and the notification followed.

[Widow Stalker

A tall, arachnid-humanoid entity adapted for vertical movement and ambush. Possesses extreme flexibility, allowing it to traverse walls, ceilings, and irregular terrain with ease. Its elongated limbs and sharpened appendages are used for piercing attacks aimed at vital points. Highly agile and difficult to track due to erratic movement patterns.]

Lastly, the third presence emerged from the split in the ground from behind Domina.

At first, the black chains rose, thick and coiled, dragging across the stone with a heavy, grating sound. They remained taut as though attached to something below, and then it crawled out.

It was a humanoid figure, tall and broad, its body wrapped in thise same chains that trailed behind it, scraping against the ground with every movement. Its form was obscured beneath layers of dark binding and where its face should have been, there was only a void-like hollow, from which a faint pulsing glow emanated.

[Chain Fiend

A bound humanoid entity that weaponizes cursed chains as both restraint and offense. Capable of extending its chains over long distances to immobilize or crush targets. Each chain carries a binding curse that restricts movement and disrupts mana flow upon contact. Durable and relentless, it specializes in controlling the battlefield.]

The three creatures stood in silence, awaiting command from their Summoner. Domina watched Ocean with a confident look in her eyes, these three weren’t like the earlier creatures that he got rid of so easily. They would take up a lot of his time and even if they didn’t, she still had more calamities ro release.

She gestured for them to move and the Iron Maw lowered its head slightly, its weight pressing into the fractured stone beneath it

The Widow Stalker shifted once, its limbs adjusting as it leaned along an unnatural angle, as though preparing to vanish from direct sight. The Chain Fiend remained still, but its chains dragged forward slowly, inch by inch, spreading across the ground like creeping roots.

"This should be enough to entertain you," Domina said, her voice carrying through the rain, steady and unshaken.

Ocean did not respond.

He stood exactly where he had been before. The rain fell against him, broke around him, slid off the invisible pressure of his Dragon’s Presence that rolled from his body in steady, suffocating waves. The ground at his feet remained intact, untouched by the fractures that spread elsewhere, as though even the destruction itself avoided crossing into his space.

The air tightened, compressing inward as his presence expanded, subtle at first, then undeniable. The rain slowed as it entered that space, its descent hindered, its flow disrupted, until it seemed as though the world itself resisted moving too quickly around him.

The Iron Maw moved first.

It lunged without hesitation, its heavy frame surging forward with surprising speed as its jaws split open, layers of metal separating to form a crushing arc aimed directly at him. The ground fractured further beneath its weight, stone breaking apart under each step as it closed the distance in a single, decisive charge.

Ocean stepped forward in a flash, arm already swinging before the Iron Maw could even close the distance. A single punch was all it took to shatter the creature into smithereens. The shattered parts flew off in all directions and before the Domina could even make sense of what just happened the Widow Stalker was already in motion.

It did not approach from the front.

By the time the Iron Maw lunged, it had already vanished from its previous position, its form blurring as it scaled the nearest surface and descended from above. Its limbs extended as it dropped, each movement precise, calculated, aiming for a single point, Ocean’s throat.

It could have struck but the moment it entered his space, its movements faltered. The Dragon’s Presence pressed down on it, forcing its entire existence toward the ground like an insect under weight.

Ocean’s head turned slightly and the mana around him grew charged as he controlled it. Before the Widow Stalker knew what happened, its form started contorting as the Pure Mana of the Dragon forced itself into its being.

The creature’s mouth dropped and it released an earsplitting screech as its body swelled and then exploded into fine black mist.

Suddenly, Ocean’s communication brooch glowed and a voice came through.

"Master," Yugo’s voice seeped through.

"Speak,"

Ocean turned just in time to hear the sound of the chains clanging and he saw the Chain Fiend’s bindings shooting in multiple directions, each one extending with violent speed as they surged toward Ocean.

"There’s an emergency signal fired by Royal Knights," he reported.

The chains circled around the force field created by Ocean’s Dragon’s Presence as if ready to envelope him.

"Hm..." Ocean hummed and then said, "Send a team to provide assistance but don’t linger. Just keep the casualties on our side minimal and make sure Duke Esmertia returns alive."

"I understand, Master." Yugo responded and the glow of the brooch faded as Ocean tilted his head.

Suddenly the movements of the chains stopped and the Chain Fiend appeared confused as it tugged at the chains that seemed to be grabbed by an invisible force.

Ocean smiled a little before he stretched his arm and made a gesture of pulling something. The Chain Fiend who was standing in its place was suddenly yanked from its spot like a rag doll before it was slammed into the ruins of the buildings.

The Domina watched as one of her strong calamities was being thrown around without the Dragon even moving from his spot. She couldn’t understand how he was able to do that.

She grimaced and then was about to rip another page but just then she saw from the corner of her eye something being thrown at her.

She leapt away in time to see that it was the battered body of the Chain Fiend lying on the ground where she stood. The shattered bindings of its body lay scattered around.

"Hey, Lilith." She heard the Dragon call her.

"What were you saying about entertaining me?"

Ocean watched her expresion before he chuckled.

The Chain Fiend twitched on the ground before it couldn’t do anything as the rain from the sky turned into ice lances that shot down at him like meteors nailing it to the ground. Within seconds, its form was dissolved into black mist just like the others.

"You’ll have to try harder than that," Ocean said, his voice calm, carrying easily through the rain, untouched by strain or exertion.