Dusk falls on the western city, the eastern defense line.

Wielding his greatsword, Alfonso slashed downwards with a powerful blow, cleaving the bone-spiked undead under his feet in two.

Staggering to his feet, Alfonso looked around. The smoke of battle drifted across the battlefield, and the bodies of knights, soldiers, undead, and warhorses covered the entire land.

"Mervin! Bennett! Corleone!"

Alfonso opened his blood-soaked eyes and, in a hoarse voice, called out those familiar names.

No one answered.

"Save your energy, stop shouting."

A royal guard knight with a silver dragon emblem engraved on his armor, clutching a wound in his abdomen, slowly walked to Alfonso's side and lifted his mask.

Alfonso recognized the beautiful face beneath the mask: Dion, a knight of the Royal Guard.

Dion clutched his wound, sat shakily on a shield on the ground, and said to Alfonso, "The Mervin and Bennett teams are all dead. Only two squire knights from the Corleone team are still alive; the rest have also perished."

Alfonso paused for a moment, then asked Dion, "You're a royal guard knight, what are you doing on the battlefield?"

Dion, his wound aggravated, grinned as he said, "The fighting at the front is intense. Apart from a few guards responsible for protecting the treasury, everyone else in the royal city has gone to reinforce the defenses."

"Not only us, but even the Kingdom's Prime Minister Emerson has led volunteers to the city walls to assist in the defense."

After Dion finished speaking, he looked up, squinted at Alfonso, and pointed to the latter's left shoulder, saying, "Here...yes, here..."

Alfonso looked down and realized that half a bone spur was stuck in his shoulder, which he had not noticed at all.

Grasping the outer edge of the bone spur, Alfonso pulled hard.

Blood flowed from the gap in the dragonbone armor, but Alfonso felt no pain.

The prolonged and intense battle gradually numbed Alfonso's pain receptors, causing him to repeat attack actions like a machine.

Alfonso looked into the distance of the battlefield. Under the blood-red sky, thick haze filled the air, and the faint light was hidden in the darkness. No matter how hard he tried, he could no longer see the end of the horizon.

"How many times has the undead attacked today?"

Hearing Alfonso's question, Dion frowned, recalling as he said, "The sixth time? The seventh time? Does it matter? They'll just come back anyway."

Alfonso turned back to look at the city walls and said to Dion, "Let's go, it's time to go back."

Dion pointed to the wound on his abdomen and gave Alfonso a helpless smile.

The latter sighed, squatted down, and helped the injured Dion up with his arm, slowly walking towards the city wall.

Along the way, Alfonso continued to find surviving knights and soldiers. However, all these survivors combined still numbered less than a hundred.

On this main road leading to the eastern defensive wall, corpses are everywhere; some are human, some are Crusaders, but most belong to the undead.

Mud, blood, severed limbs, and weapons were mixed together, turning the original plain into a muddy, treacherous, and appalling wasteland.

As Alfonso walked along the road, stepping on the remains of some unknown creature, he saw the corpse of a fortress undead in the middle of the road.

This colossal creature, tens of meters tall, lay motionless on the ground. Its internal structure was utterly destroyed, and half of the shadowy corpse was stuck in the abyss's maw, presumably the cause of its ultimate demise.

Further ahead, less than fifty meters from the city wall, the number of corpses increased to the point that there was nowhere to step.

Faced with the mountains of corpses and pits of bones before them, Alfonso, supporting Dion, had no choice but to bypass the section of the city wall directly facing the main road and enter the defensive base camp from the bottom of a corner tower.

Before they even entered the military camp, Alfonso and Dion suddenly heard crying.

Alfonso, with a bad feeling creeping into his heart, quickened his pace and stepped into the gate of the military camp.

Amidst the many weeping citizens, Cumberland, covered in blood, sat cross-legged on the ground, with a corpse covered in a white sheet placed beside him.

Cumberland stared blankly ahead, his hands, covered in dust and blood, resting on his knees as he tried to suppress his grief.

Alfonso released Dion, stared at the corpse covered in a white sheet on the ground, and asked Queen Mary of Saint Guard, who was not far away, "Could it be...?"

Mary, her cheeks still streaked with tears, nodded to Alfonso and said, "It's Lord Emerson..."

Alfonso gasped and closed his eyes in pain.

Cumberland's hands gripped his knees tightly, his knuckles turning white from the extreme force, his grief-stricken voice low and hoarse: "You old turtle who always hides in your shell... why did you have to rush in at a time like that!"

Just then, Cumberland, his face pale, ran out from the rear of the camp.

He first glanced at the grief-stricken Cumberland, then quickly walked to Alfonso's side and said, trembling, "My lord... a message has just come from the front."

Alfonso: "What news?"

Adjutant: "The southern defense line... has fallen."

Alfonso's body trembled slightly, and he forgot to speak for a moment.

The adjutant continued, "The remaining Holy Army has moved towards the last line of defense of the royal city. Their commander just contacted us, asking us to abandon the eastern front and join them."

After his initial shock, Alfonso was about to say something.

Suddenly, a blinding white light appeared in the sky outside the military camp, illuminating most of the sky.

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