Chapter 162: The Matchups and the Lady with Sinful Eyes

Still the third day of the elven undead war.

In the eyes of normal strategists, the moves of the two sides were awful, first of all, no sides pushed forward even though it was already the third day, in a world filled with magic and people who have the power to mow down an army alone, this is something that can be called amateurish, there is also just one attack on an enemy city that ended in a horrible defeat, not to mention the air force of the undeads were not used even until now, utterly incomprehensible.

Such a war is a disgrace to the history of Genesis, wherein many talented people spawn like mushrooms every year.

Only if the strategists are inside the main command post of either of the two sides will they be able to understand why is this happening, first of all, on the undead's side, they cannot afford to transfer a lot of soldiers due to the threat of Apolaki and Valentine, second it was the order of Sophia to not advance until the Indio territory was conquered, also do not go near the Stardust Kingdom until the fight between her and Aerendil is over.

On the living side, it was quite simple, their two commanders were not present in their tent, and one was dead, which caused a lot of turmoil in their ranks and caused the morale to plummet, it was a good thing they saw the continuing fight against the two most powerful individuals of the two sides, thus they were once again filled with hope, however, there is still a problem, no one can bind the volatile generals together, causing 5 of them to plot against the 1 person that can match the two wives of Sophia and gives them a numerical advantage, they succeeded, but because they did not think too far ahead, they have no solution as to how they will be surviving the attack of the generals of Kamatayan other than receiving them head-on.

If Sisa is here, then they can have an assassin that has a 100% success rate and then possibly surprise the generals of Kamatayan with sneak attacks. Before Sisa and Hebi were defeated, they were the only two on the whole planet who considered themselves assassins with a perfect track record, of course, [Guide] will be no slob, if that is to happen, he will immediately drop off Sipnayan in the battlefield, and arrange for her to be the very first target and then let the world's strongest chef handle the problem, but at least the living generals will have a working plan.

It will be fine they said, they are confident, they said.

So right now, [Guide] will test if they can back their confidence with actions.

He ordered the generals of the dead to attack the living generals.

_________

As the order of the attack against the living general was given, given also was the information about the said generals to their matches that is again, ordered by [Guide].

The fight was planned like this:

Lyra Vs. Clara an Archer elf

Philo Vs Thales the Human Summoner

Bernardo Vs Linares the Beastifying White Elf

Kabuto Vs Simoun the Elven Assassin

Bakunawa Vs Damaso the wielder of the black flames

For the fight between Lyra and Clara, the following information was given:

Clara is an archer that has double the amount of range compared to Lyra, spanning 20km while Lyra only has 10km, because of this, Lyra requested the help of Philo, something that [Guide] doesn't care about because he is not the one fighting, the only problem is that the captains of the undead army will have to deal with the summoner for the time being, but it's better than to deal with an archer you can't even see, so they have to suck it up and put up with it.

Going back, the archer also has a weapon familiar, albeit an artificial one and is obviously of lower quality than the one Damaso has, it has three abilities, namely [Arrow Shower], [Concentrated Arrow] and [Added Range] among other passive ones which is the reason of her superior range than Lyra who is just relying on her natural leveling up, she also has the same fighting system as Lyra which is buffing the arrows she shoots to be faster than normal, this ability is inferior to Lyra that can put a literal curse of any of her liking, such is one of the undead archer general's advantage.

However, of course, in every strength, there is a weakness, according to [Guide], the woman has a disease that makes her effectively blind and if not for the artificial hero prospect crystal, she wouldn't be even fit to walk as a medic of the living army, that being said, the disease is a very powerful and mysterious one that not even the artificial hero prospect crystal can completely suppress in one go, instead of blinding Clara for eternity, it has manifested a time lag in between every skill activation, her eyes will bleed out and it will be so painful for her that she has to close her eyes and for 5-8 rendering her useless, this is what Lyra is planning to exploit, with the help of her husband of course.

"Are you sure about this? We never tried that skill before."

Philo asked, yet his hands were already on the meager shoulders of Myra, relative to his of course and as he questioned his wife, Myra nodded.

"Of course I am, also, we are undead, even though our resurrection sequence is blocked when we die, it's not like it will also be blocked for all eternity, also this is a war, there is no time to hesitate."

As Lyra answered, she used her crossbow to shoot in the direction of the enemy that already had her 5-second pause, she used [Homing] so that she could have a chance to sneak a death arrow to her opponent, though she felt little to no hope.

"You're right."

Philo's face turned grave, and he had to deal with the summoner, but first, he had to support her wife to defeat the most troublesome enemy in the whole of the living camp after Sisa got captured.

The couple turned serious, they looked upwards and there they saw a spray of light arrows by the hundreds in number, they came so fast, as fast or even faster than the rifle Sophia had invented.

"Protect General Philo and Lyra! They will deal with the archer!"

One of the captains who is currently stalling for time against Thales shouted to the marksmen, all of them then aimed their rifles to the sky and started to shoot down the light arrows that were spraying in all directions of the possible escape route of Philo and Lyra and as they did, the soldiers of the dead covered them so that they will not be targeted, the spray of condensed mana bullets and arrows of light collided, shooting down most of both but some still passed though, causing some living soldiers at the very back of the formation to be pierced and die, some mages then created a barrier around the couple who is starting to merge, and in their minds is a single notification.

[Notice: Skill [Symphony] will activate in 4 minutes 30 seconds and counting]

________

Clara Montague is the first born female child of the Montague noble house, a family of the baron rank in the Kingdom of Stardust, she was educated in all field of specialization to be expected from a lady, poetry, singing, dancing, playing the lire and many more, she was supposed to be the perfect lady, if not for the fact that she was ridden with a strange disease that not even the medical advancements of the Aerendil Kingdom can cure, in her eyes noodle-sized worms circulates like a twisted universe that eats on his vision organ as its energy, causing Clara to be effectively blind and experience excruciated, never ending itch all her life, one mistake they made is to level up her regeneration common skill, which only caused the problem to worsen, in the morning, she have 5 minutes to see everything before the worms eat her eyes again, rendering her blind with only the very uncomfortable feeling feeling of having living organisms in ones eyes and use the ocular organs as the producer of their own little ecosystems.

Several scientists and magecraft experts from the noble circle and the royal subordinates got samples of these worms, but even they could not identify the origins of the parasitic organisms, even if they attempted to clean the eyes of Clara, surgery in Aerendil or in the world, in general, is not yet advanced enough to remove the microscopic eggs inside the eyes of Clara, this is a statement of the parasite's mysteriousness for Stardust is the most advanced kingdom in terms of magic and medicine, even the researchers of the royal palace cannot counter engineer the worms and give a medicine that can effectively kill them, they can use offensive magic to kill a living organism, but because of the eggs, they have to incinerate the worms inside Clara, and that would only work if they just wanted to kill the worms, not if they wanted to restore the eyes of Clara because healing magic cannot resurrect dead cells, it just connects severed ones.

Thus, after a few days of the first surgery, they relapsed, and another bout of suffering dawned on Clara.

Of course, the family still did not give up, she is their daughter after all, and their daughter, they didn't want to suffer and use a blindfold all her life because of the pain and shame caused by these accursed parasites, thus they spent all of their money for medicine outside of Stardust, her father did her best to trade with other nations inside Genesis and outside of his continent as they hired scientists, effectively stealing them through absurd benefits to study the worms of his child in different perspectives, making their fortune grow through the roofs as different discoveries were sold to different countries, to, again, possibly use the medicines or therapies invented by many countries for their child.

And, again, as if the parasites were a curse, they did not vanish from the body of her daughter and some even worsened her condition, some parts of the skin started to be eaten by the worms that seemed to evolve oh-so-randomly, causing Clara to wear a mask instead of a blindfold.

Clara also stopped appearing at social occasions, afraid that her horrid eyes would cause shame to her father, she was reassured several times, yet her confidence was already ruined beyond salvation, she stopped eating and talking to other people, and soon, as expected, she fell into depression, loathing herself day in and day out, she stopped her hobby of playing instruments and singing songs, and she, with her increasingly failing body and worsening face condition have only the hobby of basking in the sun, crying alone, not wanting to make her family suffer with her as she imagined what it would feel if she can also travel the world like her father and maybe someday, take the reigns of negotiations from his tired yet steadfast hands.

Every day, her maid who delivers her food to her room will see her like this, they can only sigh in their heart, they cannot even hug her or be near her, in fear that their eyes will also be infected.

But Clara already accepted such a treatment, after all, parasites are horrifying, with them fearing her, at least she would not be infecting the people important to her.

However, as they say, life is always full of surprises, just when Clara taught that everyone in their territory knows of her condition, on one of her days basking blankly in the morning sun inside her moderately messy room, she heard a voice, unfamiliar yet something that she knew is cheerful, without any hint of malice, as if ignorant of who is he talking to

"My Lady, please minimize your movement! I want you to be the subject of my painting!"

Clara was stunned.

_Me? Someone so horrid, so unpleasant that even the royal researchers gave up on curing will be the subject of an artist?_

Clara was stunned, yet, she unconsciously straightened her back.

"Are you perhaps, paid by my father to paint me? I will give you the money in secret, don't come near me, you will be infected."

Such were her words, her tone full of concern, yet once again, she was shocked by the reply of the guy on the ground.

"Hired? No, I am nothing but an amateur artist, in truth I am kind of a cadet and one of our mental relaxation exercises is to find someone that we can paint, the drill sergeant said that the nobles will not obstruct us from painting their palaces... however... for a long time, I wanted to paint a picture of Lady Clara and to capture her true self, because in truth, I don't want to be a soldier, but I don't have a choice."

Clara was speechless, yet she had one question.

"Me?"

Even though the man knew that he could not be seen by the lady, he still nodded.

"Yes, you..."

"The true you, beyond your title as The Lady with sinful eyes."

________

Author: All of the opponents will have backstories, this is a technique employed by the author of Deadman Wonderland and Pancakeswitch, the Author of Epic of Caterpillar, and I want to do it too, so this will be a long chain of fights.