Chapter 170: Linares is Dead

At that moment, Linares's mind turned blank, all he can remember was  sedated and not waking up until the first war was over, with his heart being removed, replaced by a crystal that made him feel like he was drunk.

However, his king gave him all the details he needed, or rather, all the details Aerendil wanted him to know.

Luna became a filibuster, instigated by an undead, he opposed her king, causing the elves to settle for a draw as she declared her resistance just when the undead crystal was destroyed by Aerendil and the whole Thanatos was sealed, causing all the generals to go for her except her mother, that alongside the undead generals have covered Luna and his soldiers, in the altercation, the mother of Linares died while his father fell into depression, taking his own life.

Aerendil did not say that he had failed to notice that the Roselle Gjallarhorn at that time was able to steal a very small fragment of the undead crystal, for him, he just had to poison the mind of Linares, and what he had told the man is the whole truth, that he wanted to convey, that is.

However, unlike the other artificial hero prospect general, Linares was born and raised a soldier, not to mention he is talented enough to be granted by the system of a unique skill, thus he was not brainwashed, but still has a very unstable mentality, like this time, his anger led him to halt all of his attacks, but also made him able to regain his calm to remember his motivation, such irony.

Thus he knew, Linares was aware.

At that time, he was taken out because of shock, not being able to support his sister, however now is different, he is fully awake, and this time, he will make sure that he will be the shoulders that his sister will lean on when she was tired, that may be the reason why is Linares have become mad, because of his opponent is very proficient in using his 4 limbs to do all sort of unimaginable defending and offending maneuvers even though he is an undead, now, the opponent under him is squirming, once again formulating a way to escape.

Actually, this squirming had been happening for a while now, making Linares perplexed, he cast aside his talons that were raised above to look at his opponent, his smug face gone, now forming a little frown with a rather awkward smile, Linares was speechless.

His opponent lets himself get caught but is unable to get out of the ensnarement!

He felt like laughing, but the fighting adrenaline just made him smirk.

"So did she instruct you to die like an idiot?"

Upon hearing Linares's remark, his opponent who had foolishly trapped himself into his claws frowned as he gritted his teeth, his anger evident, making his squirming more intense in a bid to regain his nonchalant advantage against Linares, this made Linares cackle in subdued laughter, he made his free talons descend slowly and caressed the cheek of his opponent.

"Well, you just have to fuck yourself up with your arrogance, aren't you? Don't worry, maybe I can mess up in killing you somehow, if I do, you will successfully escape."

Before, it was only wishful thinking to kill an undead, however, since King Aerendil invented the magic circle that seals up the resurrection sequence of the undeads, the elves don't have any qualms about saying such an absurd thing. Linares raised his talons once again slowly, bidding his time as his intoxication took over, not feeling anything strange in the situation he was in, he didn't even notice that the undead soldier was not paying attention to the fight, with another jesting face, he plunged his talons down with immense speed square to the face of his opponent.

However, to the shock and delight of Linares's, what splattered out everywhere was not blood and rotten flesh, but rather hail-sized rock debris and a lot of dust, his opponent's head was now on an unbelievable angle, he indignantly looked at Linares as he snapped his dislocated neck back.

"That's more like it..."

Linares seemed to not be able to get out of the intoxicated status of his, without missing a beat, he raised his talons once again and looked at his opponent before swooping it down once again.

However, again, at least that is what Linares wanted to do, for this time, his opponent did not even flinch when the longest part of his talons was already a nanometer away from his eye, alongside such smug confidence is a notification that once again made Linares sober, though because of dread.

[Notice: Effect of the [Artificial Hero Prospect Crystal] has been sealed, individual Linares will lose his amplified mana, amplified constitution, and minor debuff [Intoxicated].]

[Notice: Due to the artificial heart of individual Linares being blocked of all its functions, the individual will die in five minutes, an alternative heart is immediately required.]

Not only that, after the notification was heard by Linares, his chest grew veins that spread out like a crooked spider web while his body shrank visibly, though he is still muscular, now, not as muscular as the opponent he is just jesting a little while ago, the undead easily pulled out his hand and forcibly uprooted the talons that are either lodged to the ground or his body, making Linares realize that all of the undead's futile struggle in escaping is nothing but to divert his attention so that he can somehow seal his artificial hero prospect, the only thing that makes him contend against the prodigious adversary in front of him.

"Well, how about you? Did your King instruct you to die like an idiot?"

Linares is still speechless as he reverted back to his human form, he was outclassed by an opponent without any kind of special ability but just throwing hands.

________

Bernardo cannot help but grimace in his mind, opposite his confident exterior, he took almost 10 seconds if not more to activate a spell that even Kabuto, someone who is supposed to not train in magic was able to conjure in an instant, another statement of his lack of training and his once complacent attitude.

_What hurts more is that I know that I suck at magic so I was able to fake my arrogance and be unwittingly caught by the opponent, I did not expect it to take too long... I couldn't even conjure half of the magic circle when all of his eyes turned white because of agitation, the generals of the undeads were so busy with their opponents that they could not help me finish him off while the soldiers were making a relentless assault against the living soldiers who had their morale getting pummeled because of the deaths of their big shots._

Bernardo criticized himself all the while looking at his opponent, confidence still etched on his face, making the opponent of his mad, the last of the elves roared and transformed into that of a bipedal tiger that looked like it came from a women's fetish book and then pounced towards him, to tell that Bernardo is not impressed would have been a lie, after all it only took the opponent a split second to reach his humongous hand in front of the face of Bernardo.

If Bernardo was not his opponent, then he would have a very big chance of victory.

Bernardo sighed, feeling pity for the man, he lowered the whole half of his body, dodging the tiger's hand and making the whole body of Linares enter his striking zone, making the man free for the taking, he then performed an outward kick that made his opponent who is just going through a final struggle unable to dodge, catching the foot square in his chin, one of the reasons of Bernardo's acumen in contending against someone who can transform into quadrupedal stronger than a normal bipedal creature, except his exceptional muscles is the numerous magic buffs that either the system gave to him or was embedded by the military mages, thus the supposed to be sturdy bipedal tiger was flung 10 meters away from the original battlefield.

Now, the living soldiers naturally saw such a scene of their captain, losing consciousness, causing them to halt for a second before being woken up to the cacophonous shouts of their adversary, they continued fighting while Bernardo walked towards the general.

"You have to end yourself in a bang."

Bernardo was all smiles as he plunged his finger into the middle of the chest of Linares and pulled out a green crystal, Bernardo then pulled the hair of Linares and made his head face the soldiers who were still embroiled in a messy struggle, after which he put the crystal in between the teeth of the now just writhing Linares and unceremoniously kicked the chin of the already fallen general with all his force, causing him to fly tens of meters above the air and 50 or so meters across the battlefield, not only that, the crystal in his teeth cracked alongside his molars, causing it to glow.

The elves and humans knew what such a glow meant, they scurried to escape the landing spot of the general, yet when the corpse did land, it immediately exploded making a huge fireball that incinerated those who had backed away from the fight or those who have braved the valley of death alike.

Linares is dead.

__________

Bernardo sighed, his rather laid-back personality resurfacing back to his whole body, of course, he was still battle-ready, but now, nowhere was his condensing grin present as he looked to his right and then to his left, the directions of the fights of Philo and Bakunawa respectively, as Bernardo casually watched before going back to business, he can see stark opposites of the fight, Philo is being harassed by words against Sophia, and as the very first subordinate of their lady, he found it infuriating, of course, if Lyra was there, she could have controlled him better while Bakunawa is there, playing around with her opponent that is seemingly on the verge of crying.

And as if on cue, when he was thinking of assisting the two of them, Philo and Bakunawa said through the hivemind in unison.

"I don't need your help."

Philo's tone is agitated while Bakunawa is as calm as ever.

"Alright, Alright."

Bernardo did not try to persuade the two, he looked at the humans and elves that were staring at him, he nodded at them slightly and disappeared from their sight which immediately darken as Bernardo used the force of his fists to detach two heads from their bodies.

2/5 of the living generals remain, and the invasion of Indio by the dead will soon commence.

__________

Command center of the undeads.

The spider commander of the battlefield, [Guide] is intently surveying the battlefield using the hivemind as he looks for any lapses in the execution of the undeads if there are, he will immediately shout in his mind, causing the unit that did something wrong to hear his voice equally, in his side is a lady with a grave expression, she knew that the white elves and humans are already losing, something that is normally a cause of celebration for her, but now that she finally got out of the hypnosis of the tikbalang that became the temporary representative of Sophia due to the said undead being a participant in the war, he finally understood the intentions of the arrangements of Sophia and the acting commander [Guide].

It was very simple, it was to make the dark elves go in the middle of undead soldiers so that they could be surrounded and pelted right after the humans and elves retreated because of their impending doom.

It is a plan that will normally be noticed by Luna as someone educated in the military and has a lot of experience in fending off plots for invasion during her time as a coastal officer in the first elven undead war, however, she somehow did not, and even if she, someone who is not well acquainted with the way of hypnotism by tikbalangs as the creatures of the undeads is used in the frontlines, will understand that she was manipulated.

Luna was angry of course, but deep down she envied how the god of the undead, the one posing as the king of undeads at that time was so flexible to have a lot of undeads with peculiar abilities with the same social standing.

Look at the mananangals, something that Stardust had prepared for but was not used, meaning they are the enigma of the whole battlefield and all of this progress will be flipped out of its face if they entered the war, and as Luna was thinking of all this, her thoughts suddenly made an abrupt halt as if a cart's wheel being destroyed by a big stone lodged in the ground.

Suddenly, she remembered her past, especially her bad parting with the one she oh-so-loves, as a brother of course.

She looked forward, and in her mind is a single person.

"Linares..."