Agrianos watched his army cross the swamp slowly. There weren’t too many boats available so some groups had to cross through some shabby-looking wooden bridges. Of course, important men like the archpriest had the privilege of riding on the best boats available.

“Hey, watch out!” someone shouted from a distance which caused Agrianos to twitch out of nervousness.

A Rhankish footman who had been crossing one of the bridges suddenly slipped, causing him to plummet into the swampy waters. Although the swamp wasn’t deep, he still needed help from nearby soldiers to get him back up.

“Watch your steps, you fools!” a serjent chastised the men as he passed by on his boat.

At such a sight, some of Agrianos’ men who were rowing his boat started chuckling. “I hope the rest of you knows how to swim, because if we suddenly sink, I’ll need someone to save me,” one of the priests said.

“Just shut up and keep rowing,” another one said. “Damn it, I think my oar’s stuck on some swamp crap. I can’t pull it back up!”

“Here, let me help,” a priest said as he grabbed the handle of stuck oar as well. With a pull, they managed to get the oar up the water… along with a skeletal body.

“What in the Purga-” the priest’s screams were cut off when the skeleton stabbed a dagger into his throat.

“UNDEEAAAD!” the other priest yelled as he threw the oar back into the water.

From every direction and angle, decaying corpses emerged from the water to grab the feet of unsuspecting Rhankish soldiers. As soon as the victims get pulled into the water, several undead emerged to push them down to the bottom of the swamp.

Serjents on their boats used their maces and axes to hack the undead who were trying to rock their boats, while Rhankish soldiers fought to control the wooden bridges. Not only did they have to worry about undead coming from the water, there were also some armed zombies climbing onto the bridges. The human soldiers were only used to dealing with other living foes, so a few Rhanks lost their nerves when the rotting shambling corpses charged at them. Men pushed each other as they tried to fall back, but the bridges were small and unstable, so some lost their balance and fell into certain doom.

“Humanos!” Agrianos shouted as he raised a wooden effigy up into the air. He crushed the fragile doll, splinters digging deep into his hand. Shortly afterwards, a ring of light swept through the waters.

The undead close to Agrianos started to shake uncontrollably as they slowly turned into ash, and some even exploded underwater. Priests across the swamp started casting their spells, but Agrianos knew that the situation was dire; there were too many undead and not enough priests.

“Lord! The Alarians are fighting ahead!” someone yelled from a boat far ahead of Agrianos.

“What?!” Agrianos turned to the back to check if they were also being attacked from the back. Fortunately, there weren’t any undead behind them. At the mouth of the swamp, there were still some Rhankish soldiers who hadn’t crossed yet, but they wouldn’t be able to help. They could only stand and watch as the living and the dead clashed.

‘Damn, the undead had already penetrated this far? How could this be?’ Agrianos cursed in his mind. His men were disorganized, his priests were spread out and vulnerable, his allies were unable to help him, and his secret weapon against the undead was stuck at the swamp entrance. It could also be possible that this might be where he might die!

Agrianos closed his eyes and started muttering to himself, “Humanos, I need your help-”

“LORD! THE NORTHMEN ARE MOVING!”

“WHAT?!”

Sure enough, the Varangian mercenaries who were just casually watching the massacre from afar started marching into the water.

“What in the Purgatory are those things doing?!” Agrianos shouted towards no one in particular.

Row by row, the drones submerged themselves and began attacking any undead they encountered underwater. It was hard to see, but it was already clear that anything underwater was a threat, so they simply hacked at anything that came too close to the drones.

At the bottom of the swamps, hidden spider drones began to make their moves as well. They latched onto undead skeletons and violently hacked against the cores of the monsters. The spider drones had scouted the swamps days ahead, even way before the undead had reached this area.

Thanks to the drones’ experience of fighting both within a swamp and against the undead, they quickly carved through the enemy horde. After all, the bloated undead had relied on drowning their foes, but what could they possibly do against an enemy they didn’t even need to breathe?

Exarchi commanded the drone army from the safety of the land, surrounded by a wall of huskarls. From the outside, he looked like a statue, but deep within, countless numbers of calculations and simulations ran inside his head.

‘Threat assessment of the undead - Negligible. Analysis completed. Thanes, divide the army amongst yourselves and begin extermination of the threat identified as undead,’ Exarchi ordered in hivespeak.

At one bridge, the Rhanks were being torn apart from the water, the front, and the back. A serjent valiantly stood his ground as armored zombies shambled towards him. He didn’t think he had a chance until mysterious figures emerged from the sides and lunged their spears at the zombies before climbing onto the bridge.

The serjent was somewhat confused and was about to attack the figures until he recognized the dark armor worn by the drones. Without even taking note of the confused serjent, the drones immediately pulled out their crossbows and shot a hail of bolts towards every undead unfortunate enough to enter their sights.

Not too far from the bridge, large undead crocodile-like monsters wreaked havoc amongst the Rhankish boats. When the drones were close enough, the undead monsters didn’t shy away from the challenge and attacked the Varangians.

As the crocodiles emerged from the water, Rhanks could see that the heavily armored drones were still wrestling the undead monsters even though they were caught between the jaws of death. Entire limbs flew off, but the drones continued hacking into the heads of their unfortunate victims.

‘Objectives completed,’ a thane reported.

‘Large bridge secured,’ another confirmed.

‘Unit too damaged. Pulling out,’ another called out.

Exarchi nodded as the strategic map in his mind started to light up. Although he didn’t secure the entire swamp, he only wanted to secure a path for his drone army. After all, the swamp was too big, and he didn’t really care if the humans in the other parts of the swamp were wiped out.

‘All units, converge and assist the Alarians. It seems that the undead they’re facing is much more challenging!’ Exarchi ordered with an excited tone.

At the swamp exit, Rhankish and Alarian soldiers were fighting against a large horde of undead monsters. While the Alarians fought in a disorganized mess, the Rhanks attempted to form a shieldwall behind them, but they didn’t have enough men to form a strong enough wall to keep the undead at bay.

Emerging from the water, the drones scared the wits out of the humans as they formed ranks. After a quick analysis of the battlefield, Exarchi found the target he was looking for - the enemy leader.

Standing in the middle of the battlefield, hacking and tearing apart waves of Alarian footmen, there was a large armored undead. Unlike the lich Custodian’s forces had encountered in Mount Varangia, this undead was better equipped, wearing a full set of scale armor on top of its gray bloodied robes. After every few swings of its maul, the undead would cast a spell which would cause the nearby humans to drop dead. Despite the differences in the comparison, Exarchi still determined that this undead was none other than a lich.

Unlike Slayer and Minos, Exarchi wasn’t adept at close-quarter combat so he decided to leave the glory of killing the lich to his best fighter. ‘Attention Thane Alpha-Alpha-One. Exterminate the organic filth designated as lich.’

‘Affirmative,’ Thane Alpha-Alpha-One replied back. Without a warning to the humans, the Thane drone moved forward with its retinue of huskarls, pushing the Rhanks and the Alarians aside. The undead tried break through the turtle formation of the huskarls to no avail. Compared to the basic Freeholder warrior drones, the elite huskarl drones were larger and more equipped. Not only that, they could also think faster which meant that they could perform better in combat.

Once the drones were close enough to the lich, the turtle formation opened, and Thane Alpha-Alpha-One charged towards its target. The surrounded undead could barely slow the determined exterminator down, so the lich had no choice but to challenge the menacing warmachine head-on lest it risked losing more troops for no gain.

The first one to start the duel was Thane Alpha-Alpha-One. It threw its axe at the lich before pulling out another one to deliver an overhead swing. However, the lich quickly parried the attack and counterattacked with a thrust which was easily avoided by the drone.

After a few back-and-forth, the lich got annoyed at Thane Alpha-Alpha-One. Neither side was getting tired, but the duel wasn’t the only thing that mattered. The undead had relied on the lich for specific commands other than ‘Charge at that direction’ and ‘Kill them’, so with their leader distracted, the monstrous horde were being picked apart. The lich knew it had to end this duel quickly.

The undead monster raised its maul and gurgled loudly, “Sa’ah-kra ha’saakra!”. A wave of black light washed over the thane, but nothing happened which perplexed the lich.

Unfazed by whatever the undead did to it, Thane Alpha-Alpha-One responded by pointing its finger at the lich. The large armored undead monster didn’t know what was going to happen so it decided to take a stance with its maul. But before it could do that, something leapt onto the lich and latched onto it.

Several metal spiders emerged from the surrounding chaos and ambushed the monstrous lich. Without delaying any further, Thane Alpha-Alpha-One charged and swung its axe down, but the lich stopped the drone’s attack by grabbing onto the axe head directly. Much like the drones, the undead had high damage tolerance and wasn’t bothered by extreme amounts of physical pain inflicted through normal means, so even as the Thane drone ripped the lich’s hand into half, the undead monster stood its ground.

Of course, Thane Alpha-Apha-One had expected this. Not a moment sooner, a large spearhead pierced through the body of the lich from behind. The spear’s tip was glowing with a tint of red, and sparks were jumping around it.

The undead monster twisted its head, cackling its decaying mouth like it was screaming. Its body started to tremble rapidly as the spear’s point glowed redder and redder and more sparks started to come out. It wanted to shout something one last time, but its head flew off after being hacked away by Thane Alpha-Alpha-One.

As the body of the monstrous lich fell onto the ground, the countless undead all dropped onto the ground like rag dolls. Standing behind the fallen lich’s corpse was another Thane drone which had snuck behind the lich during the chaotic mess. Though Thane Alpha-Alpha-One could’ve enchanted its axes from the beginning, doing so would sacrifice its thinking speed and power in the process.

The two Thane drones exchanged high fives and raised their fists into the air.

“Initiating cheer: Success through teamwork!” the two thanes shouted at the same time.

‘Quit it, you slackers. Gather your units and form up. Report the damages to me as soon as I cross the swamp,’ Exarchi chided in hivespeak.