Chapter 252: 214: Outwitted, Taking the Fall for the Military! Black Dragon's Nest Strategy (2)_2
The only piece of good news was that Zi Liyuan's Spatial Backpack was stuffed with monster corpses, which could be used to replenish the Zombie army's losses at any time.
However, the number of dragon blood descendants within the Black Dragon's Nest couldn't be replenished in time; every time one died, the scales of battle tipped slightly more in Lord Zi's favor.
As long as the battle dragged on long enough, the victor of this war of attrition would inevitably be the Undead army.
Zi Liyuan remembered the military intelligence report that stated there were only a few hundred hero-level dragon warrior BOSSes and at most a thousand rare Sub-Dragon Beast BOSSes.
An Undead army of a hundred thousand, holding off around twelve hundred dragon blood descendants BOSSes, while he himself and many Undead BOSSes frenziedly slaughtered them, all that mattered was the speed of killing.
As for the other small fry on the fringes, they weren't really worth his concern.
Although the Zombie army was merely cannon fodder, it was perfectly fine to use them as durable, high-defense targets.
The non-BOSS small fry couldn't kill the Zombies in a second; at the very least, they would need to cast a skill or deliver several basic attacks to take down one.
Moreover, if the corpses weren't destroyed thoroughly, the fallen Zombies still had the capability to rise again and continue the fight.
But as the battle dragged on, watching the ground forces diminish by only a quarter of the dragon blood descendant BOSSes made Zi Liyuan's expression grow increasingly grave.
In the skies, with the Bone Dragon Swarm falling apart one by one, plummeting to the ground and shattering, Zi Liyuan's face grew uglier and uglier.
"Damn it! The military's intelligence was wrong!"
During this extended period, he had personally watched as his skills like Spear of Death, Bone Spear, Poison Spear, and Death's Dark Arrow took down more than two hundred rare Sub-Dragon Beast BOSSes.
Plus the multitude of BOSSes that tore apart many of the dragon blood descendant BOSSes, the numbers lost were definitely more than a quarter.
What he found most incredible was the battle in the sky.
21 Lord-level Black Dragon BOSSes were unharmed, not one had its health drop below 50%.
And of the hundreds of Sub-Dragon Beast BOSSes capable of flight, only a mere four were lost, which was far too abnormal.
Since the beginning of the battle, his Spirit had been monitoring the entire battlefield; from the fight's commencement, the number of Sub-Dragon Beasts that had been annihilated and fallen from the sky totaled twenty-eight.
"Damn it, with the loss of over a hundred Bone Dragons, if twenty-eight Sub-Dragon Beasts have been killed, why are there now only four less in total? It's completely unreasonable!"
From the beginning to the end, only the Black Dragon led Sub-Dragon Beasts into the sky at the start; after that, not a single new Sub-Dragon Beast took to the skies to join their ranks.
And from the start of the battle, not one of those flying BOSSes had ever voluntarily landed.
"Something's off, all these BOSSes are off, could it be an issue with Dragon Island?"
Under his Spirit's minute observation, the surface features of every Giant Dragon and Sub-Dragon Beast in the sky were etched into his mind.
Upon close comparison, he noticed that whether it was Giant Dragons or Sub-Dragon Beasts, they looked exactly the same as if they were clones!
Truly identical, because he saw one of the Black Dragon BOSSes with a tiny piece missing from the tip of its left dragon horn.
This extremely subtle difference, shared by seven Black Dragons in every detail, was precisely the same!
"Doppelgängers? Or illusionary projection? Or could it be clones?"
There are limits to doppelgängers; they usually have a duration, and this battle has been going on for over an hour; doppelgängers cannot last that long.
It can't be an illusionary projection either, for illusions do not possess any attacking power, unless it's a Spirit type of attack.
But his Bone Dragon Swarm had lost over a hundred; if it were illusionary projections, that scale of damage would not be possible.
That only leaves cloning!
One Black Dragon replicating into six clones, all possessing the damage of the original, and if the original does not die, the clones will reappear soon after they're destroyed.
"Dragon Island has a problem!"
Realizing something was wrong, Zi Liyuan immediately checked the battlefield.
After an hour of fierce battle, the Undead army had just pushed across the beach and arrived at the edge of Dragon Island, without making any significant push into the interior of the island.
"Damn it! We've been outmaneuvered. If it weren't for the large number of monster corpses I brought, we might have been worn down to death by the enemy!"
Fortunately, he was a Necromancer, able to summon the Undead army, and his high-end strength was extremely powerful; otherwise, he would have been ground to death by the person scheming behind the scenes.
"The reason this monster nest wasn't discovered during the invasion of Blue Star is because it was concealed by the fog of war.
It seems that this battle formation fog isn't naturally formed by Dragon Island but is the work of the person scheming from behind.
The border of Shenglong State, such a sensitive location..."
Clearly, the person behind the scenes was targeting the Great Xia Empire. Consequently, since there were many Giant Dragons here, the military assigned the extermination task to him.
He ended up walking into a trap set by the Great Xia Empire military.
"This kind of maneuvering, there's a high chance it's the handywork of the Coalition of Nations. Just don't know how they got these Black Dragons to obediently comply."
The intelligence of Giant Dragons even surpasses that of humans, and a cunning, deceitful, and extremely greedy Giant Dragon like Black Dragons would not obediently follow human orders.
"Why bother thinking so much? Now that the problem has been discovered, just solve it!"
Glancing at the Black Dragons flying in the sky, Zi Liyuan mounted the old turtle and then issued an order to the Undead army to advance with full force.
Clearly, the Dragonkin BOSS on the ground was deliberately controlling the battlefield location, blocking the Undead army at the edge of Dragon Island to prevent them from entering the interior.
So, he led the swarm of Undead BOSSes and charged in. After all, the Zombie army was meant to be cannon fodder; if they all died, he would just summon more.
With the Epic Beast BOSS leading the charge, breaking through the Dragonkin BOSS's blockade wasn't hard; the previous concern had been the Zombie army and the rest of the BOSSes becoming severely separated, which could leave the Undead BOSSes in a situation where they were surrounded and beaten.
At that moment, Zi Liyuan, armed with an idea, no longer had such concerns.
He now wanted to push into the interior of Dragon Island to uncover the island's secrets, and perhaps he would find some unexpected gains, like copying treasures of Black Dragons and numerous Dragonkin!
As the situation on the ground battlefield changed, the Black Dragons flying in the sky immediately took action.
Of the 21 Black Dragons, 3 began to lower their altitude, while the remaining 18 circled above these 3, blocking the Bone Dragons' charge.
The 3 Black Dragons that lowered their altitude didn't land. Instead, they maintained a height where the Epic Beast BOSS couldn't reach them, and then they started casting Dragon Magic.
The many Sub-Dragon Beasts surrounded the 21 Black Dragons, helping them to resist the onslaught of the Bone Dragon Swarm.
In the back-and-forth of attacks, the Bone Dragons, fearless in their collisions, tried to disrupt the Black Dragons' casting of Dragon Magic, but they couldn't even get close to the 3 Black Dragons. They were blocked and could only watch as the Dragon Magic was completed.
"Wraith King, lead the Wraith Mage team to combine spells and construct a Dead Spirit Barrier!"
Seeing the sky fill with fiery clouds and feeling the temperature getting hotter, Lord Zi immediately gave orders to the Wraith Mage team.
A lone Wraith Mage casting a Dead Spirit Shield could protect only itself, but under the command of the Wraith King, a few hundred Wraith Mages could combine their spells to extend the Dead Spirit Shield into a Dead Spirit Barrier protecting a large area.
Zi Liyuan didn't even look, he simply used the skill "Bone Space Prison" behind his back, banishing a Black Dragon in the midst of casting to another dimensional space.
The displacement wasn't a weakening or curse magic acting on the Black Dragon's body, so it wasn't weakened.
But even after banishing one Black Dragon, there were still two Black Dragons chanting Dragon Magic.
"What a nuisance. Hydra Monster, join forces to release an Elemental Shield, protect the Wraith Mage team!"
What makes Black Dragons formidable is their physical combat ability and superior resistances.
The magical ability of Black Dragons, even the unique Dragon Magic, isn't considered powerful among the dragon race, particularly since the magic being used now was a widespread AOE (Area Of Effect) skill.