Alex sat in his carriage, his face pale and covered in sweat. He had wanted to look back one last time before getting into the carriage, but had forced himself to hold back and board with stiff steps. Once inside, he let out a deep breath and tried to regain his composure. "Can you still feel that breath?" he asked in a low voice, as if talking to himself.
A female voice, hoarse but pleasant, responded, "I can't feel it anymore. He didn't notice me and didn't pay attention to the owner." A spirit body of a six-headed Erzoron Banshee with six heads, twelve arms, and a snake tail appeared in front of Alex. As a spirit body, she could zoom in and out at will, and at this time she was only a few centimetres tall, translucent, and suspended in mid-air.
Alex had attached great importance to the six-headed Erzoron Banshee, and had brought her with him on his trip to the old one-eyed place to trade arms. He roughly expected that her strength should be equivalent to that of an intermediate formal necromancer, or perhaps even stronger, but not quite at the advanced level. Nonetheless, her combat power of 59 was still the strongest that Alex had, and his most valuable secret weapon.
Just as he was about to leave the old one-eyed shop after completing his transaction, the six-headed Erzoron Banshee suddenly reminded him that there was an official-level person paying attention to him. This made Alex's heart tremble, and he almost revealed himself. Fortunately, his psychological quality was quite good, and he was able to keep his composure and not show any strange reactions, even as he got into the carriage and the attention on him disappeared.
Alex was worried and wondered who it could be and what their purpose was. He was also secretly grateful for the six-headed Erzoron Banshee, as without her, he would not have known that there was an official-level person paying attention to him. He took a moment to steady his heart and then entered the cemetery.
In the cemetery, the heavy Lado cannon was placed on the square in front of the town centre. Alex had ordered the zombies to move the cannon, partly because they were strong, and partly to see if they would have some kind of subtle chemical reaction with it. He had hoped that, like with the synthetic gun skeleton soldiers, if the zombies could complete regular cannon exercises and fire a cannonball, they could be certified in the cemetery and become a new derivative class.
However, his hopes were dashed as the zombies were not as flexible or malleable as the skeleton soldiers. Their stiff fingers and dull minds made it impossible for Alex to create 'artillery zombies.' He sighed, dismissing a few of the zombies and summoning a few skeleton soldiers to experiment with instead.
Alex had upgraded the cemetery to a town centre and as a result, the production of each class had increased significantly. He had recruited all of them, expanding his strength and the number of skeleton soldiers alone reached eighty-five. These included the original gun skeleton soldiers and some ordinary skeleton soldiers, whose combat effectiveness was limited and not particularly necessary. Alex had not let these ordinary skeleton soldiers fight, but he had received 150 enchanted rifles from the old one-eyed, which he could use to upgrade these skeleton soldiers into gun skeleton soldiers.
Soon, six skeleton soldiers came to the middle of the square and stood around a large cannon. According to the "Artillery Drill Code" provided by the old one-eyed, the standard personnel configuration for this medium field gun was two towed heavy horses and six artillerymen, plus a cannon, to form a combat unit. However, as there were no skeleton war horses and no need for manoeuvrings, Alex saved two heavy horses and used the six skeleton soldiers as artillery commanders, sighters, emergency maintenance personnel, gunner X2, and ammunition man X2.
After being ready, Alex began to train the first artillerymen in the cemetery. Although he had some familiarity with the process due to his experience with the gun-skeleton soldiers, using a two-ton cannon was different from using a rifle and involved the action of mutual cooperation. Alex had to be distracted by two or even three uses in order to make the skeleton soldier successfully complete the maneuverer. Mistakes were inevitable, but Alex was not discouraged and kept trying until after more than three hours, there was a loud bang from the wooden courtyard and the Lado cannon finally hit the first shell!
Alex was very happy and a prompt message appeared, "Derivative troops... Undead Cannon (Mutant Aggregate), Level 3 elite class, 33 combat power, price 100, magic: parabolic scattering, grenade impact, direct armour piercing." He couldn't help but be pleased with the newly derived undead cannon, which was a little different from what he had originally imagined. The cannon and the six skeleton soldiers had been fused into one, forming a new complete individual, called a mutant aggregate. The attack power was quite strong, three times that of the same level. However, because of the limitations of mobility and flexibility, it was rated as a third-level elite class, otherwise it could have reached level four.
Alex quickly made his way to the area where the shell had landed, and found a large pit, more than three meters in diameter, caused by the impact of the cannonball. The surrounding area was littered with earth shrapnel and small trees with thick trunks had been knocked down, showing the impressive power of the undead cannon. However, the rate of fire was slow, taking more than twenty seconds between shots.
Determined to improve the cannon's performance, Alex returned to the cannon and attempted to find a way to increase the rate of fire, ideally to less than ten seconds. Unfortunately, despite his efforts, he found it difficult to compress the time and increase the rate of fire. He decided to focus on ordering more cannons instead.
In preparation for a large-scale battle, Alex assembled his troops. Three teams of armed skeleton soldiers lined up in a neat formation, each with twenty-four skeleton soldiers. Behind them, a squad of six skeleton soldiers surrounded the swarthy and oily cannon, which was Alex's synthetic 'Undead Cannon' squad. He also had a semi-stealthy ghost squad, led by Maxim, with a total of twelve ghosts, acting as an air force. On both sides were mixed squads of iron-clad zombies and hard-skinned ghouls, responsible for protecting the two wings and changing formations as needed.
Alex had built a mixed brigade with both attack and defence capabilities and was confident in their abilities. He felt that his undead troops were stronger and more manoeuvrable than a quarter of the strength of the PARSLOV City garrison. He also had the powerful hole card of the six-headed Erzoron Banshee, which could pose a threat to official level transcendent. With his troops and abilities, he was confident that he could defeat the Kingdom Knights with twice the strength.
Alex had a specific purpose for summoning his undead troops in a secret location, which was to practice various tactical formation changes. Although he had never been a soldier in his previous life, he was a fan of military strategy, particularly real-time strategy games. Additionally, his time at the Knight Academy with Grimm GOLDERT had familiarized him with basic tactical formations, allowing him to develop different tactics to counter different enemies.
After several practice sessions, Alex was satisfied with the performance of his undead troops. The advantage of the undead is that they follow orders without question, but their IQ can sometimes be a hindrance. However, Alex's undead troops were more spiritual than those summoned by other necromancers and were able to carry out complex orders without much difficulty.
Despite their strengths, Alex knew that they would not be enough to defeat strong enemies. He was determined to order more cannons to increase their firepower density and defeat the enemy. He visited the old one-eyed shop again to make the purchase. The old one-eyed was initially away, but upon returning, he was excited to see Alex's visit as he knew it meant a big purchase. Alex requested to purchase ten more Lado cannons and also asked for the complete body of a Erzoron Banshee, which was a powerful corpse witch with an entity that could be used as a container for the six-headed Erzoron Banshee.