Chapter 569 – City Defenders.

“Haaa!”

A punch rocketed toward the ogre’s chest with the force of a falling boulder. The massive creature barely had time to lift its club before Armand’s fist slammed into its ribs, collapsing its chest with a sickening crunch. It didn’t even cry out before it was hurled backward, crashing against a stone outcropping like a puppet with its strings cut.

Armand stepped forward, eyes narrowed, blood dripping from his gauntlets. His bare chest, always proudly displayed, was covered only by a runic harness offering minimal protection. As usual, he looked pleased. All around him lay the broken bodies of defeated monsters: shattered jaws, crushed limbs, torsos caved in like cracked eggshells. It was a graveyard built by sheer strength and unmatched technique.

“Hah! Are numbers all they’ve got? This is starting to get boring!”

Another creature lunged at him, this time, a giant scorpion. It tried to catch him in its massive pincers and strike with its venomous tail. Armand didn’t flinch. As the pincers closed in, he kicked them aside and drove a punch straight into the incoming tail. The barbed stinger shattered on impact with his metal-clad fist.

His punch connected with the monster’s head, the force compressing it back into its shell. The kinetic shockwave hurled the creature backward and sent chunks of flesh flying in all directions. Lesser monsters like goblins were thrown aside by the blast, scrambling to escape. Armand stood tall, arm raised, inviting the next challenger.

On the nearby wall, soldiers could only watch in awe as the Frenzied War Monk carved a path through the battlefield with terrifying precision. His punches defied all logic. Monsters dropped like wheat before a scythe, their remains scattered in piles of twitching limbs and shattered bone.

Just as he was about to be overwhelmed, a voice crackled through the communication link.

“Armand!”

It was Roland, his tone sharp with urgency.

“Forget the tier two and one small fry. There’s a lich to the northeast of your location. Kill it first. Don’t let it revive the fallen or summon any high-tier skeletons.”

Armand grinned, teeth bared like a predator. A lich. A tier-three monster. Finally, something worthy of his fists.

“Understood. Northeast. Leave it to this lord Armand!”

He couldn’t see the lich he was supposed to defeat, not with the swarm of monsters blocking his view, but that wasn’t going to stop him. The ground cracked and cratered beneath his feet as he launched himself forward, bounding across the shattered terrain faster than most could follow. As he leaped high into the air, his eyes scanned the battlefield. In the distance, he spotted it, a skeletal figure draped in a tattered robe, standing still amidst the chaos.

Surrounded by undead skeletons and bloated corpse golems. The lich raised its staff, chanting in a language that gnawed at the edges of sanity. Dark necrotic energy swirled around its bony form as it continued to use the defeated monsters around the battlefield to create its undead army. Armand’s heartbeat quickened. The thrill surged through him, not just from the prospect of battle, but from the moment he’d been waiting for.

“The time has come! This is what I’ve been waiting for!”

His skin flushed crimson, and muscles bulged unnaturally as though he were swelling from within. Blackened tattoos erupted across his arms, chest, and face like molten scars carved by infernal fire. Horn-like ridges formed along his brow and jawline, while his eyes burned with a demonic glow. His canines lengthened, his fingers ended in claw-like nails, and his voice dropped as if he had turned into a red ogre himself.

This was one of his skills as a Frenzied War Monk. It allowed him to take on the form of an Oni, drastically increasing his combat power. But the technique came with a steep cost. The blank expression in his eyes said it all—his sanity was slipping away.

A frenzied roar tore from his throat, sending a shockwave outward that knocked back the monsters closing in around him. For a moment, his gaze drifted from the lich in the distance. His focus shifted to the nearest enemy, instinct taking over. He was ready to charge in another direction when a rune on his harness lit up.

The golden symbol pulsed with light, and a radiant glow spread across his body. Tiny golden particles flowed into his reddened form. Moments later, Armand felt his mind clear. His senses were returning.

“That was close…”

For a moment, he stood still, his mind dazed. He had used this skill a few times before, but the transitional phase always disoriented him. Without the harness and the runic devices Roland had crafted, he would have become a mindless beast, lashing out at anything nearby.

Though the power boost was immense, it was completely unsafe around allies. Thankfully, the runic device embedded in his body cleansed the frenzy effect automatically. In time, he might develop a natural resistance to it, but for now, he didn’t need to worry.

“Now, where was I… ah, yes!”

The runes embedded in his harness shimmered, locking his consciousness in place. Armand stood straighter now, crimson energy still radiating from his skin. His fists clenched and unclenched with anticipation. The monsters surrounding the lich began to react, forming a defensive line: bloated corpse golems surged forward, their stitched-together forms reeking of rot and malevolence. Skeletons drew rusted blades and raised cracked shields but it didn’t matter.

He launched himself like a cannonball, crashing into the first corpse golem with enough force to vaporize its upper body. The impact left a smear of corrupted flesh and bone on the ground. A follow-up spinning backhand bisected two skeletons trying to flank him, their bones exploding into powder from the sheer force.

The air trembled with each movement. In this form, his speed defied reason, a blur of red and black that moved through the battlefield with lethal precision. Every swing of his fist sent shockwaves pulsing outward, knocking down the undead like rows of dominos. The lich noticed him now. It raised its staff and began casting a direct attack spell, but Armand was already closing in. There was a reason Roland had sent him instead of Agni. Before the monster could finish the incantation, a powerful kick slammed into its sternum.

“No chance I’m letting you finish casting!”

In many cases, casters could easily defeat warrior types if they kept their distance. But once that gap was closed and they had no time to prepare counterspells, they became little more than targets for fighters like Armand.

The lich wasn’t dead yet. Even as it tried to rise, the only thing waiting for it was another punch. Armand’s gauntlets flared with radiant holy light for a brief moment before his massive fist crashed into the creature’s skull, shattering it almost instantly.

“Oh? Not dead yet? That’s what I’m talking about. It wouldn’t be any fun if you just dropped from that.”

The lich was not quite dead, and its minions swarmed in from all sides. But Armand didn’t let up. With boundless stamina and punches powerful enough to shatter boulders, nothing could stop him. He tore through the encroaching horde, a whirlwind of brute force and relentless motion. From a distance, one of his allies watched the destruction left behind by the Frenzied Monk.

“Mr. Armand is incredibly strong… but that’s only natural for someone fighting alongside Sir Roland. I have to give it my all, too!”

In the rear stood one person wearing armor under a dark crimson robe. She was surrounded by a plethora of golemic soldiers which were used to intercept any monsters that made it through the powerful defenders in the front.

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“Lady Curtana, can you hear me?”

“I can hear you loud and clear, Sir Wayland.”

Just as she was about to order her soldiers to move forward to aid both Arman and the man called Aurdhan, she was stopped by the man in charge.

“Good, remain at the wall, you are our last defense, use the golems to take out any monsters that make it through.”

“Ah, of course!”