As he commanded the skeletons to ready themselves for the attack, Klein looked forward to crushing these so-called young ones, the very people he had been killed for. With that thought in mind, he gave the order to charge.
To everyone's shock, the skeletons surged forward at incredible speed. Watching them race across the ground, Dalton could only wonder how skeletons were capable of running that fast. He confidently ordered his men to hold their positions instead of panicking, since their opponents were nothing but skeletons.
The next moment his words proved false, as those same skeletons began mercilessly tearing through his men. As limbs were chopped off and blood splattered from all sides, Dalton began to panic. His formation was already non-existent, and nobody was listening to him anymore.
Unfortunately for him, this was only the beginning. Klein ordered his second unit, the crossbows, to surround the enemy and lock onto the target. The remaining mercenaries looked upward when they heard the clacking sound, and at that very moment their lives flashed before their eyes. While they were still dazed, Klein ordered the crossbow unit to ready the shot. One of the mercenaries called out to warn the others about the impending attack, but just as he was about to tell them to run, Klein gave the order to fire. A barrage of bolts came raining down on Dalton's camp, eliminating a great many of them at once.
Dalton was still in the middle of the battlefield, trembling like a cold, wet puppy. He quickly scanned the area and noticed that he was badly losing, and that Klein's skeletons were not the cheap sort he had smashed on missions. Knowing that it was only a matter of minutes before his gang was wiped out, Dalton decided on a last-ditch effort. He ordered the rest of his team to stop reloading their crossbows and switch to close combat. After confirming that they had heard him the first time, he prepared to lead by example and confidently rushed into the battle.
With a single strike he chopped the head off one of the skeletons, and he began to celebrate far too soon, excitedly telling his team to aim for the head. Before he could finish the sentence, the headless skeleton almost took Dalton's head off in return. He managed to dodge the attack, and then tried to work out how the skeleton was still active without a head.
Klein was amused, and he mocked Dalton's grasp of how the undead were supposed to die when they lost their heads. He reminded him again that his skeletons were different from the usual trash. To prove it, the headless skeleton located its own head, and the moment it set the head back in place, it reattached itself. This ability was the main reason why, as Archmond, Klein had almost succeeded in swallowing the continent.
Dalton was stunned that a skeleton could actually reattach its own head. What he did not know was that beings summoned by demonic energy did not die easily, and that every single one of them obeyed orders and used tactical formations. Now the mercenaries who had looked down on them were beginning to panic, because what they killed had clearly refused to stay dead.
Klein knew he was letting them off easy, because with this weak body he could only summon eleven. But since everyone had rested, he declared that it was time to continue where they had left off.
While their screams echoed deep in the forest, all was at peace back at the Conwell estate. Aren was listening to funny stories about Klein from Garrison, and he was happy to tell them. Watching how excited she was to hear about him, Garrison guessed she must be very fond of Klein. Aren agreed that she was, and explained that it was because Klein was so amazing and so kind.
The man she called kind was busy making people scream and tremble while wearing a perfectly straight face.
Aren also said that Klein was gentle, and that he shared his cookies with her, and that he was the warmest person in the world.
The warmest person in the world was coldly crushing everything in his way.
Back on the battlefield, Dalton was struggling to survive. No matter how many times he chopped the heads off the skeletons, they somehow kept regenerating. Dalton finally grew a brain and began to wonder how to stop them from regenerating, and just then his eyes locked on Klein. The source.
Dalton figured that he could end this nightmare by eliminating Klein. So, from his position, he leapt forward, hoping to strike him down. But who screams a man's name during a sneak attack? As he leapt forward, shouting for no useful reason, he proudly declared that he was about to end Klein's corpse games. After that short declaration, Dalton prepared to take his swing.
Klein was unmoved, and he activated his special eye skill. As the energy around him began to crackle, he pulled out a sword and began to recall Delane's movements. With the power of that eye, Klein could replicate any technique he had seen even once, simply by remembering it. Dalton was shocked as it dawned on him that Klein was about to use the exact same technique as Delane. And just as he had been unable to block Delane's strike, Dalton was unable to stand against Klein's meteor sword.
With one strike, Klein's sword sliced through him, leaving him stunned for a moment. As the fatal injury snuffed out his life, Klein told him not to expect a peaceful death, and declared that Dalton's judgment began now.
After eliminating Dalton, Klein reflected that Dalton's theory had actually been right. Eliminating the caster did make a necromancer's creations lose their power. After all, as Archmond, Klein had been defeated because he could never overcome that weakness. But by a twist of fate, he could now protect that same power, thanks to the Rheinland ability. In simple terms, Klein had grown stronger because of the blood of his enemy Berkel.
Looking at the fading Dalton, Klein made up his mind to change things now that he had been reborn into this new life. Dalton overheard him, but just as he was about to question what he meant, he breathed his last. Klein, for his part, strengthened his resolve to help Berkel rebuild the ruined house of Rheinland.