Chapter 354: Green Fang Hekajelin
The nights in the forest are cold and long.
Under the expectant eyes of the villagers, this makeshift team, holding torches borrowed from the miller, stepped into the forbidden area outside the village of Pompeii, which was called the "Black Forest" by the locals.
The dense coniferous forest blocked the sky, and the pale moonlight was cut into pieces, casting only mottled and strange shadows on the thick snow.
It was eerily quiet all around, with only the crunching sound of feet on the snow and the occasional crackling sound of torches.
It was obviously the first time for Phoenix and his companions to carry out such a dangerous mission at night, and the brave young man had begun to regret his rash invitation.
"All day...the kid must be dead." Barrett said in a low voice.
"Don't say that. What if there's still hope?" Leo whispered.
"No matter if he can be saved or not, we have to give it a try... after all, he is the client's only son." When he said this, Phoenix was silent for a moment.
The only son...
He himself was no exception. He had thought more than once in the past few days whether it was worth it for him to leave his parents, his hometown, and risk everything for his dream.
The journey was almost over, but among the four of them, only Ilala had actually succeeded in releasing magic so far.
And he just memorized the roster of the Mage Tower.
perhaps……
He actually didn't have the talent to be a magician, nor was he any more special than the people around him.
But no matter what, the current task is the most important.
Phoenix took a deep breath and tried to cheer himself up.
Barrett walked beside him, one of them holding a sword and shield, the other holding a war hammer. They looked extremely nervous and took every step carefully.
Hunter Leo's bowstring had already been half-pulled, and his vigilant eyes were like those of a hawk, constantly scanning the edge of darkness that the firelight could not reach.
As for Ilala, she followed closely behind, holding an amulet engraved with runes in her hand, and her little face looked extremely pale with fear under the firelight.
The light of the torch could only open up a small, fragile orange area in the boundless darkness, and the bottomless darkness farther away seemed as if countless pairs of greedy eyes were peeping at it.
In stark contrast to the nervousness of these four young men, Mr. Colin and his party seemed overly relaxed.
Luo Yan walked in the middle of the team, his expression so relaxed that it seemed as if he was not tracking down the undead, but taking a walk in his own back garden.
As for Sarah, she followed him silently, like his shadow.
She made no unnecessary movements, her expression indifferent, but her sharp vertical pupils had already taken in everything that was happening around her.
Taf, who was held firmly in her arms, poked her little head out from under her cloak, her nostrils flaring.
She paid no attention to the dangers that mortals feared, and just curiously sniffed the cold and decayed scent in the air that belonged only to the undead.
The group followed the traces left by the undead on the snow - the unnatural drag marks and scattered animal bones, and cautiously went deeper into the forest.
"Wait!" Leo, who was walking in front, suddenly lowered his body and raised his hand to signal the team to stop.
He pointed to a shadow under an oak tree ahead and spoke in a dry voice.
"Look there."
As they gathered closer, the firelight illuminated the area, and they saw a dead wolf lying in the snow.
Its body was still struggling, its fur intact, and there were no wounds on it. But its flesh and blood had strangely shriveled up, as if all its vitality had been instantly drained away by some invisible thing, leaving only an empty shell.
This was definitely not done by a hunter or a monster! A chill from an unknown source climbed up the spines of Phoenix and the other three, making their hands and feet feel cold.
"This doesn't seem like a simple necromancer casting a spell, it's more like... a lich's spell." Luo Yan looked at the corpse on the ground with interest.
Phoenix swallowed and said nervously.
"Have you seen it?"
Luo Yan nodded and spoke concisely.
"Yeah... I've encountered one during my travels. But don't worry, it may not be a lich. It may just be a more evil wizard."
Although his words did not contain any information, they still made the four nervous young men breathe a sigh of relief.
At least……
Some of them have dealt with necromancers before.
With their morale restored, the group continued to move forward.
They walked through the forest for about half an hour, following the intermittent animal hair and bloodstains that had solidified into dark brown on the snow.
Eventually, the crooked traces led them from the dense jungle to a relatively open area.
This seems to be a long-abandoned logging site.
Several wooden houses had collapsed in half, almost buried by thick snow. Rusty saws and axes were thrown carelessly in the corners, frozen together with rotten wood piles... Everything was filled with a dead silence forgotten by time.
The traces they had followed all the way came to an abrupt end right in the middle of the open space.
Luo Yan glanced around and suddenly a faint smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.
As he had guessed early on, although the villagers of Pompeii were pitiful, they were not honest people.
This logging site was not lost on the first day, and they obviously knew who the necromancer was, where he was hiding, and how powerful he was.
However, those people did not say a word, but just cried and urged them to go and rescue people.
It was true that they were forced into a corner by the inaction of the lord, but if he had not been here, these four guys would probably have died.
It doesn't matter whether they come during the day or at night.
"Something's wrong," Hunter Leo clenched the longbow in his hand, his voice dry, "It's too quiet here... It's like..."
Barrett swallowed and tentatively asked the question that Leo had already mentioned.
"…You want to call this a trap?"
Ilala's face was pale and her calves were weak.
"Why don't we go back first? I think it would be better to come during the day..."
By the end her voice was completely out of tune, like a frightened squirrel.
Sarah glanced indifferently at the three people who were exchanging nonsense.
Do you realize it now? The moment Ilala finished speaking, something strange happened! As if to confirm Barrett's guess, a pair of pale green dots of light suddenly lit up in the dense night.
Then——
It’s the second pair, the third pair…
In the blink of an eye, hundreds of burning green lights lit up from all directions, like a net of resentment, completely blocking this small open space!
“Crack…Crack…”
The teeth-grinding sound of bones rubbing against each other came from all directions, followed by the sound of swords scraping against the snow! Along with this rustling sound, hundreds of undead spirits of various shapes staggered out from behind the dark woods and from the shadows of collapsed wooden houses.
The skeletons formed an airtight encirclement, cutting off all escape routes for the group. The dark green soul fire burned with hatred for the living and desire for flesh and blood!
Why——
These guys can stand like humans and dogs, but they can only endure the pain and suffering in endless torture! Negative aura and instinct drive them forward.
This pain——
They want them to have a taste too!
Seeing the terrifying and hideous scene, the four young men lost all color on their faces. However, for Luo Yan, who grew up in hell, this was a very common sight.
"Go! Don't let them get close!" Phoenix's voice was a little distorted by fear, but he still forced himself to raise the sword.
Leo was the first to react. He took a deep breath, forced himself to suppress his trembling, and aimed his arrow at a skeleton warrior walking in front.
“Whoosh!”
The arrow was shot accurately, but it did not pierce the skull as he expected.
The arrow flew through the gap between the skeleton's ribs with a clang and got nailed in vain on a distant tree trunk, while the skeleton warrior didn't even stop.
"I'm going to fight you!!!"
Barrett roared and took the initiative to meet him.
The war hammer in his hand was infused with all the strength of the blacksmith's son, and he smashed it hard on the chest of another skeleton, smashing it into pieces! However, this short-lived victory did not bring any respite.
As soon as he smashed one, two new undead immediately surrounded him, wielding bone blades and forcing him to retreat again and again.
"Fire...flame...quick!" Phoenix shouted to Ilala behind him.
Ilala closed her eyes tightly, her lips moving rapidly. She could feel the magic power surging in her body, but she could not shape it. In extreme fear, her mind was blank, with only one last thought left -
"Fire, in the name of flame - appear in my hand!" She suddenly opened her eyes and shouted out a complicated and obscure spell with all her might.
A miracle happened! A small flame actually formed in her palm! She didn't even have time to be happy that she had successfully cast a spell again, and she pushed the flame away in panic.
However, the flame was still too small.
It was not so much a fireball as it was a bunch of sparks that would be extinguished by the wind, staggering towards a skeleton.
"puff."
The flame hit the cold skull and instantly shattered into a few sparks, which melted into the endless cold night. The skeleton just shook its head and continued to approach with heavy steps.
The last trace of color on Ilala's face faded, replaced by utter despair.
In this suffocating atmosphere, the undead that were pouring in like a tide suddenly stopped.
They no longer advanced forward, but instead, like a retreating torrent, parted to both sides, making way for their master.
A thin figure walked along the crooked road.
She was wearing a tattered wizard robe, with withered hair like weeds. She walked slowly up a tall, snow-covered rock, like a king ascending his throne, looking down at the imprisoned prey.
Luo Yan noticed that it was a pretty face of a young girl, but the eyes were as cloudy as those of an old woman who was about to die.
Deep in those green pupils, there burned madness and hatred that was about to overflow. But strangely, her mouth was smiling.
In the encirclement, Phoenix forced himself to suppress the fear in his heart, held the sword in front of him, and bravely shouted at the figure on the rock.
"Who are you?!"
Hearing his rude question, the thin figure did not get angry, but instead chuckled.
She lifted the hem of her tattered wizard robe and gracefully performed a standard yet strangely stiff lady's salute.
"Hercagelyn," she introduced herself with a smile, her voice as soft as a ghost, "or, you can call me 'Greenfang'."
"We are here to retrieve the children of Pompeii Village!" Barrett roared in a deep voice, gripping the warhammer in his hand tighter.
"Children?" Hekagelin laughed softly and said lightly, "You look like children to me... Who are you looking for here? Yourselves?"
"You underestimate us," Leo said with a cold smile, "The one standing in front of you is not an ordinary adventurer, but a future wizard. If you know what's good for you, hurry up--"
"I see... Are you going to take the exam?"
Hekagelin looked at Leo with interest, then looked at the people around him, and the smile on his face suddenly became even happier, as if he had found a treasure.
Before Phoenix and the others could react to what was happening, she suddenly burst into a "chuckling" laugh, and that neurotic voice was full of mockery and madness.
"Another group of little sparrows going to the school exam... So cute, it reminds me of my youth, ah... I miss it so much."
Without warning, her voice became low and hoarse, as if another person was speaking through her throat, full of deep resentment.
"Let me guess, how many geniuses are there among you? One? Two? Or all six? Hahahaha... I am the same, and much greater than you. After all, you haven't even entered there yet, but I've already come out of there."
Looking at the young men with their eyes wide open in astonishment, she narrated her experience in a painful tone that sounded both boastful and accusatory.
"Hekajelin, the former genius, the pride and hope of Sage Village! I entered the academy with full of dreams, thinking it was a temple of knowledge, and that I could have everything as long as I worked hard!"
Her voice rose again, suddenly becoming sharp and crazy.
"But I was wrong! Very wrong! What they valued was not a person's efforts, but the 'soul'! That damn soul that was destined at birth! We civilian geniuses were nothing but materials in their eyes! They squeezed my value dry, exhausted my talent, and then - after I had exhausted my youth and even everything in my life, they ruthlessly abandoned me like throwing away a piece of garbage!"
Her voice was full of venom, and it seemed that what was burning in her cloudy eyes was not only her own hatred, but also the hatred of others.
"They say knowledge is power? Ridiculous! Hypocritical! Obviously birth is power! Transcend the shackles of the soul? Void realm? Those resources don't belong to you at all! You are just a stepping stone for them to change their own destiny! Firewood to heat the furnace!"
"Since they won't give me the power, I'll get it myself!"
"Where is the child?" Luo Yan didn't want to listen to her nonsense. He hadn't spoken a word from beginning to end, so he just said it lightly.
Hekagelin paused slightly, smiled nervously, raised his hand nonchalantly, and pointed to a dark cave behind him.
"Oh, that little thing?" She said in a tone of talking about an object, "He's still alive. His soul is very clean, and it's the best 'material' for my promotion ceremony. Perhaps the side effects will be less."
These words, like the coldest wind, completely shattered the last glimmer of negotiation fantasy in Phoenix and the others' hearts.
This guy has gone crazy! Phoenix swallowed hard and glanced secretly in the direction of Colin, hoping that the latter could stimulate the power in the ring again.
He was certain that this distinguished gentleman was a nobleman who had gone out to gain experience, and he might even be the "Prince Crankle" that the miller had mentioned.
However, Mr. Colin just stood there calmly with an indifferent look, as if all the tense situation before him had nothing to do with him.
After all, the two had just met each other for a short time and there was no tacit understanding between them.
Phoenix gritted his teeth and didn't give up. He then inconspicuously winked at Leo behind him and silently lip-synced two words -
'Get started.'
Leo understood.
As the calmest hunter in the team, he also realized that their strength was far from being a match for this necromancer.
Their only chance of winning was to launch a fatal attack while the other party was still showing off and underestimating the enemy! He pretended to give up struggling and dropped his longbow in despair.
However, the second after he lowered the longbow, his right hand had already pulled out a short flintlock from his waist like lightning! "Bang!"
The deafening gunshot tore through the silence of the forest, and the lead bullets, wrapped in flames and smoke, headed straight for Hekagelin's head on the rock.
However, the bullet that should have burst into blood actually hit a barrier that was invisible to the naked eye an inch away from Hekajelin's forehead! With a crisp "ding" sound, a layer of dark green transparent shield showed its outline, and ripples of energy rippled like water waves.
The deformed bullet fell powerlessly into the snow, and along with it, the hearts of the four adventurers fell to the bottom of the valley.
“Hehe…”
Hekagelin suddenly laughed with delight, like a wild cat teasing its prey.
"Too weak, tsk tsk..." She clicked her tongue slightly, her eyes full of sarcasm, and said slowly, "Has the current school state fallen to the point where even this kind of rubbish can apply for the exam? This is really... sad for your seniors."
Before she finished her words, the last trace of human clarity in her eyes was completely swallowed up by madness, and green light bloomed from her turbid pupils.
She opened her arms as if to embrace the entire forest shrouded in darkness.
The ghost lights on dozens of undead bodies around them dimmed, and streams of pure dark energy turned into black air currents that poured into their bodies.
The wind was blowing hard in the forest! The entire silent night seemed to come alive! Unlike the four young adventurers who were terrified, Luo Yan, who was standing in the team, calmly assessed the rising negative energy.
Chaos, complexity, and unstable impurities together constitute her spellcasting system. Although it appears rough, its strength has indeed reached the "fine steel grade" level.
In this forest filled with the strong aura of the undead, with the advantage of being at home and the blessing of the night, she is even confident that she can challenge a silver-level opponent.
If he only used his "Black Iron Level" skills, he might not be able to end the battle quickly, and would instead put these young people in danger.
“Did you feel it? This is the power of your senior sister! Hahahaha!”
Hekagelin let out a cruel scream, intoxicated by the power in his body.
She raised her hands high, and three skeleton warriors, which were made up of the skeletons of giant bears and magic wolves and were much larger than ordinary undead, broke out of the ground behind her and stepped forward one step at a time, pushing the four young adventurers into despair.
"Kill them!" She waved her index finger and ordered cruelly, "Tear their flesh and skin into pieces, and give me their souls! I want their souls!"
"roar--!!"
Following her crazy command, all the undead moved.
They let out earth-shaking roars and, like a black wave, launched a general attack on the seven people in the center of the encirclement.
Phoenix and the others were ready to fight to the death, with tragic expressions written all over their faces.
At this critical moment, Luo Yan suddenly spoke and uttered something.
“Sarah.”
A bone-chilling cold light flashed in her amber vertical pupils, and Sarah, who had been standing still, moved instantly.
She had been wanting to take action for a long time.
It's not because of sympathy for humanity, but because that arrogant guy dared to stand at a higher position than the devil and talk to the devil!
“Quack!”
A short, squeezed scream rang out.
Before Taffy, who was held in Sarah's arms, could react to what was happening, she was thrown out and plunged into the thick snow pile nearby.
A short, weak tail was wagging helplessly outside. The stupid dragon wanted to struggle out of the snow, but its belly was too round and its body temperature was too low.
On the other side, Sarah's figure completely disappeared.
She turned into a black line that was almost impossible to capture with the naked eye, as if she had merged into the darkness itself, and silently passed through the entire chaotic battlefield.
The undead spirits that were waving their claws in slow motion in her eyes couldn't even touch the corners of her clothes.
There were no fancy moves, nor any loud noises; only a faint, almost inaudible "hiss" sound as the sharp blade cut through the air.
When Phoenix and the others blinked again, the lady in the cloak had returned to Mr. Colin's side. Her expression and posture were exactly the same as before she took action. She even pulled out the tail that was dangling in the snow and held it in her arms, as if she had never taken action.
They didn't even see if she had her weapon drawn!
Time seemed to freeze at this moment.
On the distant rock, Hekagelin's pretty face, twisted by madness, still maintained the posture of casting a spell, but the green light in her eyes had stagnated.
Then, a thin, almost invisible line of blood slowly emerged from her pale neck, putting an end to her madness.
“Oh… Oh, ahhhh——!”
The madness on Hekagelin's face was finally replaced by severe pain and incredible fear.
She tried to cover her neck with her hands, but there was nothing to grab.
Finally, the sound of the struggle turned into a shrill howl and was drowned out by the blood plasma gushing from the arteries.
The light figure fell silently from the rock and landed heavily in the three-foot-thick snow, with no trace of life left.
If it is a lich that has already been cultivated, I'm afraid I will have to kill it again.
But Luo Yan stared at her and waited for a long time, but she didn't stand up again. Instead, she leaned close to his ear and whispered something, saying that she saw her soul.
"…It's really scary. She has sixteen arms and thirty legs. Compared with her, your Arakdo looks much more beautiful."
Luo Yan nodded slightly.
Although he couldn't see it, he could imagine what a hideous scene it was.
"She used the lich's promotion strategy, but unfortunately no one gave her guidance. It's impossible to turn back now."
Whether it is to offer loyalty to Saint Sith or to the Demon God, it is a method of promotion tacitly approved by everyone, or it can be said to be a method "approved by the system."
The liches' methods are different. They are more like taking advantage of loopholes in the rules and stitching another independent soul onto their own bodies.
If the soul is obtained on the battlefield, there will be side effects, but they will be smaller.
After all, war is a part of human civilization. Both the killer and the killed are within the "established rules" and are prepared to become the victim of the other side's knife.
Murder is different.
She inherited the soul of the murdered person, as well as his resentment and unwillingness, and it was almost certain that she would be retaliated against.
In fact, from the moment she cut open her own soul and sewed on the will of others, she was already dead...
"Is it the knowledge gained from the virtual world? Or... chaos?" Staring at the black gas dissipating with the wind, Luo Yan pondered in his heart, and couldn't help but think of an acquaintance with a bad taste... or a familiar god.
As for Youyou, she let out a soft sigh and murmured softly, feeling pity for the lost mortal.
"Poor child..."
No one came to pick her up.
The monster eventually exiled itself to the dark forest, in another world that only the gods could see.
She had already abandoned Saint Sith, so it was obvious that she would not be accepted by heaven. And she had never been loyal to hell, so naturally she would not be reincarnated under the command of the devil.
He tried to help her, but she couldn't see Him at all...
With the death of the caster, the negative energy that supported all the undead collapsed instantly.
The charging black wave came to an abrupt halt, and the will-o'-the-wisps in the eyes of all the undead went out at the same time, and then they "crashed" and scattered into a pile of lifeless bones and dust.
The noisy battlefield returned to silence within three seconds, leaving only the crackling sound of burning torches and the whimpering of cold wind blowing through the treetops, proving that time was still passing.
Phoenix and the other three stood there in a daze, forgetting to breathe and even forgetting to be afraid. They looked at the corpses lying in the snow, then slowly looked at the respected Mr. Colin and his guards, and the dragon cub that was grinning in anger.
They were saved, there was no doubt about that.
And this Mr. Colin became more and more unfathomable in their eyes...
(End of this chapter)
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