Even though it's considered a rare delicacy in the countryside, the sliced black bread still looked like an uneven peat forest under the flickering firelight.
Isaac lowered his eyes, remaining silent, his unwavering and elegant demeanor a silent rejection.
Yunwei's expectations rose in silence, only to vanish in the embarrassment of receiving no response.
The fragile light in Yun Wei's eyes was extinguished.
He could only lower his brows, gently pick up a piece of bread, and slowly put it into his lips.
The flour used to make black bread is very coarse, mixed with wheat bran and other impurities. The cold, hard bread chunks are dry and salty, with a grainy texture reminiscent of wood chips, like the most barren sand.
Yun Wei chewed with difficulty, his eyes glazed over as he stared at the flickering flames in the distance, trying to pull his attention away from his dry and numb mouth and lips.
He dared not swallow hastily, fearing that the fine crumbs of bread would choke him. He mechanically continued chewing, waiting for the saliva slowly secreted in his mouth to thoroughly moisten the bread.
But suddenly his vision went dark. Yun Wei quickly looked up and saw Isaac silently approaching the fire on the other side.
The other person took the tin cup that he had put back on the stone slab, filled it with water again, and steadily handed it to him.
The shirt hastily retrieved from the undead space didn't fit properly; the sleeves were too short, and the unbuttoned cuffs were slightly pulled down, revealing the knight's strong forearms. Yun Wei could clearly see the slightly swollen blue veins on them.
But what does that mean?
Yun Wei was puzzled. He thought that their relationship had sunk back to zero after the recent minor incident. After all, the other party had clearly chosen to ignore the way he had awkwardly offered.
Yun Wei didn't move. He raised an eyebrow, signaling Isaac to explain. But he forgot that he still had a large piece of bread in his mouth, his cheeks bulging, and with his bright eyes, he looked like a hamster.
It looks somewhat... inexplicably cute.
Isaac couldn't help but chuckle, and quickly coughed twice, covering his lips with his fist. He suppressed his teasing intentions, but his tone remained serious, "Sorry, I don't need any food right now."
Yun Wei then noticed that of the two tin cups he had taken out earlier, only he had used one of them. The other cup was still in Isaac's hand, held steadily in mid-air by the knight.
It seems he misunderstood again due to preconceived notions. Yun Wei took the cup with some guilt and took a small sip.
Food that is difficult to swallow turns into a paste when moistened with water.
Yun Wei gestured to Isaac, turned to the side, raised his sleeve, quickly swallowed the bread, and then picked up his water glass again and took a big gulp.
"I have a question. You said you were sealed away by the Lord of Light, which means you didn't die?"
Yun Wei was very curious about how he had formed a contract with Isaac, assuming that the other party was not an undead creature.
“That’s why I’ve decided to follow you, Claude.” Isaac paused. “To be honest, your contract magic has many flaws and isn’t enough to control me. I can leave whenever I want, and you will suffer the backlash of the contract.”
Seeing Yun Wei's wide-eyed surprise, Isaac decided to be honest, "Apart from the one where it's either you or me. You know, in my time, contract magic usually consisted of thousands of words of magic runes, specifying every detail and every possible scenario."
"Oh." Yun Wei nodded silently, even more confused about the other party's intentions.
According to Isaac, even if he commands Isaac through a contract, Isaac might exploit loopholes in the contract to refuse to carry out his orders. Furthermore, as long as the other party maintains a minimum standard of not killing him, they could turn around and torment him.
"But why are you telling me all this?" Yun Wei couldn't help but ask.
“Wait a minute, Claude, you’ve misunderstood again. Don’t be like that.” Isaac smiled, and seeing the deeper confusion on Yun Wei’s face, he pointed to his heart. “It’s the contract. The contract between us is real. I can sense your emotions through it.”
"Um?"
Upon hearing this, Yun Wei quietly closed his eyes and tried to concentrate his mental energy on the ethereal contract in his sea of consciousness. In an instant—
Like stars suddenly approaching the heavens, the universe revealed all its mysteries before his eyes; time stood still, and the starlight seemed to freeze.
Through that subtle connection, he also sensed Isaac's emotions.
Calm, composed, and free from distractions, like an ancient, towering mountain or a tranquil, winding river.
“Don’t rush, listen to me first.” Isaac’s expression softened, and his tone slowed down. “Before I was sealed away, I became extremely bloodthirsty because I was ambushed. What’s with that expression? Haha, you heard me right. It’s exactly what it sounds like, I crave blood.”
Yun Wei shrank back, his gaze falling on Isaac's pale yet handsome face. He stared at the other's elegantly upturned lips, wondering if the other's mouth contained the fangs of a vampire from a past life's legend.
But he failed; all he saw were two rows of neat white teeth.
Oh, what perfect features. Yun Wei silently looked away; he admitted he was a little jealous. If this were his previous life before the apocalypse, Isaac could have lived a life of luxury just based on that face.
“So it seems the Lord of Light did the right thing. At least he prevented a bloody crisis.” Yun Wei murmured, even as he looked into the shadows, Isaac’s handsome face, gleaming in the firelight, still appeared before his eyes.
"Come on, it's not what you think. The Lord of Light? Ha! He's the most despicable and shameless bastard in the world!" Isaac muttered irritably, then complained, "Hey, Claude, whose side are you on anyway?"
"We necromancers," Yun Wei blinked, then announced with feigned seriousness, reciting a maxim from "The Words of the Dead," "have always stood on the side of fairness and justice. Because, 'Before death, all are equal.'"
“I’m not kidding you,” Isaac continued helplessly. “Logically, I would go into an uncontrollable frenzy when I see blood. But when I was treating your wound just now, I found that things had changed.”
“Although that nauseating urge still exists, it’s under control. I’ve remained rational and haven’t fallen into the abyss of madness.” He gave Yun Wei a deep look. “Considering the current situation, I can only conclude that it’s your necromancy and the contract that have taken effect.”
Yun Wei noticed, however, that Isaac's tone was somewhat unnatural when he mentioned the "Abyss".
“But—” Yun Wei frowned. He thought for a moment, but still didn’t tell the other person about the existence of “The Dead Man’s Tale.” He opened his mouth, then met the other person’s focused gaze and told Isaac about the monster he had seen in the temple’s tomb.
Even after a long time, the fear and despair he felt when facing the monster left a deep impression on him, like a nightmare he could never shake off.
This fear was chillingly intense, making one afraid to be alone, afraid to sleep, and afraid to be in the dark, as if one would fall into a painful and eerie abyss if one was not careful.
After listening patiently, Isaac fell silent again.
Yun Wei noticed that the knight's previously unmoving figure suddenly trembled slightly. He looked at Isaac with concern, but dared not speak rashly.
Through the contract between the two, he vaguely sensed the other person's emotions becoming more vivid.
That overwhelming, suppressed emotion was not fear, but deep anger.
But he heard Isaac calmly say to him, "It seems the situation is more complicated than I thought, and it can't be explained in a short time. It's getting late, you should get some rest."
Yun Wei remained silent. He quietly put away the cup and food, then took out two clean blankets from his spatial storage. He hesitated slightly when handing one to Isaac.
Perhaps they should take turns keeping watch; that would be fairer.
As if sensing Yun Wei's hesitation, Isaac comforted him, "It's alright, go to sleep. I also need to meditate to replenish my energy; after all, food and water are meaningless to me."
The calm tone contrasted sharply with the intense emotional fluctuations he had previously displayed.
In that instant, Yun Wei felt a pang of heartache.
"Isaac, you're a fool," Yun Wei thought. But he knew that the other man, like him, possessed a proud self-esteem, and any pity would seem cheap and superfluous.
So he pulled over a blanket, rolled over on the haystack, and obediently closed his eyes, facing the stone wall.
He had intended to clear his mind and clean up the messy space, and he thought he might have trouble falling asleep.
But in reality, he quickly fell asleep.
...
I slept surprisingly well.
He slept soundly through the night, without a single dream, and felt refreshed. Yun Wei hadn't had such a good night's sleep in a long time.
So much so that when he first woke up, he stretched his legs comfortably, even his toes, and lazily stretched on the haystack.
Then he heard a deep, steady laugh coming from the other end.
Yun Wei froze, then quickly sat up, pretending to be very busy folding the blanket, while saying "Good morning" very naturally.
...
The two did not continue their conversation from the previous night. Yun Wei only confirmed that the monster of the Ke type did indeed come from the 'Abyss,' or more precisely, the 'Abyss Plane' adjacent to the Zhuyuan Continent.
It reminded him of the Cthulhu Mythos he had heard of before.
In his previous life, when he was still in school, the Ke-style mythology was just beginning to flourish, but Yun Wei's parents obviously did not allow him to read these kinds of books.
He only remembered Cthulhu, which his classmates had mentioned.
The abyss, it is, cannot be defined, cannot be observed, cannot be described…
It was too powerful, too distant, to ponder or worry about it now would only add to the trouble. Yun Wei could only put it aside.
After the two of them finished getting ready and walked out of the cave, Yun Wei's nose twitched, and then his sharp eyes caught sight of the rock bear's corpse that had been dragged to a nearby secluded spot.
He stepped forward and examined the rock bear closely, discovering a sharp cut on its vulnerable back, indicating an instant kill. The rock bear also had a triangular gash on its head, suggesting that Isaac had taken the magic crystal to replenish its energy.
But this is an A-rank magical beast after all. Putting everything else aside, just look at its fur. After tanning, it can make at least two excellent soft armors. Just leaving it on the ground to rot seems like a terrible waste.
Yun Wei stretched out his hand, mobilized the magic power within his body, and used a level two necromancy spell, "Withering Curse".
This spell is actually quite powerful, but it is difficult to hit living creatures in actual combat, so Yunwei has always used it to collect spoils of war.
As the gray-white magic circle formed at his fingertips slowly rotated, the rock bear's muscles quickly disintegrated into gray dust under the hazy undead power, leaving only a whole intact pelt and a beige skeleton.
After storing the fur in his spatial storage, Yun Wei stood up and looked at Isaac. He pointed to the rock bear's hollow skeleton and joked, "How about that? Were you scared? Necromancy, it looks pretty evil, doesn't it?"
Yun Wei was unaware of how vibrant and energetic he looked in the sunlight, a stark contrast to his sickly appearance yesterday.
Isaac, who had taken in all of this, remained noncommittal, but simply walked to the open space in front of him and said loudly, "Come here, save your magic power, I'm going to teach you elemental conversion today."
He was carrying Yun Wei on his back, so the other party didn't notice the smile that was about to burst from the corner of his eye.
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