Azure Scepter

Page 54

"Marionette." The word involuntarily flashed through Jörg's mind.

All the resurrected undead had a dark red glow in their eye sockets; Joler had never seen such undead before. Their bodies seemed to have been cleansed, every bone beneath their withered flesh revealing a pure white, while the invisible blades in their hands were covered with a layer of decaying, obscure spiritual light, seemingly coated with a terrifying curse.

Did the paladin control the undead?

Chapter 100 Slaying (Part 1)

The pure white holy flames silently ignited on the blade. Trier lowered his longsword, and the darkness around him melted away like snow meeting the warm sun of early spring.

"clatter-"

His boots crunched through the bloodstains. He no longer concealed his presence, but calmly walked toward the chaotic battlefield, his eyes reflecting the flashing blades.

At this moment, the remaining temple guards had completely collapsed. Although the horde of undead in the laboratory had only been in contact with them for a few seconds, the huge difference in combat power turned those few seconds into a long and bloody slaughter. Within a few breaths, the temple guards suffered heavy casualties, and almost everyone who survived was injured and on the verge of mental collapse.

If I hadn't managed to regain control of the undead in time, there would only be a pile of broken limbs left on the ground now.

Looking beyond the blood-soaked battlefield, Trier saw that the mummified corpses dressed in desert attire had not fallen into chaos. They, along with some other more powerful undead under the control of the Shadow Man, were struggling to resist the laboratory undead that had suddenly turned against them.

Although the undead created by the Shadowless Ones far outnumbered the weak Blood Plague Infected, the mummies were no match for those created by Trier. The scene was a one-sided massacre, and the unconscious roars of the undead and the sound of shriveled flesh being torn apart by metal suddenly drowned out the groans of the temple guards.

"What a pity," Trier thought. "I couldn't directly control the undead horde of the Shadowmen, but those undead have come to an end."

The next moment, he gripped the sword hilt tightly, his steps quickening. His cold eyes were fixed on a muscular monster that was coming up the spiral staircase. The small giant, made of exposed muscles and pale mucous membranes, strided ferociously over the horde of dried corpses toward the heavily wounded female barbarian.

As he moved, his brain, which had been nearly groaning and screaming from overuse due to excessive spellcasting, became active again under the flushing of oxygen-rich blood. His heartbeat pounded like a drum, and surging power flowed through every tiny capillary.

“Noy, cover my flank,” he whispered to himself.

A temple guard saw the charging muscular demon, screamed, threw his halberd, and then dodged to the side as if dodging an unstoppable boulder falling from the mountaintop.

Trier silently passed the fallen temple guard, his steps quickening and quickening. The instant the guard landed, Trier suddenly raised his longsword horizontally, then exerted force with his feet, causing a crack to shoot out from the already broken floor.

charge!

—At that moment, Jia Erbei struggled to her feet, picking up the greatsword from the ground, a flicker of despair in her brown eyes. Although she didn't know why the terrifying undead had suddenly stopped attacking and abruptly fallen into civil war, the enormous, muscular demon, whose strength far surpassed that of the frost giants, had reappeared.

This time, she knew there wouldn't be any more magic storage stones left by the old lich in the lab. She licked her lips nervously, trying to relieve the fatigue brought on by the berserk state. Looking at the approaching muscular demon, she felt a spasm in her stomach. A moment later, she realized she wanted to run away.

"Run my ass!" The cowardice that flashed through her mind seemed to ignite a spark of anger. A destructive rage, born from extreme disappointment in herself, exploded in her heart. She roared, dragged her greatsword, and attempted to launch a doomed charge against the muscle demon.

The next instant, she caught a glimpse of a fleeting, pure white sword light. She looked at the newcomer in shock and then saw a somewhat familiar yet unfamiliar warrior. The unfamiliar warrior's longsword was engulfed in blazing holy flames, and he charged towards the muscular demon without the slightest hesitation.

Are they reinforcements?

She blinked, and suddenly, memories of the evening flooded back. She realized that she seemed to have seen this warrior who had suddenly appeared before—it seemed that the other party was the lover of the high priest Noi, who had risen through the ranks because of his family background, and his name was Trier, a paladin.

"Wait, this monster is terrifying, you must be careful..." the female barbarian, Jia Erbei, instinctively cried out, but suddenly her words stopped abruptly.

The blood-red, muscular monster locked onto Trier aggressively, its body still moving as it swung its bulging forearm down at Trier's head!

"boom!"

Bricks and stones flew everywhere, and shattered flesh and dust rose up. Jia Erbei seemed to hear the sound of bones being shattered into dust in the dark, but the next moment, she was stunned to see a holy flame burst out from the smoke and dust, and that holy flame silently cut through the arm of the muscle demon.

Like a hot knife through butter, holy flames instantly rose up, and the paladin severed the muscular demon's right arm with a single sword stroke. The muscles between the white, mucous membranes spasmed from the burning, and the putrid fingers twitched like spider legs.

"Smack!" A clump of foul-smelling flesh slammed into Jia Erbei's face, blood streaming down her forehead, but she didn't blink.

At that moment, she felt an indescribable shame—she remembered that she seemed to have verbally abused the other person for being weak, but now it seemed that she was the one who was truly weak...

Amidst the blood and flesh, flashes of holy white flames streaked across the sky. The paladin dodged the falling arm with dazzling skill, then suddenly crouched down, gripped his longsword in reverse, and swiftly slid forward, driving the sword into the muscular demon's heel.

The Muscle Demon lost its balance and suddenly fell to the side. The Paladin had already drawn his longsword. He took a slight aim, then took a half step back, slung the hilt over his shoulder, and made a standard preparation for a furious strike.

—The muscular demon's white, bulging eyes met Trier's gaze.

Trier sprinted forward, the explosive force traveling from his feet into his spine, then through his muscles and into the sword's edge. The blazing blade whistled past like a whirlwind. Before the metal enhanced by the Holy Slash, the muscles and spine, strengthened by necromancy, were as fragile as dust. In an instant, the foul-smelling blood was tinged with a hint of char.

The massive head crashed to the ground, causing the entire corridor to tremble. The headless corpse swayed as if drunk, and then followed closely behind.

cut!

[XP+5000!]

Amidst the rain of blood, Trier casually twirled his sword, then took out his holy symbol and activated "Aura of Courage."

Chapter 101 Slaying (Part Two)

"Reinforcements have arrived!" a temple guard shouted as he saw the muscular demon fall to the ground.

—The earth spirit Joel dared not be distracted. He vigilantly observed the hanged corpse in front of him, which had suddenly become motionless, as if it had suddenly fallen into a deep sleep. But at this moment, he felt a warm power surging through his limbs and bones, and his despair and fear were slowly fading away.

“It is a paladin,” the inquisitor said, grinning. “Brave radiance! By the light above, our reinforcements have arrived.”

The goblin remained silent, but he seized the opportunity to glance at the paladin who had suddenly rushed out, and then he realized that the man was indeed the same paladin who had seemed to control the undead earlier.

“He has control over the undead,” the goblin Yole said in a cold, hard voice.

The judge, missing half his body, burst into laughter: "I didn't expect you to have such a talent for humor, Jorge. Please, have mercy, take the bottle of blood from my bag..."

The judge's voice suddenly stopped. Jörg was not puzzled, for he saw the hanged corpse in front of him open its eyes again, but this time its empty eye sockets gleamed with a chilling, obscure red light.

The hanging corpse threw down the judge's lower body. Jörg felt a blur before his eyes, and the powerful, despair-inducing hanging corpse flashed in front of him as if in a frame drop. The cold, putrid smell hit his nose, and a sour feeling shot straight to his forehead.

"Gaba!"

The next instant, a composite of shattered bones, rotting internal organs, decaying flesh, and haphazard stitches, slammed into the hanged corpse like a warhorse.

The chains on its body creaked, and the withered flesh pierced by the iron hooks trembled as if it had been electrocuted.

Did the hanging corpse block his attack?

Jörle blinked incredulously.

"Ah!!!" The mangled, bloody mass let out a sharp howl. A needle-like pain suddenly exploded in Jörg's brain. He opened his mouth and wailed silently.

"Die!" A thunderous shout exploded in the ears of the earth spirit Yorle.

The sound was like a sledgehammer shattering glass. The sharp pain in his brain suddenly disappeared, and Jörg was surprised to see that the paladin who controlled the undead had appeared beside him at some point, with a silver-haired, red-eyed priest following closely behind him.

High Priestess Noi? Didn't she blow herself up?

Jörle tried to move, but the terrifying howl had left his limbs stiff and rigid, as if all his nerves had been severed.

At this moment, the hanging corpse, which was only slightly larger than a normal person, used iron hooks and chains to firmly bind the extremely large mistakenly born corpse. The mistakenly born corpse struggled desperately, and the blurry flesh and debris scattered on the ground shot out like powerful crossbow bolts. Its rotting muscles swelled and twisted, and the surging power almost overflowed from the messy organic matter.

A flash of holy light disappeared in an instant, and the sword blade effortlessly cleaved the mistakenly born corpse from top to bottom.

Pure white flames burned quietly, while blood rained down on the ground. Trier's cold face was revealed through the crack in the body that had been cut in two. He slowly exhaled, and the two halves of the burning remains, as large as small mountains, fell to the ground with two thuds.

cut!

[XP+2000]

"Praise be to the radiance! Praise be to Saint Seir! You have come at the perfect time!" the judge exclaimed from the bottom of his heart.

Trier did not respond. He casually cast Holy Light on the goblin who was bleeding from all seven orifices. After confirming that the goblin's injuries were basically stable, he gave the vampire inquisitor a cold smile: "I think you don't need Holy Light."

Vampires are considered undead creatures in a broad sense. With a Holy Light, the Inquisitor's relatively stable injuries will likely turn into critical ones.

The judge's fierce, pale blue pupils suddenly contracted, and he chuckled, "As expected, nothing can escape your wisdom. I don't need the Holy Healing."

Trier bent down, retrieved a vial of blood from a bag on the ground, and tossed it to the judge.

The judge quickly grabbed the blood vial, bit the mouth of the vial, and began to suck greedily. In a few breaths, his bloody wound began to writhe strangely. Then, the lower half of the judge's body, which was still convulsing and trembling on the ground, suddenly moved under the influence of some supernatural force and then sprang to the judge's wound.

Five seconds later, the tall, bald judge was fully recovered.

"At your command." The judge respectfully covered the back of his left hand with his right hand, then covered his left chest—a gesture of respect among vampires to elders and powerful figures.

Trier nodded slightly and said in a deep voice, "Follow me."

“Count me in, sir,” the goblin said weakly, his eyes darting around with difficulty as he gripped the dagger in his hand with trembling hands.

—At this moment, they were extremely close to the chaotic front line of the battlefield. The corpse demons were engaged in a great battle with the mummies and corpses. At this time, the corpse demons were advancing on the front line at an unstoppable speed. The desert-like withered corpses and mummies were powerless against the terrifying laboratory corpse demons and other experimental products that could be described as monsters and demons.

On the battlefield, only a few strongholds with special undead abilities can barely withstand the terrifying laboratory undead.

The golden specks of light almost converged into an ocean, constantly surging towards Trier.

Trier smiled and looked up at the center of the undead horde.

"That old guy cast a high-level invisibility spell on himself, but doesn't he know that a sudden open space in a dense horde of undead is very conspicuous?" Trier thought to himself, watching the retreating undead. "That old man isn't dead yet. He's definitely not the Shadowman; he's most likely a follower of the Shadowman. His strength should be relatively average, the kind that can be captured. Now that the situation is stable, I can try to capture him. He should know about Fythia's body."

Trier walked steadily past several ghouls, with Noy close behind. The goblin and the inquisitor, however, were slightly restrained, seemingly afraid of the ghouls that could change color constantly.

"Uh, why can you control..." the judge carefully chose his words, his tall, hunched figure hunched over, "these strange corpse demons?"

“The revelation of radiance,” Trier said succinctly. “I am a paladin.”

"..." The judge had intended to agree regardless of the excuse the other party gave, but Trier's answer was so bizarre that he fell completely silent.

Noy chuckled softly, “I can testify that it’s true. Trier received divine revelation in Beaver Town.”

Chapter 102 Slaying (Part 3)

The battle between the dead is silent, the stench of death permeating the icy chill. Whether the souls burning in their eyes are the azure flames of winter frost or the dark red flames of doomsday purple fire, they show no emotion, no pain, no hatred, and no hope.

Amidst the chilling sounds of metal clashing against flesh, hordes of mummies and a handful of undead silently awaited their destruction. At this moment, the white-bearded mage still hadn't given up. Faced with the terrifying, almost overwhelming, and relentlessly devastating onslaught, he actively gathered all the high-ranking undead and generously unleashed various buff spells.

Under the influence of various spells, he temporarily slowed down the devastating attack of the laboratory's undead monsters. The last fulcrum before the spiral staircase stood firm like a reef in a sea of ​​blood. If one were to look down at the entire battlefield from above the corridor at this moment, one could see that the withered yellow had been compressed to almost a single point, while the surrounding eerie green waves tightly enveloped it.

"Should I have another Sunfire Burst?" Noi asked in his mind.

Trill pulled aside a ghoul and rushed into the front line of the battle, his fingers gripping the hilt of his sword tightly: "There's absolutely no need for that, give me a speed boost."

The cold, hard combat of melee weapons was exhilarating. Ever since the bloody battle he led with the militia in Beaver Town, Trier had begun to enjoy this barbaric behavior he had previously scorned. The salty taste of blood churned in his mouth and nose, his tense mind teetered on the edge of the cold blade, the deadly, brutal, yet deliberate swordplay—all of this stimulated him like a burning spark flickering in his central nervous system.

His will was more active than ever before, his senses more vivid than ever before, and amidst the adrenaline rush and his accelerated heartbeat, he could even see his own reflection in the fire of the mummified corpse's soul.

The next instant, the longsword ignited with pure white holy fire once more, then transformed into a blazing stream of light.

—A beam of holy white light suddenly pierced the darkness, and the earth troll Yorle felt a chill run down his spine. Then he was astonished to find that the paladin who controlled the undead had already charged into the front line. He was as fast as a comet, and the emerald light of the Acceleration spell swayed and danced like a tail flame.

The longsword was swung violently into the horde of mummies, tearing open the chests of two mummies from the front and back. Then, it swiftly cleaved the head of the remaining mummie. With a twist of his wrist, the immense force of the cleavage, along with the wind pressure from the burning remains, swept across the gap in the horde of mummies like a scythe sweeping across a wheat field.

The already sparsely packed mummy was suddenly thrown into chaos, with the remains crashing into the ranks like stones hurled from a catapult. The shriveled bodies of the mummy, now coated with wind pressure, suddenly burst into white flames, which instantly merged into one, scattering bone fragments and ashes everywhere.

A massive cleave with the added Holy Cleave!

Undoubtedly, the mummies created by the Shadow Man are far stronger than the plague-infected and skeletons of Beaver Town, each almost comparable to the ghouls of Beaver Town. However, at this moment, they are not even as troublesome as the misguided skeleton spearmen of Beaver Town in front of Trier.

Trier knew that after several days of travel, his melee abilities had been improved to an almost transformative degree. His near-spiritual melee vision had transformed into an almost instinctive inspiration, allowing him to completely perceive the every move of the undead. He even felt that his way of seeing the world had changed, and his martial arts seemed to have come alive. A wonderful feeling, close to that of when he cast spells, was about to burst forth like thunder hidden in the clouds.

It seems that it takes time for the base attack bonus from the level increase to fully reflect on him; his body needs time to adapt to the sudden change in skills. In game terms, if his base attack bonus (bab) was around 13 during the Beaver Town showdown, it has now reached 17-18, only two steps away from the 20-point bab of a legendary profession that primarily focuses on melee combat.

He had never reached this level before, either in reality or in the game. He now felt that he could almost foresee the future when facing weapons, just like an experienced hunter who would realize that autumn had arrived when he heard the chirping of a dead cicada.

The horde of undead, which had been locked in a stalemate, surged in through the opening created by Trier's sword. The remaining mummies, even though they were under magical effects, had no way to fight back. Golden light spots and holy flames merged into one, and huge amounts of experience points flashed across Trier's eyes every moment.

Undead have always been the best anvil in the anvil-hammer tactic. Their lack of morale is enough to keep them firmly entangled and delay the opponent's offensive. But at this moment, under the hum of the eerie green blade, the organized groups of mummies vanished instantly like fish that had been pulled ashore and gutted with a cleaver.

Even disregarding the scattered Death Knights and Witchflame, Trier was confident that with just this group of undead at his disposal, he could gather the Silent Whisperers, the survivors, and Olius together in Beaver Town and slaughter them all—they were a group of ruthless and efficient killing machines.

Suddenly, a cold, hard gust of wind, carrying the smell of blood, slammed into Trier's face.

The paladin's gaze shifted slightly, and he saw that his shadow had somehow appeared, then transformed into a massive, dark cloud of smoke, like a genie in a wishing pot. The smoke, like the deep darkness of night, emanated an aura of malice and chaos.

"The Shadowless One is actually a dimensional traveler, capable of summoning such a helper," he thought to himself.

The Shadow Walkers are also known as Sekvil by those near the Demon Rift. In some ways, they resemble low-level undead Shadows; like the Shadows, they are peculiar beings composed of pure malice and darkness.

However, the Shadow Walkers do not originate from the mere resentment of the dead. In fact, these rare monsters come from the Silent Mountains at the boundary between the Shadow Plane and the Negative Energy Plane, where a strange void power grants them the ability to become intangible.

Some researchers at the University of Georgia believe that these beings, distorted by negative energy and shadows, represent the virtual entities of entropy increase and chaos in the world, while demons represent the physical entities; however, the mainstream academic community believes that these things are merely special beings produced in special places and do not possess any universal symbolic meaning.

In the Great Swamp, the old lich Rakwald even used stasis magic to imprison a three-headed Night Demon within his ring, intending to use this creation to demonstrate the plausibility of a localized perpetual motion machine...

In summary, the Nightshade is a rare but relatively weak monster, whose abilities are roughly similar to those of the Muscle Demon and the Death Demon.

Chapter 103 Slaying (Part 4)

Trier braced himself with his left hand on the ground, easily ducking to avoid the Night Demon's deadly attack. He then took a small half-step back, his thumb resting on the edge of the counterweight on the hilt of his sword.

Time seemed to stand still. His index finger gently rested on the hilt of the sword. The direction of the blade, his fingers, wrist, and elbow formed a seamless fit, like a machine. There seemed to be a strange harmony between the paladin's gentle movements and his breathing. With each breath, the blade would rhythmically respond.

His attention was not on the enemy at this moment. Instead, his mental focus was entirely on his sword. The blade trembled slightly, and dust mixed with blood fell. At this moment, it seemed as if a blazing spiritual fire was burning on the cold metal. The next moment, holy flames ignited again along the cold blade.

The smoky form of the Night Demon gradually grew larger, its pitch-black silhouette enveloping Trier like a curtain. The darkness emanating from it slowly seeped into the radiance of the Holy Flame, like ink. Before Trier, black mist was born in an instant, then expanded and exploded a moment later, drifting away and dissipating, the scorching flames reflecting in his pupils.

"Watch out! There's a surprise attack!" Only then did the judge react.

Meanwhile, Noi had already been reduced to ashes and crashed into the massive Lurker.

The dazzling lightning acted as a signal flare, and both the Lurker and Trier launched their attacks simultaneously.

Trier's attack was simple and direct, as unsophisticated as a clumsy swordsman who had never learned any skills. But the blade flashed by in an instant, and holy flames ignited from the right waist of the Night Demon to its left shoulder, the holy radiance as if it were draped in a solemn ribbon.