Azure Scepter

Page 34

"What?" White asked incredulously.

The paladin pointed his sword at the collectible's eye socket. "Step back!"

The undead suddenly stopped, then slowly moved backward under the paladin's cold gaze, its plate boots clattering on the muddy ground.

"It's just a very simple necromancy principle. Your Spinal Spirit Binder is quite interesting; I obtained one yesterday. I thought about it, and its existence principle should be very similar to your current state. Therefore, after killing your spellcaster, I captured a wandering Spinal Spirit Binder and conducted some simple experiments." After confirming that the undead had retreated to a safe distance, the paladin said slowly.

"You know my weaknesses directly through magical knowledge?" the undead said, his voice trembling. "Are you kidding me?!"

Trier ignored the undead's words and continued slowly:

"Specifically, firstly, like those inferior undead infected by the blood plague, you cannot see in the dark. This corresponds to the sun in the fairy tale that gave him the eyesight of an eagle."

"Secondly, you all have something similar to a lich's casket. Considering that your heart cannot bear such power, your weakness is your heart, and it is now in my hands."

"The third sentence probably refers to the knowledge you share with those spinal spirits. Your knowledge increases with each spinal spirit you collect; and the last sentence refers to your ability to resurrect continuously."

"I must admit that your and those spinal-bound spirits have a very creative way of being: when you are on the verge of death, you use vital organs as anchors to draw on the essence of immortality, and then use strong emotions as a fuse to simulate the mechanism of the lich's casket, so as to achieve the effect of continuous resurrection."

"Am I right, White?"

With each word Trier spoke, the spirit's body hunched over a little more, and with each hunch, Trier's speech slowed down a little more. As Trier finished speaking, the spirit suddenly straightened its body.

It suddenly raised its head and said, "I understand, you are the other Listener of Beaver Town! This understanding of necromancy could only come from the personal instruction of a master. Moreover, this also explains why you suddenly became so powerful, and why you can see through all my actions!"

“Trier, although we are competitors, you should know that if you completely ruin things here, the master will be furious. Not only will I suffer endless torment, but you will definitely not be able to escape either!”

Silence filled the rain and mist. White looked up expectantly, only to be surprised to find that the paladin opposite him remained expressionless.

“Nonsense,” Trier said slowly. “I’m waiting for reinforcements. What are you waiting for?”

Before he finished speaking, his longsword pierced Martha's eye socket, the guard pressing firmly into her battered face like a spider seizing its prey. The next instant, Trier twisted the hilt of his sword.

With a muffled thud as if his heart had exploded, crimson blood gushed from the eye sockets of the spine-bound spirit.

"No!!" White screamed in despair, his piercing voice echoing through the empty street. Just then, a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, and in the blinding light, it charged toward Trier like a wild beast.

It knew it could never be resurrected! If it died again, its eternal life would come to an end!

Worse still, it had used up its last ability to teleport, and now it could only rely on its rudimentary melee skills to fight the paladin to the death!

The next moment, it suddenly stomped on the ground, and with the help of magic, it pierced the paladin like a crossbow, the muddy ground suddenly caved in and shattered under its trampling.

Amidst the swirling dust, a lightning-like, eerie green rapier pierced through the earth, hurtling towards Trier's position. However, with a crisp "bang," the rapier, skillfully deflected to the left, and suddenly, the paladin's longsword slashed through, sending sparks flying from White's iron gauntlet.

"Crack!" White knew that the bones in his right hand were broken—his attack this time was too hasty, and the paladin's swordsmanship was also unbelievably high.

What made it even more uneasy was that the paladin did not press his advantage; the opponent cautiously maintained his distance, while on the distant street, the other two human survivors were getting closer and closer.

Ignoring its injuries, it had no choice but to continue its fierce attack. However, the paladin gave it no chance at all. Trill always hovered at the edge of its maximum attack range, and the undead became more and more impatient due to the close yet distant distance.

With the enhancement of magic and divine arts, both possess astonishing destructive power.

As the fierce battle raged, both the undead and the paladins moved swiftly. With each side as the center and the rapier and longsword as the radius, terrifying destruction was generated with every clash: the outer walls of the ruins were cut down, the rugged stone paths were trampled, and the remaining decorative statues on the streets were smashed.

Sidesteps, slides, dodges—Trier always remained outside the undead's attack range, while relying on the length advantage of his longsword, he firmly locked the undead within the boundary of his attack radius. The clanging of metal against metal was like a deadly rhythm; if the undead was even a step slower, its fate would be disembowelment and decapitation.

Even though it barely managed to block all of Trier's attacks, its minor injuries continued to accumulate. As time went on, it became increasingly impatient, and the more impatient it became, the more likely it was to make mistakes. Impatience and mistakes were like a deadly spiral that pushed each other forward, forming a terrible and dangerous vortex.

White knew that he had been completely seen through, from his swordsmanship to his personality, and even his reactions, everything was within the other's expectations—defeat was imminent.

"What kind of monster are you?!" Taking advantage of a successful deflection, the undead suddenly escaped Trier's attack range, knowing that it had to use its last spell.

The paladin opposite him did not answer. Looking at the other's silence and indifferent expression, White even had a strange feeling, as if the emotionless dead person was not himself, but the other.

The undead lowered its sword tip, adopting a standard Fool's Strike defensive stance, while its battered left hand quietly reached behind it and grasped a magic storage stone.

The storage stone contains "Phantom Web," which, if it can delay the paladin for even a moment, allows the undead to use its swordsmanship style's ultimate move, "Phantom Blade," to at least severely injure the opponent. Then, it can release the last two "collectibles" left in its armor to hold off this monstrous paladin, allowing it to escape.

In a flash, White crushed the magic storage stone, and a warm, foul-smelling purple spiderweb instantly appeared out of thin air, slamming down; almost simultaneously, the green rapier in his hand floated like a ghost toward the paladin's face. However, the real killing move was hidden beneath the rapier—the rapier on the surface was merely an illusion.

Phantom Blade is one of the signature moves of the Shadow Hands swordsmanship. It can create a phantom of the weapon when attacking, thus catching the opponent off guard.

"Sizzle!" In the flash of fire, Trier's face was seen in a fleeting moment.

In that vision where energy points and lines could be seen, he saw through the undead's techniques.

The next instant, he suddenly pushed off the ground and twisted his waist, his longsword suddenly clashing. Amidst the crisp sound of weapons clashing, the white flames of the sword light instantly changed direction, and the scorching sparks suddenly lashed towards the undead's chest—a deflection slash with the effect of the Holy Slash!

The sword flashed!

The undead couldn't dodge in time, and the cold blade instantly sliced ​​through the metal plate armor. With the help of magic, Trier's immense force slammed the undead into the building on the left side of the road like a baseball.

Before the dust could rise, it was washed away by the rain, and the paladin squeezed into the opening that White had created without hesitation.

The sound of the torrential rain outside was immediately cut off as the boots stepped over the dried bloodstains.

Trier casually beheaded a wandering zombie in the room, then carefully examined the room in front of him.

The room was dimly lit, with several tables scattered haphazardly in the dark space. The outlines of surgical instruments could be vaguely seen on the tables. Under the corners of the tables, dried bloodstains were being covered by rainwater seeping in from the gap.

Looking at the scene before him, Trier suddenly felt a little disoriented—this seemed to be the place where the original owner was ambushed by ghouls and then seriously injured.

The hazy and indistinct memories were like a dream veiled in mystery. He instinctively looked toward the place where he had been ambushed—amidst the messy pile of bandages, the smooth-talking White was right where he had stood in the past.

The undead looked around like a headless fly, the blood-stained bandages at its feet piled up into a small mountain, the dried bloodstains almost becoming abstract reddish-brown lines.

White's plate armor had been breached—the heavy armor had ultimately saved its life. A rotting human head, with eerie blue flames burning in its eye sockets, emerged from the crack in the plate armor, like some kind of strange, proliferating tissue.

Trier casually twirled his sword, the exhilarating battle against the high-ranking undead having greatly benefited him. Since his transmigration, most of his opponents had been mindless low-ranking undead, and the battles often ended in the blink of an eye. But the battle with White was different; he experienced a kind of unbridled pleasure in melee combat.

"It's still more fun to fight with cold weapons," Trier thought to himself.

If what he gained after upgrading the panel was only martial arts comprehension, then the intense exchange just now greatly transformed that comprehension into actual martial arts skill.

It was a rather strange feeling. Trier had a premonition that, according to the game, his current martial arts level was enough to go toe-to-toe with a level 13 warrior. Moreover, higher martial arts were no longer as mysterious to him as they used to be. He felt that as time went on, his martial arts ability could reach some incredible level.

Trier glanced at the panel. The buff spells provided by Olius could last for a long time, while the anti-death barrier, energy absorption, and energy resistance that Noi had set up in advance that morning only had ten minutes left.

"I heard the sound of a sword being swung," whispered a spine-bound spirit monster. "I heard him..."

White flung his weapon to his side like a startled chicken, and two spine-bound spirits squeezed out from the cracks in his plate armor.

A translucent blue fluorescence slowly appeared on both sides of the spine-bound spirits, and they slowly moved towards Trier.

The next instant, the hum of the blade vanished, and the two spine-bound spirits were instantly cleaved into pieces.

The boots, covered in mud and bone fragments, slammed down on the rotting head of the spirit-binding creature, while the tip of the sword gleamed with a chilling aura.

“The resurrection time for the bound spirit is about three minutes,” Trier whispered, his dry, emotionless voice echoing heavily in the room. “White, I’m here.”

The undead, utterly blind in the darkness, raised its head. It could see nothing, only hear echoing sounds and the ever-approaching, heavy footsteps. Driven by its instinct for self-preservation, it retreated until...

"Bang." It crashed into the wall.

There is no way to retreat.

The dead are not troubled by emotions, but their reason is frantically warning them. They do not feel their heart racing, their mouths dry, their vision narrowing, or their heads spinning. All they can understand is the conclusion told to them by the cold, burning fire of their souls—they cannot escape.

Upon realizing this, White felt an inexplicable sense of peace. He suddenly recalled a very, very distant past, on a rainy day like today, when his father sat by the warm fireplace and told him a wise saying: "Only fear can make one brave. Bravery is not a virtue or an emotion, but the composure that comes from knowledge."

Whether as a bard or enslaved by Losewey as a ghost, it knew it lacked an indomitable spirit, and now it had no choice.

"Die!" White screamed, thrusting forward without hesitation, knowing that he was stabbing the very fear branded into his own soul and reason rather than the paladin. But at this moment, he felt that his thrust had reached a new level.

—The sound of a rapier cutting through the air came in an instant. Trier gently sidestepped it, and his longsword cut the ligament of the undead's left leg. Then it suddenly swept across the undead's fingers and finally cut hard into the weak part of the rapier.

The rapier, which was gleaming with a faint dark green fluorescence, suddenly shattered, and the hilt spun and fell to the ground.

Trier seized the opportunity to step forward and shattered the undead's mask with a single sword strike. After the mask shattered, the undead's tongue shot out like an arrow, but Trier had anticipated this. He suddenly pushed off the ground and turned around, dodging the attack while simultaneously severing the tongue.

"Thud!" The boot slammed down on the thick, long purple tongue. Trier glanced at his feet—it was the Tongue of the Demon Soul Corpse.

At this moment, the high-ranking undead was utterly desperate. It felt that its every move was exactly as the paladin had predicted. It even felt that the paladin had infiltrated its soul fire, controlling its actions and thoughts. This feeling of being completely penetrated from soul to body made it involuntarily recall its master, the lich Losevie.

In the boundless darkness, the paladin's voice seemed to come from near and far: "White, you are a true Frankenstein's monster. Your eyeballs have probably been replaced with the Eyes of the Boda Corpse, and your tongue has been changed to the Tongue of the Demon Soul Corpse. If I'm not mistaken, your dark red skin is probably the skin of the Soul Reaper, and as for your teeth, they are undoubtedly vampire teeth."

"Considering that the blood of the frost giant mentioned in fairy tales fills your veins, perhaps the bored Lorsewe really did replace all the blood in your body with the blood of the frost giant."

"Also, what replaced your spine was probably a secondary derivative of some ancient evil creature. It can temporarily grant you the power of immortality. Have you heard the murmurs and whispers of those things?"

The paladin's voice grew increasingly ethereal, as if it were about to ring in its ears at any moment.

Boom! Another deafening thunderclap rang out!

The sound of the rain hitting the ground suddenly grew louder, and the cold, fresh smell of blood and earth, along with the howling wind, rushed into the house.

“I hear Trill’s voice, it seems to be in this room.” Noy’s gentle voice came from the crack. “I’ll cast a Light spell first.”

Soft, warm light, like fireflies, appeared on Noe's fingertips, instantly brightening the dark room.

White regained its sight and immediately scanned the paladin's location, but found nothing.

“Behind you.” The next moment, Trier’s sinister voice suddenly rang in my ears.

The soul fire of the undead suddenly trembled!

Chapter 61 Slaughter

Suddenly, the sword blade, stained with blazing white holy flames, pierced the undead's back like a harpoon.

Trier twisted violently, and a series of muffled sounds of burning and exploding flesh echoed within the undead's plate armor. The next instant, with a "crack," the cold blade suddenly pierced through the undead's chest, and flesh and tissue stained with holy flames mixed with broken metal fragments, shooting violently to the ground like fireworks exploding in an instant.

Through the gaping hole, Harlan and Noy's faces flashed by.

At this moment, Harlan's hand was still on the hilt of his sword, his face full of astonishment at suddenly encountering an enemy; while Noe's bright crimson eyes were looking over here—her gaze pierced through the bloody, gaping hole, meeting Trier's eyes.

"Beware of bugs!" Noi warned succinctly.

Before the words were finished, a tuft of fine, fleshy hair suddenly emerged from the undead's massive wound. Like the pale hand of a drowning person, it tightly wrapped around the protruding blade. Holy flames instantly ignited the fleshy tentacles, and a sharp, infantile scream exploded in Trier's ears.

Trier slammed his foot into the ground and drew his sword, but a tremendous force immediately surged through the blade, traveling up his spine like lightning and into the ground. In a flash, the floor beneath his feet caved in and cracked!

"It's an ancient evil entity that replaced the spine of the undead!" he thought.

In a flash, the paladin suddenly bent down and kicked the high-ranking undead hard in the back of the knee.

"Crack!"

With a crisp cracking sound, the undead hurtled forward at high speed like a cannonball. The next moment, its body abruptly stopped, and three heavy iron balls swung like comets, slamming into the undead's face.

Blood mist filled the sky, and the damaged mask, along with flesh and skull, exploded into countless fragments.

Amidst the stench of decay, Trier finally saw the fleshy tentacles that were binding his longsword.

It was a long, thin, black, segmented worm that, like a centipede, was tightly wrapped around the undead's decaying spine. The spine was covered with fine, wriggling fleshy tentacles that greedily burrowed into the undead's shriveled flesh like tree roots. Several of these roots were wrapped around the paladin's longsword.

"Die!" Without hesitation, Trier unleashed the final Holy Slash of the day. He thrust the sword forward with the pull of the fleshy tentacles, and the longsword struck the evil creature's mouth with pinpoint accuracy.

The baby-like shrill scream abruptly stopped, and a large, blinding spot of light suddenly burst out!

[xp+9000!]

Trier breathed a sigh of relief; finally, it was all over.

Next, all that's needed is to systematically clear out the uncontrolled undead, and the whole affair will come to a complete end—even if there is a so-called second listener, with all the cultists in the Silent Whisper Society who could control the undead dead, he can no longer stir up trouble.

The undead's mangled body, still lodged in the longsword, fell straight to the ground, its blood-stained bandages billowing high in the dust.

"Watch out, it can come back to life!" Harlan only realized this at this moment. He took a step back as if he had been electrocuted, and then looked around warily.

After a while, the dust settled.

Only the centipede-like evil creature continued to twitch instinctively. Noi grabbed the upper part of the evil creature and slammed it to the ground. Then he stomped on it hard, his boot landing on the top of the evil creature. The scarlet blood suddenly burst like a punctured water balloon.

"boom!"

“This time it’s completely dead,” Trier said casually.

He walked to the corpse, grasped the hilt of the sword stuck in the undead's spine, and gently applied force. However, the stiff, lifeless remains of the evil entity tightly gripped the sword. He tried twice, but the undead's tattered corpse became even more fragmented under the blade's cutting.

However, amidst the bloody scene reminiscent of a slaughterhouse, the longsword remained stubbornly stuck in the corpse.

Trier looked up and gave an awkward smile: "Can you help me?"

“It really didn’t come back to life! We actually did it!” Harlan’s voice was filled with barely concealed excitement, his remaining eye fixed intently on the corpse on the ground. “By the Radiance, this is a feat worthy of a bard’s song, Trier, you truly…”

Harlan's voice trailed off as he suddenly noticed the smile on the paladin's face vanish.

Has that undead been resurrected?!

Harlan, with a secret sense of dread, followed Trier's gaze and looked behind him.

Under the dim, pale yellow light of the Light spell, a few drops of dazzling scarlet blood mixed with rainwater slowly dripped down Sister Noy's smooth forehead, then bounced onto her plate armor and splashed onto her pure white priest's robe.

The priest's wet robes were stained with a layer of bloody water.