Chapter 60

Huo Ge thought a lot.

However, since the incident has already occurred, regardless of the reason, the most important thing now is to find the source of these undead and then resolve it.

The birth of undead requires certain conditions.

If they arise naturally, they need a decadent environment filled with dark elements, such as the vast Wailing Gray Land, which is the womb that breeds endless undead.

Living beings that die on that land, as time passes, will give rise to soulfire and crawl back up from the ground.

The Dark Scale Tribe's vicinity obviously lacks such an environment, so it is highly likely that the only other possibility is dark magic capable of summoning and resurrecting the undead.

"Necromancer, or skeleton spellcaster? Lich?" Huo Ge narrowed his eyes.

Necromancers are living practitioners who cultivate dark arts, while skeleton spellcasters are a relatively rare race among the undead, born with extremely high intelligence.

Undead are generally born from the corpses of spellcasters.

Liches are similar to skeleton spellcasters, but are often much stronger.

"Whether necromancer, skeleton spellcaster, or lich, we cannot let these grimy fellows so brazenly summon undead near the tribe."

Although the undead we just killed were weak, most still below First Rank, their numbers were enormous; by late night, even Second and Third Rank Dark Scale Warriors felt unusually fatigued.

Once a larger scale forms, we will temporarily halt the mission to open new hunting grounds, return first, and report this news to the chieftain.

The monster warriors resting on the ground heard Huo Ge's leader's cold shout, immediately sprang to their feet, grabbed their weapons, and began descending the mountain.

In a hidden corner unnoticed by Huo Ge, a phantom eyeball gazed wistfully at their retreating backs.

It is precisely the First Rank spell "Mage's Eye."

It is an attribute-less spell that can be considered one of the essential spells for spellcasters. It consumes little mana, has a large scouting range, and also possesses some concealment ability, making it quite practical.

Inside an unnamed dark cave several miles away, a figure in gray robes sat cross-legged.

In the darkness behind the gray-robed figure, two clusters of blue flames flickered strangely, suspended in midair.

But if one looks closely, one can see that these are not flames at all, but the enormous soulfire eyes of a giant skeleton serpent!!

The skeleton serpent coiled silently behind the gray-robed figure, protecting its master's safety.

After a long while, the gray-robed figure stirred, its jade-like jaw opening and closing, and it spoke regretfully in the undead tongue: "Been discovered."

Marei gained consciousness from a spellcaster's desiccated bone, and it has been several decades since then.

Over two years ago, the Undead Overlord's subordinate Great Lich Aleksei gathered a group of high-ranking undead and issued them the command to collect corpses and souls.

However, high-ranking undead are old timers who have lived for who-knows-how-many years, so it is naturally impossible for them to personally go out and collect corpses and souls.

Thus the task naturally fell to lower ranks.

Marei is merely an inconspicuous skeleton spellcaster under a high-ranking Black Knight.

The Black Knight's mighty or favored subordinates had already picked out their preferred areas first.

By the time it was Marei's turn, all the areas that were easy to obtain large numbers of corpses and souls and relatively safe had already been divided up.

Yet the task assigned by the Black Knight could not be left undone.

Therefore, Marei gritted its teeth, spent considerable time crossing the barrier of the Wailing Gray Land—the Wailing Mountain Range—and then sneaked around to the other side of Fish Spirit Marsh, preparing to quietly collect corpses and souls in this remote place lacking many powerful living beings.

Although this place is remote and lacks many powerful living beings, Marei's actions remained extremely cautious.

Undead are inherently disliked; most beings that encounter them, if capable, do not mind eliminating them as well.

During the day, Marei lets its subordinate skeletons slumber underground; at night, it revives them to begin hunting living beings.

While collecting the souls and corpses of the living, it also senses everywhere where underground bones are plentiful, then goes there and uses the Skeleton Resurrection Technique to turn them into skeleton soldiers, bolstering its forces.

To this day, this covert behavior has persisted for two years.

Marei's skeleton army under its command keeps growing in number, and the scope and area it covers keep expanding.

It knows that the matter of the skeleton army cannot be concealed forever and will eventually be exposed, but if it can be delayed, that is naturally best.

"That gnoll appears to have broken through to Fourth Rank, and it's leading a mixed unit of gnolls and trolls—a multi-species monster force banding together, somewhat like the Evil Dragon Lords of the Emerald Dream." Could it be that there is an Evil Dragon Lord nearby?

Upon thinking this, Marei was startled, its soulfire jumping violently, clearly extremely agitated.

It calmed down; the more it thought, the more it felt its guess was likely true.

Black-furred gnolls, blue-furred gnolls, and swamp trolls—under normal circumstances, these three monster species could never coexist.

Only dragons possess such absolute domineering charisma!

"Should we leave here?" Marei felt torn; the task assigned by the superior is less than half done, and if it chooses to leave now, it cannot bring all these weak skeleton soldiers along, only the elite.

Starting over elsewhere would also require scouting the situation and then summoning skeletons, which is extremely time- and energy-consuming.

Moreover, safety cannot be absolutely guaranteed.

First, let's gauge the strength and numbers of this Evil Dragon Lord, and the strength of its monster forces, then decide.

Either way involves risk, so we cannot lightly abandon this skeleton army.

As a hostile force to the Emerald Dream, a member of the Wailing Gray Land, Marei still has a rough understanding of the organization of this Evil Dragon force.

Besides the key area nodes guarded by powerful dragons and high-ranking retinues, the vast expanse of the Dream force consists mostly of immature dragon lords.

From juvenile to adolescent growth stages, varying.

"If it is an adolescent-growth-stage or stronger Evil Dragon Lord, I will leave immediately!" Marei thought to itself.

If it is merely a juvenile-stage Evil Dragon Lord, Marei would not be overly fearful.

Dragons are long-lived species; their growth speed is hard to accelerate.

Even a dragon in its twenties, the strongest would be only Fifth Rank.

Marei is also Fifth Rank; although it would surely lose in a one-on-one against a same-rank dragon, as a skeleton spellcaster, who would duel a dragon head-on? Naturally, it hides in the rear, commanding the undead army, then launches a sneak attack.

And if it is an even younger juvenile dragon, then "bone dragon," Marei feels a certain longing.

This is a powerful undead species with potential to reach high rank, and among all undead races it belongs to the foremost tier.

Emerald Academy.

Black Dragon Fort.

A young black dragon lay curled up, head to tail, in its comfortable nest.

The black dragon's length from head to tail reached eight and a half meters.

Beneath the thick scales of its sturdy limbs, powerful muscles rippled, and at the brow, the pair of forward-curving horns had begun to take shape.

The whole dragon looked more ferocious and dreadful than before.

The giant dragon's accurate sense of time instinctively reminded Lai Ang.

Lai Ang slowly opened his dragon eyes, surveying the luxurious, spacious dragon nest, feeling a touch of nostalgia, and murmured softly,

"The time has come."

Today, its dragon age reached eleven years, entering the growth stage of a juvenile dragon.

From now on, it could no longer eat free, tasty, nutritious monster meat.

Nor was there any dragon fortress left where it could freely gather elemental power.

The black dragon slightly lifted its head, its dragon eyes showing a hint of sorrow.

It was nothing more than sorrow.

The domineering power flowing within its dragon body, along with the assurance of several trump cards, gave Lai Ang full confidence.

Tomorrow at noon, it will go live, and then there will be a burst of updates.

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(End of chapter)