Chapter 428 - Crown
Black smoke suddenly rushed over, emitting a bone-chilling aura. When they sensed that aura, everyone froze. A thin and bony black silhouette came out of the thick black mist.
‘Shit…’
When they saw that scene, they all started sweating, ‘The Lich isn’t dead yet!’
Lin Yun secretly shook his head, he only wanted to try summoning the Lich, but he hadn’t expected that the others would react like that. When he severed the connection, the Undead Horseman and the Lich’s silhouette gradually turned blurry, they transformed into a black mist once again and entered the Book of Death. Lin Yun immediately noticed the two new designs on the Book of Death, the Undead Horseman and the Lich.
After going through that arduous battle, everyone, except Lin Yun, was suffering from mana exhaustion, their fighting power had dropped and they looked exhausted. Some of them even had some minor injuries. They would be in great danger if they met another Lich.
“This undead world is far more dangerous than we imagined. Moreover, there are definitely numerous Higher Undeads. The Lich might have been attracted by the large amount of death energy, staying here is dangerous, we should keep going…” Lin Yun called out to the others and they got on the move.
They had been in this place for less than a day and Lin Yun experienced how dangerous that place was. Although it wasn’t comparable to the 8th Floor’s magic beast world, they still encountered two Higher Undead in a day, which was a bit too much for him.
He was already certain that the people Baiers brought with him back then had most likely died in this place and had turned into undeads. Lagulin and Barton were only two among them, there might be many more Higher Undeads slumbering in some corners of this undead world.
Lin Yun couldn’t help worrying…
Was there a Heaven Rank powerhouse among the subordinates Baiers brought back then? If there was, then the undead formed after that subordinate’s death wasn’t something they could handle.
On the way, Lin Yun’s Magic Array was revolving at maximum capacity.
After two hours of going deeper, Lin Yun clearly noticed the huge changes in the surroundings. A thick black fog was slowly flowing in the surroundings alongside a bone-chilling cold aura, and broken bones could be seen everywhere.
Moreover, the power of the undeads they encountered had greatly increased. When they first came to the undead world, half an hour could pass without them meeting a Bone Devil, but now, one would appear every few minutes.
Fortunately, it was only Bone Devils, they couldn’t pose a threat to Lin Yun’s group. And thankfully, no Higher Undead appeared in the past two hours.
Several wind spells flew and landed on a Bone Devil. At this moment, Weiss discovered something in his peripheral vision, and when he looked at it, his eyes widened from shock.
“Heavens… Look at this! What is that…” Weiss pointed in a direction and exclaimed.
“That’s…”
Lin Yun couldn’t help frowning, he followed Weiss’ finger, but could only see a white outline due to the black mist. It looked like a hundred meters tall hill, but after observing it for a bit, Lin Yun’s expression changed. That wasn’t a hill, rather, it was a pile of bones!
This scene was truly shocking…
How many bones were needed to make a hundred meters tall hill?
Moreover, this could never be formed naturally.
Thus…
They all looked at each other, seemingly recalling something as happy expressions started appearing on their faces.
“Rumble…”
More wind spells landed on that Bone Devil, and the latter let out a shout before its bones scattered on the ground, his Soul Fire extinguished. The Undead Essence flew out of its bones and entered the hill of bones.
“If there is no surprise, this should be the place we are looking for…” Delson looked in the distance, “Baiers’ body should be buried here, and the crown should also be there.”
“Wait…”
Just as they prepared to move, a disharmonious voice echoed.
“Wait? Wait for what…” Delson instantly answered, his expression turning heavy. Getting that crown wasn’t just the way to leave this place, only with it could they get that sky-high reward.
After saying that, Delson was startled as he recognized that voice, it was the young mage. Thus Delson paled, he turned his head and threw an apologetic look at Lin Yun, “High Mage Merlin, this… You…”
Delson wanted to ask what the young mage had in mind, but his words were stuck in his throat. He then understood what Lin Yun meant by “wait”.
He noticed a dark sea, continuously echoing with the sound of Skeleton Warriors digging themselves out of the ground. There were so many of them digging out of the ground that the group couldn’t figure out their numbers.
“Heavens, how could there be so many undeads…” Delson held his breath as he fearfully looked ahead of him. Just on momentum alone, he could sense that this undead sea was more frightening than the one they encountered before.
“There is at least a few ten thousands…” Watching the Skeleton Warriors climbing out one by one made them all feel numb. Delson could hardly let out a sound.
“Let’s put the matter of the crown aside for now, we can talk about it after we deal with these undeads…”Lin Yun’s expression turned heavy. He looked at the undead sea in the distance and could see countless Soul Fires, as well as the black aura twisting around these skeletons’ bones, protecting them from the effect of Undead Predator.
After saying those few words, Lin Yun got on the move, he gently waved the Doom Staff in his hand and immediately emitted rich fire elemental fluctuations all over the place. Then, flames rained onto the undead army, spreading within a hundred meters, causing a few dozens Skeleton Warriors’ Soul Fires to extinguish.
Skeleton Warriors were the lowest undead lifeforms, their strength would usually hover between the Mage realm and the Great Mage realm, but there was a lot of them, thus Lin Yun just kept casting spells with large area of effect, successfully dealing with large groups of Skeleton Warriors one after the other.
The rest of the team also joined up the Skeleton Warrior carnage, flames soared one after the other, killing an innumerable amount of Skeleton Warriors.
But none of them discovered that crack in the pitch-black ground.
Suddenly, a formidable aura surged from that crack, and with a deafening rumble, the entire ground shook as the crack expanded, revealing a white finger.
‘Shit, what kind of monster is that…” Lin Yun managed to look over in time to see that skeletal finger coming out of the ground. It wouldn’t have mattered if it had been a normal skeletal finger, but that finger was a bit too frightening, it was a big as a waist, and the part that came out of the ground was already a few meters long.
As seconds passed, the finger was followed by a skeletal arm a dozen meters long. It suddenly slammed on the ground and caused the crack to expand, while also killing countless Skeleton Warriors and sending a few down the crack.
Beads of sweat started falling down Lin Yun’s forehead, the fluctuations emitted by that arm could only be described as frightening, giving him a bad feeling. He didn’t doubt that this arm could kill an Archmage or a Sword Saint.
What kind of existence was that?
Not only did Lin Yun stop casting, the others also stopped to look at the huge arm, clearly shaken.
When that arm appeared, the Skeleton Warriors all started fleeing in disarray, no longer attacking Lin Yun.
After a few seconds, the crack shook and another arm came out. The two arms heavily slammed on the floor, scattering dust everywhere. A golden crown slowly came out of the ground, followed by the top of a huge skull. The Soul Fires in the eye sockets flickered with blue radiance as it motionlessly watched everyone.
‘What… What… What is that thing?’ They all remained silent for a few seconds, completely shaken, before Delson finally broke the silence, looking at the crown he said, “Is that… Baiers?”
Delson wouldn’t have made the connection to Baiers if what appeared was a huge and monstruous skeleton, but that crown…
It wasn’t just Delson, everyone was staring at that crown.
They knew that the crown was extraordinary. When Charles the Emperor shattered the Throne of Life and established the 3rd Dynasty, he had the famous Dark Iron Dwarves forge this crown.
That crown gradually became the inherited token used as the Emperor’s symbol. But that crown was lost after Emperor Zhantui’s era, no royal family member ever found it.
“How could this be… How could this be! Delson! Didn’t you say that Baiers was slumbering? Why did he come out? Are you trying to deceive us?” Dean was looking at Delson with a pale face. He was obviously resentful, Delson knew so many secrets but he hadn’t shared them with the other two mercenary groups…
Now that he saw that horrifying existence, suspected of being Baiers, crawl out of the ground, Dean could no longer suppress his anger and directly vented on Delson.
Just how powerful would a Heaven Rank Mage be after becoming an undead…
Peak 9th Rank Archmage Barton had turned into a level 37 Lich, this was an existence very hard to deal with for their group. Thus, how could they deal with a Heaven Rank powerhouse turned undead…
“Had I known it would be like this, our Heaven Enlightening Mercenary Group wouldn’t have accepted that damn mission…” Delson bitterly smiled. That descendant of the royal family in the Odin Kingdom had promised an extremely high reward to the Heaven Enlightening Mercenary Group, they just had to go to the Tulan Mountain Range to find the lost crown…