Chapter 1446
After a brief inspection of the skull, Leon Merlin couldn’t help but reveal a wry, amused smile.
The true form of the Lord of Nightmares was indeed colossal, but his skull was only the size of an infant’s, making him the only spectral entity with a physical skeleton.
This occipital bone fragment was from the Lord of Nightmares—easily overlooked among his remains.
The brow bone held the greatest power, followed by the crown’s central bone, while the occipital bone fragment was the weakest.
Lilith, that schemer, tried to play tricks by offering the fragment with the least power...
But Leon Merlin only smiled, because this occipital fragment was the best choice as the Nightmare Realm Key, allowing access through the back door. If you used the brow bone, you’d have to take the front entrance, which was far more perilous—and Leon had no confidence in surviving whatever waited beyond that threshold...
But if you slip in through the back, at least there’s a chance. Dangerous, sure—but not entirely hopeless. Leon mused, 'No one ever complained about a little less danger.'
Agalon had to be rescued. While he surely wouldn’t perish within the Realm of Nightmares, Dean Gandalf and the other two deans of Astral Academy weren’t so lucky. If their luck ran out and enough time passed, they might truly perish within that realm.
And to set up the Hexagram Formation, all six Saint Alchemists needed to act together. One way or another, the Realm of Nightmares was unavoidable. But adequate preparation was essential—after all, no one ever complained about a little less danger.
After completing the transaction, Leon Merlin left the Undead Auction House with his goods. He had originally planned to continue trading with Lilith, even considering asking her to capture one of the Thirteen Progenitors. But on second thought, he realized Lilith would never agree to such a deal.
Instigating a war directly could never be part of any transaction; the cost would inevitably outweigh the gains. Most importantly, Lilith seemed unaware that the Lord of Nightmares' skull was the key to escaping the Realm of Nightmares.
She still believed he needed the Lord of Nightmares' skull and soul fragments to enter the Realm of Nightmares. That meant any further deals were off the table—even trying to trade information with Lilith was out of the question.
If every step was carried out in front of her, it would be tantamount to revealing the method of escaping the Realm of Nightmares. In truth, Lilith might not know, but the mastermind known as the Lord of Greed would surely figure it out.
The correct way to escape the Realm of Nightmares—the Nightmare Realm Key—was simply too valuable. More importantly, Leon suspected that the Lord of Greed, the shadowy figure who had never shown his face and whose true identity remained unknown, was likely the reincarnation of some ancient deity or demon. But he was certain it wasn't the Lord of Nightmares, nor anyone who bore a grudge against him.
Most likely, the Lord of Greed belonged to a rival faction, but had never actually fought in person. That would explain why he treated the Lord of Nightmares' skull and soul fragments as mere bargaining chips.
This so-called Lord of Greed seemed to be all about business deals, but when a truly massive and terrifying profit was on the line, the odds of him playing fair dropped to zero. The name alone said it all...
Once he left the Undead Auction, Leon wandered aimlessly at first, using at least twenty different techniques to shake off surveillance and tailing. Then he found a spot, dug a hole, and used a spatial gate to jump away.
He entered a natural demi-plane and laid out all the fragments he'd acquired.
Staring at the pile of fragments before him, Leon picked up two pieces. A faint glow of light magic appeared in his hand, and the broken edges fused seamlessly—just as if they'd never been shattered.
Leon carefully arranged the fragments, and with a touch of light magic, they were fully restored. In the end, they formed a circular crystal tablet, its surface etched with countless strange yet simple runes. Each rune on its own was basic, but combined on this crystal tablet, the aura they emitted contained more information than a hundred thousand rule runes.
Leon only stared at it for a few seconds before his head began to ache. There was simply too much recorded on it—so much chaotic information that he couldn’t sort it out in a short time.
Reassembling the shattered tablet was just that easy. All it took was a spark of light magic as the primer. Unfortunately, in the Undead Plane, a creature capable of wielding light magic and possessing two connected fragments simply didn’t exist...
No one knew what this crystal tablet truly signified...
As the crystal tablet was restored, Leon’s Book of Death automatically appeared. The chains on its cover snapped apart, and the pages fluttered open to a fresh blank sheet. The crystal tablet hovered above the Book of Death, slowly merging into that new, empty page.
In an instant, a torrent of information flooded into Leon’s mind.
The Chapter of Origins—an artifact component infused with the power of light!
Darkness is the beginning of all things; the world itself was born from darkness, yet the origin of life comes from light.
The source of the Undead Plane is darkness, making it a paradise for the dead. All undead creatures gather here—this is a forbidden land where the power of light cannot exist.
Other planes, those infused with the power of light, gradually evolve life—living, breathing beings.
The Chapter of Origins not only aids in comprehending the rules of light, but also contains the origin of life itself—buried within that vast sea of information lies the starting point of existence.
Beyond the light magic inherent in the Chapter of Origins, it was essentially an encyclopedia of life’s beginnings...
The sheer volume of information rivaled the ten thousand and eighty thousand runes of truth, but it was even more complex and difficult to decipher. Much of it was interconnected—without understanding one part, the rest remained a mystery.
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Leon understood instantly. When he’d obtained a fragment before, he’d suspected it was one of the Book of Death’s artifact components—the Chapter of Origins. Legend had it this was the least useful of all, but he hadn’t expected it to be an encyclopedia. In truth, it might be the most powerful—not for destruction or combat, but for the genesis of life itself.
To a mage, this thing was downright unreasonable. Even a demi-plane could give birth to life. Of course, in most mages’ demi-planes, the only life that emerged—aside from elemental gods and demons—were elemental beings.
But elemental beings count as life, and so do elemental gods and demons. If Leon could unravel the secrets of life’s origin recorded in the Chapter of Origins, he could nurture proper life within his demi-plane. Elemental gods and demons would grow stronger—that much was certain. At the very least, he wouldn’t be like other mages, whose elemental gods and demons were little more than glorified caretakers, their usefulness fading as their power grew.
The natural demi-plane had already evolved to the brink of becoming a true world. It had nearly everything a real world should—a matter of refinement, not of absence.
Yet even now, no true life had emerged in the natural demi-plane—no intelligent life, at least. The little bugs and such that appeared were of little consequence, and might not even have been born from the plane itself.
Not even an elemental god or demon had been nurtured yet—in fact, the process hadn’t even begun. There wasn’t a shadow of one to be seen. Who knew when the first would finally appear?
Maybe it was because the natural demi-plane was simply too powerful, evolving too quickly, that the corresponding elemental gods and demons still had a stable environment. The stronger the demi-plane, the stronger the elemental gods and demons it could nurture.
But no true life had emerged—not even a pair of native elemental beings. Leon couldn’t help but feel impatient.
Even if it was just a goblin, that would do. Sure, they were filthy, stupid, and evil, with pitifully low intelligence, but at least they counted as intelligent life.
At this stage of the natural demi-plane’s evolution, the key to becoming a true world was the birth of life—especially intelligent life.
But Leon had no clue where to start. After becoming a Saint Alchemist, he had gained a bit of creative power—enough to conjure things from the void. But at best, he could create a blade of grass, and it couldn’t reproduce. In fact, every Saint Alchemist in Northend was about the same; one might make a blade of grass, another a slightly bigger blade, but that was it...
Achieving sainthood was just the beginning of a new stage—and a difficult one at that. Creative power was like transcendent force of the celestial rank, but even harder to grasp. It was more akin to the power to alter the rules themselves.
Relying on the power of a Saint Alchemist to speed up the birth of life in a world was pure nonsense. But now, Leon finally had a bit of hope. With this encyclopedia of life’s origin, if he still couldn’t accelerate the process, then the Chapter of Origins was wasted on him...
But now wasn’t the time to study the Chapter of Origins. After a quick glance, Leon shut the Book of Death. He had the Chapter of Origins in hand. Now he had to figure out how to capture a living Vampire Progenitor—and that was the real headache.
Getting into the Realm of Nightmares wasn’t the hard part—getting out was. And even if he managed to catch a Vampire Progenitor, he couldn’t bring them into the Realm of Nightmares with him. He’d have to leave them in a specific place outside, which made things tricky.
After racking his brain to no avail, Leon left the demi-plane, slinging the blood-red Death Scythe over his shoulder as he made his way toward the domain of the dark beings in the Undead Plane.
The Undead Plane was vast—by some estimates, hundreds of times larger than Northend, and still expanding. If you divided all the beings of every plane into two categories, there were the living and the dead.
Living creatures were scattered across the endless planes, while ninety-nine percent of undead called the Undead Plane home. Just thinking about those numbers made it clear—the Undead Plane couldn’t possibly be small. If every living being from the infinite planes were crammed into Northend, the place would have burst at the seams ages ago.
This time, the collision between the Undead Plane and the Leviathan Plane happened right in undead territory—but the domain of the dark beings wasn’t far off, only thirty or forty thousand kilometers away. In the context of the Undead Plane, that wasn’t much distance at all.
A skeleton king carrying a blood-red Death Scythe was pretty conspicuous, even in the Undead Plane. Along the way, Leon took out a few dim-witted undead, then a handful of dark beings, devouring their soul fire. Soon enough, he understood the place as well as any native.
At the very least, he learned that this black plain was called the Crimean Wasteland—translated, it meant 'land tainted by dark blood.' For thousands of kilometers, it served as a buffer zone between undead and dark beings—a battlefield shared by both.
Overall, the dark beings were only a fraction of the undead’s numbers, but individually, they were stronger—at least the lower-ranked ones were. That was what let them hold their ground here.
Devouring the soul fire of several celestial-rank undead hadn’t added much to his tally of death marks, but he’d picked up plenty of information.
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Once he crossed the land tainted by dark blood and traveled another three thousand kilometers to the side, he reached the domain of a Vampire Lord—a level forty-five Vampire Lord, and a second-generation vampire at that. Through this lord, finding a slightly weaker Vampire Progenitor would be much easier.
After several days of travel, Leon arrived in the Vampire Lord’s territory. He’d barely set foot there when a swarm of gargoyles filled the sky, mixed with countless bloodthirsty bats. On the ground, hordes of dark beasts appeared as well.
A dense swarm of gargoyles and bloodthirsty bats descended at breakneck speed, showing not a hint of fear at the sight of Leon. Screeching, they became a black torrent, rushing straight down.
Leon stretched out his skeletal claws and scratched his own skull, sending up a shower of sparks. His jaw rattled, and he let out a chilling laugh.
He’d considered summoning an undead army with his Skeleton King powers to attack, but then thought better of it. If the Vampire Lord got spooked and fled—or didn’t even show up—and things got too loud, it would only complicate matters. Better to go it alone.
Too bad, though—he’d barely arrived and they’d already sent cannon fodder to die...
Leon soared into the air, gripping the Death Scythe in his right hand. A torrent of death energy poured into the weapon, and the skull on its blade lit up. With a swing, a gray crescent blade shot out.
The moment the gray crescent blade flew out, it collided wildly, growing to over a kilometer long in the blink of an eye. And it didn’t just glide smoothly—it spun like a crazed saw blade, a flying meat grinder...
That seemingly ordinary gray crescent—now a meat grinder—plowed into the black torrent of gargoyles and bats. Even the sound seemed to vanish; countless bodies exploded, shredded into fragments, and as the blade passed, there was no blood, no screams. Their remains were eroded to gray ash by death energy, raining down from the sky.
For a moment, every sound within several kilometers was swallowed by death energy. The silence was absolute as the ash drifted down. A lone skeleton, clutching a blood-red Death Scythe, stood on the black earth, watching the gray rain fall.
Several kilometers away, the frenzied dark beast horde seemed shaken. The lead beasts stopped dead and turned to flee, while the rear still charged madly. Within seconds, chaos reigned—hundreds were trampled and torn apart in the confusion.
In the sky, the black cloud of gargoyles and bats was missing a massive chunk, and the survivors fled in terror.
Leon casually swung the Death Scythe a few more times, sending out a dozen gray crescent blades—each a giant meat grinder, shredding most of the sky’s gargoyle and bat swarms, and at least half the dark beasts on the ground.
The soul fire in Leon’s eye sockets flickered gently. He suddenly thought that playing the Skeleton King wasn’t so bad—like a celestial-rank Sword Saint, but with the Death Scythe’s power, maybe even stronger than most Sword Saints at his level.
Two waves of dark creature armies, both fierce, were mostly wiped out by Leon’s casual swings. He strolled after the survivors, dispatching a batch with each swing, and let the rest flee.
The dark gargoyles weren’t much trouble, but to Leon, the bats and dark beasts were the only color in a black-and-white world—their blood-red glow was visible from twenty or thirty kilometers away. Far too conspicuous.
Leon couldn’t help but think—the endless war between dark beings and undead probably had everything to do with the fact that, to some extent, dark beings were still alive. Maybe that was the biggest reason.
At least at the lower ranks, that was definitely the main reason. If a level-twenty-something dark beast wandered into undead territory, the mindless undead would tear it apart in an instant.
Just as Leon was pondering how to capture the Vampire Lord and then find a weaker Vampire Progenitor, he suddenly felt a claw grab his skull. Sharp talons scraped across bone, sending up a shower of sparks and a piercing screech, like metal grinding on metal.
Leon’s head dipped, and then something slammed into his spine, over and over. A shadow appeared behind him—he could only see two claws frantically raking his skull and spine, especially targeting his cervical vertebrae.