Chapter 1034: Devouring
Cloudspire Tower, Black Tower, and the Andalusia royal family—six of their members, all faces pale, none expected that the Dark Ancestral Spirit, who hadn’t managed to cast a spell until now, would turn out to be a master of summoning. At the very last moment, the Dark Ancestral Spirit unleashed its full power and called forth an army of undead.
Heron's face was ashen, his spellcasting slowed considerably, and a hint of despair flickered in his eyes...
It’s over. Ten thousand elite undead—even if they’re only around level twenty, we could deal with them given some time. But those coming up behind are even more terrifying, with more undead at level thirty chasing us, plus at least two or three hundred thousand ordinary undead.
If these undead just hold us here for ten minutes—no, three minutes—we can forget about breaking out of this encirclement. In the end, being dragged to death is the only outcome...
It’s not just Heron. Even Joy, the well-traveled elder, looked hopeless. According to Cloudspire Tower records, there are plenty of accounts of exploring the Undead Plane. For mages below the Heaven rank, being surrounded by this many undead, there’s only one ending—being dragged to death.
In the distance, the Odin Kingdom fighters, locked in fierce battle, had clearly noticed the situation here too, but they had no energy to intervene. They’d just blasted a Death Priest, only to be surrounded by a horde of silent undead. If they didn’t break out, they’d end up just like Andalusia’s side. No one was in the mood for mockery anymore.
Only Dilas glanced at Andalusia’s group, a trace of schadenfreude on his face, before quickly throwing himself back into the fight...
Everyone thought the people of Andalusia were doomed. In this situation, even a Heaven-rank mage would pay dearly to break out...
"Merlin, what do we do? This is bad..."
Anderson’s middle face gritted its teeth and cast spells, the left face scanned for escape routes, while the right face leaned in and whispered to Leon.
Leon’s brows furrowed slightly. He wasn’t worried about the low-level undead—he had the Bane of the Undead ability, and after slaughtering at least ten thousand undead on the way here, that power had already leveled up.
The Sage’s Chapter was ravenously devouring undead essence, and had already leveled up once. Now it could imprint fifth-level Limit Spells. As for Barton and Ragulin, both were shrouded in thick death aura, stuffed to the brim—once things wrapped up here and they finished digesting the soulfire they’d absorbed, they might even level up...
There were just too many undead above level twenty-five here. We need to break out, fast—this is getting tricky...
"Everyone, follow me! Full breakout! Hubert, charge!"
As soon as Leon finished speaking, Hubert grinned savagely, swinging Slaughter and rushing straight at the undead horde. Leon waved and cast a barrage of buffs on Hubert—shields were useless for him, just a burden instead.
Hubert roared as he plunged into the undead army, Leon cast Haste and chased after him, while Anderson, Reina, and the Patchwork Alchemy Golem followed close behind.
Joey, Heron, and the Skyborne Sword Saint were startled by Leon’s bold move. In this situation, charging straight into the undead horde to carve out a bloody path was basically suicide.
But staying put was a death sentence too. Joey and Heron exchanged a glance, then charged after Leon without hesitation. The Skyborne Sword Saint, face aghast, gritted his teeth and followed. Standing here to resist was just as hopeless—might as well risk it all...
Leon moved fast, shield up, keeping twenty meters behind Hubert. The Bane of the Undead now covered nearly forty meters—any undead under level twenty that entered that range would turn and flee, not daring to come close.
As Leon charged forward, the orc skeletons below level twenty suddenly froze, their soulfire flickering wildly as if confronted by something terrifying. Instantly, they turned and fled backward.
The low-level undead made up the bulk of the army. As they began to retreat, the undead horde behind tried to push forward, and chaos erupted among the ranks.
Undead above level twenty resisted the Bane of the Undead better—the higher the level, the stronger the resistance. For those above level twenty-five, the effect only made them hesitate for a moment before they resumed their assault.
But in the middle of this chaos and hesitation, for Hubert—who was leading the charge—these were fatal openings.
The undead were like scarecrows, just standing there waiting for Hubert to sweep through them. With Slaughter in hand, he swung like a giant fan—every strike cleared out undead in a range of over ten meters. Whether level twenty or thirty, it made no difference to someone with his monstrous strength.
Whenever undead above level twenty-five appeared, Leon, Anderson, Reina, and the Patchwork Golem would instantly cast spells to shred them, never slowing their charge.
Watching Leon’s group shoot into the undead army like arrows, unstoppable, and already four or five hundred meters in without losing momentum, was a shock.
Joey, Heron, and the Skyborne Sword Saint’s eyes nearly popped out...
Especially the Skyborne Sword Saint, who barely knew Leon—he was completely stunned by what he was seeing.
What the hell is going on? Damn it, why are those undead retreating on their own?
Are the low-level undead actually afraid? Their soulfire is flickering like crazy—my god, since when do undead get scared?
Wait, are they afraid of Leon Merlin?
After charging for several hundred meters, the Skyborne Sword Saint finally started to get it—he was stunned, totally confused, but one look at Joey and Heron, charging behind Leon with shields up, made it clear why they didn’t hesitate when Leon called for the charge...
Falling behind, the Skyborne Sword Saint quickly suppressed his wild thoughts. Facing two undead closing in, he didn’t dare waste time swinging his sword—he just barreled through with his battle energy armor.
They were almost out of the encirclement, but Leon’s brow furrowed—the undead’s auras were merging under the pressure of the Bane of the Undead, and its effect was shrinking fast.
Just a hundred meters left, but now the Bane of the Undead barely affected the orc skeletons under level twenty, and its range was constantly being squeezed.
Damn, orc undead are a pain—just like those priest ancestral spirits, they’re merging their auras to suppress the Bane of the Undead...
A quick calculation told Leon that in less than ten seconds, the Bane of the Undead would be completely useless against these undead.
"Hit them with everything! Break through!"
Leon shouted, transforming into his fire elemental avatar and unleashing a flaming rune from his mouth.
In a heartbeat, the void tore open—a rift to the Fire Elemental Plane, its mouth gaping wide like a river of living flame, surging through the shattered emptiness.
A torrent of blazing fire surged forth, its waves dozens of meters wide, unstoppable and wild. The undead in its path were swept away in an instant, incinerated to ash. The river of flame roared hundreds of meters ahead, and Leon flickered through the inferno, each step carrying him farther from the encirclement until he burst free.
Freed from the ring of death, Leon spun on his heel, facing the undead horde that surged behind him like a tidal wave.
He drew three scrolls, each half a meter long, and tore them open at once. In a flash, the scrolls dissolved into streaks of light, shooting skyward and vanishing beyond sight.
A moment later, three meteors were ripped from the heavens, summoned into this plane. They aligned in the sky and plunged earthward in a deadly row, falling with catastrophic speed.
After casting the scrolls, Leon unleashed a torrent of fire runes—twelve colossal fire vortexes, each over ten meters wide, materialized in a row above his head, swirling with elemental fury.
In a flash, twelve roaring streams of fire magic, each as thick as an ancient tree trunk, erupted and swept across the undead army behind him. The inferno obliterated most of the undead that had surrounded Joey and the others, clearing their flanks.
As the encirclement shattered, the group staggered forward, faces pale and haunted by the terror they’d just escaped.
"Don’t stop! Keep moving!"
Leon’s brow furrowed as he barked the order, his voice sharp and commanding.
Joey and the others managed a fleeting look of gratitude, but there was no time for words—the danger pressed in on all sides.
Only when the last of the group had broken through did Leon finally halt his spellcasting. The twelve fire vortexes had scoured every undead within two hundred meters, but compared to the endless tide behind, it was barely a drop in the ocean.
Then, the three summoned meteors crashed to earth, each striking a hundred meters apart. Towering mushroom clouds rose as shockwaves rippled outward, overlapping and sweeping away undead across more than a thousand meters. Everything caught in the blast was shredded to fragments...
When the shockwaves faded, countless soulfires drifted in the air like swarms of fireflies. Ragulin and Barton darted among them, inhaling deeply to devour every last flicker. Their forms vanished within swirling black-gray smoke, which occasionally twisted into the shape of an orc skull, howling in the gloom.
They’d absorbed so many at once, it looked as if Ragulin and Barton might burst from overindulgence...
Leon stowed Barton and Ragulin away, leaving them to slowly digest the soulfires. If nothing went awry, the two would surely advance in rank this time.
The soulfire from these orc undead was of exceptional quality—the weakest nearly level twenty, the strongest well above thirty. After devouring tens of thousands, bursting from excess seemed almost merciful...
Leon tossed the Death Tome into the air, where it hovered. On the Sage’s Chapter, a vortex formed, ravenously swallowing the undead essence from the land below.