The Queen of Scrolls never admits defeat

“Dead servants… an army? How many of those are there?” Lilith asked in bewilderment.

“I don’t know either,” Vasita said. “When my mother was traveling on the continent, it was the end of the Divine Descent Era. There were plenty of corpses and materials. They were all dead servants accumulated at that time. Back then, there weren’t any particularly powerful dead servants. It was all about quantity.”

Later, with the emergence of Death Servants with even stronger individual strength, the Death Servant army became less useful.

After returning to the wilderness, they are no longer needed. They are free-range in the Black Forest, where natural selection will determine the best, and they will only be checked on periodically.

It wasn't just my mother who did this; necromancers who retired to the wilderness would leave their unused undead servants in the Black Forest, marking them with brightly colored strips of cloth.

In the Black Forest, even low-level undead servants might evolve into high-level undead servants over a long period of time.

Moran suddenly realized: "No wonder the books say that although the Black Forest is outside the Witch's Wilderness, it is the witch's domain! It has become a place for necromancers to raise corpses."

"The areas that Ms. Ginia recommended we explore are all north of the Black Forest, near the Kingdom of Watson. So, should we head north from Emerald Plains first and then west into the Black Forest tomorrow, or should we head directly northwest into the Black Forest?" Sylph asked.

“Let’s head straight into the Black Forest!” Lilith said. “Even if we don’t find any corpse materials, we can at least observe how the necromancers of our time created their undead servants when they were young!”

Moran agreed, saying, "I want to see how undead creatures live on a daily basis! What you see in books is never as real as seeing it with your own eyes."

“I also want to go straight into the Black Forest to see just how many Deathbringers my mother put there. When I was little, she went on a long trip and didn’t come back for three months. This time, my mother told me that she went to the Black Forest to see her army of Deathbringers,” Vasita said.

"Then let's go straight into the Black Forest!"

Sylph wasn't as interested in necromancy as they were. She was more curious about activating the Black Death Tree and the magical plants unique to the Black Forest. It didn't matter to her which way she entered.

The next day, as soon as it was light, Moran and the others packed up their tents and prepared to set off.

Moran was the only one who had seriously studied necromancy and even reached the intermediate level, so she was the one to cast the pseudo-death spell for everyone.

“Give me your hand,” Moran said.

The Pseudo-Death spell requires direct contact with the target to be successfully cast.

Lilith, Vasita, and Sylph each extended their hands.

Moran took each of their hands in his hand, which was adorned with a wand ring, and held them for about three seconds before ending the fake death spell: "All done!"

“Sylph! Your skin has turned as dark as fried rice! Lilith, Moran, you too!” Vasita exclaimed.

“You are the same,” Moran said. “It’s all due to the effect of the pseudo-death spell. Although most undead creatures no longer have visual organs, there are some exceptions. The pseudo-death spell is not only an energy disguise, but also an appearance disguise. If the pseudo-death spell is of a higher level, it can make the appearance even closer to that of an undead creature. Right now, it just makes the skin more like the bluish-gray of a corpse, and the pupils haven’t changed much.”

Vasita conjured a water mirror and looked at herself: "It really is! My skin looks like a corpse, but my eyes don't."

She mimicked making fried rice with eggs, fixing her gaze on a particular spot: "Wouldn't this look more like it?"

"Yes, yes, yes! It looks like it was just dug out of the ground. It would be even better with a little more soil!" Lilith said, grabbing a handful of soil. "How about I touch up your makeup a bit more?"

Vasita covered her face in disgust, then hesitated, "Are we really going to smear mud on our faces?" "No need!" Moran said, "The flying carpet makes us invisible. Even if there are undead creatures that can see, they won't be able to see us. And even if they do find us, what are four peak-level witches afraid of, a single undead creature?"

"What if there are peak-level undead creatures in the Black Forest? Although our magic power level is peak-level, our magic level is still far from sufficient!" Sylph was not optimistic.

Moran had initially shared this concern, but after hearing Vasida's explanation, she was no longer worried.
"Think about it, in a place where a top-tier necromancer raises an army of undead servants, could there be any wild top-tier necromancer creatures?"

“No!” Vasita said, “If there were, they would have been captured and turned into dead servants long ago.”

Moran nodded;

"So there should only be some low-level wild undead creatures in the Black Forest now. The powerful ones are all owned by someone else. We might be able to drive them away by using witch language. The disguise of the pseudo-death spell is just to prevent the living black undead tree from detecting us and will not hinder our actions."

Sylph was relieved.

“Sylph, let Biel come out for a bit too. Both she and Squeak need to use the Pseudo-Death spell,” Moran said.

"I don't think Xiao Teng needs to do that, right?" Lilith said.

While casting the pseudo-death spell on Bi'er and Zizi, Moran said, "No need. There are already vampire vines in the Black Forest, so their aura won't be affected."

"Get on the flying carpet!" Lilith took out her flying carpet.

Previously, Lilith and Moran each spent half a day.

After entering the Black Forest, Moran was responsible for maintaining the pseudo-death spell and predicting the direction and location of the corpse materials, while Lilith was in charge of piloting the flying carpet.

After boarding the flying carpet, Lilith was at the front, controlling its direction, with Sylph and Vashida on either side of her. One prepared an advanced clearing spell, while the other kept an eye on the surroundings, ready to deal with any sudden attacks.

Moran, at the end of the flying carpet, used prophetic magic to divine the course of their journey.

The flying carpet crossed the boundary marker and flew straight towards the Black Forest not far away.

Before they even saw a single flying magical beast from the desolate Green Creek Plains, they had already entered the Black Forest.

The death energy in the Black Forest has become so concentrated that it can be seen even without energy vision.

A layer of gray mist, impenetrable to sunlight, floated throughout the entire Black Forest, making visibility extremely low.

In the gray fog, the black branches of the dead trees twisted in an abnormal posture, without a single leaf, like ghosts lurking in the fog, ready to pounce.

A one-way sound-absorbing magic circle was set up on the flying carpet, allowing Moran and the others to communicate freely without worrying about disturbing anything in the forest.

But when they spoke, they still unconsciously lowered their voices.

"These trees, really won't move?" Vasita asked cautiously. "I have a feeling they're secretly watching us, waiting for us to go deeper before they pounce! Those trees over there seem much better." (End of Chapter)