Do you have a problem with necromancers?

Chapter 97 The Black Knight

Marconius is a master of frost magic.

Fire, frost, and lightning—the three classic spell systems each have their own characteristics. Lightning is instantaneous, has no trajectory, and is difficult to dodge; fire is a wide-area explosion that causes continuous burning; and frost can continuously slow down or even trap enemies.

Regardless of the type of mage he specializes in, there is only one best way to deal with him:
Assassination.

No matter what strange or powerful magic he possesses, as long as he can kill you with one blow, we don't need to worry about anything else.

Conversely, a mage's primary concern is also being assassinated. For example, setting up numerous magical traps in a private residence means that if an uninvited guest attempts to break in, they will inevitably trigger the traps and be killed on the spot, or the mage himself will be alerted.

With the help of the little banshee, the group escaped the traps they had encountered along the way. The banshees stationed throughout the area were also stripped of their summoning power by Raine.

All that's left is Marconius in the laboratory.

Because the necromancer forbids any banshees from entering his laboratory, the little banshee says she has no idea what traps are inside.

In response, Berthalia suggested using the most drastic method:

Bomb the ship.

When she traveled by sea to the Gem Islands, assassins from the Temple of Light planted a large amount of explosives on her ship, destroying all the defenses she had set up in her cabins. Now, she could use the same tactics against this necromancer—no matter what traps he set in his laboratory, one Great Burning Cloud spell and he'd blow them all up!
Marconius was still focused on dealing with the corpse when he heard the sound and turned around. At that moment, a cloud of intense heat, hot enough to distort light, violently poured into the room from the outside, instantly draining all the oxygen from the room.

Almost simultaneously, in the very center of the Great Burning Cloud Technique, countless ice crystal flowers suddenly bloomed, spreading rapidly along the floor, walls, and ceiling, instantly freezing the entire laboratory completely.

Ellina and Bersalia instinctively wanted to use their strongest spells to shatter the ice crystal blocking the gate, but their bodies involuntarily retreated.

A caged bird? It's Ryan! He's taking over our bodies!
Raine commanded the two elven heroes to retreat with his mind, a chilling glint in his eyes. Suddenly, he sent the same command to the little banshee beside him.

The little banshee screamed uncontrollably and crashed headfirst into the ice crystals that sealed off the laboratory.

Just then, as everyone retreated and turned the corner of the corridor, they saw a large number of hard ice crystal fragments shooting out like bullets, riddling the wall at the end of the corridor with holes.

"Why did you..." Ellina was furious at first, but quickly realized what was happening and her expression became somewhat complicated.

After spending so much time together, she realized that Ryan wasn't someone who would indiscriminately kill innocent people—not that he couldn't bring himself to do it, but that he wouldn't kill innocent people for fun when it wasn't necessary.

Looking back at the ice crystal bomb, an unbelievable answer becomes clear: the little banshee actually knew about the trap in the laboratory, but deliberately kept it a secret so that Rein and the others would perish together with Marconius.

“How could undead creatures enslaved by necromancers so easily trust another unfamiliar necromancer?” Bersalia said in a low voice. “Eileen, I know your moral principles make you subconsciously want to help them and let them find eternal rest, but they may not trust your good intentions.”

“I understand, you don’t need to say more.” Ellina replied after a moment of silence, “Since she is also plotting against us, she is not only a victim, but also a perpetrator who is hostile to us.”

“That’s good, a flexible set of ethical principles,” Renn said abruptly.

Ellina was speechless and could only look down at her chest.

After everyone stood still and waited for a moment, another banshee, controlled by Raine, floated over from the corridor behind them.

She rushed straight into the laboratory. After confirming there were no traps, Ryan and the others followed her around the corner. They saw that the laboratory was a complete mess, with sharp, unmelted ice clusters everywhere, gleaming with a deathly light in the chilly room.

Marconis's body was not found, but there was a large, broken hole in the wall, through which the other party seemed to have escaped.

"Chase!" With a command from Raine, he directed the banshees to rush into the cave and clear the mines for their master.

As expected, the escape route for Marconis was riddled with magical traps. Even for mages from the Spellcasters' Guild, defusing each trap individually would have taken considerable time—a truly insidious and ruthless tactic.

That's interesting. Go tell my undead creature!

By the time everyone rushed out of the passage, the banshees had already been wiped out by the trap. At the end of the passage was a large burial hall, where Marconius stood before a coffin, making complex spellcasting gestures:
"Rise again, Princess Jinsha!"

Inside the stone coffin, Princess Jinsha's upper body was already sitting up, her face covered with stitches and bloody marks.

Ellina unleashed her lightning bolt, but her opponent reacted with surprising agility. She simply braced herself against the edge of the sarcophagus with both hands, leaping high into the air like a swallow, letting the lightning pass beneath her.

“Black Knight,” Raine suddenly said.

"Good eye," Marconis said with a sneer. "I originally planned to retrieve her soul and turn her into a banshee to fight alongside the Black Knight, who was made from her remains. Too bad... well, you can taste the Black Knight's blade first!"

Ellina drew her short spear and charged forward. Princess Jinsha had already fallen from the sky, drawing two curved swords from her waist and using the force of gravity to slash down from the air. Ellina managed to block them with her short spear, the spear quickly bending noticeably under the pressure.

Enhanced by necromancy, the Black Knight possesses physical strength far exceeding that of ordinary people, making him a match even for ancient heroes. Princess Jinsha, having landed on the ground, bent low and swung her curved blade in a wide arc, forcefully deflecting Ellina's short spear.

The elven princess gritted her teeth and gripped the short spear tightly, feeling a tearing pain in the webs of her hands. Her opponent, however, possessed a strength that seemed effortless, and in the blink of an eye, his scimitar flashed out like a venomous snake, aimed directly at her throat.

Ellina leaned back sharply, her scimitar suddenly changing direction during the thrust to block Bersalia's sneak attack.

The Rose Queen pressed the two short swords forward with force, but the rebounding force was as unshakeable as an impenetrable wall.

The two elven heroes and the corpse of Princess Jinsha clashed, their weapons colliding fiercely and frequently, the cold gleam of metal amplified by the sparks from the friction. The Black Knight's strength was enough to split mountains and shatter rocks; even seasoned knights could not withstand him in a direct confrontation. The two elves were forced to work together to restrain him, preventing either of them from being forced to endure Princess Jinsha's full-force attacks.

Renn, however, stood with his hands behind his back, showing no intention of joining the battle. He simply raised his head arrogantly and looked at Marconius on the high platform.

"Your craftsmanship in making this Black Knight is subpar," he said slowly.

“Sir, it is now your two guards who are at a disadvantage,” Marcus retorted. “And you still have the mind to criticize me?”

“Historical records show that Princess Jinsha inherited her father’s agility and dexterity,” Raine commented indifferently. “You chose to sew together the ghoul’s muscles to increase her strength, but the ghoul’s muscle density is too high, and the strength of her original skeleton could not support it. So you could only choose to add metal ore into the skeleton to increase its strength—which further increased her weight, causing her originally commendable agility and dexterity to vanish.”

Marconis's face clearly darkened, and he argued vehemently:

"You think you know so much? I told you long ago that my original plan was to summon her soul from the River Styx and turn it into a banshee. Banshees are known for their speed and versatility, so the Black Knight made from her remains should be paired with her. Of course, it should be enhanced with the ability to charge into battle. This just proves how meticulous my thinking is!"

"So your idea of ​​separating the soul from the body is really hard to grasp." Renn let out a sneer without any politeness. "Didn't you realize that you went astray from the very beginning? I've said it before, Princess Jinsha's strengths lie in her agility and dexterity, in the combat experience she gained from her father. You turned her into a banshee with only hallucinogenic abilities, how are you going to utilize those strengths? Go find a seasoned prostitute on the street to be a banshee, she might be even more powerful than her, at least she really knows how to seduce men."

"You know nothing!" Marconius cursed. "That's Princess Jinsha! A peerless beauty who even the ancestral Elven Emperor was captivated by! Only a banshee, a spirit of the dead, could fully recreate her stunning beauty. What good is agility and dexterity? What good is combat experience? Do you intend to unleash a calamity of the dead to destroy the world? Is that interesting?"

These words actually silenced Raine. He finally realized that Marconius invented the Banshee not for fighting, but more to prove his academic correctness; similarly, his pursuit of resurrecting Princess Gold Sands was not to utilize the ancient hero's fighting power, but simply out of a collecting obsession with historical figures.

As he said, most undead creatures are ragged and ugly. Only a ghost-like creature like the banshee, which is close to being a physical being, can best capture the unparalleled beauty of Princess Jinsha.

For a figurine, beauty is undoubtedly its only value; nothing else matters.

“I’m sorry.” Ryan raised a hand. “I actually thought you were someone I could communicate with… I overestimated your abilities.”

Before Marconius could react, he saw Renn snap his fingers.

A snap of the fingers, in itself, has no ritualistic significance; at most, it's just a signal. For example, many mages like to set up a spell model first, and then activate it by snapping their fingers.

The black warrior, the corpse of Princess Jinsha, wielded his two curved swords almost like a meat grinder, causing the two elven heroes to retreat in defeat.

The next second, her movements suddenly froze on the spot, as Raine had cast a slowing curse on her—players call this "immobilization," and it's extremely useful, practically an essential tool for murder, arson, and everyday life.

Taking advantage of the moment, Elrina lunged forward with her spear, impaling Princess Jinsha's corpse and pinning it to the wall. Bersalia followed up with a fatal blow, severing her neck with her twin swords and decapitating her. "A curse?" Marconius exclaimed in shock. "So you're one too..."

He hadn't fully grasped the situation during their heated debate, but now it suddenly dawned on him: someone who could pinpoint the flaws in the Black Knight's manufacturing process must also be a master of necromancy.

This person's evil level is even higher than mine!

"Also?" Renn let out an undisguised sneer. "You think you're worthy of being a necromancer?"

His fingers brushed through the air, and fragments of bone coalesced into a spear, which shot towards Marcus like a meteor.

The latter finally realized what was happening and quickly unleashed a round of Frost Nova, shattering the bone spear into pieces.

Ellina and Bersalia cast spells simultaneously, and lightning and flames shot out again, but Marconius had already quickly condensed a huge ice sphere and hovered it in front of him.

The Frost Orb, a "team wipe orb" that players deeply resent, contains countless deadly ice spikes that scatter in all directions as the orb travels through the air.

Once the Frost Orb hits its target or is destroyed by an external force, the remaining Death Spikes will burst forth all at once, shattering everything in their path into pieces—just like in the previous laboratory.

"Let's all perish together!" Marconius shouted maniacally, forcefully pushing the Frost Orb forward.

To his utter astonishment, only Renn turned and ran without hesitation, while the other two elven guards did not move their feet at all, but instead unleashed flames and lightning directly at the ice ball.

A thunderous roar echoed through the hall, and the ground beneath our feet trembled violently.

After everything calmed down, Renn leisurely returned to the hall and saw that the three of them were lying on the ground, their bodies covered with ice spikes like hedgehogs, all on the verge of death.

"Tsk." Renn clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction, casually casting the Body Regeneration spell, manipulating the flesh around Ellina and Bersalia's wounds, forcefully squeezing out all the ice spikes and icicles from their bodies.

The process undoubtedly brought extremely cruel pain, but the two elven heroes remained silent until all their wounds had healed, at which point they staggered to their feet, leaning against the wall for support.

As Marconius lay dying, he caught a glimpse of the two elves who had been fully revived, and his expression immediately turned to disbelief.

Manipulating flesh and blood... So who exactly are you...?

Ryan turned and glanced at him, then raised his hand.

Instant death curse, death finger.

Marconius closed his eyes.

After a moment, he opened his eyes again, and all that remained was the chaos belonging to the dead.

Renn sat leisurely beside the coffin, directing Ellina and Berthalia to move the Black Knight's body over, and then instructed Marconius:
Tell me about her situation.

"Yes."

Marconius, with the stilted tone characteristic of the deceased, stiffly recounted his life story:
He's been lurking in the sewers for almost twenty years. It all started because he was ostracized by the guild and wanted to prove his academic theories were correct.

But as time went on, Marconius gradually realized that he could no longer clear his name in public, so he resolved to form a banshee army to take revenge on the entire spellcasters' guild.

The Banshee Legion's weakness lies in its lack of direct combat ability, so he keeps exploring the depths of the sewers in order to capture more ghouls to strengthen the Banshee Legion.

Then, by chance, they discovered the tomb of Princess Jinsha.

The sewers have a third level. While the first two levels are interconnected, the third level is divided into seven or eight large spaces and countless smaller spaces, each independent of the others. Most of these spaces were excavated by the ancient human slave legions based on the second level.

In the very center of the third-level sewer is a tomb mound. Around the main burial chamber are many passageways and rooms where slaves placed numerous burial objects and historical texts, the latter recording the life and origins of the tomb's occupant.

Marconius was a mage by birth, so his academic abilities were certainly not a problem. He spent a long time reading through all these historical texts.

Princess Jinsha, originally named Fatin Talamusor, was the eldest daughter of General Jinsha. The ancient Sand People lived in a tribal clan society, and the "general" was the supreme military leader elected by all clans. Therefore, strictly speaking, she could also be considered a "princess." However, after she came of age, General Jinsha passed away, "presumably due to a recurrence of long-standing injuries."

The general's death is shrouded in many mysteries, which will not be discussed further here. In short, the various clans ultimately decided that the son of the Golden Sands General would inherit the position, while the daughter would marry into the royal family of the ancestral Elven Empire, hoping to forge a bilateral alliance between the Golden Sands and the Empire.

The alliance ultimately appears to have failed, as no historical records of the Ancestral Elf Empire mention the existence of Princess Jinsha, presumably to avoid some taboo of the royal family; and Jinsha Land did not send a single soldier to support the Ancestral Elf Empire from beginning to end.

The answer lies hidden in the historical texts within the tomb. The human slave army claims that after Princess Jinsha arrived in the capital, she witnessed the suffering of her fellow humans and resolved to betray the alliance between Jinsha Land and the Elf Empire in order to help the human slaves achieve final liberation.

She escaped her engagement to the royal family, infiltrated the human slave population, taught them combat skills, how to organize and coordinate, and ultimately built a slave army, igniting the first spark of resistance against the tyranny of the elven empire...

“Wait a minute,” Renn suddenly interrupted him. “According to the records of the First Human Empire, it was Saint Beatrice who established the slave legion.”

“According to the slave legion, Fatin did not want the Elven Empire to turn against her homeland, Golden Sands, after learning her true identity. Therefore, she always operated under the alias ‘Beatrice’ within the legion, and only a few high-ranking members knew her true identity,” Marconius replied.

“Interesting,” Bersalia suddenly laughed. “Eileen, it seems this princess doesn’t like being your sister-in-law, but prefers being your enemy.”

"How could I not know what the Empire was like back then?" Elrina said quietly. "The slaves had been pushed to their limits. Even without Princess Jinsha, another Beatrice would have stood up and rallied the slaves to resist the Empire. What truly destroyed the Empire was all the elves who were immersed in the glory of the slave system and unwilling to think about the future."

"Profound," Bersalia exclaimed. "Then according to you, it wasn't the Temple of Light that destroyed the Rose Family, but rather the thousands upon thousands of ignorant dark elves who blindly believed in divine authority and knew nothing of resistance. If I want revenge, I should kill them all."

“Revenge is meaningless,” Ellina sighed. “The only valuable thing is how to avoid repeating the same mistakes. If you really destroy the Temple of Light one day, how will you fill the void of faith in the hearts of the people? If you can’t do that, sooner or later a second Temple of Light will appear, and all your efforts will be in vain.”

Bersalia wore a thoughtful expression. She hadn't really bothered to think about it too much, since revenge was her top priority. As for what to do after she succeeded, she'd deal with that later.

But since Elrina had already built up the atmosphere to this point, she pretended to consider it for a moment, and then said:

"Perhaps I could emulate the Amazon Society and establish a special association for the unbelievers, dedicating each day to criticizing and vilifying the devout, thus widening the antagonism and rift between the two sides, so that the kingdom may not be reunited by divine authority in the future."

"To avoid drinking urine, he chose to eat shit." Renn exclaimed in amazement, "Genius, you truly are."

Berthalia was not ashamed, but simply smiled charmingly.

Raine casually released Marconius's vengeful spirit from its restraints and then began dissecting the Black Knight's corpse.

Marconius originally studied mind-based magic, but later switched to necromancy, which is a field that is severely biased towards soul manipulation. He is absolutely terrible at flesh and blood fusion. Renn can say without hesitation that the flesh-stitched monster he made when he was five years old was more perfect than this thing.

Unravel the dense stitches on the Black Knight's body, first remove all the parts that belong to the ghoul, then use magic to meticulously remove the remaining flesh and blood, and finally remove all the messy connectors in the bones, leaving only a pile of bone fragments.

The most intact of these is probably half of the spine and coccyx, while most of the rest are broken and damaged. This is likely because the bones, which were already severely depleted of calcium, were further damaged due to the weight of the ghoul's muscles.

He moved the coccyx aside, and Raine inscribed a ritual circle on the floor. He then took out a ritual candle and suddenly heard Berthalia laugh:
“Let me help you. I’ve carefully memorized the ritual you used to resurrect Aurora last time.”

"Okay." Raine then handed her the packet of candles.

Berthalia took the candles, then knelt on the floor and patiently placed them into each of the nexus points.

What you see before you is the Bird in a Cage formation.

(End of this chapter)