Spellcasting Gods

Even he himself didn't understand why he had this feeling, as if what awaited him was not a difficult challenge, but an opportunity.

Carefully putting away the "Tears of the Deep Sea Queen," Zhang Cheng approached the hardwood staff inserted into the groove. He reached out his right hand to stroke the dragon crystal, which was constantly emitting dazzling light in all directions, and then exclaimed in a voice only he could hear, "What an interesting energy storage technology! If time allowed, I would love to go to Assassin's Creed myself. What a pity..."

As the last word fell, he suddenly channeled a surge of energy into the largest dragon crystal at the top of his staff.

moment!

The already fragile balance was immediately shattered!

The immense energy stored within burst forth like a wild hurricane, rapidly forming a massive energy vortex centered on the staff!

Everything that was touched by the vortex was sucked up and crushed, turning into a pile of debris floating in mid-air.

Even more terrifying, the vortex continued to grow larger as energy overflowed, and before long, the foundation of the tower was shaken, and some of the supporting walls began to tilt and collapse.

Watching himself destroy this ancient building that had existed for thousands of years, Zhang Cheng showed no sadness or joy. He simply returned to the top of the tower before it completely collapsed, mounted Kuro Kerba, and returned to the blue sky.

At this moment, there are hardly any living beings left in the entire Old Town. More than half of the people and livestock have been transformed into monsters pieced together from various corpses. The remaining corpses are scattered in every corner of the city. The former largest port city in Westeros has now become a land of death.

These corpse monsters of varying sizes patrol the streets and alleys in groups of three or five. Once they spot a living person, they rush up and kill them, turning them into part of their own bodies.

Unfortunately, Eric in his half-dragon form was the only unit that could still barely continue fighting, so he naturally became the target of all the corpse monsters.

There were hardly any intact parts of his body left. His entire right arm was long gone, and his legs were covered with a dense array of horrible black wounds. Even the hard dragon scales could not defend against the invasion of death energy, and some parts had even begun to rot and stink.

Even more terrifying, the Death Dragon lurks behind piles of enormous corpse monsters, leaping out from time to time to launch sneak attacks, each time causing considerable damage.

If this continues, he will be exhausted to death in about ten minutes, even if he is not killed.

Seeing this, Zhang Cheng finally revealed a cruel smile and said in a voice only he could hear, "Very good! It's time to begin the final step of the experiment. You know, not every necromancer has so many test subjects and such a large space when conducting their first experiment. Let me see just how powerful this thing really is."

After saying that, he threw a small bottle containing a dark green liquid from a height.

After a few seconds of free fall, the bottle crashed onto a step and shattered. The dark green liquid quickly flowed down the slope and into a mutilated corpse.

In the blink of an eye!

The corpse twitched violently several times, then swayed and stood up, releasing dark green mist from its insides.

Each corpse touched by the mist began to stand up, and after about three to five minutes, a mindless army of corpses appeared in the middle of the street...

Chapter 249 The Testing Ground (Part 2)

"Is this the new magical plague developed by the Royal Apothecaries Society of the Forsaken? It doesn't seem to be very effective..." Zhang Cheng frowned as he watched more and more corpses being awakened in the city.

The reason is simple: although the green smoke spreads through the air very quickly, covering the entire dock in the blink of an eye, the vast majority of the smoke consists of slow-moving corpses. Only a very small number have successfully evolved into agile ghouls. They may be numerous, but their quality is really not good.

Let alone dealing with the Scourge, it's not enough to even handle the Alliance. Whether it's mages who wield arcane power or priests and paladins who use holy energy, they can easily kill these low-level undead in large numbers.

Just as he was feeling somewhat disappointed with the power of the magical plague, the initially infected corpses suddenly began to mutate.

On the corpse's originally bloody and mangled chest, a huge and ugly tumor resembling a mouth had grown out of nowhere. As soon as the tumor took shape, it began to devour the surrounding low-level undead. In just a few minutes, it transformed from an ordinary zombie into a stitched abomination that was three meters tall.

Although this hastily assembled abomination was far less robust and resilient than a real abomination, and even had bloody intestines hanging from it in some places, it was no longer something that ordinary people could deal with.

Of course, that wasn't the most terrifying thing. The most terrifying thing was that some other undead also underwent similar mutations. In less than ten minutes, thirty or forty hideous and terrifying stitched abominations appeared in the undead army.

Unlike the stitched abominations created through normal alchemy and necromancy, they are completely devoid of reason and will not obey anyone's orders. Their minds are filled with only one thought: to kill every living being around them.

In fact, it's not just these abominations; the awakened zombies and ghouls are the same, frantically running through every street and alley, rushing into houses and dragging out civilians hiding in their homes or basements to kill and eat them cruelly.

With the towering tower's widespread group charm gone, the survivors finally regained their senses, staring wide-eyed at the hellish scene before them in disbelief.

Whether they were ordinary people or soldiers who had miraculously survived the battle, everyone involuntarily held their breath at that moment.

They could never have imagined that one day they would be surrounded by thousands upon thousands of undead. And these monsters, who were family, friends, or even enemies fighting each other just a moment ago, had transformed into another evil life form—the undead.

Caught up in fear and despair, everyone forgot to run away or fight back. They stood there foolishly, letting the ghouls and zombies rush up and kill them. Their faces showed no pain or fear as they died; instead, they were left with a sense of relief and liberation.

As the screams coming from inside the town grew fewer and weaker, Zhang Cheng realized that the entire old town had probably become a city of death.

In particular, the hundreds of thousands of wandering souls caused the ambient temperature to drop rapidly, and in some extreme places, white ice even formed.

Such a vast amount of souls and death energy is probably comparable only to the massacre of Stratholme ordered by Arthas when he was still a prince.

As a demonic sword that maintains its power by devouring souls, the Soul Collector undoubtedly felt the omnipresent temptation and asked in a low voice, "What exactly do you want to do? Are all these delicious souls prepared for me?"

“No, of course not. I plan to create a loyal servant for myself, an executioner who controls the energy of death…” Zhang Cheng replied meaningfully.

"Oh? You mean... create a death knight?!" The Demon Sword's tone revealed undisguised surprise.

After all, a high-level character like a Death Knight cannot be created casually. It requires not only a perfectly suitable candidate but also an extremely complex and cruel magical ritual. Both are indispensable.

Zhang Cheng smiled and nodded: "That's right! But let me correct you, what I want isn't just a simple death knight, but a death dragon knight. Notice that scarred half-dragon down there? Pure dragon blood flows through his veins. I plan to fuse him with that death dragon, forming a symbiotic relationship. That way, when I summon the dragon, I can summon him along with it. What do you think, isn't my idea pretty good?"

"Indeed very interesting! What surprises me is that you've already begun to exploit loopholes in the rules of the game. But please be careful, magic, especially necromancy, is always fraught with unpredictable accidents and dangers. With your intelligence, you should be able to easily understand the terrible consequences that would occur if hundreds of thousands of wronged souls were to go out of control," the demonic sword said calmly.

"Don't worry, as long as I have this, they can't escape my control." With that, Zhang Cheng took out the Calamity Stone, which exuded a cold aura, from his pouch and gave the Death Dragon, which was lurking in the shadows, an attack order.

This behemoth, which had grown to nearly eight meters long, charged out of the shadows at a speed almost imperceptible to the naked eye, wielding its sharp claws to grab the wings on the back of its enemy and tear them off.

"Aa ...

Severely injured, Eric couldn't help but kneel on one knee, letting out a painful roar as blood gushed out from the broken part of his wing.

Two colossal corpse beasts, three stitched abominations, and a dozen ghouls seized the opportunity to swarm him, knocking him to the ground and attacking him with bites and blows.

Despite the high defensive capabilities of the hard dragon scales, they were not invulnerable. In no time, more than a dozen deep wounds, revealing the bone, appeared on his body. To make matters worse, his right hand, which was gripping his weapon, seemed to have been broken by the abomination with a heavy roof beam, leaving him completely powerless.

Noticing that the most important test subject seemed to have lost most of its fighting ability, Zhang Cheng's lips curled up slightly, and he muttered to himself in a voice only he could hear, "The time is ripe! It's time to proceed with the final part! You must hold on, my lovely little lab rat. If you die, all my efforts will have been in vain..."

The words had barely left his mouth!

He raised his left hand, which was holding the flint staff, and began to chant a long, awkward incantation. As he chanted, a line hidden in the middle of the main road suddenly began to emit an eerie green light, followed by a second and a third line.

In less than three to five minutes, a huge magic circle that covered the entire old town finally appeared.

Chapter 0250 Transcendence

Apart from Zhang Cheng, the planner and executor, no one would realize that the strange pattern that suddenly appeared in the middle of the city street not long ago, let alone understand that it was the deadly noose hanging around their necks.

In fact, he had begun secret preparations more than a month ago to complete this evil and complicated ritual, having Morroya lead people to draw a large number of magical runes in various corners of the old town. These people did not know that they had dug their own graves until their deaths.

Now, guided by the incantation, the originally inconspicuous runes begin to take effect. When they are linked together, the land within a radius of several kilometers begins to rot, presenting a gray and sickly appearance. At the same time, the plants are gradually distorted by the omnipresent death energy.

If the previous frenzied killings destroyed civilization, then what is happening now is a death sentence for this land.

There is no way to reverse the damage that fel and death energies inflict on the earth, not even the druids, who are hailed as guardians of nature.

Once a piece of land is permeated by either of these two energies, it will fall into eternal suffering. Both the land itself and the plants and animals living on it will gradually become more and more irritable and evil.

Of course, those who commit such horrific acts can reap enormous rewards from the eroded land, rewards that are unimaginable to ordinary people.

For example, right now, Zhang Cheng can feel endless death energy gathering around his body, so dense that even with the naked eye, he can clearly see the constantly flowing black mist.

If it were a necromancer or warlock, absorbing this energy would greatly increase their maximum energy storage capacity and magical affinity, making them a powerful spellcaster worthy of respect.

But as the saying goes, you have to pay a price for what you gain.

If he absorbed a massive amount of death energy, he would probably never be able to use arcane, frost, or fire spells again in his life, and would only be accompanied by death, shadow, and fel energy.

As a seeker of power, he could not tolerate such a huge flaw, so instead of absorbing it, he poured all the death energy into Eric's struggling body.

"Aaaaaaahh ...

This is an evil gift from the pollution of an area spanning tens of kilometers, far beyond what a mere half-dragon could bear.

As the surging energy entered his heart, Eric's bright red scales quickly dimmed, and for some reason, the red gradually transitioned to grayish-white. His eyeballs also began to dry out, and soon fell to the ground, replaced by two points of cold white light.

It was cold and damp!

death!

hatred!

He no longer exuded the flame that symbolized passion and life, but rather a collection of negative emotions.

Most importantly, his once strong and powerful heart had stopped beating, and the blood surging in his veins had turned into a black, viscous, unidentified substance.

Anyone with even a little knowledge of necromancy knows that Eric is currently in a state of being a standard undead, somewhere between the living and the dead. Although he is definitely an undead based on signs of life, his soul has not yet completed its transformation.

"You bastard! What...what did you do to me?!" Eric suddenly jumped up from the ground and shouted at him.

Having endured immense suffering, he undoubtedly realized that something was wrong with his body, especially since what he saw was no longer colorful, but rather a bizarre scene of black and white. In this scene, living people appeared as bright white, while corpses and the dead were as dark gray, and there was no third color.

Seeing the panicked expression on the other person's face, Zhang Cheng smiled and shrugged, replying, "What did I do? That's a good question, but I'm not quite sure how to answer it. For now, think of it as a complete transformation from body to soul, just like how you underwent that dragon's transformation. The only difference is that its transformation gave you life again, while mine will give you the power of death. Sounds hard to understand, right? It's okay, once I complete the final step, you'll understand what a magnificent experiment this is..."

As the last word fell, Zhang Cheng suddenly raised the Cataclysmic Stone in his hand, which had been modified by the great mages.

As if sensing something, the dragon of death leaped up and tackled Eric to the ground, opening its mouth to let out a piercing shriek.

Upon hearing this, tens of thousands of souls within the city immediately surged forward at incredible speed, overcoming numerous obstacles.

Staring at the dense, surging, gray, translucent souls, Zhang Cheng curled his lips and exclaimed, "Truly magnificent! No wonder so many mages who study death and shadow energy end up deeply entrenched in it, unable to extricate themselves. Who wouldn't want to possess the power to control death and souls?"

"But you resisted its temptation, didn't you?" The demonic sword, which had been silent for a long time, suddenly interjected.

"Hehe, no, it's not that I resisted its temptation, it's that I set my sights on something higher. As the saying goes, you can't gain without losing; giving up now is for gaining later. I plan to wait until I'm strong enough before delving into these dangerous and forbidden magical knowledge. For now, a general understanding is enough," Zhang Cheng explained meaningfully.

"Can you tell me what your goal is?" the Demon Sword asked cautiously.

Without hesitation, Zhang Cheng answered, "Surpass!"

"Beyond?" A hint of doubt crept into the Demon Sword's voice.

“Yes! Surpass!” Zhang Cheng’s eyes flashed with a terrifying light. “Surpass yourself! Surpass your enemies! Surpass everything that can be surpassed! Whether it’s gods or demons! Some people believe that controlling power means controlling everything, some believe that controlling money means controlling everything, and some believe that controlling strength means controlling everything. But I believe that in the vast universe, nothing is absolute, even time and space have their limitations. Only by constantly learning, evolving, and surpassing can one become strong. I don’t care about good or evil, I don’t care about ethics or morality, and I don’t care about anyone’s opinions. As long as there are enough benefits, I don’t mind killing tens of thousands of lives, and I don’t mind destroying world after world. Remember, what happened today is just the beginning. I will continue to conduct all sorts of insane experiments until I obtain the necessary data, knowledge, and power…”

Chapter 0251 Death Knight

"Beyond everything? Should you laugh at your arrogance, or praise your ambition that is beyond the reach of ordinary people?" The Soul Collector teased in a tone that was neither a smile nor a laugh.

As a demonic sword that has devoured countless masters, it has seen many foolish mortals slowly lose themselves after gaining power, and it has also seen madmen who will stop at nothing to pursue greater power. Therefore, it has long been accustomed to such remarks.

In its eyes, mortals are always foolish, relentlessly pursuing things they cannot control, whether it be power or strength, and will eventually fall into the abyss of self-destruction.

So far, none of its previous owners have been able to escape the toying of fate, and it is believed that this time will be no exception.

The only thing that interests it is whether this young man can surpass his predecessors and go further.

Zhang Cheng wasn't an idiot; he could naturally hear the mockery and amusement in the Demon Sword's words. However, he didn't get angry. Instead, he responded meaningfully, "Whether it's arrogance or ambition doesn't matter; time will tell. But you, do you remember how you were created? Who was your creator? Is he or she still alive?"

"Heh, you want to find out my background? Forget about it. You're not worthy to know the real secrets until you reach a certain level. Alright, instead of wasting your time on me, hurry up and finish your magic ritual. That guy is about to collapse." With that, a faint light flashed in the inconspicuous groove on the hilt of the Soulbinder Sword, as if hinting at something.