This necromancer is going to seduce the beautiful girls who are already dead.

Years ago, the Moon Knights vanquished the Shadow Queen, the leader of the Shadow Demons—an enormous, obese, and immobile monster. After that, the Shadow Demons' previously aggressive expansionist ambitions reversed, and they began to stay put on this land. Now, no one knows the specifics; it's unclear whether the Shadow Demons still lack a leader, or whether a new leader among them has no intention of spreading their corruption to other parts of the world.

"Flora, Flora, can I touch that monster?" Leona turned around and asked Flora loudly.

Flora was taken aback by Leona's question and didn't know how to answer. She hesitated for a moment, then said, "Um...maybe...maybe it's okay? But are you sure you want to touch it?"

Leona then raised a damp tree branch in her hand and said, "I won't touch it with my hands, I'll poke it with this thing."

"I think... as long as you don't hurt it, there shouldn't be any problems." Flora smiled helplessly. "My divine magic has two effects. One is to erase us from everyone's senses, and the other is to make everyone ignore our existence. So as long as you don't hurt it or make it go berserk, there shouldn't be any problems."

"Received, received, received!" Leona, holding the branch that had been blown ashore by the sea, assumed a fencing stance and thrust it at the Shadow Demon's leg.

The poke startled the Shadow Demon, causing it to leap backward and land on the ground, making the ground tremble violently. However, Leona's poke was very measured, only scraping off some black grime from the Shadow Demon's leg without harming it.

"Caw! Caw! Hiss hiss hiss..." The Shadow Demon sniffed around more and more nervously, while Leona handed some black mud hanging on the branch to Rebecca, asking her to collect it into a wide-mouthed jar.

Leona had already gone too far, but Abyss was even more unscrupulous.

Abyss was practically pressed his face against the Shadow Demon, covered in an aura shield to avoid touching the demon's grime, while scrambling up and down its body. Abyss's weight was negligible against the enormous monster, which was now focused on finding the one that had just poked its leg and was completely oblivious to Abyss.

"The Shadow Demons don't seem particularly special. They don't seem to emit any magical fluctuations, and they don't appear to use battle aura. However, this guy's combat strength should be decent; he should be able to hold his own against a mid-level battle aura user in a one-on-one fight," Abyss commented while observing the Shadow Demon up close. "This monster might have the ability to shapeshift. Leona, do you want to provoke it a little more?"

"Alright!" Leona was having a great time. She raised the wooden stick in her hand and ran up behind the Shadow Demon, giving it a good whack in the rear.

"Gah!!!" The Shadow Demon was so startled by this that it pounced forward.

Abyss stood firmly on the Shadow Demon, giving Leona a thumbs-up: "Not bad, not bad. I observed it just now. When this guy jumped out, his legs instantly deformed. It seems he really does have the ability to shapeshift. This kind of creature made of black mud is really convenient."

"You guys should be careful, isn't this dangerous?" Flora said, both amused and exasperated, as she watched Abyss, Leona, and Rebecca struggling in front of the Shadow Demon.

"It's alright, it's alright, we're very agile!" Leona replied loudly.

Boom!

The Shadow Demon took a step to the side, and the Abyss, who was hanging on its leg, nimbly climbed onto its back like a squirrel before being thrown off.

"Huh? What did you say?" Abyss, who had just climbed onto the Shadow Demon's back, looked up.

"It's nothing...you guys can continue." Flora gave a helpless smile.

Chapter 257 The Watchtower of the Council of the Dead

The poor Shadow Demon had been tormented by the three for a long time, and the Abyss finally decided to let it go and let it stay there quietly.

Rebecca had already collected a lot of black sludge from the Shadow Demon; these were fresh samples with high research value. Leona, on the other hand, was happily poking and prodding at it with a small stick. As for the Abyss, she had already recorded all the data she could obtain from observing the Shadow Demon.

"Looking back at that Shadow Demon now, I feel a little sorry for it." Sophia followed the group forward, looking back as she did so, her eyes filled with pity for the Shadow Demon that had been tormented by the Abyss trio for so long without finding its target, and now sat there dejectedly.

"Does this kind of animal have emotions?" Flora was somewhat surprised; she could tell that the Shadow Demon was quite frustrated.

“Their intelligence is probably similar to that of the animals we know,” Abyss shrugged and said. “Not just Shadow Demons, but also the ordinary animals we usually see on the continent have these basic emotions.”

"Oh, by the way, Sheila, did you use Ergunda to examine this monster?" Rebecca suddenly remembered that Sheila had been standing still, and wondered if she had used Ergunda to observe the Shadow Demon. "If she did, are you feeling any discomfort now?"

“I’ve already seen it.” Sheila was happy to answer Rebecca’s question. “I feel fine now. In Ergunda’s view, the monster was furry, without any black mud on its body, and its features were not disordered. It was similar to a bear, but much larger, and had many spiky bristles on its body. I have never seen such an animal before.”

"These must be animals from another world. They fell into our world through that crack in the sky." Abyss tilted his head upwards.

Everyone looked up and saw a crack in the sky. The crack seemed to have closed, leaving only a thin slit. From the ground, one could see thin streaks of lightning swirling around the crack.

This is a wound in the world. This rift was once open, and countless monsters from other worlds fell in through it. But later, without anyone doing anything, the rift closed automatically. Perhaps this is the world's self-healing ability, or perhaps for some other reason, the Nine Gods didn't discuss this with the Abyss, perhaps because they felt it was unnecessary.

“Perhaps there’s some way to restore them to their original form. Now, whatever these animals may have looked like before, they’ve become ferocious shadow demons.” Rebecca looked intently at the shadow demon in the distance. “There must be some way to remove the pollution from here and restore safety to our continent.”

Everyone knows that the Moon Knights have made great contributions, but as long as the Shadow Demons exist, the safety of the continent can never be guaranteed.

"What's next?" Sophia turned to Abyss and asked, "Are we going to infiltrate the Council of the Dead?"

“Yes, we need to infiltrate the Council of the Dead, but not all of them,” Abyss said. “I will decide how many people will enter the Council of the Dead and how many will remain in disguise, depending on the situation. Now, we need to find their weaknesses, disguise ourselves as their people, and blend in.”

The Abyss and his group had already formally discussed infiltrating the Council of the Dead while on the Moonlight. Their main objective was to first find a loophole in the Council of the Dead—that is, to find people they could impersonate—and then use false identities to infiltrate the Council through subtle disguises that would be difficult for the Council to detect. Their goal was to obtain information about the Lord of Delusion within the Council of the Dead, and equally importantly, to obtain information about the Council of the Dead itself.

While eliminating the Lord of Delusion is the most pressing matter, the Council of the Dead is also a formidable opponent—they have been colluding with various evil gods, and the Abyss is eager to know their connections and how much they have gained from the extraterrestrial evil gods to reach this point.

He didn't believe that the Council of the Dead colluded with so many extraterrestrial evil gods because they wanted to become servants of the gods. They must have gained enough benefits from cooperating with the evil gods. Of course, these benefits were probably only known to the higher-ups of the Council of the Dead; other members likely didn't even have the authority to know these secrets.

“See that tower? Let’s go up there now. These mage towers were originally set up to monitor this place, but I think they can now be our breakthrough point for this operation,” Abyss said to the others with a smile.

……

The mage towers standing on the shore were very tall, but not particularly elaborately constructed, differing somewhat from the mage towers on the mainland used for mages' experiments and daily life. It was clear that the primary function of these towers was to monitor the surrounding area, rather than to house the necromancers of the Council of the Dead.

“Come on up. I’ve already dismantled the tower’s defenses.” Abyss went into the tower first, and after a while, he poked his head out from the doorway. “Let’s come up and take a look at the Council of the Dead’s buildings—even though we’re not authorized to do so.”

Following Abyss, everyone climbed the tower. They ascended a long, steep spiral staircase, passing numerous extinguished defensive magic arrays along the way, before successfully reaching the top. These defensive arrays were originally quite formidable, extremely difficult for most mages to deal with. However, their weakness lay in the fact that, while powerful, they weren't unique techniques; they were recorded in the continent's magical tomes. Abyss, with his extensive knowledge of these arrays, could easily dismantle them without much effort.

Upon entering the top floor of the tower and stepping into a room, everyone's attention was immediately drawn to the magic array within.

The walls of the room were covered with magical runes and magic circuits, while in the center were several huge, floating stone discs, also inscribed with magic circles. It was a very cleverly designed magic circle, using the stone discs to expand the total surface area of ​​the room, allowing a huge magic circle to be set up here.

“Yes, there’s no one on duty here. It’s all done automatically by this magic circle.” Abyss walked around the room twice with his hands behind his back. “This is the thing. It monitors the surrounding area day and night, reporting all people who come near here from the nearby sea to the Council of the Dead.”

Sophia's magic was all for combat, and she didn't know much about magic arrays. She asked curiously, "If there's no one guarding this place, how do you send messages back? Are there people watching over there? How many people do they have assigned to monitor it?"

“I suspect that the mage towers of the Council of the Dead are interconnected,” Abyss said, stroking his chin. “Like the bonds of our necromancy. We necromancers are quite familiar with these magical links; you could say we’re experts in this field—Agnes, let’s take a look together.”

Chapter 258 The Necromancer's Surveillance Network

In terms of experience with magic circles, Abyss is far more knowledgeable than Agnes. He has not only studied a great deal about magic circles but has also practiced extensively. Agnes, as a druid, spends most of her time using nature magic, so she is slightly inferior to Abyss in this regard.

This doesn't mean Agnes is weaker than the Abyss. On the contrary, as the one who contributed her blood to allow the Abyss's master to create it, Agnes's magical talent is stronger than the Abyss's. Her sensitivity to magic is also greater than the Abyss's. She can understand how magic circles work based on her perception of magic and, relying on her natural intuition, grasp their principles.

This is also why Abyss had Agnes study the magic circle with him. The magic circle was quite complex, and Agnes' ability to directly sense every tiny strand of magic would be of great help to the research.

"Hmm... this magic circle... is quite interesting."

After wandering around the room for a while, Abyss spoke to the others.

"What's wrong? Don't you understand this magic circle?" Leona asked. "Or does it have some fun function?"

“Agnes just shared her senses with me, and now we've figured out the function of this magic circle—it has two main functions: one is to sense creatures in the sea within a fifty-kilometer radius, and the other is communication. My previous guess was correct; these mage towers are indeed connected. They send the collected information back to a central node. The mage monitoring the area only needs to sit at that central node to obtain information about the entire Shadowfall. If there is any abnormality, he can report it to the Council of the Dead very quickly.”

“Isn’t this just what you guessed before? Why did you say it was interesting?” Leona asked again.

Abyss pointed to the stone discs floating in the middle of the room and said, "I find this magic circle interesting because it's completely watertight. I can't tamper with it yet."

Rebecca seemed somewhat surprised to see Abyss admit that he couldn't do anything about it. She said, "This is the first time I've heard you say this. And what about the magic circle that you're helpless against?"

“Very impressive,” Agnes said, looking up as well.

“Although I have extensive experience with magic arrays, since magic arrays function based on imprinted magic circuits, they always have limits. I only use my experience to push every aspect of the magic array to its limits when designing it,” Abyss explained earnestly. “And this magic array achieves the same. Its function sounds simple, but the design of each node is so sophisticated that even I wouldn’t have many better designs. I don’t know how to tamper with this magic array right now because it has very cleverly designed nodes to prevent tampering. If I just go up and mess with it, the Council of the Dead will know I’m here.”

"What should we do then?" Rebecca crouched down, looking at the magic circle on the ground. "Do you need my help?"

"Not for now. I'm thinking about how to add something to this magic circle so that it operates according to my wishes, and ideally, it can also affect other mage towers. This would save us a lot of time and energy." Abyss shook his head and squatted there, deep in thought.

Agnes sat down next to the Abyss and began to think with him.

It was now the two mages' show, and Leona, who knew nothing about magic, was getting a little bored. After asking the Abyss if she could speak and getting permission, she started chatting casually with the others around her.

“Sophia,” Leona said to Sophia.

Sophia, who had been staring blankly at the Abyss deep in thought, was startled by Leona's call. She hastily looked away from the Abyss and at Leona, "Huh? What's wrong, Leona?"

Leona is usually a very talkative person, and now Sofia has become quite familiar with her, so they don't feel embarrassed when they chat.

"Are all the women of your Dark Elves this tall?" Leona looked at Sophia's tall figure and well-proportioned physique with a hint of envy. "Your body is simply a work of art."

Sophia shook her head: "No, I'm considered to have a better figure among the dark elves. Our women are indeed taller than men, but that's generally true; there are still some who are short. It's actually related to what we eat. If we have good nutrition when we're young, we'll grow taller. We need meat, eggs, and milk—we can't do without any of them."

"I see, so your figure is due to good nutrition. Sigh, I'm so envious. I'm also well-nourished, but when I was little, someone put an evil artifact in my stomach, which caused me to stop developing from the age of twelve. Now I'm short and my figure isn't good-looking..."

“You look quite cute like this,” Sofia said kindly to Leona. “Being tall has its advantages, and being short has its advantages too.”

"Really?" Leona's eyes lit up.

"It's true! Among us dark elves, many men prefer petite women. After all, there are so many tall women, making petite women quite rare. Not to mention, you have a very warm personality. If you were tall, it would be intimidating, but since you're petite, you seem lively and adorable..."

Sofia racked her brains to recall all the good things about being short, and told them all to cheer Leona up.

Leona was delighted by Sophia's words and nodded repeatedly, "Okay, okay, my mother gave me life, and Sophia understands me perfectly!"

Abyss suddenly slapped his thigh and exclaimed, "Hey, I've got it!"

"You have a plan? So fast?" Rebecca blinked. "What are you planning to do?"

“Hypnosis,” Abyss smiled. “When I saw Leona hypnotize herself with Sophia’s praise, I had this idea. I want to tamper with the person in charge of monitoring, not with this mage tower. Since he is in charge of monitoring these mage towers, he must have bound his consciousness to a certain magic circle. Then, I can make my move.”

“I understand now, this is indeed a very feasible method,” Rebecca said, suddenly realizing.

Leona paused for a moment, then turned to the Abyss and asked, "Are you being polite?"

Chapter 259 The Gatekeeper of the Fallen Shadowlands

Without hesitation, Abyss and Agnes quickly located another mage tower nearby.

The magic circles inside these mage towers are incredibly difficult to breach silently, but the magical energy they release to probe the surrounding area is less secure. This energy must transmit its findings back, leaving some openings wide open.

Abyss and Agnes each took charge of a mage tower, transferring their magic power to the receiving module of the magic circle on the tower.

Abyss could sense the flow of the magic he was sending. This special magic, disguised as a probe, successfully penetrated the mage tower. After being processed by the mage tower, it was launched far away by a launch node of the magic circle and entered another mage tower.

The perception transmitted back from Agnes also told Abyss that Agnes's magic followed the same path, and in the end, it entered the same mage tower as Abyss's magic.

The two have been mentally synchronized through necromancy, and now the Abyss can guide Agnes to use the same magic as him.

"Okay, let's begin."

Abyss smiled slightly and spoke to Agnes through shared thoughts.

……

In the central area of ​​the Shadowfall stands a towering mage tower, an important building of the Council of the Dead.

This tower is inhabited by an old necromancer who is several hundred years old. He does not hold a high position in the Council of the Dead, but his work is very important. He uses this mage tower to monitor the sea area surrounding the Shadowfall. If he discovers any uninvited guests who dare to invade this land, he will immediately report to the Council of the Dead, which will then decide whether to deal with the intruders or let them go.

Of course, very few people on the mainland dare to come to the Shadowfall. The perils of the journey and the dangers of the Shadowfall are enough to make people turn away.