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

These slaves all wore shackles, which suppressed their magical power and prevented them from using magic.

Abyss and Sophia looked at the slaves, who kept their heads down and remained silent.

They all knew they were about to become the necromancer's experimental animals, but having received professional magical training, they were much calmer than ordinary slaves. Instead of screaming in fear, they remained silent, waiting for the Abyss's instructions.

“This place has been specially arranged by us. The Council of the Dead will not find out what we have done,” Abyss said with a smile to the slaves in the cages.

Some of the slaves looked up at Abyss and Sophia with surprised expressions.

“In other words, you are no longer under the control of the Council of the Dead, and I will grant you your freedom,” Abyss continued, his smile gentle, leaving the slaves bewildered.

Sophia chimed in, "Yes, you are no longer slaves."

However, Abyss and Sophia still looked like Anita and Spin, and these two people who looked exactly like necromancers from the Council of the Dead made their words completely unconvincing. The slaves clearly didn't believe them; they remained silent, and no one moved an inch in their cages.

"You don't believe me, right? Don't worry, this isn't another experiment." Abis wasn't in a hurry. He casually waved his hand, and a spatial rift appeared inside the cage. "Please come in."

The slaves hesitated for a moment. They were somewhat afraid of the unknown, but having been slaves since birth, they dared not disobey the will of the necromancer before them. One slave, closest to the rift, led the way into the rift, and the other slaves followed suit, slowly entering the seemingly calm yet mysteriously aura-filled rift.

Of course, their fear did not last long. When they all entered the crevice and set foot on the land of Helheim, they were all stunned by what they saw.

Before them stood a magnificent city, and they were now standing before its city gates. Looking through the wide-open gates, they could see straight roads, neatly arranged houses, and "green belts" made of luminous plants and giant mushrooms. The city had squares, fountains, clock towers, and everything else imaginable—a place they had never seen before in their entire lives.

This is Helheim's newly completed city, named the City of Irises by the craftsmen responsible for its construction; the iris is a symbol of freedom. Designed for the living, the city is fully equipped, and the spirits have prepared various jobs for those who will soon settle there, ensuring that every new resident can fulfill their role and enjoy an equal and free life.

A young girl in a beautiful silk dress emerged from inside. She had a faint, repaired scar on her face, and wore an eyepatch over one eye because she was blind. But her other eye was crystal clear, sparkling with hope.

There was a small brand on her neck, which had been largely removed by a special potion, making it look less grotesque. This signified that she had once been a slave.

"Welcome! This is our new home!" The girl smiled warmly. "This is a free city. We will no longer be ruled by shepherds and necromancers!"

Chapter 311 The New Future of the Slaves

The girl before them stood there with a radiant smile they had never seen before, her beauty dazzling. The scars on her face and her blindness could not diminish the confident glow emanating from her.

The brand on her body had already proven her identity, but how could she now resemble a slave? That kind of ease and joy is something only free people can enjoy.

“You were all rescued too, right? Now you don’t have to be afraid anymore. I’ve been living here for a while now. It’s beautiful here, and it has everything we could ever want.” The girl stepped forward and stood with the stunned newcomers. “This is our new home. We’ll never have to live in fear again.”

"Where...where is this place? Why did we get here?" one of the slaves finally couldn't hold back any longer and asked, "Are you a slave too? Who is our new master?"

“This is Iris City, our new home. We’ll live here from now on—do you see the houses in the city? Those belong to us. We can live in them instead of crammed into the dormitories on the farm. We have the food that only shepherds get, and we don’t have to drink that bone-aching potion every day anymore,” the girl patiently told him. “I used to be a slave, but I’m not anymore. I’m a free citizen of Iris City. We have no masters; we are free!”

These slaves didn't quite understand what it meant to be without a master. From birth, they had been brainwashed by the Council of the Dead as slaves, and had no concept of freedom whatsoever. They didn't even know the meaning of the word "freedom." But now, the girl's cheerful appearance gave them a faint glimmer of hope.

No more living in fear? No more being whipped by shepherds, and no more being subjected to magical education with its cruel elimination system?

"Is this for real? Are you not lying to us? This isn't an experiment?" another slave asked eagerly.

“Like me, once you live here for a while, you’ll understand. When I first came here, I never imagined I would one day enjoy this kind of life called ‘freedom,’” the girl said. “You can also move in. In a little while, some elves will come to assign us houses. Just tell them what you want.”

Only then did the slaves finally begin to stir.

It all happened so suddenly. Just moments ago, they were waiting to become the necromancers' experimental animals, but now, they are suddenly out of danger and can have their own homes, living the kind of life they've always dreamed of, just like the necromancers.

"Now you know you're not in an experiment, right?" Abyss—now Anita's voice—came from behind the slaves as he entered. "I'm not a member of the Council of the Dead, so you can stay here without worry. You're free now, and I'll go rescue more people next." Abyss said with a smile, "However, it might take some time, because the flow of time here is different from the outside world. One day outside is ten days here—I won't go into details, someone will explain it to you later."

"Are you the god who has come to save us?" a slave suddenly asked.

Standing beside the Abyss, Sophia said, "No, he is not a god. Your god lives in another city, and someone will lead you to see him in a few days. But then again, he has indeed come to save you. This time, we plan to rescue as many slaves as possible from the entire Shadowlands."

The slaves stared at each other, completely bewildered.

But soon, the joy of escaping death transformed into gratitude towards the "necromancer" before them. Ignoring their own confusion about the situation, they suddenly tried to kneel, but thankfully the Abyss reacted quickly, using magic to steady them. The Abyss didn't need their submission or reverence; he was simply doing what he pleased.

“How can we repay you? You saved our lives!” a slave choked out.

"I don't need any repayment. Just live well here." Abyss waved his hand. "Live with dignity, so as not to let down the help I've given you."

“Thank you! You are my new master!” said another slave.

Abyss chuckled awkwardly and said, “No, I don’t really like being called ‘master.’ You can call me Mr. Abyss from now on. I’m in disguise right now, so this isn’t my real face. I’ll show you my true face after this is all over. But let’s get back to the point. The reason I bought you from the Council of the Dead was to investigate the origins of each of you. I need to find out where the facility that’s holding you is located.”

The slaves didn't know where they came from, but that was of course not a problem.

Under the Abyss's command, the slaves stood in a row. The Abyss easily analyzed the pheromones remaining on these slaves using natural magic—where they came from, and which region's pheromones had the highest proportion on them. The Abyss quickly found out where these slaves came from.

Next, Abyss inquired about the situation inside the facility from the slaves.

The Council of the Dead trains these special slaves completely separately from ordinary slaves. They select those with magical talent from among infants, then take them to specific facilities to begin their training.

Based on their innate talents, these slaves learning magic were divided into different ranks and trained using different programs. The lowest level of training aimed for first-tier magic, while the highest level could reach fifth-tier. This magical education implemented a rather cruel elimination system. Every so often, the Council of the Dead would take away a group of slaves who were progressing slowly and performing poorly, and sell them at the price of the next higher rank.

The necromancers' training was extremely rigorous; those who failed to complete tasks or couldn't memorize spells were tortured and beaten. These magical slaves, who should have had a higher status than ordinary slaves, suffered far worse conditions within the Council of the Dead's facilities.

Abyss has identified the fourteen ranches from which these slaves originated, and knows that the vast majority of slaves in those ranches can use basic magic. Each ranch has about forty or fifty people, which is much smaller than that of a typical slave ranch, but the total number of people across the fourteen ranches is still quite large.

So many people with magical abilities need to be saved. Abyss smirked as he thought of this.

Chapter 312 New Technological Breakthrough

After the slaves accepted the fact that they had gained their freedom, Flora arrived in Iris City. Being the most approachable of the group, she volunteered to guide the slaves in settling in, and her actions proved wise—the slaves became much calmer upon seeing her, and the twenty slaves were quickly settled.

Next, Abyss will make its next move.

……

"Hey, isn't this Ogran? You've arrived?"

A member of the Council of the Dead sat in front of a large door, looking at an elderly necromancer who had just come from outside through a narrow underground tunnel, and greeted him familiarly.

"Oh, good morning." Ogland looked like he hadn't woken up yet, and greeted the staff in a daze.

"What's wrong with you today? Did that female slave you brought back last night, who failed her exams, cause you any trouble?" the staff member teased with a smile.

"No," Ogran yawned. "Just insomnia. Getting old, you know."

The staff looked at Ogran and felt that this guy was a little different from usual, but they couldn't quite put their finger on it because his temperament was exactly the same as usual, and even his walking posture was no different.

This man, Augran, was a special "shepherd" responsible for educating slaves in the facility that trained magical slaves. He wasn't a member of the Undead Council, but rather a peripheral mage. Due to his mediocre talent and lack of progress at his age, he had no hope of entering the Intermediate Council in his lifetime, so he took on the role of educator here, earning a decent income. He had been working here for several years and was quite familiar with the staff member at the entrance.

The staff member, who thought he knew Ogran well, looked the old man over carefully, trying to find anything different about him today besides being unusually tired—but he failed. He had noticed something was off when he hadn't paid attention before, but now, upon closer inspection of the details, he could spot it.

"Sigh, never mind, I might be a bit neurotic. Everyone's saying the Abyss has come to the Shadowlands, I guess I'm overthinking things lately. Even if the Abyss can impersonate Ogrand, can he fool that soul-examining device? Souls can't be faked." He muttered to himself for a while, then waved his hand, "Hurry up and go in, you might be able to sleep a little longer before class. I'll give you a soul scan."

"Hmm... Ah..." Ogran yawned again.

Ogran walked skillfully to the soul scanner at the gate, and the staff activated the soul scanner at that moment.

The scanner's results confirmed that the person was indeed Ogland. This completely dispelled the last vestiges of anxiety in the staff's minds.

"Alright, let's go in quickly."

"Hmm." Ogland yawned and went inside. "I'm useless too."

As Ogran entered, a faint smile appeared on his face from an angle completely out of sight of the staff. A sly glint flashed in his cloudy, aged eyes for a fleeting moment—a glint that belonged none other than that of the Abyss.

The staff member's intuition was correct. The old man walking into the facility wasn't the familiar Augran at all, but rather the Abyss he thought couldn't fake a soul to infiltrate the place. The real Augran was still fast asleep at home, with Flora by his bedside, placing a hand on his forehead and using the Nightmare Lord's power to weave a false memory for him, making him believe he hadn't been sleeping at home but had come to work as usual.

"Your forged souls are amazing! They passed the soul scanner's judgment so easily?" Sophia's voice came through the shared thought process.

“This is also thanks to Abyss for recording his knowledge about artificial souls and putting it in the Great Library of Eternal Night City, which has given my research team a huge boost.” Rebecca’s voice came over at this moment. “I also want to thank the experts in Eternal Night City. I didn’t participate much in this forgery of souls; they did most of the work.”

"Heh heh, now the Necromancer's soul scanner is just scrap metal!" Leona was quite happy. "Soon we'll be able to infiltrate all of the Necromancer's facilities too!"

Yes, the Eternal Night City has now broken through the soul scanner's mechanism and can now forge the souls of all sorts of people.

The book about soul imprinting that was found in Bodil's house before, although it only explained some principles and didn't mention how to achieve it, the author of the book still didn't expect that a monster like the Abyss would get his hands on it.

The Abyss already possessed the means to create artificial souls. After establishing the Great Library of Evernight, he generously shared his knowledge with those responsible for recording it, compiling it into magic books and placing them within. The expert team of Evernight, having learned the Abyss's methods of creating artificial souls and obtained the book from the Council of the Dead explaining the principles of soul imprinting, quickly combined the two pieces of knowledge and put them into practice.

The Council of the Dead's soul scanner doesn't directly identify souls; instead, it identifies unique imprints on specific souls. A soul imprint is a special vibration that can be attached to a person's soul, and once added, it cannot be removed. Each person's soul has a unique frequency, and the addition of a specific imprint creates a unique characteristic, like a fingerprint. The soul scanner identifies this characteristic to determine whether the scanned person is a certified member of the Council of the Dead.

The experts in Eternal Night City took a much more direct approach.

Don't you brand a person's soul to create a unique frequency? Although experts don't know how to brand, they have another way—why not just create an artificial soul that's already branded? I don't need to know your process; I just need to copy your finished product.

This was two days after Abyss rescued the slaves. Yesterday, he spent the entire day observing the facilities that trained magical slaves and found some of the people working there. He not only carefully observed their behavior and appearance, but also used his special ability to observe their souls—an ability previously used only for detecting lies now coming in handy.

The experts of the City of Eternal Night worked at breakneck speed to create alchemical dolls and corresponding artificial souls for these people, allowing the Abyss to launch its new operation today.

He doesn't intend to alert the enemy yet, but he still wants to plant a huge bomb at the foot of the Council of the Dead.

Chapter 313 Special Lunch

Abyss did not interrogate the person whose identity he had impersonated. He was busy today, having several facilities to infiltrate, so he didn't intend to waste time and energy on these people. The sooner he could begin his preparations, the more slaves he could spare from the Council of the Dead's harm and slaughter.

Correspondingly, Abis had consulted with the slaves who had come from the facilities before arriving. Those who had been slaves there grew up there and knew every inch of the places they were allowed to enter, even those places where slaves were not permitted. In this way, Abis obtained maps of these facilities in Helheim efficiently and easily.

Upon entering the facility, Abyss first went to his office to avoid arousing suspicion from the Council of the Dead. Along the way, he encountered many Council of the Dead staff, including some guards called "Shepherds" who were essentially no different from jailers. He calmly greeted everyone, even though he didn't recognize a single one.

The sanitation conditions inside the Council of the Dead's facilities were quite good. Although the mages of the Council of the Dead were not very human, they still cared a lot about hygiene. From time to time, you could see some slaves wearing shackles walking around inside, wiping every place clean with brooms and rags.

According to the former slaves he rescued, these shackled slaves who were responsible for cleaning were those who did not perform well in school. This was a form of punishment for them. After cleaning, they had to go back to continue their education by the necromancers.

In the Necromancer Council's cruel training program, only those who excel in each rank and stand out from the crowd are rarely punished or abused, while those who are relatively mediocre or not talented enough are often criticized by necromancers—even though the magical level of every slave here has improved rapidly compared to mages on the continent, the necromancers don't care about that; they only care about the rankings.

"Mr. Augran." A girl in shackles, carrying a mop, entered Abyss's office. She lowered her head, not daring to look him in the eye, and said in a very soft voice, "I need to clean your office, is that alright?"

Abyss looked at the thin girl and said to her, "Okay, come in. Close the door when you come in."

The girl paused for a moment, as if she had thought of something. After a slight hesitation, she gritted her teeth, resigned herself to her fate, turned around and closed the door. Then she began to sweep the smooth stone floor of the office as quietly as possible with a mop.

Abyss stood up from his seat and walked towards her. The girl trembled when she saw Abyss approaching, and she stopped mopping her hands.

“I have something for you to do,” Abis said, not intending to do anything to her, “but to tell me first, do you want to leave this place?”

The girl was startled by Abyss's sudden question, and she quickly shook her head: "No! I don't want to leave here!"

“It’s not about selling you, it’s about letting you leave this place. You’ll never have to drink those potions that make your bones ache again, you won’t have to worry about your life every day, and you won’t have to desperately study magic every day to avoid being eliminated,” the Abyss continued. “In other words, it’s about letting you live happily every day, able to decide what you want to do. Do you want that kind of life?”

"I don't want to..." The girl's voice trembled with a hint of tears. She didn't know what had gotten into the old man who was supposed to be their teacher today, nor did she want to admit that she had ever truly longed for such a life.

“Hey, look at me, I’m not Ogran.” Abyss smiled at the girl at this moment.

The girl's eyes widened immediately upon seeing Abyss's simple smile.