Chapter 115: Barbaric Actions Of A Lich
"Demons aren’t real?" Daniel frowned. Maybe it didn’t mean much from a skeleton’s point of view, but for Daniel, it carried a lot of weight.
Most likely, that human had been referring to the Ancient Demon. But what did he mean by "not real"?
"Could it all have been a lie?" A spark lit in Daniel’s mind — a really dumb possibility suddenly popped up.
But could something like that even be possible? In the online community, there were at least thousands of posts claiming that the corpse of an Ancient Demon rested deep within this mountain.
"How many people who entered the mountain’s depths ever came back alive?" He glanced at the skull and asked.
"Very few? Not sure, but out of the dozens who went in, aside from the first human who came here decades ago, I think maybe three others."
Daniel’s frown deepened. Only four people in total? What the hell was in the depths of this mountain that could wipe out dozens of powerful forces?
Even if A-rank and S-rank Climbers couldn’t win against an enemy, they definitely had defensive items and plenty of escape methods.
Rumors don’t appear out of nowhere. There’s always some truth behind them. The only thing Daniel could think of now was that the rumors had been spread deliberately to lure all those forces here.
But why? What reason could there be?
"The death aura... According to this skeleton, the death aura here was weakening day by day. But after all those forces came, it got rich again."
"But the question is, why would anyone want to strengthen the death aura here?" Daniel felt like he was getting caught up in another conspiracy.
Screw it. I don’t plan to go into the depths of the mountain anyway. He decided to drop the idea entirely.
He was way too weak to deal with stuff like that right now — and he didn’t care to, either.
"We’ve arrived, my lord." Vorak’s voice pulled Daniel out of his thoughts.
Standing on top of a hill, Daniel looked ahead and saw a fortress-like structure.
It looked more like a small residential area built entirely out of bones.
"So this is your tribe, huh? Where’d you even get all these skeletons?" Daniel lifted the skull a little higher and asked.
"These are the skeletons of weak creatures that died on the mountain’s surface."
Daniel ignored him and activated his spiritual sense to inspect the undead tribe. His perception range suddenly extended for kilometers, reaching into the fortress.
Its security was extremely high — multiple defensive towers, skeletal soldiers, and skeletal archers standing on the walls, all keeping watch.
There really were a lot of them. The skull wasn’t lying when he said there were around a thousand undead here.
Then Daniel focused on the center of the fortress. Dozens of humans were lying on the ground, their eyes blindfolded.
Several undead stood with weapons on either side of them. A bit further ahead, there was a massive skull, clearly made of bone.
"Is that blood?" Daniel squinted and realized that inside the huge skull, there seemed to be blood.
Standing next to the massive skull was an undead — roughly Daniel’s height — dressed in a decorated red robe, holding a mage’s staff.
Unlike the rest of the undead, this one was giving off a much stronger and different aura — clearly the fraud lich.
"Haha, today is the day I break free from my chains and finally ascend to the sky!" The red-robed undead opened his mouth and laughed.
"My dead, offer the humans as tribute to the Great God of Death!" he said, then looked at two undead soldiers and gave an order.
Without hesitation, the two undead grabbed two humans and dragged them forward. The humans began begging for their lives — crying, screaming, even kneeling before the lich.
But it was pointless.
The undead soldiers beheaded the two and dropped their heads into the massive skull’s mouth. Then they grabbed the corpses and poured all the blood gushing from them into it as well.
The eyes of the giant skull lit up, but after a few moments, they dimmed again. The lich realized it wasn’t enough and ordered two more to be sacrificed.
"How barbaric," Daniel said coldly as he saw the scene, and canceled Vorak’s summon.
There was no way he could enter such a fortified stronghold with Vorak. He could force his way in, sure — but it’d take too long, and all the humans would be dead by then.
Suddenly, his feet lifted off the ground. He flew up above the fortress.
And stood directly above the entrance of the fortress.
The undead guards saw someone appear above the fortress and immediately raised an alarm.
The archers didn’t hesitate and began firing. Thousands of arrows shot toward Daniel.
Daniel let out a mocking snort and activated [Royal Barrier]. All the arrows shattered before they could reach him.
"My turn now." Daniel smirked and raised his hand.
[Crimson Judgment]
Thousands of swords appeared above the undead and rained down on them.
The guards glanced at each other and instantly scattered in every direction. What kind of monster had just attacked their fortress?
Unfortunately, they were all low-level undead and couldn’t speak — otherwise, hearing their terrified screams would’ve been interesting.
One by one, the swords came crashing down, slaughtering the undead.
[You have killed an undead and gained 17 EXP.]
[You have killed an undead and gained 24 EXP.]
One notification after another popped up in front of Daniel. He disabled them and focused back on the scene ahead.
He had completely wiped out the fortress’s guards, but his attack had drawn the attention of the other soldiers and core undead forces.
"What’s going on?" The lich frowned as he heard the noise.
"What the hell is that?" He looked into the distance and noticed smoke rising in the air. Without delay, he ordered all undead to prepare for battle and sent them toward the fortress entrance to see what was happening.