Advent of the Archmage
chapter-268

There was a creek between the Ferde Wilderness and Girvent Forest called the Moon Creek.

Dorias followed the aura in the air and walked along the bank of the creek. After around one mile, he sped up again. After running for another mile, Link could see from atop him the corpse in the tall grass beside the creek.

The corpse's clothing was ragged and old. He wasn't a scout from the Ferde Wilderness. From the looks of things, he seemed more like a refugee from Delonga.

Dorias got a little closer. Finally, he stopped around 15 feet from the body. A little suspicious, he said, "I don't think he's completely dead."

Link had a similar feeling. The man was covered in dried blood and had a giant hole in his stomach, but the bare skin on his face still shone like a living man. The slightly opened eyes seemed to be like a living man's too.

Even stranger, he was clearly not breathing anymore, but there was still a faint heartbeat. The visible veins bulged, meaning blood was flowing.

"Dorias, can you sense if he has a dark aura? I can't." This was the part that was hardest to explain.

Dorias shook his head too. "No dark aura at all. It feels like he's just asleep but with his guts spilled out…"

Earlier, Gildern had reported to Link that the Undead Army was very special. They were a type of undead that had never appeared in the game. The corpse before Link's eyes now was similarly out of his knowledge.

This had completely destroyed the balance of the world!

Getting an idea, Link used the Magician's Hand to pick up a fist-sized rock and tossed it at the body.

Plunk! The rock crashed against the body, ricocheted, and rolled to the side. The body shuddered. The action wasn't caused by the rock's strength; it was more like a reflexive convulsion.

"He really isn't dead, but he's not alive either. What the heck is this?" Dorias felt as if he'd really seen a ghost. This was beyond his common sense. He'd never seen anything like this in his long life.

Link didn't know either. He tried casting a Glass Orb at the corpse. With a boom, flames burst forth and burned the body. The guy seemed to be in pain. He suddenly sat up on the ground for three seconds before falling straight back.

Other than having no consciousness, he was completely like a living person. However, his action had revealed more of his wounds. One was at the back of his head. Dorias had sharp eyes and saw it first. "Oh my god, look!" he cried. "He was stabbed in the head, and his brains have all come out!"

If he had these kinds of wounds but still wasn't completely dead and didn't have any dark aura, it meant he wasn't undead. However, Link still had no explanation.

He jumped down from Dorias's back and studied the corpse's surroundings. "From the footsteps, a cavalry had passed by once. Let me count…One, two, three…37 types of horseshoes. This mostly matches Gildern's report."

This meant that there were 37 Undead Knights.

Link continued investigating. He used the traces in the environment to deduce the fight that had ensued by the creek bit by bit.

"There are human footprints here…Three people—two men and one woman. One is around six feet, uh…This footprint is from that corpse. That leaves two people. The other man's figure is similar to the corpse. He was probably hurt. Look, that's his blood. From the shape and position of the bloodstains, he was probably hurt in the left arm. The wound is pretty deep…He was probably protecting the woman and stuck out his arm to block an Undead Knight's sword. He blocked it like this…and then…they jumped over the water."

Link followed the footprints along the riverbank and finally found two very deep pairs of footprints. They were different and came from two individuals.

"The Moon Creek is 33-feet-wide, but these two crossed it with just one jump. They're very strong physically and might be strange undead people like this corpse...Let's go across and take a look."

The situation was already apparent from the current observations. These Undead Knights hadn't been targeting the Ferde Wilderness. They were chasing after these targets. So who were these three undead? Why did the Undead Knights want to kill them?

Link was very curious. He climbed onto Dorias again. The beast pounced and jumped over Moon Creek.

"The aura in the air is really obvious. They chased all the way into the Girvent Forest." Dorias followed the smell in the air and advanced.

After walking for around half an hour, they found another corpse beside the path!

The corpse's left sleeve was torn with a shallow wound. Like the other corpse, he was filled with life. He'd been stabbed in the back of the head too, so he could only lay on the floor unmoving as if in a vegetative state.

Link started investigating the ground again. Ignoring the marks made by the Undead Knights, he focused on the woman's footprints. Ten seconds later, he found her trace.

"She ran in that direction and was very fast. Come, let's go after her."

Dorias pounced in the direction Link pointed out. After running for around one mile, things suddenly changed. There were three corpses of Undead Knights beside the road. They wore dark silver body armor and emanated a dark aura. After dying, the dark aura poured out of their bodies. The plants within 30 feet of them had all withered.

Link deduced the situation from the evidence he could find. "The woman ran here, the Undead Knights 65 feet behind her. She was at a dead end, but then, another burst of power came from the forest. It killed the three Undead Knights closest to the woman and took her away at the same time. The Undead Knights continued pursuing instead of retreating."

He couldn't see clearly from atop Dorias. He cast the Eagle's Eye for himself and discovered many more details of the fight.

"This newcomer controls the fire element. They're probably a Magic Swordsman. They're not that powerful, at the base of Level-6. After killing the three Undead Knights, they were also heavily injured…Huh? How come their blood is dark purple? They're a Dark Elf?"

A group of Undead Knights chased after three undead, and a Dark Elf Magic Swordsman suddenly popped up who even rescued the undead woman. The situation had become a bit complicated and mysterious.

Dorias was shocked. "Link, the Undead Knights' armor has an eagle emblem. That's the emblem of the Delonga Royalty. They're from Delonga!"

Link wasn't surprised by this. "Delonga's King Roy the Fifth has gone crazy," he explained. "He's working together with Wavier, another madman, to create an undead army. It already has 30,000 soldiers."

"When was this? No way!" Dorias was totally shocked. He didn't know about the Delonga Kingdom yet.

"It's true… Alright, I'll tell you in detail later. Right now, we don't have time. The Dark Elf Magic Swordsman can't keep up for too long. Let's pursue them to see. Go that way."

"Okay." Dorias pounced in the direction Link pointed out.

This time, they ran one mile, and two more Undead Knights' corpses appeared. Link scanned them and frowned. "It's weird. These were all killed by the Magic Swordsman, but he shouldn't be powerful enough…Look here, he's clearly aon the brink of death, but the Undead Knight suddenly made a mistake and was killed."

Dorias was utterly confused by the mysterious situation. "What's going on?" he just asked. "It's too complicated!"

Link didn't reply. He continued observing and discovered a fresh mark on a tree half a minute later.

"Look, the bark is gone. Someone had been here… He perched on the tree to watch the fight on the ground and acted here…I got it. It was a pebble. He tossed a pebble, resulting in the Undead Knight's mistake."

"So another person appeared?" Dorias finally understood something.

Link nodded. He looked at the eerily dark forest up above and knitted his brows. "So many strong figures appeared. This can't be a coincidence. This woman is most likely important and involved in something very beneficial, so many are focused on her. Dorias, there will most likely be many unpredictable dangers up ahead. We must be careful!"

"I understand." Dorias grew serious for once. Things were too complicated today, and he could sense the danger.

For the rest of the journey, he slowed down a bit for safety.

This time, they traveled for around two miles when Dorias' ears twitched. "Listen," he whispered to Link. "There's commotion in the forest ahead. The fight seems intense!"

"Stay down low…Be careful!" Before Link could finish, he felt heart palpitations. It was fatal danger.

Without even thinking, he moved his wand. Spatial Distortion!

Spatial Lens appeared in all directions, surrounding Dorias and Link. Practically at the same time, a purple laser appeared behind him. It shot into the distorted space and veered to the side. With a sizzle, it shot into a thick tree.

The tree was instantly shot through by the laser, but the laser didn't stop. It continued through five more large trees until it finally disappeared.

Seeing this, Link was extremely shocked. "This laser's strength is at least at the pinnacle of Level-7, but where do you get so many Level-7 Magicians?"

With this thought, the alarms went off in his mind again. Danger came from behind him. Just as before, it was another purple laser beam. He could tell that the enemy had adjusted his attack direction. Based off of the previous distortion angle from the Spatial Distortion, then the laser would hit Dorias after the enemy's adjustment.

Thankfully, the powerful thing about the Spatial Distortion spell was that Link could adjust the frequency however he wanted.

Boom! This fatal laser brushed past Dorias again, but Link wasn't happy at all. Even after these two continuous attacks, he still couldn't nail down the enemy's exact position! The laser seemed to have come out of thin air. There was no one at the other end.

This meant that he couldn't fight back; he could only defend himself passively.

"Two Level-7 spells in an instant. This should be some kind of Magic Tool and this person is great at hiding. Who exactly are they?"

Link had a feeling that he had been sucked into a giant vortex, and the strange woman was at the heart of everything.