End of the Magic Era
chapter-26

'What the…' Lin Yun was startled when he heard that strange sound and instantly moved back, a small, bright flame appearing at his fingertips.

As the flame lit up the area, Lin Yun saw that at the place he had been standing, a skeleton was pushing its way out of the ground. The skeleton's body was covered in black mud and it was holding a rusted scimitar, and two phosphorescent flames flickered within its empty sockets.

'An undead lifeform?' Lin Yun was horrified by the revelation. This was clearly a lowly Skeleton Warrior, the lowest lifeform amongst the undead. 'How come my luck is so good? I casually found a Planar Path, but it ended up leading to the famous Undead Plane?'

'Such a cruel joke…'

Even at the peak of the magic civilization, mages wouldn't rashly set foot in the Undead Plane. That place was just too dangerous, and even powerful mages could fall there.

Endless swarms of the undead… They had unlimited stamina and did not fear death or destruction, making the Undead Plane one of the most difficult planes to conquer.

Lin Yun once read a note clearly saying that during the entire length of the Plane Colonization Era, only three people truly conquered the Undead Plane!

The Plane Colonization Era lasted for ten thousand years, so who knew how many outstanding mages appeared during that period? But only three of them managed to conquer the Undead Plane.

'What should I do?' Lin Yun felt a bit faint. This wasn't a joke, as the renowned Undead Plane simply wasn't a place that a 9th Rank Mage like him could set foot in. Let alone a 9th Rank Mage, even a High Mage, even an Archmage would be courting death by stepping into the Undead Plane.

'I have to quickly leave this place, if I wait until more of the undead are alarmed, I won't be able to leave even if I want to.'

With this in mind, Lin Yun chanted something, and the small flame at his fingertip immediately turned into a blaze, which turned into a Fire Arrow and flew at the Skeleton Warrior. At the same time, Lin Yun hurriedly retreated and kept chanting line after line, matching these words with various gestures. The mana fluctuations in the surroundings became fiercer.

The Fire Arrow struck the Skeleton Warrior's body, exploding with a "bang!" and sending sparks and white bone fragments scattering from the impact point. The entire left arm of the Skeleton Warrior had exploded. That kind of injury would be enough to seriously harm any ordinary combatant and seriously incapacitate them, but it was far from enough for an undead.

After receiving the Fire Arrow attack, the Skeleton Warrior was only staggered a bit. And then, as if it hadn't been affected at all, it got up and lifted its rusted scimitar once again before charging at the retreating Lin Yun.

This was the frightening advantage of the undead: they were very troublesome to kill. Losing a hand or a leg was a much less significant loss for them. Besides reducing mobility and effectiveness, they still would be able to fight.

But Lin Yun had already anticipated that. After shooting out the Fire Arrow, he didn't stop chanting, and just as the Skeleton Warrior was raising its weapon, Lin Yun's second spell was cast.

"Thunder Hammer!"

A large hammer with electricity surging all over it and made of flickering gold light appeared out of nowhere in front of the Skeleton Warrior before smashing down, emitting a clap of thunder.

A deep fracture appeared on the Skeleton Warrior's sternum, followed by a lot of low sounds that grew until a sharp "crack" rang out.

The Skeleton Warrior wasn't able to scream, but the fires in those empty eye sockets were raging as the scimitar in its hand still began to swing down.

But what awaited it was a second Thunder Hammer.

Another "bang" echoed, and this Thunder Hammer completely smashed the Skeleton Warrior's skull, extinguishing the fires in the eye sockets in that instant. The scimitar fell to the ground with a "clang" along with the bones of the Skeleton Warrior.

"Pheew…" Lin Yun let out a sigh of relief. He skillfully rummaged through the Skeleton Warrior's skull while carefully checking his surroundings, preparing to use the Planar Path to return to Noscent at any time.

Soon, Lin Yun found a black Undead Essence from the remains of the Skeleton Warrior. This was what remained after the soul fire stopped burning. It contained a large amount of death energy and was an extremely good material to add to a Magic Weapon. It would add death energy to each attack, causing the enemy to have all kinds of negative thoughts, and against a foe with less resistance, these negative thoughts could make the difference between victory and defeat.

This kind of Undead Essence could reach a price similar to that of an Excellent Magic Tool if put on the market.

'Not bad luck.' The Skeleton Warrior's soul fire was quite weak, so it was very improbable for it to become an Undead Essence after it was destroyed. It was truly lucky for Lin Yun to get one from this.

But even if his luck wasn't bad here, Lin Yun was still in a terrible mood.

After all, each Planar Path gave the opportunity to attain endless wealth. At the peak of the magic civilization, the powerful mages were mostly relying on Planar Paths to make their marks on the world before setting foot at the peak of Noscent.

Unfortunately, this Planar Path led to the famous Undead Plane.

But giving up completely was beyond Lin Yun.

Though, Lin Yun had no plans to consider profiting from this plane for a long time.

He was lucky this time. He only met one Skeleton Warrior and got an Undead Essence from it. But who would guarantee that he would be as lucky next time, when he might run into ten thousand of them? What if he met a Lich? That was a frightening existence on the level of an Archmage. Moreover, such an existence wasn't that rare in the Undead Plane. In a plane where even Black Dragons could be found in a large group, what were a few dozen or even a hundred Liches?

'Hold on…' After remembering all kinds of things about the Undead Plane, Lin Yun suddenly thought of an issue.

'So, why was there only one Skeleton Warrior? It's rumored that the Undead Plane is teeming with endless undead. There should be a sea of Skeleton Warriors here. How could I have met just one Skeleton Warrior after such a long time? This isn't logical…'

'Is it possible that this isn't actually the Undead Plane?' This possibility made Lin Yun's hand shake.

Yes or no, the difference was too huge. One side had the chance for endless wealth while the other side had nothing but hardships. Lin Yun made a risky decision for this. He interrupted his chant to activate the runes that would let him return, and instead chanted the Mage Eye spell.

Three Mages Eyes blended into the night one after the other as they stuck close to the ground while moving at a very fast speed.

From what the Mage Eyes showed him, Lin Yun could see that there really weren't any more undead creatures on the entire black wasteland.

This discovery made Lin Yun's breathing quicken.

But after thinking about it, he still had some reservations, so he cast Detect Undead.

This time, Lin Yun felt them. There truly weren't any more of them across the wasteland… but they were sleeping underground. If they weren't alarmed, they might not wake up for eight to ten years.

Lin Yun was still surprised to discover that among all the undead lifeforms under the ground, the most powerful was only a Bone Devil.

It had to be known that the strength of a Bone Devil was at most equivalent to a peak Great Mage.

This didn't make much sense. Across such a huge, black wasteland, how could the most powerful lifeform be a mere Bone Devil? After all, in the Undead Plane, Banshees and Liches filled the place. A mere Bone Devil, how could it occupy such a huge territory?

At this time, Lin Yun was almost certain that this place was most definitely not the Undead Plane. There weren't enough undead here for that to be the case, and they were also too weak. Something as weak as a Bone Devil was the strongest in this area.

In the Undead Plane, those mages of the peak era should not even be mentioned. But it wasn't the Undead Plane, so where was this?

The undead were here, there was a dark-red crescent moon, the air was filled with death energy, and it had the same smell as the Undead Plane. All these similarities...

'The Bone Plane!' With all these clues, Lin Yun patted his head before finally remembering. 'That's right, this must be the Bone Plane, a plane with characteristics very similar to those of the Undead Plane, but its power was countless times lower.

This was too different for Lin Yun.

In that spacious decayed library, there had been countless documents about the Plane Colonization Era, and Lin Yun had read some of those when feeling bored, even the more insignificant ones.

The Bone Plane had been discovered somewhere in the middle of the Plane Colonization Era. Three young Mages from the Ivory Tower had accidentally obtained the coordinates of the Bone Plane during an experiment, so they used the coordinates to create a brand new Planar Path and then completely conquered the Bone Plane within three months.

That's right, just three months...