Throne of Magical Arcana
chapter-31

After a few more steps the old man finally broke the siege of darkness. However, his eyes were no longer accustomed to the weak light from the moss.

It was just a blink. When he opened his eyes again, some kind of pungent, dark green liquid hit his face directly.

“Ow!!” The shrill cry from the old man scared the rest of them. Jackson looked back subconsciously, even though he could not see anything.

With both hands covering his eyes, the old man was rolling on the ground in horrible pain. The skin of his face burned and turned black instantly. His scream was so bitter that Jackson and the rest of them shuddered with fear. Several second later, the old man fell into the river and the scream disappeared.

Jackson knew there was no way to escape. They would either kill the shadow, or be killed by it.

Their only hope was to fight it!

“Run! Run close to that fucking thing!” Jackson yelled and dashed to the shadow.

Then he saw it was Lucien!

Jackson was furious. Hatred replaced his fear and the only thing in his mind was to tear the fucking bastard up into thousands of pieces.

When he was about to throw his dagger towards Lucien, he saw a blue beam of light in Lucien’s hand. Jackson hurriedly dodged to the left and barely avoided it.

Unfortunately for them, the other thug following behind him was not that lucky. The light beam hit directly in his face and a thin layer of ice quickly filmed his eyes, nose and mouth. Freezing cold invaded the guy’s brain and made him lose most of his power before he could smash the ice.

The guy was choked. Then he banged his head fiercely on the ground.

At this time Jackson finally realized that the person standing in front of him was no more that weak poor guy. However, he became a wizard, an evil wizard with terrible power!

Jackson was not an idiot. He understood that by no means Lucien would let him go. Grabbing his dagger, he leaped at Lucien’s throat with all his strength.

Suddenly, Jackson felt a heavy pressure fell on him and then his legs caved. Then his body fell down directly onto the ground.

“Fuck!” Jackson swore desperately. He did not know what was going on there, but he knew that losing his footing at this point would be fatal.

Longer before Lucien cast Acid Splash, he had already activated his defensive magic — Disarming Loop, without saying a word.

Lucien walked towards Jackson, looking at him wielding his dagger in vain. Without saying anything, Lucien grabbed Jackson’s hand and slowly pushed the dagger into his neck.

The gravity affected the blood and it didn’t squirt out from his neck too much. It was ideal because Lucien did not want any of Jackson’s dirty blood on his clothes.

Jackson’s great anger and pain were choked in his throat. His eyes were wide open and his eyeballs almost burst out, while his arms and legs were twitching against the wall. Jackson’s nails were scratching on the ground, but soon his resistance was no more.

The other guy did not take Lucien much time as well.

Standing beside the underground sewage river, Lucien saw the old man’s body floating quietly downstream with his face soaking in the water. Lucien felt relieved, because he thought the old man would be the biggest threat among them. Who knew if the old man had some kind of evil power from his heretic belief.

All this happened within just twenty seconds. The darkness was still covering the area some distance away. The two injured beggars were still writhing in agony on the ground. Some beggars and gangsters were still floating on the water. But they were too scared to find the broken steel net to escape.

Lucien did not want to kill them all by himself, and he was also not able to. His power had a limit. So the easiest way was driving the rest of them into the Belem River and leaving them to the ghosts there.

But there was one problem. Lucien also could not see anything in the dark area, so he had to stand there for now, waiting for the magic to expire. At the same time, he was adjusting his respiratory rhythm in order to recover his power.

Casting the four spells was very tiring. Lucien’s remaining power was only enough to use either Darkness or Freezing Rays once.

Suddenly the light returned within the spell area. The light startled Skar and he couldn’t help but close his eyes. The fear of death scared him to his knees. He trembled and prayed, “May God forgive me… May God forgive me…”

Slowly opening his eyes, Skar was shocked to find how young the wizard was. In the dim light, the wizard had fine features.

Skar had lost his mind and surrendered. He could not tell whether the man standing in front of him was an evil wizard or a hateful ghost.

It was a good chance to cast Eyes of Stars on Skar, when he was suffering a mental breakdown. The apprentice magic could mesmerize the enemy or make the person fall into a trance state.

The two effects were different: The former, mesmerization, required the caster to look into the other person’s eyes for almost ten minutes, while the latter, trancing, only needed some eye contact, which was more helpful in a fight.

If Lucien could take control of Skar, he could use him to kill the rest of them.

When Lucien was about to cast the spell, a sudden short scream pierced the silence and echoed in the whole space. Even Lucien felt very strange.

As suddenly as the scream of agony started, it stopped.

Lucien stopped his spelling and took a step behind his Disarming Loop. His Freezing Rays were ready to go.

At this time, both Lucien and Skar saw the horrific scene: In the river, a strong and pale hand was holding tight at a gangster’s neck, whose skull was half opened. A black tongue was licking the white brain inside with some effort.

The owner of the tongue was a humanoid monster, whose body was so swollen that its skin appeared almost transparent. Parts of its skin were hanging, showing its rotten flesh beneath. Under the cover of the monster’s seaweed-like long hair, there were facial muscles that could fall off at any time. The place where the eyeballs should be was completely hollow, and there were two tiny white flames burning inside the two eye sockets.

Another beggar’s body, whose brain was completely gone already, was floating towards the river through the big hole on the steel net.

“The Great Master of Argent, the forever lasting silence, may you bless your servants…” A beggar sitting next to the wall started praying desperately.

The monster had a frightening power that reeked of doom. Even Lucien was extremely nervous and terrified, although he was quite a distance away from the monster.

Aquatic Zombies! These were the monsters in the Belem River! They were zombies!

Lucien suddenly recalled the witch’s note, which described the features of the undead creature:

“Aquatic Zombie: immune to Mind magic; No Morale; Immune to poison, sleep, paralysis, stun, disease effects; No fatigue, exhaustion, breath; Do not feel cold; Strong resistance towards ice and acid; Extremely afraid of Fire and Light magic.”

But what frightened Lucien was that the note did not mention anything about the flames in the Zombie’s eyes. Something was definitely not right.