Chapter 51: The Prison of the Dead appears! (1/2)

“Master is about to evolve, quick get those soul flames over here!”

As always, the most level headed one among my subordinates was No.5. While everyone was overcome by battlelust, it was he who noticed my unusual situation first. Without any hesitation, he immediately ordered the other henchmen to send over the next batch of soul flames.

While all this was happening, I was in an enthralled state and thus couldn’t pay any attention to my surroundings. However, after all this time in hell, consuming souls had become an instinctual ability. Even without my consciousness piloting my body, my mouth knew exactly when to open up in order to absorb the soul flames being offered to me.

As batch after batch were sent into my mouth, a new change began to emerge in my body. The first was my stature became even more slender, giving it the elegant and alluring silhouette of the world’s most beautiful model.

The next change happened atop my forehead. The skin on my forehead began to split open amidst the rapid changes in my body, revealing the signature horn of the devil.

However, it was a single horn unlike the dual horns found in the other head imps. In fact, it’s central positioning and outward growth made it more akin to the horns normally found on unicorns.

While my body didn’t receive any significant boost in strength, my mana did. As my horn sprouted, the mana in me experienced an explosive increase. From the original 50 units of mana I had when I started evolving, it began to rapidly increase: 51,52,55,61…all the way to 80!

As the mana in my body began to stabilize, the changes in my body gradually stopped as well. My second evolution was finally complete!

But just when I thought that things had settled down, the ground began to shake and it wasn’t some minor tremor either. The earth shook as if it was trying to tear itself apart, sending shockwaves throughout the village that not only destabilized us but the undead as well.

It had gotten to the point where some of the skeletons began to shatter under the violent rumblings of the earth. The sounds of knees falling to the ground echoed throughout the battlefield as zombies and devils alike began to fall to the ground.

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What’s up with this earthquake? This brother just had a simple evolution, is there a need to create such a grand display for me? It’s a fricking earthquake after all! Not just some random party popper…it is an honest to goodness earthquake.

10 seconds later, the earthquake was still going strong although it began to gradually slow down. However, just as I thought that the earth was finally going to calm down, it sent me another bolt from the blue.

A thunderous crackle raced across the horizon as a colossal wave of energy began emitting from the ground up. The immense shockwaves rolled across the village like an invisible tsunami, knocking aside any large object in its path.

The already dilapidated chapel collapsed under this immense pressure, followed closely by the neighboring houses collapsing in a concentric pattern radiating outwards. Soon, the entire village was covered in what looked like an avalanche of dust.

It was at this moment, that the earth was torn asunder by a rounded, bone-like structure. As the earth and debris were flung into the air, more and more of the mysterious structure revealed itself. It was a giant skull similar to the one I saw on that stone tablet.

Suddenly, the skull abruptly halted its upwards tunnelling at the midpoint of its skull.

It had a 10 meter diameter at its widest point and had an exposed height of 5 meters where only the portions above the base of its nose were visible.

As my eyes drifted upwards along the towering skull, something immediately caught my eye; it had the same horizontal cyclopic eye as that skull on that tablet! Right on its forehead was a hole that resembled an eye socket with a horizontal line drawn across the black abyss within.

The Prison of the Dead?!

That was the first thought that raced across my mind as I recalled the words on that tablet. Wasn’t this the same skull I saw on that tablet?!

A second later, mournful wails began to echo from the black abyss within the skull’s eye sockets. My eyes narrowed as I focused on the bottomless abyss and caught what looked like a single phantasmal human face tunnelling out from the black hole.

Another popped up in the corner of my and then another…and another. The wispy faces multiplied exponentially in a second filling the otherwise black eye holes with a field of wispy white apparitions.

Not only were there humans within the mix, there were devil apparitions as well.

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As more ghosts began to emerge, I caught sight of what could only be described as an abomination.

It was a monstrous ghost formed from an amalgamation of several ghosts. Its body sprouted a multitude of heads and hands, each representing its constituent ghost in a ghastly display of unity.

By now, a large mass of ghosts had already exited the skull, and judging from their direction, they seemed to heading towards me!?

S**t, we haven’t even taken care of these undeads and yet more show up?! Am I really that unlucky…is it my fate to die once more?

However, just as I was about to give up, the ghosts circled harmlessly around me and flew straight at the undead. What greeted me next was an even more surprising sight, the undead started fleeing from the oncoming ghosts! If it wasn’t for their ghoulish appearance, I would’ve mistaken them for living breathing creatures who knew how to feel fear.

In a short span of time, the undead surrounding us had mostly scattered to the winds. Those who didn’t, were swiftly killed by the ghosts.

Rather than kill, perhaps soul extraction seemed like a more appropriate description for the unusual scene unfolding in front of me.

The ghosts had a strange method of dealing with these undead. They would hover around the target undead for a couple of seconds before reaching into their eye sockets with their incorporeal hands. A second later, they would withdraw their hands with the undead’s soul flames in tow!

However, instead of consuming the extracted soul flames, they merely tossed it aside. The strangeness didn’t end there either; instead of falling to the ground, the soul flames would continue to hover around the ghosts as they continued on to the next undead.

While the majority of the undead chose to flee, some would try to fight back. However, these low level undead were naturally not a match for these ghosts. They only had physical attacks and as such, couldn’t damage the incorporeal bodies of the ghosts.

Unless the ghosts materialized to attack them, their attacks were doomed to pass harmlessly through their wispy targets.

Having seen the futility of their attacks, they attempted to run away but it was too late. In the few seconds it took for them to attack and turn around, the ghosts were able to harvest their soul flames, killing them…

As the hundreds of ghosts plowed through the battlefield, the undead numbers were quickly reduced to nothing. With the village now empty of undead, the ghosts proceeded on to chase down the survivors.

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It’s…over?

What happened to round two?

“Mas…Master…what should we do now?” No.5 asked me with a silly look on his face. However, this time, he wasn’t alone; I had that same look on my face as well.

“Err…those ghosts shouldn’t be back any time soon. Let’s do a quick head count and see what our losses are.”

After sending off No.5, I immediately rushed to check on Mo Ci. That skull appeared right above the chapel’s cellar, does that mean that Mo Ci…damn it, I hope she didn’t run into them…

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Just as this thought crossed my mind, a stammering voice echoed from above me: “Master…save us…”

As I looked up, the sight of the two female attendants popped into view. They were looking down at me from atop the giant skull.