Chapter 419 A Deadly Secre (1/2)

Fweet! A burning sensation pierced Vulture's back the instant he heard Rhode's whistle. Vulture lowered his head subconsciously and found a white, flawless blade glistening with gentle holy rays puncturing his chest. Then, the Undead Knight's vision turned pitch-black.

A black sword secretly pierced the back of Vulture's skull, through his brain and blinding one of his eyes. However, this wasn't the end because the Spirit Bird screeched and dove from the sky, clenching tightly onto the Undead Knight's body and shrouding him with massive, dazzling bolts of lightning. On the other side, the Centaur Knight darted from the shadows with his pike raised highly.

Suddenly, a palm wrapped around with electricity extended and struck the pike. The powerful impact exploded, scattering dust and gravel, bending the pike with its raw strength.

”Aowu!”

The Black Hound arrived by the Undead Knight's side and bit him on the arm mercilessly. However, Vulture, who was emitting black smoke and filled with fire sparks, once again extended his arm, attempting to grab the Black Hound's neck. But he didn't succeed because Rhode emerged before him like a ghost and brandished his scarlet sword.

The red radiance shot towards Vulture in a perfectly straight line. In the blink of an eye, it pierced through the Black Hound's body towards Vulture. However, Vulture barely had enough time to guard against this non-threatening strike; he felt a glaring white radiance and an explosive wave sweeping towards him.

Bam! The ear-deafening explosion resounded in the entire mountains—even the gravel from the surrounding valleys began to crumble. At this moment, Rhode lost all his elegance. He frantically escaped from the scorching heat waves until he reached the side of the chariot. Rhode had exhausted his final bit of strength because 'Legion Horns' was one of the most energy consuming skills. This was why Rhode only used this skill now. All he could do was to wait for the next results.

A pillar of flame soared into the sky, rendering the clouds in a red halo. As though they were glowing in harmony, the marble white color of the dawn sky finally emerged on the horizon.

It was daybreak.

After the flames finally disappeared, Rhode stood on his feet and gasped for air. He patted the dust and mud off himself and lifted his head towards Vulture. Under the glory of the dawn, the Undead Knight remained on the same, burnt spot, retaining its motion in grabbing the Crimson Blade. When the first morning sunlight shone on his body, he crumbled and turned into dust entirely, drifting with the wind.

”Hu…”

Rhode let out a long sigh of relief and collapsed on his bum once again. There was only one trump card left in his arsenal—'Self-breakthrough'. If Vulture was not dead by then, Rhode would go ahead and take a hit from him. In any case, Rhode's energy was emptied after casting 'Legion Horns' and it wasn't difficult for him to be killed in a split second. However, due to this, it increased the chances of triggering 'Self-breakthrough' and would give Rhode a chance to turn the situation around.

Without a doubt, such a deadly combination existed only in theory because no matter what, Rhode wasn't willing to gamble his life for an experiment. Furthermore, the recoil of 'Self-breakthrough' was worse than 'Legion Horns'. He could recover from 'Legion Horns' after a couple days of rest; however, it wouldn't be surprising if he laid in bed for at least ten days or up to half a month from triggering 'Self-breakthrough'. Moreover, he didn't bring along a healer for this trip, so if something serious were to happen to him, he could only rely on the few bottles of healing potion.

Although Vulture was dead, Rhode felt a chill down his spine because this was the most dangerous battle he had ever experienced in this world. As a matter of fact, even in the game, it was the undead creatures that gave players the most headache—especially those high-level undead creatures…

From a certain perspective, undead creatures were kind of similar to players. For a player like Rhode to gather this much rich battle experiences and hold vast knowledge and mastery in battle tactics was mainly because he was a player who could revive again and again.

It was the same for the undead creatures. Not to mention low-level undead creatures; high-level ones such as the lich or bloodsucker types could revive just like players. Without a doubt, they couldn't revive on the spot with full health like players could, but their battle experiences was not lacking.

Moreover, there were two areas where the undead creatures were scarier than players. It was harder to kill them and most of them didn't have any negative emotions such as fear—this was something that players weren't able to achieve. These high-level undead creatures were as cold as a sharp blade, without a care in the world as long as they could take the lives of their enemies.

After this battle, Rhode gained a new understanding of the high-level undead creatures in this world. Vulture could be considered as the highest level Undead Knight he had ever met. Although those army deserters from the very start of Rhode's journey in Silent Plateau were also Undead Knights, they were nothing compared to Vulture. However, this wasn't the most troublesome matter: Rhode was most concerned about the characteristics of these undead creatures, which he had sensed during this battle.

After entering this world, Rhode realized that there were many differences between real life and the game. Take Rosen for example: in the game, he had hundreds of thousands of HP and an ordinary group of players wouldn't be able to defeat him. However, in real life, he was still a living creature, so a punctured heart and a hacked skull killed him instantly. Unlike in the game, no matter how many times one tried to puncture his heart, he wouldn't die as long as his HP didn't deplete to 0. Such an illogical reasoning wouldn't make sense in real life.

However, for a high-level undead creature like Vulture, he was almost similar to the 'HP' characteristic in the game. Undead creatures possessed souls, but their souls weren't located in their chests or heads. For high-level undead creatures, it was most likely that they had a secret vessel to store their source of soul. When facing such an enemy, the only way to defeat them was to demolish their spiritual energy continuously until they lost the energy to support their bodies, just like a BOSS near the brink of death.

In the game, there was also a similar comparison: the war between the Country of Darkness and the Country of Light. Although the low-level Undead Soldiers didn't possess powerful strength nor intelligence, their fearless, ruthless, machine-like discipline accompanied by their overwhelming quantities made them stronger than ordinary soldiers. These Undead Soldiers didn't even require training or cultivating; they could go for wars as long as they picked up a weapon and their enemies were the fearful, emotional, and extremely fragile humans.

As for those high-level undead creatures, they were sly, possessed powerful strength, had more battle experiences, and lived much longer than the strong ones in the human civilization. Although the human race had elites who were on par with those high-level undead creatures, there was something that they lacked. And that was the ability to revive. If both were equally-leveled elites who had their skulls hacked at the same time, the undead creature would only need to expend some energy to recuperate from their 'severe injuries'. However, the human elite would face a proper death.

This was the reason why only Lydia was capable of stopping them. As an Archangel, she perfectly displayed her non perishable feat of survival as long as the sun existed to oppose the army of the Country of Darkness.

Rhode thought that if the game was different from real life, perhaps the undead creatures might be easier to be dealt with. However, he discovered that according to this reality, living creatures were much easier targets to handle. The difficulty of dealing with living creatures had decreased from Normal to Beginner level and those undead creatures had passed the Difficult and even Nightmare level…