Undead Mage: I Have a Skeleton Clone

Chapter 667 - 447: Undead Authority, The Path to Godhood, Defying Fate! (Part 2)

The Soul Fire in Fang Zhou’s eye sockets flickered as he activated his ultimate talent.

Attribute panel, give me a cheat!

An unknown energy surged from within Fang Zhou’s body and began to rapidly erode the seals upon him.

In a fleeting moment, Fang Zhou had completely corroded the runes within the Altar of Death, nullifying the dozen or so Sealing Runes that bound him.

Silently freeing himself from the seals, the Soul Fire in his eye sockets flickered as he slowly raised the Corpse Long Spear.

The next moment, Fang Zhou effortlessly shattered the external defenses of the Altar of Death. As his Death Energy entered the black vortex, his attribute panel refreshed with several new notifications.

"Detected a weak Authority of the Undead Realm. This authority is extremely dangerous. Analyzing..."

"Detected the presence of the Undead Blood Moon Blessing. You are immune to authority corrosion. A large amount of Soul Power can be consumed for devouring and fusion.

Begin devouring?"

Suppressing the urge to devour, Fang Zhou took a few steps forward, appearing before the Altar of Death. According to the information he had gleaned from Vladimir’s memory, he could now seamlessly analyze the vast amount of information contained within it.

A moment later, Fang Zhou excitedly clenched his fists.

The Naraku Civilization’s development and use of the Undead Realm far exceeded the imagination of Blue Star’s humans. In the late stages of the racial war between the Naraku Civilization and the Abyssal Demons, although the Naraku were gradually and utterly defeated in the Mythical World, they had managed to preserve a relatively strong resistance force in the Undead Realm. Even the Guardian God of the Naraku Civilization had transferred the foundations of its faith into the Undead Realm.

In the final moments, the Abyssal Demons pursued them into the Undead Realm, clashing with the Naraku remnants and the realm’s native forces in a war of terrifying scale. Of course, the Undead Realm was victorious. The Abyssal Demons who had given chase were all corrupted into mindless undead, stripped of their own thoughts and will. However, their dying counterattack shattered the once-whole Undead Realm into countless broken fragments of varying sizes.

Every fragment concealed a piece of the Undead Realm’s weak authority. The once-mighty will of the undead also lost its consciousness, degenerating from a complete and powerful Blood Moon into a mere phantasmal Blood Moon Projection. From then on, it could only hover high in the sky of the Undead Realm, silently bestowing its blessing upon every outstanding undead creature.

It all clicked for Fang Zhou then. No wonder that after he grew stronger, the Corpse Hills had felt surprisingly small, not the boundless Undead Realm he had imagined. And no wonder he had never encountered any undead creature above the Bronze level within the Corpse Hills. Even the Skeleton Lord, a creature that had been stuck at the peak of the Black Iron Tier for who knew how long, couldn’t find a method of inheritance to break through its bottleneck and advance to Bronze.

It seemed that all of this was because that world-shaking war had changed the entire ecology of the Undead Realm. For an Undead Mage, this was a groundbreaking discovery. The theory held by Master Sandro and Instructor Su Xinyan—that the Undead Realm was a single, complete plane—had now been disproven. The Meditation Methods developed based on that theory resulted in an extremely weak connection between Undead Mages and the Undead Realm, one that could hardly be called close. Consequently, the cost-effectiveness of related Summoning Series skills was also exceedingly low.

This was the true culprit behind the weak combat power of Blue Star’s human Undead Mages.

***

Taking a deep breath, Fang Zhou looked up at the black vortex hovering in mid-air.

This was, in fact—a fragment of the Undead Blood Moon’s authority.

Such a small piece of authority was naturally not enough to allow powerful undead to appear in this remote corner known as the Corpse Hills, nor was it enough to allow the weak undead here to travel to other fragments of the Undead Realm. But it was more than enough to allow an endless stream of death energy to gush forth into the fragment where Fang Zhou resided.

To the Mythical World and Blue Star, where Fang Zhou’s main body was, death energy was a negative energy that constantly eroded living beings. To the Undead Realm, death energy was... the very air—omnipresent and endless.

After examining the Altar of Death, etched with various eerie arrays and patterns, Fang Zhou gained a deeper understanding of its purpose. The Altar of Death had two main functions.

First, it softened the energy flowing from the Authority of Death, making it more suitable for newborn undead... or more accurately, for the undead living in this "newbie village" of the Corpse Hills.

Second, it maintained the existence of the Authority of Death. One had to understand that space possessed a self-repairing capability. If such a weak authority from the Undead Realm were left unattended, it would slowly shrink and eventually disappear over time. Only by constructing an Altar of Death and using the Rune Arrays and energy within it for sustenance could this weak authority persist.

For an undead like Fang Zhou, this exceptionally pure death energy represented a wealth of Four-dimensional Attributes and racial potential.

Attributes...

Watching the altar continue to spew out a ceaseless stream of death energy, the Soul Fire in Fang Zhou’s eyes flickered. Perhaps before exploring the next fragment of the Undead Realm, he should spend some time accumulating power to boost his strength further.

Although he had advanced to a Bronze Undead, the skeletons and zombies in the Corpse Hills could now barely provide him with any useful Corpse Essence or Soul Power. However, the vast Soul Power he had absorbed from devouring the Skeleton Lord, which had been accumulated over many years, was more than enough for Fang Zhou to cultivate for some time. Furthermore, this Altar of Death could continuously provide him with a large amount of Attributes.

That being said, all he lacked were skills and time.

Fang Zhou tightened his Bone Fist as several strategies began to form in his mind. His main body had already been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, and his access level in the Human Alliance’s Skill Library had been raised from E-rank to D-rank. Exchanging contribution points for some universal skills for Bronze Tier Combat Professionals would be no problem at all. Although the cost would be rather steep, Fang Zhou’s previous savings, combined with the rich rewards from completing various tasks in the Forest of Nature, would be enough to support it.

Once all of his Black Iron skills were evolved and enhanced to the Bronze Tier, combined with the substantial attribute points provided by the Altar of Death, and the unknown benefits from devouring and digesting the weak Authority of the Undead Realm before him... his strength would undoubtedly skyrocket in a short amount of time.

The entire Corpse Hills no longer held any rivals worthy of a fight. It was time he converted his potential into actual strength.

Having made his decision, Fang Zhou no longer hesitated. He directed the Yellow Springs Nightmare onto the Altar of Death. Grasping the Corpse Long Spear firmly, he connected it to the weak authority hovering in mid-air. He would use his Corpse Armor to purify and refine the energy from the Authority of Death before absorbing it into his body.

This process would be long, yet with every passing moment, his Attributes were subtly increasing. The joy of this idle leveling was more than enough to compensate for the mind-numbing boredom. This period also gave Fang Zhou time to await the attribute panel’s analysis, devouring, and absorption of the Blood Moon Blessing and the Authority of the Undead Realm. He could also use this time to plan the direction of his Skill Deduction and enhancements.

The world was his oyster, and his great transformation was at hand.

Before entering his seclusion, Fang Zhou gave one last order to Olaf: to command all his skeletal servants to scour the entire skeletal castle for any overlooked, valuable spoils of war. Afterwards, they were to rendezvous at the Altar of Death.

Only then did he enter seclusion with peace of mind, immersing himself completely in absorbing and comprehending the death energy.