Prologue: Dreams, Madness (Part 3)

"Rodhart, squad leader of the Einfast Holy Knights, seeks an audience with Marquis Inham Ernie and the mages of Dehya Valley…"

The voice echoed through the Spiral Shadow Mountains, like a lone wave breaking across the mirror-like stillness of a lake. It was loud, resonant, and full of vitality and strength.

But no response came from anywhere in the mountains. The entire Spiral Shadow Mountain Range was like a massive, lifeless obsidian sculpture—silent as death. Only the source of the call, a valley entrance in the mountains, broke the stillness with faint sounds.

This place marked the border between the Spiral Shadow Mountains and the Fly Dragon Desert. For reasons unknown, perhaps wind patterns or something else, golden sands gave way to the gray-black mountain slopes. The two colors formed a stark dividing line, though both hues signified death—the desert with its golden, dry, scorching lifelessness, and the mountains with a darker, more profound stillness of death.

Here, dull and lifeless sounds of collisions and breakage echoed. Dozens of undead creatures, emerging from rocky crevices and underground chambers, were besieging the one who had shouted.

A skeleton warrior's rusty sword scraped against leather armor, producing a sound like tearing thick paper. Another skeleton's flanged mace struck his forehead, resulting in a cracking noise.

But it wasn't his skull that broke—it was the handle of the mace. These skeletons had clearly been dormant in the valley for countless years, their weapons long deteriorated into near uselessness.

Even so, the corroded mace still managed to leave a gash on Rodhart's forehead, blood and fragments trickling down. But Rodhart didn't even blink.

He couldn't blink; he had to keep his eyes on every movement around him. Ignoring the blows that landed on his body, he forced his way through the skeletal attackers. He used a zombie's arm as leverage to leap into the air. Just as he jumped, a green cloud of mist narrowly grazed his feet.

The green mist clung together, dense and swirling like a floating cotton mass, and it streaked out of the valley entrance toward the desert. A camel waiting in the desert was unfortunate enough to be brushed by the mist. It collapsed with half a cry, foam of a sickly green-black color bubbling from its mouth and nose, its eyes melting into sludge. This deathly magic was lethal enough to fell an elephant in one strike.

"In the name of the Lord, I banish this unclean presence!" Rodhart, mid-air, unleashed a burst of holy light from his hands. Four or five wraiths scattered in panic, two of them disintegrating into fragments with a strange, hissing wail before vanishing. Though this was only rudimentary white magic, it was like boiling water poured on ice for these incorporeal undead.

But Rodhart paid no attention to the wraiths. His eyes were locked on a figure further ahead.

Amidst the dozen skeletons and zombies stood a withered, emaciated figure wielding a staff. The green mist had emerged from the tip of this staff. This was no ordinary zombie or skeleton—it was a lich, a corpse wizard that retained fragments of magical power and intelligence from its previous life.

The lich's tattered robe barely clung to its frame, but its design betrayed its origin as a mage's robe. Though weathered and ragged beyond recognition, the robes hinted at the lich's former identity as a mage of considerable skill. Now, the lich commanded the undead with eerie precision, directing the skeletons, zombies, and wraiths as its army.

The lich's hollow eye sockets stared at the airborne opponent rushing toward it. With a single motion of its hand, four or five intact and agile skeletons leapt forward, while the surrounding zombies closed in from all sides. The staff in the lich's hand began to gather another cloud of green mist.

Although liches had lost their independent cognitive abilities, their combat instincts remained intact. All the magic they possessed in life had been transformed into a singular, potent weapon: necrotic mist. Their combat prowess far surpassed that of ordinary skeletons or zombies.

The skeletons intercepted the attacker mid-air, successfully latching onto him with their bony limbs. Though they couldn't inflict any significant damage, they managed to drag him down to the ground with sheer force. The zombies on the ground swarmed in, their goal not to attack but to immobilize him.

Death. Victory.

The lich's hollow eye sockets remained empty, and its half-skeletal, half-decayed face showed no expression. Yet within the faint remnants of its consciousness, this single thought surfaced.

The green mist swirling around its staff thickened and expanded rapidly. But just as the cloud was about to be unleashed, its withered skull and upper torso abruptly exploded, scattering into fragments.

The longsword, faintly radiating white magic, spun through the air before embedding itself into the ground just behind the lich. The lich's upper half collapsed, lifeless.

Meanwhile, the remaining zombies and skeletons surged relentlessly toward Rodhart. Despite those at the front crumbling and shattering under his fists and the power of his holy magic, the undead army pressed on without hesitation. Yet, with the lich — their leader — gone, the disintegration of these bone-and-flesh constructs was now merely a matter of time.

By the time Rodhart had completely eradicated the skeletons and zombies, he was already gasping for breath. His body bore at least five or six wounds, with one skeletal arm still lodged in his shoulder. Both his magic and physical strength were nearly depleted.

"Rodhart, seeks an audience with Marquis Inham Ernie and the mages of Dehya Valley…"

Once again, he called out toward the shadowy depths of the gray mountains. His voice was still loud, but now it carried exhaustion and a hint of desolation. The sound echoed briefly through the mountains before fading away, swallowed by the oppressive gray.

After listening to his voice fade into the silence, Rodhart turned back toward the valley entrance. Pausing by the corpse of the camel, now reduced to a pile of rotting flesh, he hesitated. Looking at the supplies it had carried—water and food—he sighed. The provisions, contaminated by the lich's death mist, were no longer edible.

The second camel carried some clean water and food, but no amount of coaxing could get the beast to enter the valley. No matter how hard Rodhart pulled, the camel resisted with all its might. Its instincts warned it against stepping into the gray, lifeless stone.

After two attempts, Rodhart finally sighed. With a single swing of his sword, he beheaded the camel, its blood spraying into the sand.

After drinking deeply from the camel's blood and taking what provisions he could, Rodhart stepped into the valley. The towering gray peaks, lifeless and immense, loomed over him like colossal undead monsters, silently watching as the lone human ventured into their shadows.

Three days later.

"Rodhart, seeks an audience with Marquis Inham Ernie and the mages of Dehya Valley…"

This call, repeated countless times, echoed once more through the Spiral Shadow Mountains. This time, however, it no longer sounded like a plea. It was the dying cry of a beast.

Standing atop a mountain peak, with the endless black-gray range stretching before him, Rodhart could no longer tell where he had come from or where he was supposed to go. He wasn't sure if this would be his final cry.

Behind him, all around him, and below, hundreds of skeletons and zombies were closing in. In the air, a dozen wraiths floated toward him, their empty sockets fixated on him like diners drawn to a feast.

His voice still echoed in the mountains, but Rodhart turned and leaped toward the approaching horde.

His longsword severed the heads of two zombies, while his curved blade dismantled three skeletons. He even used his body to shatter two skeletons and rammed headfirst into a zombie's face. But at the same time, he took at least five or six hits. A zombie's sword pierced his abdomen, the icy water magic embedded in the blade forming two crisscrossing ice spikes inside him. He could feel at least three of his intestines being punctured.

The warmth on his face told him another skeleton's claw had nearly ripped off half his face.

As he ventured deeper into the mountains, the undead wielded increasingly powerful magical weapons. Though ancient and weathered, their sharpness had not diminished, easily tearing through his tattered enchanted leather armor.

Rodhart twisted and sliced the zombie that had impaled him into two, then shattered the last two skeletons. The ice spikes in his abdomen snapped with a sound that punctured two more spots inside him.

Throwing his curved blade, he impaled a wraith mid-air. The flame magic embedded in the blade tore the wraith into shreds.

For a brief moment, as the wraith dissipated, Rodhart thought he saw the figure of a mage in a grand robe. That wraith might once have been a great wizard.

The fiery curved blade that destroyed it had been scavenged from a zombie's hand, bearing the crest of the Holy Knights. Rodhart recognized the insignia, though he couldn't tell how many years it had been since that blade was forged.