Chapter 384: The End (Part 1)

  "I'll give you thirty seconds to cast. Let me see the so-called art of spellcasting from the most powerful human caster of this era."

  The look in Moriel's eyes as she gazed at the Lich was not as if she were looking at an ant; she was simply looking at an ant.

  "Good. You said it yourself." The Lich's laughter became ten times more hideous. The Necromancers behind her quickly scattered, each taking a position and beginning to chant their incantations.

  This was not a duel, nor was it the time or place for one, let alone under such childish conditions. Lancelot and Roland wanted to step forward to stop or persuade Moriel, but they did not dare. They could sense that whether they tried to persuade her or acted on their own, the only result would be a fist. All they could do now was retreat, back into the remnants of the allied army, leading the others in retreat.

  What Moriel could disdain, others could not necessarily disdain, or rather, others absolutely could not disdain. These were all the most formidable Archmage-level spellcasters. Any one of them, with thirty seconds to prepare, could unleash a spell powerful enough to turn the entire remaining allied army to ash.

  The incantations of the other Necromancers rose and fell in a peculiar rhythm, intertwining with each other like background music accompanying a main melody. And that main melody was the Lich's voice, a sound so ugly it barely seemed like a sound at all. A chanting sound, like a broken gong being smashed to pieces with desperate force, poured continuously from Vedenina's mouth. She spread her arms wide, like a singer completely lost in their song, facing that deepest, darkest black.

  This strange and hideous concerto of incantations continuously swirled up vortexes of black energy in the air, overlapping and resonating with each other before returning to the Lich, the ugliest and most terrifying of singers. Around her, a darkness began to gather, nearly identical to the one around the Lich King—a black so profound it could be no blacker.

  Unlike the one around the Lich King, this blackness was not just an absolute black that devoured everything. It also seemed like a living demon, churning and swelling into a massive black sphere that hung high above Moriel and Gru.

  Countless undead bones already scattered on the ground began to twitch again. Like countless ants, they piled atop one another, melting and recondensing as strangely as if they were wax. But these recondensed bones were much smaller. All the necrotic remains left in Gru's wake were recondensed, but only to form over a dozen massive skeletal dragons. But on closer inspection, one could see that the bodies of these skeletal dragons were no longer bone, but crystalline like jade, yet ethereal and almost transparent. They were, in fact, Banshee-like bodies. These were no longer skeletal dragons, but the next step up: Ghost Dragons.

  A dozen or so Ghost Dragons soared into the air, circling the pitch-black sphere in the sky as they slowly descended. Though their movement was slow, the sphere covered all the space below it. The figures of Moriel and Gru looked like two insignificant specks.

  "How do you like this Song of the Dead? I know that most magic today is probably useless against you. I'm not interested in competing with an ancient dragon in Dragon Magic using the current magical system. But have you forgotten that we are all servants of the Lich King? The power of this Song of the Dead, chanted in unison for thirty seconds, has summoned the very power of the Lich King himself. Each of those Spirit Dragons possesses power no less than when they were alive. Even if you were once the strongest of the Black Dragon clan, what of it? Do you think you can stand against the great The Black Star...?"

  The blackness around her and the black sphere in the sky echoed each other. The Lich, like an emissary of this black world, was triumphant. But her triumph lasted for only a few seconds.

  Amidst two heaven-shaking roars, two figures shot into the sky.

  If Gru's roar was like a great, indestructible blade, seemingly about to tear the darkness apart, Moriel's voice was a boiling, exploding sea with waves crashing to the heavens, about to drown everything here. There was no light around Moriel's body, yet she appeared more dazzling than Gru, who was glowing with brilliant Battle Qi. Her human form was so minuscule, but with that single lunge, that single leap, it was as if the entire ground beneath her had caved in.

  If Gru's roar was like an indestructible divine sword, Moriel's voice was a boundless, irresistible, boiling, exploding sea. One was sharp and piercing, the other vast and majestic. They complemented and contrasted with each other, a flawless combination, as if the two figures and their two roars were originally one. With a deafening crash, the massive sphere of blackness shattered.

  But it was not the black sphere that made the sound as it shattered, but the surrounding Spirit Dragons. After Gru's dazzling form shot into the sky, it became a blur of light, streaking swiftly between the Spirit Dragons. Then, the dozen or so Ghost Dragons all shattered, almost simultaneously. The colossal crash shook the entire Sea of the Dead.

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  What shocked the Lich the most was not the great noise, but the shattering of the black sphere. Moriel's tiny form charged completely into that seemingly all-devouring blackness, and then that darkness shattered without a sound. A joint Forbidden Spell, cast by several Archmage-level, or even Grandmaster-level, spellcasters, had been broken by these two with their bare hands.

  The shock was not just mental. The bodies of Vedenina and the other Necromancers trembled simultaneously, and then they began to crumble. Vedenina's Lich body, like a biscuit stepped on by a person, shattered and scattered. The other Necromancers did the same. This was the backlash from The Black Star. Their consciousness and bodies had long been linked to that sphere of blackness.

  In the blink of an eye, the black aura and the Spirit Dragons in the sky were completely shattered, without even leaving fragments behind. Only two figures slowly descended from mid-air. The Battle Qi radiating from Gru had weakened considerably, but Moriel remained the same. There was no light on her body, yet she was still more dazzling and eye-catching than anything else.

  "Your body has fully recovered?" Gru asked Moriel calmly. He was covered in blood; shattering those Spirit Dragons had not been an easy task. But regardless, even with an ancient dragon beside him, he still looked as powerful, flawless, majestic, and invincible as ever.

  "Yes. It's been tens of thousands of years since I've felt this good." Moriel's laughter rolled through the darkness. "It took these few days, but those two Necromancers finally managed to practice a small part of the Meditations on Truth at the last moment. Together, they used their lives to break the seal."

  "You mean both of them...?" Vedenina's voice came out intermittently from her crumbling body. Only her crumbling body could slowly reform. The other Necromancers had already turned to dust on the ground. The backlash from The Black Star's aura was more than they could bear, even as servants of the Lich King. If the Lich's soul did not possess its own consciousness and her Spirit Conjuring had not reached the Archmage level, she would be just like them now.

  She had not failed to guess Sandro's purpose in leaving, but she had not pursued him. For one, she truly lacked the confidence to deal with both Sandro and Agrael away from the Diya Valley. For another, she understood that even if Sandro could sacrifice himself to break the seal, it was not certain that the seal could be completely broken.

  The seal required someone who had completely mastered the Meditations on Truth to break it, but Sandro, or any Necromancer for that matter, had not completed the Meditations on Truth. Moreover, Moriel's life within the seal had already been nearly exhausted, so she was not too worried. But now, it seemed this Black Dragon princess's body and condition were excellent, her fighting strength even greater than five hundred years ago when she faced Archibald. Only now did she realize that Sandro was not the only one who had sacrificed himself to break the seal; Agrael had as well.

  "Yes, both of them. Two very interesting people. Half a day ago, they both used the Meditations on Truth on my sealing magic array, condensing all their magic power and life force from over ten days of gathering and colliding it with each other, finally shattering the seal of confinement that Archibald had made with my blood and soul. It was a complete break. All the power within returned to me. And after recuperating for so many years, I think my power is sufficient now."

  "So you used them as an experiment. You wanted to test how much of a gap there is between your power and his?" Gru asked.

  "Yes." Moriel sighed. She looked at the deepest patch of blackness and shook her head with a sigh. Her fiery red hair swayed, and even her look of disdain and regret seemed filled with a stirring passion. "It's a pity I'm so disappointed. Just as I sensed before, for a creature like that to become the Lich King is an insult to this divine artifact."

  "Impossible, that is the power of the great Lich King. No matter how powerful you are, you cannot possibly stand against this power," Vedenina wailed from the ground.

  "Fool. Can't you feel it? The power of this The Black Star is simply too weak. I felt it the moment that hilt was taken up. I felt the veins of the entire continent enveloped in this dark aura, just like when the Elven King took up The Black Star. But it seems because the vessel is too weak, the magnitude of the power is far too distant, like a newborn cub. No, 'puppet' is more fitting. A creature like that can't even maintain its own consciousness, and you dare call it a Lich King? You should know that even without The Black Star, the Elven King of that time was no less powerful than I am. Compared to this brat who now holds the hilt of The Black Star, the difference in power is like that between an elephant and an ant."

  "It's just a pity that I had no strength left to do anything then. The seal and the injuries from the last battle had left me unable to endure. I thought I could only wait quietly in that underground chamber to die, regretting that my pact with Archibald could never be fulfilled. But I never thought that at that moment, Necromancers would come to break my seal, and that they would be two acting Guild Masters. They were supposed to go and become servants of the Lich King, to exist forever as half-undead. Who would have thought they would use their own lives to awaken me?" Moriel let out a long sigh. "In these past few days, they have taught me another thing: that besides Archibald, these human monkeys are not completely useless."

  "They were two very interesting people. If I could, I truly wish they hadn't died. I wanted to hear their conversations with each other. Even tens of thousands of years ago, there were few such interesting times." A reminiscent look was on Moriel's face. She was actually feeling a bit sentimental. For such an emotional expression to appear on a creature as formidable and almost incomprehensible as her was a very strange sight.

  "For the first time, I've found that these lower creatures called humans are truly interesting, more interesting than any life I have ever seen. Although their lives are short, only a few decades, almost all desires and instincts can be entangled in various strange and fascinating ways, settling down to become all sorts of experiences and outcomes. From them, I can see so much. I can see their lives, which are formed from countless desires and countless entanglements. They are actually more vibrant, more interesting, and more memorable than our tens of thousands of years of life."

  "No. Those two traitors." Vedenina, who was watching from the side, suddenly shrieked. Her crumbling form had gradually reformed into its original shape, but it was only a shape. The power and magical structure within had long been shattered. She was now no different from the lowest-level Wight. "They did not fulfill the destiny given by Archibald. They fled, and even used their own lives to destroy it. They are a disgrace to the Diya Valley, a disgrace to all Necromancers."

  "You are a disgrace to humanity. No, a disgrace to all living beings." Moriel snapped her head around and roared at her. The massive sound wave shook the withered muscles on the Lich's body, causing them to fall. This single roar almost shattered her newly reformed shell again.

  "You keep mentioning Archibald, but do you truly understand his meaning and his thoughts? You're just using his great name as a shield for your own foolish actions. You can't even be considered a villain. A villain, at least, dares to admit that what they do is evil. You can, at most, be considered a petty person, imprisoning yourself in a spirit world as humble as an ant's, yet thinking you are great?" Moriel looked at the Lich with utter contempt. "Can human women truly be this disgusting? It seems your proper place is in a nest, birthing young for your males. Women who think they can accomplish something, who think so highly of themselves, are usually the source of all calamity. But rest assured, I will soon make you just like these necrotic remains on the ground."

  Just as Moriel raised her hand, that sphere of the blackest black suddenly tore open.