Volume 3 Containment Operation Chapter 30: A Brick to Inspire Others
I was not lucky enough to draw a sixth or seventh level skill, and only learned a fifth-level thief skill with the lowest reward. However, I was very satisfied with the result because it was exactly what I needed.
The level 5 skill "Shapeshift Phantom" can create two identical clones. The three images move synchronously, making it difficult to distinguish the real from the fake. Although the two clones are phantoms and cannot make substantial contact, they will disappear once they are touched, but using it suddenly can have a miraculous effect in confusing the enemy and facilitate the thief's escape. The only disadvantage is that it consumes a little more mental power. Of course, for an undead wizard like me with super high mental power, even if the consumption is doubled, it is not a problem at all. However, what needs to be worried about is the success rate of skill casting. Because it is a skill of the second profession, it has been reduced by 20% innately. It is also a level 5 skill. Even after the bonus of equipment, it now has less than 50% success rate. If it fails to be used in a critical situation, it will be miserable. You can only practice more when you have nothing to do and practice it to a five-star proficiency as soon as possible, so that the success rate can be higher.
I now have an additional practical skill to protect myself, which gives me more confidence for the upcoming competition. Looking back, the time is almost up, and I can implement the "throwing a brick to attract jade" plan, trying to win over a more capable subordinate and further enhance my strength.
I named the newly captured dark knight without a mount "Wuma". I was not satisfied with it. Although I forced it to be captured, the nature of the dark knight conflicted with the command of the "Soul Contract". The ideological struggle was too intense. When he saw me, he often threatened to die. He wanted to go to "Dragon Bone Mountain" or challenge other dark knights. In short, he wanted to get a mount again. I was annoyed by his quarrels. Moreover, if Wuma wanted to exert his ability, he had to be equipped with a mount at least. However, the mount had to be tamed before it could be ridden. It was impossible to find one as a substitute. Naturally, I would not give Taotao to it. As for the idea of going to "Dragon Bone Mountain" to help it capture a mount, it was almost like sending myself to death. It was not worth taking such a big risk. Then the only option left is to challenge other dark knights and forcibly plunder their mounts. This is also a crazy idea. The difference in strength between the one with a mount and the one without a mount is too great. Under normal circumstances, there is absolutely no chance of winning. However, in order to enhance my strength as quickly as possible, I can only take the risk. Of course, the purpose is not to help Wu Ma regain his mount, but to use it to strive to subdue a dark knight in good condition.
Can a dark knight without a horse and a shield still be called a "dark knight"? The answer is no. According to the "Law of the Dead", because the two-day limit has passed, Wu Ma has not been able to regain his mount, so now he is a shame for the noble undead knight and has become the target of other undead knights. It is safer to hide in the low-level undead creature area. As long as he dares to show up in the high-level undead creature area and is discovered by other undead knights, he will definitely be hunted down and killed. And it is better to die than to live in disgrace. This is determined by the arrogant nature of the dark knight. Therefore, even if they know that there is no chance of winning, they will still challenge for a new mount and will never choose to escape. If it were not for being forcibly bound by my "Soul Contract", Wu Ma, who lost his mount, would no longer exist.
My "throwing a brick to attract jade" action was formulated based on this point. The "brick" naturally refers to Wu Ma, and the "jade" is the intact Dark Knight. The plan is to use Wu Ma's characteristic of being hunted to lure a Dark Knight to chase after him, lead him to the low-level undead creature area to mobilize zombies and skeleton shooters to besiege it, and add Wu Ma and I to subdue it at all costs. With it, I have an extra layer of security when entering and leaving the high-level undead creature area, and I have more substantial capital to carry out the next step of the plan to subdue high-level undead.
Wu Ma's condition has recovered, and the "killing order" against it has also come into effect. It's time to execute the plan. First mobilize the army, command more than 10,000 zombies and 7,000 skeleton archers, and lead Wu Ma to the periphery of the high-level undead creature area. Set up the battle formation, with the skeleton archers in the back for long-range attacks and the zombies in the front, forming a human wall and acting as meat shields. Of course, the distance cannot be too close, lest those high-level undead creatures rush over to destroy it and disrupt my plan.
This time, Wu Ma was the one who acted as the enemy lure. Only he could induce the other dark knights to chase him as hard as they could. If it were me, we would not have any deep hatred with him. At most, I would give up after chasing him for a while without any results. Under normal circumstances, I would never chase him out of the high-level undead creature area. And I dare not take the initiative to provoke some dark knights who are extremely murderous and will actively chase him. Their strength is obviously higher, close to the level of terror knights, and I am not confident enough to deal with them at the moment. However, with Wu Ma's slow walking speed, it is estimated that he will be caught up by the dark knights in no time. I can only transfer the undead army to this area for a decisive battle, and I can't get any closer. Therefore, if I don't find ways to save Wu Ma's life first, the dark knights who have achieved their goals will have no reason to act according to my wishes.
I let Wu Ma hide among the zombies for a while, and I rode Tao Tao into the high-level undead creature area to scout and select the target to seduce. My target is only the dark knight, and I have no idea about the higher-level horror knight. Don't provoke them by mistake, or you won't have any chance. And although dark knights rarely appear in groups, I can't help but be on guard to ensure that I only seduce one dark knight according to the predetermined route. If Wu Ma's charm is too great and attracts two or three to chase after me, my plan will definitely fail.
I avoided the harassment of some bored black warriors and carefully searched for my target. Although it was rare to see a dead knight in the edge of the high-level undead creature area, the action plan required that the location must not be too deep or too far away from the undead army. Otherwise, even if I was holding him back, the clumsy horseless horse would find it difficult to escape the pursuit of the dark knight and hide in the formation of the undead army in time. Whether in terms of strategy or tactics, horseless horse is the most critical link in my plan. Before I have completely gained the upper hand, I must not let it go.
After searching for a long time, I even found the more advanced Giant Bear Terror Knight, but I couldn't see a single Dark Knight, which made me extremely disappointed. However, because the early deployment of troops and integration of the team took a lot of time, I was about to be resurrected , so I had to turn around and leave the advanced undead creature area. After the previous lesson, I was even more worried about letting Taotao put himself in danger. Not only did I use my mental power to carefully explore it to see if there were any pursuers, I also specifically told Wu Ma and Phosphorus to protect it.
I appeared in the high-level undead creature area again. Maybe I was lucky this time. I soon found a dark knight wandering alone. I tried to actively harass it, trying to lure it out, but the effect was not ideal. This dark knight obviously had no interest in me. I could only lure it to catch up with me for a few steps each time. When it saw that it could not catch up, it would turn around and walk to the other side, no longer paying attention to me while I was running away. I wasted a lot of time and did not make any obvious progress. It seemed that I could only let Wu Ma come to lure the enemy.
I sent out the order to summon Wu Ma. As long as he didn't run into other undead knights along the way, the black warriors would ignore him. I continued to entangle the dark knight , not letting him get away, and also used it as a warm-up exercise. Anyway, when I started chasing him later, I had to try my best to contain him, lest he let go of his speed and rushed over to chop Wu Ma.
For me, dodging the Dark Knight's pursuit was relatively easy with Taotao's speed, but entanglement with it was much more difficult. The Dark Knight was already very impatient with my entanglement and kept issuing angry warnings to me. In the end, he even let me attack with the "Cloud of Death" and moved straight forward, ignoring me completely.
In desperation, I had to use "Touch of Death" in advance, but it was still ineffective against its body. As soon as "Sperm Absorption|Marrow Devouring" wrapped around its body, it was shattered. However, I had already thought of a countermeasure, which was to shoot the horse first. I directly used "Touch of Death" to attack its mount, the skeleton horse.
Although my mental power is not as good as the Dark Knight's, it should be more than enough to deal with the skeleton horse. Sure enough, I easily used "Absorbing Essence and Devouring Marrow" to entangle its body and began to absorb its mental power continuously.
Seeing the skeleton horse being attacked, the dark knight became irritated and chased after it with his saber in his hand for two steps. I immediately retreated to the back, not allowing it to get close. I tried to get rid of the fog belt's entanglement with the skeleton horse, but it was still ineffective. He couldn't help but stop and roared at me angrily. No wonder he was so angry. I learned from Wu Ma that in a battle between undead knights, unless the knight himself is defeated first, they will not actively hurt each other's mounts. My attack seriously violated the combat rules that undead knights should abide by, and was despised and disdained by them. It's just that he complained to the wrong person. I was an outsider "fake knight" who was not bound by their rigid rules.
I secretly rejoiced that I had finally caught its weakness. Attacks like "Touch of Death" can only be resisted by mental strength, and cannot be blocked with a shield like ordinary skill attacks. Of course, I never thought of killing the skeleton horse. It was not my intention to subdue another dark knight without a mount. I just wanted to make the skeleton horse extremely weak, so as to limit the dark knight's ability to the greatest extent. They all attach great importance to their mounts and will never let their mounts sacrifice easily. As the saying goes, "care too much and you will be confused." At that time, there will definitely be bigger flaws that I can exploit.
Suddenly, an extremely powerful spiritual force surged into the skeleton horse's body, and the black mist belt surrounding its body was instantly shattered. I also trembled all over and swayed a few times. I was caught off guard and almost fell to the ground. It felt like the Dark Knight transferred his spiritual power into the horse's body, thereby destroying the "sperm-sucking and marrow-devouring" attack.
In fact, the Dark Knight and the mount are born together, and can provide spiritual support like Taotao and I do. Only the acquired mount and the Dark Knight will not have such tacit understanding, and their abilities will be limited to a certain extent. However, because the competition is too cruel, the number of acquired Dark Knights in the "Dead Soul Space" is extremely rare. According to my personal speculation, it is only possible in theory. In fact, I had expected that the Dark Knight could resist the attack of the "Touch of Death" on the mount in this way, but at the beginning it seemed quite flustered, doing some useless actions, and did not help the mount to resist as I thought, which made me mistakenly think that I was lucky enough to encounter an extremely rare acquired Dark Knight, and it could not form a perfect cooperation with the mount, so it was unable to resist the attack of the artifact. Although the acquired Dark Knight is not as good as the innate one in terms of ability, it is at least much stronger than the horseless one, and it is also easier to subdue. But I didn't expect it to be still innate, and it came to a sudden attack, which made me happy for nothing.
I think it was because it lacked experience and had never experienced similar attacks. The reason why it was able to shatter the "Touch of Death" attack was completely an instinctive reaction of consciousness, and it did not react to the attack on the skeleton horse for a while, which led to my misunderstanding.
The Dark Knight, who had gotten rid of his troubles, rushed towards me with a roar. Seeing me running away in a hurry, he stopped chasing me helplessly and turned to run to the other side. I didn't expect that even though he was already furious after being provoked by me, he still didn't fall for my trick and was unwilling to waste energy chasing me. It seems that without being bound by rules, the Dark Knight's IQ is quite high.
I had no choice but to rush forward to harass its skeleton horse again. Of course, it quickly got rid of me this time. However, because I was supporting the mount, I couldn't do it as I wanted to do with my own counterattack. I had to pause and accumulate momentum before I could use my strength to destroy my attack. Although I couldn't cause any more damage to the skeleton horse, I was able to delay the Dark Knight's actions, which basically achieved my goal. I could not only hold it back and prevent it from getting away, making it easier for Wu Ma to rush over and implement the seduction plan, but also effectively contain it when it was chasing Wu Ma, so that Wu Ma wouldn't be too slow and it would catch up and chop him.
We fought on and off like this. I couldn't hurt it, and it couldn't get rid of me. Finally, I held on until Wu Ma arrived safely. The moment he saw Wu Ma, the Dark Knight's momentum changed immediately. He stared at Wu Ma with his eyes straight, showing unprecedented concentration, and gradually exuded a strong mental fluctuation, full of hatred, disgust, and contempt... At the same time, he began to swing his sword, as if he was about to rush over. Wu Ma in the distance was also extremely excited. Facing a powerful opponent, he was not afraid at all because he lost his horse, lacked a shield, and was not fully equipped. He held up his saber and walked forward, with a posture of resolutely fighting and facing death.
