Volume 5: Protracted War Chapter 72: Re-entering the "Valley of Dark Wind"
Suppressing the doubts in his heart, he slowly walked forward and picked up the pale white magic wand that didn't emit any luster. To be more precise, it should be a bone skull wand, about 60 to 70 centimeters long, with a diameter of 3 to 4 centimeters, a pointed end, and a fist-sized exquisite skull head. It felt so light in his hand that he couldn't feel any weight. It looked like it shouldn't be an ordinary item, but it didn't have any luster, and it seemed to be empty on the outside, but it was lifeless inside, and it could only be a dead object.
"Name - Dead Man's Staff; Level - Artifact", I began to check the attributes of the Skeleton Staff with trepidation. I was shocked at the first sight and was immediately ecstatic. This humble magic staff turned out to be an artifact, which was really unexpected. It is true that a person cannot be judged by appearance. It seems that the quality of this top-grade equipment cannot be judged by appearance. It does not emit light, probably because it wants to play dumb and hide its true identity, so as not to be seen through by the opponent at the first sight.
I was so happy that I went to check the specific attribute information. I didn't expect that the short comment that followed would make me feel so depressed that I almost wanted to vomit blood - "It is sealed and cannot be used." Doesn't this mean that the equipment I worked hard for several days, and it is a magic wand of artifact level, is sealed. I can't use it in my hand, which is equivalent to a piece of waste. This is too torturous.
Because it was sealed, the specific properties and functions of the "Death Scepter" could not be displayed, and I had no way of knowing it, which made me even more disappointed. As for the reasons for being sealed and the conditions for lifting the seal, additional explanations were made - the "Death Scepter" is the royal object of the supreme God of Death of the Undead Clan. It is made of divine power and has experienced several wars of the gods. It has accumulated countless resentments of the dead. Ordinary people are not strong enough, and it is easy to be backlashed by the artifact when driving it. Moreover, the "Death Scepter" is so powerful that it is comparable to ordinary artifacts. It should not be lightly used in the world. Only true warriors who have passed many tests are qualified to use it, and use the power of the artifact to spread the gospel of the God of Death in the world, so as not to fall into its great reputation. In order to lift the seal and exert its supreme power, the first thing is to accumulate enough professional merits, make contributions to the dark profession, and dedicate one's loyalty. After meeting this condition, it is also necessary to trigger a specific hidden plot to know how to lift the seal of the artifact. In short, it can be summed up in one sentence: "Fate is determined by God and cannot be forced; when the opportunity comes, everything will be known by oneself."
This is the result of my five days of hard work. All I got was a hope, a hope that I don’t know when it will be realized, three months, five months, or a year? “Accumulate enough professional merits”, what a simple sentence, but what is “enough”? Without quantitative standards and specific explanations, wouldn’t it force me to work hard for the “Resistance Alliance”? A sealed artifact has trapped me, forcing me to work harder and do my best for the great cause of “anti-Ming and pro-Black”. It really kills two birds with one stone, what a brilliant method!
Isn't it? In order to "accumulate enough merit" as soon as possible, I had to actively turn down the reward from the "Resistance Alliance" that I should have received for being one of the "Top Ten Masters in the World", which would require a deduction of the corresponding merit points. A divine weapon deprived me of many rights, and it seems impossible to turn things around in a short period of time. I only hope that the properties and functions of this "Dead Scepter" can be worthy of my efforts and help me compete with the Supreme Honor and Holy Heaven.
Although I was not satisfied with my harvest, I did not hear the system release an announcement, indicating that the other nine masters also failed to obtain the artifact. I thought that at most they were just like me, and obtained an artifact that was sealed and temporarily unusable. After the initial annoyance, the agitated mind slowly calmed down, and I was finally not too disappointed. I didn't know if it was lucky that the "exploration mission" that I had high expectations for ended up like this?
The Tongxin League is busy completing the promotion task of the mercenary group. This is a serial case that cannot be solved in a short time. My help is not needed for the time being. I asked Long Xingtianxia, and the "Resistance Alliance" has nothing important to do at the moment. I don't care about small tasks. I'd better return to the "Dead Spirit Space" first and try my best to expand my power. The agreement with the bat demon Dika to eliminate Graveson and Douglas, increase the efforts to help the "Resistance Alliance" against the Church of Light, strive for the plan to quickly accumulate merits, and Taotao will face the challenge of competing for the qualification to soak in the "Hell Magma Pool"... Everything else is what I have to face in the near future. So many troubles piled up together, it's a headache to think about it. In addition, although I have won a lot of honors in this "World Hero Conference", except for participating in the underground gambling and earning a huge amount of money of 400,000 gold coins, I didn't get any practical props and equipment. The overall strength has not only not been improved, but has declined a lot compared to before. Moreover, even if I had 400,000 gold coins, there was no way to exchange them for cash for the time being. My "World Card" credit rating was not high enough, and I had to complete mercenary missions to get a further upgrade before I could obtain the corresponding free exchange quota. It was like a sealed artifact, I could see it but couldn't eat it. I had a large fortune but still had to live a poor life. It was so torturous.
Another border skirmish was launched, and more than 200 corpse witches were subdued in a quick assault. In order to avoid alerting the enemy, I dared not continue to cause trouble, so I had to change my target and planned to go to the "Yinfeng Valley", one of the four forbidden areas, to go again. On the one hand, in order to further enhance my strength, I prepared to search the valley in detail to see if I could find a higher-level undead than the Devouring Ghost King. According to convention, any undead population should have a powerful existence similar to the level of the Ghost Emperor. This is all to blame Xiaobai. With the title of Devouring Ghost King, he is a small boss, but he is a little confused. He knows nothing and doesn't understand many things, so I have to explore it myself. On the other hand, Xiaobai, who has been silent for a long time, is finally going to explode. He has accumulated enough experience and energy and reached the corresponding growth level. He needs to return to the "Yinfeng Valley" to undergo the tempering of the Yinfeng and absorb a lot of Yin Qi essence. Only then can he be reborn and evolve into a higher-level existence. I will also send him off to avoid any troubles and twists and turns on the way.
In order not to waste time and affect Taotao's soaking in the "Hell Magma Pool", they can no longer rush on the road with the three Corpse Kings like last time. With their slow speed, they will be delayed for a few days on the road, which is too inefficient. Although they cannot use "mental attack", with the help of Taotao who can fly and fight and Hongxing who can cast the "life-taking flying spear", I think they should be able to fight even against the Ghost Emperor.
The corpse wizard was also too slow, so there was no way to go together. He couldn't show up in public without a horse, so he used Taotao as a means of transportation. In addition to Xiaobai and Hongxing, he only brought 20 terrifying giant bear knights to escort him and eliminate some unnecessary troubles. He had walked this road twice before, and was familiar with it. He carefully avoided those troublesome beings in the "free territory" and successfully arrived at the "Yellow Wind Valley".
It was really difficult to find the Ghost Emperor who was hiding somewhere in the huge "Yinfeng Valley", but I was mentally prepared. If I wanted to gain something, I had to be patient. Under Xiaobai's leadership, I searched in some remote and secret places that I had not visited the previous two times, and subdued those relatively tall body-eating ghosts about two meters long. With my current strength, it was effortless. Xiaobai came forward to subdue them, and I only needed to tap my finger lightly, and they would surrender obediently and serve me.
Things were going quite smoothly at first. For three days in a row, although there was no sign of the Ghost King or the Ghost Emperor, I had subdued nearly a thousand strong body-eating ghosts. However, something unexpected happened on the fourth day. I encountered forty or fifty body-eating ghosts about three meters tall, almost the same size as Xiaobai when I first subdued him (Xiaobai has grown a lot now, with a body length of four meters). Although they are not as capable as the Body-eating Ghost King and their figures are looming and they cannot be completely invisible, their strength is quite strong, even stronger than Xiaobai's former ghost guards. Moreover, they are unruly and do not seem to take Xiaobai, the Body-eating Ghost King, seriously. They ignored the orders to stop and drifted away on their own.
Such an impolite act seriously offended the dignity of the Devouring Ghost King. Xiaobai was naturally furious and chased forward to teach these 40 or 50 bold lunatics a lesson. I never thought that they still had the courage to resist. Even though they were defeated, they fought and retreated, showing quite arrogance, completely defying the rule of respecting high-level peers. I was immediately very interested in these rather special Devouring Ghosts. I went forward with Taotao to help. They were not Xiaobai's opponents in the first place, and they were quickly defeated. I used the "Soul Contract" to subdue them one by one. However, what was a little strange was that their mental resistance was surprisingly strong. Often, it took only three or two times to succeed. The most successful one took more than ten "Soul Contracts" to successfully subdue it. It felt like some inexplicable consciousness was fighting against me.
Ghost Banshee, this group of Devouring Ghosts actually have an owner, and the owner is a Ghost Banshee. After reading their memories and getting this information, it is no wonder that they are so difficult to subdue. It turns out that they are the direct subordinates of other undead. It does take a little more effort to make them betray their original masters. Although the ethnic structure of Devouring Ghosts is not yet understood, it can be clearly known from their memories that Ghost Banshee is definitely more powerful than Ghost King. Not only is her body taller, at a full six or seven meters, but more importantly, her subordinates control at least dozens of Ghost Kings, who all obey her orders. This alone is enough to conclude that Ghost Banshee is equivalent to the level of the Devouring Ghost Royal Family. These dozens of Devouring Ghosts are the close guards carefully trained by Ghost Banshee. They usually rely on the power of others. They are used to seeing Ghost Kings and dare not do anything to them. Therefore, they will not take Xiaobai seriously and show due respect. It was their bad luck. They had nothing to do so they sneaked out for a stroll. This place belonged to the ghost banshee's territory and there were no powerful beings nearby. Unexpectedly, they ran into Xiaobai who was wandering around and me who was trying to subdue my subordinates. As a result, they lost their position and even brought an unexpected disaster to their master, the powerful ghost banshee.
Let these new subordinates lead the way to find the location of the Ghost Banshee. Although with my current strength, it may be difficult to fight against the powerful Ghost Banshee and her dozens of Ghost King generals with only Taotao, Hongxing, Xiaobai and twenty terrifying giant bear knights for help, but I must at least go and observe in person to see if there is any opportunity that can be exploited.
After going through several narrow slits, I obviously walked into a dead corner. Looking from a distance of dozens of meters, I could see clearly that there was not even a small pit on the bare stone wall, and there was no way that the Devouring Ghost could exist. I followed the Devouring Ghost who led the way and walked closer, only to find that there was a hidden trick inside. At the angle between the two stone walls, there was a huge cave deep inside. Because it happened to be cleverly blocked by several protruding boulders, almost all angles were blocked. Even if you stood in front of it, if you didn't look in the right direction, it would be difficult to find such a hidden existence. If I were to search alone, I would definitely give up if I didn't find it more than ten meters away. I would never be so stubborn as to walk closer to see it clearly. Such an arrangement is indeed ingenious. These guys in the "Yinfeng Valley" like to play hide-and-seek and hide in such an inconspicuous area. I used to think that Xiaobai's residence was already hidden enough, but now compared with the ghost banshee, it is simply a small witch compared to a big witch, and it is far inferior.
Through the cave is the direct territory of the ghost banshee, but I dare not rush in rashly. There are dozens of ghost kings and hundreds of thousands of devouring ghosts inside. It is impossible to confront them head-on. Moreover, it is not clear what means the ghost banshee has. What if she is too powerful and cannot be subdued by force? Instead, she will deal with us in a few encounters. Once we are trapped here, it will be very bad. Although our lives are safe, we have lost our freedom of movement, which is extremely detrimental to our development. When I asked those dozens of unlucky guys, they were hesitant and could not explain clearly. They just admired from the bottom of their hearts and praised the original owner's strength. I was so angry that I almost wanted to kill them. They were all stupid guys with low IQ. They had been enslaved for a long time and only knew how to flatter the ghost banshee. They had obviously changed their allegiance, but they did not know how to change their thinking in time and establish a new concept of serving me as the master. It has not been long since they were subdued, and they still need to strengthen their education!
