An ancient black fortress stood on a towering hill, long eroded by time and no longer resembling its former self.
But from the archaic aura of the city gate and the few tall structures still standing in the distance, one could still feel the overwhelming grandeur, set against the dim yellow sky densely covered with dark clouds, like a heavily inked and magnificent masterpiece.
“This is the aura of an upper demon.” Satahia’s nose twitched, her face showing a rare seriousness.
I couldn’t help but cast a strange glance. “You know about upper demons too?”
“Of course, they’re existences like Your Majesty the Demon King and… Lady Syl.” Mentioning Syl’s name, Satahia’s body trembled, as if recalling some fearful event.
I showed a curious expression. “Oh, what else do you know?”
I knew a lot about the Bright Faction, but not much about the Dark Faction, especially such deep information.
“Upper demons all possess extremely powerful strength; you can tell from their appearances, just like Lady Syl…”
“What about Syl?”
“They’re generally very brutal.”
Satahia’s voice sounded somewhat gritted.
Then she got hit by me. “You idiot, be serious…”
Indeed, I shouldn’t have expected any useful information from this fool.
Ignoring the certain flame demon clutching her head and drawing circles, after observing the city gate and finding nothing unusual, I drank the Giant’s Immortality Potion and entered the so-called Mihri Ruins.
But just as I stepped into these ruins, Satahia’s voice came from behind again. “Eh, Your Majesty the Demon King.”
“Head itching again?”
“No, I feel like my power has inexplicably grown stronger.” Satahia examined her body, showing a puzzled expression.
Hearing her say that, I then noticed my own attributes had changed significantly, with about a 10% increase effect. On the status bar, besides the corrosion effect inherent to the Mihri Ruins, a buff called Demonic Power had appeared.
What’s going on? In my previous life, I never heard of such a buff existing in the Mihri Ruins.
But connecting it to the trait in my previous life where holy knights, priests, and other professions in the Mihri Ruins would have their attributes weakened, I vaguely had a guess.
“Could it be that the lingering demonic power here weakens holy light, while also boosting our demonic strength?” I muttered to myself.
And at that moment, my ear suddenly caught a faint unusual sound, making me subconsciously look around.
“Satahia, we’ll explore slowly later; trouble’s coming.”
In the pitch-black ruins, countless white skeletons crawled out from the ground, staggering as they surrounded us.
Inferior Undead Patrol Soldier: Level 20, HP 500/500.
Inferior Undead Archer: Level 20, HP 350/350.
Inferior Undead Assassin: Level 20, HP 300/300.
These were the soldiers and adventurers who died during the fall of the Mihri Fortress, retaining their pre-death professional abilities and combat instincts after turning undead. However, whether HP or defense, they were far inferior to their living selves, even more fragile than most level 15 monsters.
But if considering the quantity aspect, they were absolutely very troublesome existences, just like right now.
The dark halo pushed away the dozen skeletons around, while the Dark Word Imprint placed behind activated, in an instant taking away most or all of these monsters’ HP.
System: Level skip kill 200% bonus, gained 800 experience.
System: Level skip kill 200% bonus, gained 800 experience.
Several messages quickly scrolled down the interface; though not comparable to same-level monsters, the fragility combined with quantity advantage made the experience here quite considerable.
But now wasn’t the time to keep eyes glued to the 12 level 91% experience bar approaching 13.
Even after eliminating the nearby monsters, undead continuously filled the gaps around—patrol soldiers, archers, tirelessly attacking toward us.
In the distance, one could even see mages in tattered robes, raising their withered fingers as over a dozen magical lights appeared in the air.
“Bad.” If hit by these magics, it definitely wouldn’t feel good.
Forced to use Blink, I barely escaped the encirclement. I looked toward Satahia; she wasn’t faring well either.
The scorching flames could burn skeletons to ash, but not the endless undead. Even at level 23, Satahia seemed somewhat overwhelmed.
“Your Majesty the Demon King, how about I revert to my original form and burn all these annoying skeletons clean.”
“Don’t talk nonsense; we’re not in the Demon King’s Castle now. We have to be careful. Clear the way ahead; we’re going over there.”
I shook my head; a terrifying black light burst from the tip of the staff, benefiting from the demonic power boost, instantly killing a swath of skeleton monsters ahead.
Under my and Satahia’s alternating bombardments, we cleared a not-too-wide path. Fortunately, the surrounding encirclers were all melee undead, while undead mages and archers moved slower, allowing us to approach a relatively intact building without incident.
“Blink to the platform there.”
I took out the Dark Mist scroll from my inventory and tore it; while the surrounding undead had their perceptions obscured by the mist effect, Satahia and I blinked to the second floor of the building.
As the mist dispersed, the undead who lost their targets forgot the aggro, slowly wandering around.
“So many damn rotten bones; one day I’ll dismantle them all and feed them to dogs.”
Satahia drank some spring water to recover mana, seeming somewhat indignant due to the earlier disarray.
“What dog would eat this stuff?”
“Hellhounds, of course.”
Satahia said matter-of-factly. “In the past, those monsters without eyes—I’d burn them all with one fire; what couldn’t be burned clean, I’d leave to them to handle.”
“… I think you could partner with graveyards for funeral services: cremation, dog burial, earth burial—missing only sea burial, and you could monopolize the whole industry.”
Ignoring Satahia’s utterly bewildered expression, I glanced at the quest list, only to find the number displayed in the quest objective hadn’t moved at all.
“What’s going on? How is it still zero?”
I frowned.
The monsters killed earlier, even if not a hundred, were at least dozens. Could it be these monsters don’t meet the conditions?
Carefully reading the quest objective description, I then noticed the detail I had missed before—there was the key of “demonized” in front.
Originally, I thought just dealing with the undead in the Mihri Ruins would do, but now it seemed not entirely so.
In my previous life, I had only encountered demonic creatures; demonized creatures—I hadn’t heard much about such existences.
“Satahia, what does demonized mean?”
After thinking, I asked the one beside me, and casually took out a certain great weapon from my inventory.
Of course, purely to let it breathe, no other meaning.