“Who are you?” Count Perry barked.
“Heh heh heh. Oh, Perry. You’ve forgotten me?” Zassler slowly walked forward, while two powerful, golden-furred zombies materialized out of nowhere.
The mist began to thin, and Count Perry could now see him clearly.
“It’s you.” Count Perry’s eyes bulged from their sockets. He knew exactly how powerful Zassler was. Even five or six experts of the ninth rank wouldn’t be able to do anything to him.
Seeing Zassler appear, Perry understood that most likely, Lampson and his men had indeed met a violent end.
“And you are?” Count Perry looked at Linley. Suddenly, he started.
Linley’s appearance had long ago been distributed to every single one of the Radiant Church’s supervisors in foreign locations. Compared to three years ago, Linley’s hair was now a bit longer, yes, but his face hadn’t changed much.
“You are Linley?” Perry was somewhat shocked.
Linley smiled and nodded. “Count Perry, good eyesight. Zassler and I have quite a few things we’d like to discuss with you on this lovely night. Zassler, let’s move.”
“Kill,” Zassler immediately barked.
The two golden-furred zombies suddenly transformed into rays of golden light, charging at those other six men. Sudden screams of agony could be heard, as the zombies killed three of them in a blink of an eye, causing the other three to turn pale with fear.
“Clang.” That young man chopped down on the body of the golden-furred zombie with his sabre, but the only effect was that his hand broke from the impact. Golden-furred zombies prided themselves on their defensive abilities.
“Groooooowl.” With a low growl, the golden-furred zombie caved the young man’s head in with a single blow.
“Bang!”
A middle-aged man kicked viciously at a nearby boulder, sending enormous pieces of rock smashing towards the golden-furred zombie. But the zombie only charged at him, fast as lightning. Those pieces of rocks continued to fly at high speed towards the zombie. “Bang!” “Bang!” “Bang!” One rock after another smashed against the golden-furred zombie, and it didn’t block at all.
Each rock contained thousands of pounds of force, but unfortunately, they did nothing to the golden-furred zombies.
“Slash.”
A black blur flashed by, and that middle-aged man fell to the floor in astonishment.
“You’re too slow, you big oaf.” Bebe growled towards the golden-furred zombie, then jumped back onto Linley’s shoulders.
The golden-furred zombie’s speed could be considered the speed of a normal combatant of the ninth rank. But compared to Bebe, there was a huge difference. After all, Bebe and Haeru were magical beasts of the ninth rank that specialized in speed.
The six of them had been killed by the two golden-furred zombies and Bebe in the blink of an eye. Those zombies were, after all, undead of the ninth rank. Those people didn’t have a chance against them.
Perry had silently maintained his composure the entire time.
When he had been selected as the supervisor for this region by the Radiant Church, he had mentally prepared for such a day. Only, what he had expected was that he would be killed by the O’Brien Empire’s men. He didn’t expect that it would be Linley and Zassler who killed him.
“Linley, it was you who killed Lampson’s men and rescued Zassler?” Perry questioned. Before dying, Perry wanted to indulge his curiosity.
“Indeed,” Linley replied succinctly.
Perry nodded and laughed. “You truly do live up to the name of being one of the descendants of the Dragonblood Warrior clan. In three years, your power has grown so much. I hope you don’t expect to get anything out of me, however. I won’t answer your questions.” A hint of a holy light had appeared on Perry’s face.
“Do you think that will do you any good?” Zassler sneered.
“Seize him,” Zassler ordered coldly.
The two golden-furred zombies charged at Perry at high speed, seizing him without giving him a chance to avoid.
“Linley, help me stay on watch for a while. I am about to ‘Soulscour’ him,” Zassler instructed Linley.
Linley started.
Soulscour? Linley had never heard of anyone being able to ‘Soulscour’ someone. Even the Radiant Church didn’t have the ability to search and scour a person’s soul. But necromancers, as practitioners of the type of magic that involved souls the most, naturally knew far more about souls than all other types of magi.
“Soulscour?” Hearing this word, Perry was shocked as well. “Impossible.” He had never heard of a ‘Soulscour’ technique.
“Haha. Even if you were to die right now, it would be too late.”
Zassler walked in front of Perry. The five fingers of his wizened, chicken-claw-like hand grabbed Perry’s head, while at the same time, Zassler’s eyes suddenly turned a deep green color.
“Uhhhh… ahhhhh…” Perry’s body began to tremble violently, while at the same time, he began to let out agonized moans.
121
The Decision
Although Perry was already over two hundred years old, as a warrior of the eighth rank, his body was still very sturdy. But after Zassler pierced his claws into his skull, Perry’s face and body began to turn ashen white, while at the same time, his body began to quiver violently, as though he were an extremely ill old man.
Linley carefully watched this sight.
“Soulscour.” This was the first time Linley had seen this sort of technique performed. As one of the three most powerful types of magi, necromancers did indeed have some terrifying abilities.
After approximately two minutes had passed, Zassler’s green, glowing eyes returned to their normal color.
Zassler glanced at the ashen faced Perry, letting out a sinister laugh, then released him. The two golden-furred zombies also released Perry. As for Perry, with his skull pierced by claws and his soul scoured, he was dead without a doubt. Like a pile of mud, he slumped to the floor and didn’t move again.
“What do you think?” Zassler looked delightedly at Linley.
An expert like Zassler generally wouldn’t feel pride upon seeing the astonishment and admiration of ordinary people. But during this period of time that he had spent with Linley, he had yet to do anything to make Linley truly admire him. After revealing this ability, Zassler was quite looking forward to seeing Linley’s amazed expression.
Only the amazement of experts could satisfy Zassler’s vanity.
“Very incredible.” Linley sighed in honest amazement.
Souls were very amazing, mysterious things. They were the most fundamental component of a person, but people knew very little about souls. To recover a person’s memory from his soul was something that Linley, at least, couldn’t even begin to imagine doing.
“Heh heh heh.” Zassler laughed delightedly, and then those two golden-furred zombies by his side disappeared, returning to their home in the undead realm.
“Let’s go,” Linley urged.
In the blink of an eye, Count Perry’s manor returned to its normal calm. By now, most people here remained unconscious, while the corpses of the experts just lay there on the floor.
Within the private courtyard of their residence.
Shutting the door to the main hall, Rebecca and Leena very obediently lit the lamps as Linley and Zassler began to chat.
“What did you discover in Perry’s memories?” Linley asked calmly.
Zassler laughed delightedly as he looked at Linley. “Linley, in the past, I knew too little about you. I didn’t expect that you were such an incredible figure.”
“What did you find out about big brother Ley?” Rebecca’s adorable, large eyes widened as she asked with curiosity.
Zassler laughed, his white eyebrows jumping up and down. “Rebecca, Leena, your big brother Linley has quite a reputation in the Holy Union. His proficiency in stone sculpting is nearly on the same level as the likes of grandmasters such as Proulx. Do
you know? When he was sixteen years old, he carved out a special sculpture. Can you guess how much that sculpture was worth?” Zassler asked, laughing.
“Sculpture?”
Rebecca and Leena glanced at each other.
To them, sculptures were things that were very hard to make. To carve out a sculpture that was accurate and detailed was already hard enough, to say nothing of making it have a special aura.
“How many gold coins?” Rebecca and Leena asked curiously.
“Ten million gold coins!” Zassler announced.
Zassler had actually gotten all of this information from Count Perry’s mind. Count Perry had received a ‘kill order’ from the Radiant Church regarding Linley. Naturally, this kill order had many details regarding Linley.
“Ten million gold coins, for just a statue?” Rebecca and Leena’s mouths hung open, very wide.
“Not just sculptures, by the way. Your big brother Linley’s talent as a magus, in the past, was the second best in history. But now, most likely in the entire history of the Yulan continent, he can be considered the number one genius. As for his talent as a warrior, you should already know.” Zassler sincerely admired Linley from the heart.
Genius.
Nobody would question that he was a genius. Linley’s performance had given testament to everything.
Rebecca and Leena immediately looked towards Linley, their eyes filled with astonishment and worship.
“Enough, Zassler.” Linley shook his head and laughed. “Enough of these bygone affairs. Tell me what you found in Perry’s mind.”
Zassler nodded, dropping his smile.
“Based on the information in Perry’s memory, the Radiant Church’s forces in the O’Brien Empire are fairly weak. They are all in hiding. They don’t dare to offend the War God, and thus in the O’Brien Empire, the Radiant Church has very few experts.”
Linley nodded slightly.
“From Perry’s memories, I discovered the identities of the various supervisors throughout the Northwest Administrative Province for the Radiant Church. We now can definitely shatter their entire web of power in this area.” Zassler laughed evilly.
Creation was hard. Destruction was easy.
To place a group of people in an area without arousing suspicion was extremely hard.
But to destroy this web of influence only required those people be killed.
“And in the other provinces?” Linley asked.
As far as Linley was concerned, just destroying their web of influence in this administrative province wasn’t enough. Only by destroying the entire operation of the Radiant Church in the O’Brien Empire would Linley be truly happy.
“If we kill all of the general supervisors and some of the important supervisors in all seven provinces, the Radiant Church’s forces will be like a beheaded dragon. In addition, the Radiant Church’s force structure in these areas all hinge around a single line of communication. Once the general supervisor and supervisors are dead, most likely their entire web of influence will collapse.”
The greater the blow to the Radiant Church, the happier Linley would be.
Zassler shook his head. “Just like how each supervisor in each prefectural city only reports to Perry, Perry himself only reports to the general supervisor for the entire O’Brien Empire, or the Radiant Church’s headquarters.”
“The general supervisor for the entire O’Brien Empire?” Linley’s eyes lit up.
So in the O’Brien Empire, there was a highly ranked general supervisor for the Empire? If they could seize this person and Soulscour him, most likely they would learn even more.
“Sadly, even Perry didn’t know who this person really is.” Zassler shook his head. “Perry only knew about a place he could go to exchange messages.”
Linley nodded.
But Zassler suddenly began to laugh. “But from Perry’s memories, I discovered another piece of interesting news.”
“Speak.” Linley looked at Zassler.
“The general supervisor of the O’Brien Empire issued an order. In roughly another month’s time, another squad of prisoner escorts will enter the Northwest Administrative Province. The general supervisor ordered Perry to carefully assist and welcome these people and make sure their secrets were kept.” Zassler’s lips split into a grin. “Per this order, it seems as though they place a very high importance on this squad. This squad isn’t the slightest bit less important than the one escorting me.”
“Oh?” Linley’s eyes lit up.
For this squad’s importance to be so high meant that the people they were escorting definitely weren’t ordinary figures.
“Do you know where their first point of entry in the Northwest Administrative Province will be?” Linley asked.
“It should be the prefectural city of Deco. Based on the initial planned trajectory, they won’t pass through the provincial capital,” Zassler said.
Linley nodded. He could totally understand this. The provincial capital of Basil had the Saint-level expert McKenzie present. Naturally, their route had to avoid this place.
“The prefectural city of Deco is roughly eight hundred kilometers away.” Zassler was quite familiar with the geography of the O’Brien Empire.
Linley said coldly, “Eight hundred kilometers? If we rush, we can get there in a day.”
If the Blackcloud Panther, Haeru, were to run at maximum speed, he wouldn’t even need half a day. But running for so long meant that he wouldn’t be able to maintain maximum output the entire time.
But if they ran at normal speeds and left in the morning, they definitely could reach there by nightfall.
“In half a month, we will head towards the prefectural city of Deco,” Linley said.
Zassler nodded as well.
Time passed. Linley, Zassler, and the sisters remained within this residence. Zassler was preparing to begin the ‘Necromantic Initiation Rites’ for the two sisters, while Linley didn’t waste any time either as he trained continuously.
Linley didn’t actually have the opportunity to witness the ‘Necromantic Initiation Rites’ first hand.
Only Rebecca, Leena, and Zassler were inside their room, as they began the ‘Necromantic Initiation Rites’. Very shortly afterwards, Zassler left the room, then instructed Linley not to disturb the two.
A full three days and three nights later, Rebecca and Leena proudly left the room.
Over the course of those three days, they had been totally attuned with the contents of the ‘Necromantic Initiation Rites’. According to what Zassler said, these two sisters had very high aptitudes.
As for Linley, he continued to train in the fourth level of the heavy sword, the ‘Profound Truths of the Earth’.
In the desolate wildness, a long-robed figure crossed the boundless plains like a whirlwind, flying east at high speed.
He had a skinny, agile frame, and his short hair was gleaming silver, looking like steel threads.
His entire body was covered by a black robe, and his eyes were very sharp. He stared east as he flew through the air at high speed.
“Five vessels of the eighth rank.” Stehle still remembered Heidens’ repeated instructions.
Those five siblings that were under armed escort could not be allowed to escape, no matter what. Five bodies of the eighth rank! Once the Angels descended, they would transform into five peak-stage Saint-level combatants.
“It has been a long time since I’ve killed a Saint-level combatant.” Stehle’s face had a hint of a cold, sinister smile on it.
Heidens had already stated that if a Saint-level combatant were to interfere, he could kill them. The Radiant Church would bear all responsibility for his actions.
The tenth morning after Count Perry’s death.
Linley was seated cross-legged on the floor, not moving at all. The morning mist covered the lands. Recently, Linley’s life had been very peaceful, even though Perry’s death had aroused an investigation by the city guards.
But this had nothing
to do with Linley and his group.
Linley suddenly rose to his feet. The adamantine heavy sword in his hands suddenly stabbed forward, and an ear-splitting howl could be heard!
A wall roughly fifty meters in front of Linley suddenly quivered, a layer of dust shaking off from it.
“Boooom.” A fist-sized chunk of wall suddenly turned into dust. The sand-like pieces of disintegrated stone slowly poured out, revealing that fist-sized hole in the wall.
No battle-qi had been shot out. Just by stabbing at the air, Linley had created a hole in the wall at fifty meters distance.
“Profound Truths of the Earth – Triple Layered Waves.”
Linley gently murmured, “These most basic ‘Triple Layered Waves’ of the Profound Truths of the Earth have finally been completed.” After leaving the prefectural city of Cerre, Linley had been pondering this the entire time.
And now, Linley had finally mastered the most basic attack of the ‘Profound Truths of the Earth’: the ‘Triple Layered Waves’.
When the force of the battle-qi and physical strength in an attack were converted into vibrational form, the more vibrations that were created represented a higher rate of conversion, with lower loss of power. The ‘Triple Layered Waves’ technique had a very high level of loss conversion, but it was already extremely powerful.
After all, it was a totally different form of attack than one utilizing battle-qi and physical force.
“Linley.” Zassler was standing at the doorway, watching. “What sort of attack is that?” Zassler was quite surprised as well.
Zassler had seen attacks from Saint-level combatants.
But generally, what they did was chop out their swords, projecting battle-qi in distant attacks. But Zassler had never seen someone like Linley, who, without visibly using battle-qi or any other power, could suddenly, silently, create a fist-sized hole in a distant wall. This was too bizarre.
“Even if I told you, you wouldn’t understand.” Linley laughed calmly.
After having mastered the most basic ‘Triple Layered Waves’, Linley knew that the farther up he went, the more difficult it would be and the more time would be required.
Dragonblood: Book 2 of the Coiling Dragon Saga Page 95
