Chapter 300: The Black Star's Choice

  The muscles and bones all over his body still ached as if they had fallen apart. Ethan found himself actually lying on the altar that was originally hidden beneath the gold coins and treasures. Beneath his body, a complex magic circle was drawn. The black gem in the center was emitting immense life force, but the magic circle was already dyed red with blood, his blood.

  The blood was flowing from a wound on the artery in his wrist. The wound was very neat, as if it had only been cut open a short while ago. His hand was placed on top of the black gem, and blood was still flowing out, almost entirely soaking the black gem.

  Ethan woke with a start and jumped up. With a surge of healing magic, the wound on his wrist immediately stopped bleeding. Not many meters in front of him, the red-haired woman in black leather was looking at him. On her overly sharp-featured face was now a strange and bewildered expression; it seemed the bewilderment in her heart was even greater than Ethan's.

  "Why? Why can't I sense the brand of The Black Star within you? How can your blood lack the aura of The Black Star? As the Guardian of the Dark Will, how is it possible for your body to not have the brand of The Black Star? Without the brand of The Black Star, how could you enter and exit The Shadowspire Peaks?" Moriel's voice rumbled, carrying immense surprise and anger.

  Ethan stared blankly at the woman transformed by the Black Dragon. Amidst his shock and anger, he still didn't understand what was going on.

  "Are you not from the Necromancer Guild?" Moriel roared, and the cave trembled. It felt very incongruous to hear such a grand, imposing voice coming from such a woman's body. She seemed to be angry.

  "I am not..." Ethan shook his head and answered slowly. His eyes were already bloodshot. He could feel several veins on his forehead throbbing with his furious emotions. If it came to anger, he was sure that the anger in his heart right now was a thousand times greater than that of the red-haired woman before him. No matter who it was, no one could avoid being angry after painstakingly saving someone only to be nearly killed by them. He really wished he could smash the face before him to a pulp.

  But Ethan could endure it. Even if he were a hundred times angrier, he could only endure. He knew full well the difference in strength between himself and this dragon who had already recovered her stamina. Reason told him that if he really threw that punch, the one that would be smashed to a pulp would be his own face.

  Moriel spoke no more, just looking at Ethan with those huge yellow dragon eyes. There was still no killing intent, only that unique aura that emanated from every cell in her body. Any human, as long as they were still human, could not help but feel pressure under such an aura.

  Ethan didn't speak either. All the nerves in his body were taut. His body was weak from blood loss, and even if it weren't, he seemed to have no room for resistance. This was just a natural reaction of the body when faced with such an aura.

  Rodhart and Sylka had already moved down from the indented rock wall on their own. Their broken and deformed bodies seemed to have recovered somewhat, and they were struggling to move their bodies towards the few remaining corpses of the Temple Knights, like two squashed cockroaches.

  Finally, a long sigh escaped from Moriel's nose. Her expression looked rather strange, and that oppressive, authoritative aura had lessened considerably. She looked at Ethan and said lightly, "Alright, relax. Although you have the Leaves of the World Tree and Archibald's meditation, the most important thing is that you don't have the brand of The Black Star in your body. It's useless for me to kill you."

  "Useless?" Ethan was taken aback. He didn't understand what that meant.

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  "Come, let's have a good talk, human. First, tell me how you came here through this passage exclusive to the Necromancer Guild. And since you're not from the Necromancer Guild, how do you have these two undead puppets? There seem to be many things about you that are beyond my expectations."

  Although he still couldn't figure out what was going on and was getting more and more confused, and although he still felt very aggrieved, Ethan couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. At least it sounded as if Moriel no longer intended to take his life.

  The Shadowspire Peaks, like a vast, endless net, stretched across the land. In this net, there was almost no life. All vitality was devoured by the dead silence and dark aura within this net. Anyone or any animal that intruded here would have their last bit of life worn away within this aura, and then, nourished by this aura, they would become skeletons, zombies, ghosts, or other undead.

  In the very center of this mountain range, an extremely high, solitary peak rose straight into the clouds. The peak, which stretched for dozens of miles, narrowed at the top to form a platform only a few dozen meters square. In the very center of the platform, a cluster of black mist swirled around an ancient altar.

  On the peak's platform, the unique, boundless aura of The Shadowspire Peaks was so thick it was almost tangible. It was the aura of death, the aura of darkness. The cluster of mist on the altar was the thickest, purest, and most concentrated point of that aura.

  It was not that this cluster of mist radiated its aura throughout the mountains; rather, the aura of the entire range automatically converged here, then radiated out again, in an endless cycle. This high peak was the axis of this vast net that was the mountain range. And this cluster of black mist was the central warp thread of that axis. The essence.

  But in this place where the aura of death was at its strongest and most intense, an old man stood on the platform, staring blankly at the cluster of black mist. The old man was very old, his back stooped, his face so full of wrinkles it seemed as if his ugly face was pieced together from them. He was also very small and thin, not even standing very steadily. His tattered robe flapped loudly in the mountain wind, and it seemed as if he himself could be blown off the peak by the fierce wind at any moment.

  Even the strongest Behemoth could not last long in this dense aura of death, but such a frail, old man seemed completely unaffected before such an intense dark aura. The aura that annihilated all life was, before him, like water before a fish.

  "Teacher Valthor, what made you think of coming to this place?" Another old man appeared at the edge of the platform. This old man didn't look very old. His mage's robe was very neat, and he was so mentally alert that it gave one the feeling that this person was perfectly clear-headed at all times.

  Teacher Valthor did not answer, continuing to watch the cluster of black mist on the altar in silence. After a long while, he slowly asked, "Stephen, how many years has it been since you last came up here?"

  "It's been about twenty years, I think. Since Sandro broke the sword hilt and took it away, I came up to look once." Stephen thought for a moment and answered.

  Valthor said lightly, "It's been over fifty years for me. I haven't come up to take a single look since I came here over fifty years ago to accept the brand of The Black Star and become a Necromancer."

  "Then why did you specially come here today, Teacher?" Stephen asked, also noticing that the old man's words and voice seemed somewhat different from usual. "Your body..."

  "That young man healed it for me."

  "That young man..." Stephen was slightly stunned at first, then a look of surprise flashed across his face. "It's that one..."

  "Yes. The one who studied Necromancy with Sandro, the one Vedenina has always wanted to pull into the guild. That young man came to my place a while ago. Agrael guided him there, and he was actually told to take the path that Lord Archibald designated for only the acting Guild Master to walk."

  The look of surprise on Stephen's face grew even heavier. Since Valthor had already left the guarded passage entrance, it meant he had truly let him pass. "Oh? So... you really let him in?"

  "That young man picked up the hilt of The Black Star in front of me."

  There was little expression on Valthor's face. His voice was very light, dry and harsh, like a pile of bone ash that would scatter with a gust of wind.

  Stephen still heard him clearly, but this time, there was no more surprise on his face, only a blank stare. Then he let out a long sigh and also looked at the cluster of black mist in the center of the altar, saying nothing.

  In the eyes of everyone else, it was just a cluster of pitch-black mist. But in their eyes, as Necromancers who had been acknowledged by The Black Star, they could see very clearly that in the center of that mist was a pitch-black longsword.

  Black. Just black. Besides black, no other adjective could describe this sword. It was a sword that seemed to have condensed all the blackness and darkness of the world into one. Only, this sword now had no hilt, its blade standing alone, inserted into the altar.

  This was The Black Star, the legendary dark artifact that could change the world.

  "I could feel it very clearly. He really picked it up, he held it. The aura of The Black Star had completely merged with his body. For an instant, he was infinitely close to a Lich King." Valthor's eyes looked at the longsword within the cluster of black mist, and his gaze, like the surrounding aura of death, was heavy and dense, almost impossible to dissipate.

  "A Lich King... With the life force of the Sunwell and the Leaves of the World Tree, and with the Meditations on Truth, is gathering these things the same as gathering power?" Stephen gave a light smile, mostly a bitter smile, with a small part being a wry smile. "So, according to Lord Archibald's prophecy, he will one day come here and pull out this The Black Star. And we Necromancers will all faithfully submit at his feet... The history of Diya Valley... and this entire continent will thus end."