Chapter 66: Larents, the Headless Knight

Lisi instantly held his breath. Without turning around, he slowly shifted his feet and retreated backward.

No matter what the monster ahead was, it was an entity he could not afford to provoke at the moment.

Of all the thirty-six stratagems, fleeing is the best!

Lisi minimized his presence as much as possible for this tactical retreat. The attached [Breath Concealment] and [Invisibility] were only tier-3 spells, which were not exceptionally high in rank.

Although undead monsters possessed extremely poor perception, Lisi still decided that caution was paramount.

Lisi maintained a safe distance from the monster ahead as much as possible. After retreating to a fork in the labyrinth, he hurriedly turned into a passageway leading in another direction.

Once he had retreated to a sufficiently safe location, Lisi stopped in his tracks. He wanted to observe the unknown monster from afar to see if he could discover some useful information.

After waiting for quite a while, dull footsteps finally echoed from the distant passageway.

"Thud, thud..."

It sounded like heavy objects striking the ground, reverberating through the corridor. Lisi concentrated, fixing his eyes intently on the fork ahead.

A dark shadow entered Lisi's line of sight. Fortunately, [Arcane Vision] helped him discern the creature's physique clearly.

It was a skeleton standing two meters tall, its bones glistening with a jade-like white luster. Although it was merely composed of white bones, it gave Lisi a bizarre sense of immense power.

A pale-white soul fire flickered within the skeleton's eye sockets, and it was clad in a pitch-black full suit of armor. Its bony hands tightly gripped a cold-gleaming longsword and a shield.

This skeleton warrior had not noticed Lisi not far away and continued walking blankly, wandering aimlessly through the corridor.

Lisi raised an eyebrow.

It's a Skeleton Warrior!

Fortunately, it hadn't spotted him.

It seemed that as long as he was careful, there was a considerable possibility he could move freely within the mausoleum.

Moreover, an even greater gain was that Lisi now knew his current location.

The Bone Evil Temple!

Skeleton Warriors existed only in this area of the mausoleum.

As the most common and lowest-tier existence among undead monsters, skeleton soldiers were not entirely useless.

Low cost and massive numbers were their defining characteristics.

As the favored cannon fodder of death mages, skeleton soldiers possessed no self-awareness and worked diligently without complaint until their soul fire was completely extinguished.

However, skeleton soldiers were not all low-tier units; powerful entities could occasionally emerge among them.

The Skeleton Warrior was one of such beings. Through countless years of continuous reinforcement by necro-energy, the hardness of their bones was now comparable to fine steel. At the same time, the armor and weapons they possessed had also become indestructible through the nourishment of the long years.

Regrettably, these weapons and armor radiated rich necro-energy, making them unsuitable for human use; otherwise, they would already constitute a luxury set of magical equipment.

That being said, if this was the Bone Evil Temple, his location should be at the very bottom of the entire mausoleum.

The [Macaulay's Death Mausoleum] primarily consisted of labyrinthine corridors and various undead spawning nests.

The Lich Tower, where Macaulay resided, was located at the very top of the labyrinth and served as its core.

The magic array that assisted Macaulay in his lich transformation was situated within the Lich Tower.

Additionally, scattered throughout the labyrinth were the graveyard where zombies resided, the eerie mansion housing vampires, and the Dark Hall where dark knights existed.

Among them, the Dullahan, Lalrenz, generally wandered around the Dark Hall, while the vampire Angela always stayed within the eerie mansion.

If following the normal sequence for clearing a secret realm, the other monster nests could be ignored. As long as all the minions and bosses in the eerie mansion and the Dark Hall were slain, the lich Macaulay would be startled awake and would then appear to attack the players.

Slaying Macaulay at this point would clear the dungeon instance.

Having chosen an alternative method to clear the level, Lisi's target this time was none other than the eerie mansion!

-------------------

Within the mausoleum graveyard,

Elena was surrounded by cyan airflows, darting swiftly between rows of deep-gray, dilapidated tombstones, her face somewhat pale.

Behind her, a horde of unceasingly roaring zombies closely followed. Their bodies seemed cast from iron, emitting a pitch-black sheen, with muscles, blood vessels, and bones clearly visible through their tattered wounds.

The zombies shambled along, limping in pursuit of Elena. Although their pace appeared slow and heavy, they were actually not lagging far behind.

What is going on here?

Panic that she could not suppress welled up in Elena's heart. Separated from her teammates and teleported to this graveyard, then immediately hunted by this horde of zombies, she truly could not figure out what had happened.

She had attempted to counterattack, but upon seeing wind-element-infused arrows leave only a white scratch on a zombie's body, she knew this was not a monster she could handle.

Fortunately, the speed stat of zombies ranked among the slowest of all supernatural creatures, allowing Elena to slowly maneuver around them by utilizing the surrounding environment, provided she could find an opportunity to slip away.

......

The dwarven warrior Lembos sat quietly inside a pitch-dark stone chamber, gripping his iron hammer and shield tightly.

Having just regained consciousness, he had witnessed a tall, black-armored skeleton soldier pass right by the entrance of the stone chamber.

An intense sense of danger made Lembos understand that he was no match for these monsters at all.

Lembos knew very well that once he was discovered and entangled by these monsters, his extremely slow speed would prevent him from escaping, leaving him with only death.

The best choice was to stay put and go nowhere; after all, those monsters did not seem to enter this stone chamber.

"O noble and supreme Main God Moradin! Please point out the path forward for your loyal believer!"

Even though he knew the hope of staying put and waiting for rescue from his teammates was exceedingly slim, Lembos did not give up. While remaining vigilant against the surrounding movements, he silently prayed in his heart to the dwarven main god Moradin.

......

Inside the Dark Hall,

This church-like structure stood quietly in the darkness, yet it held not a shred of holiness. Twisted patterns and mottled bloodstains testified that this place was no haven of benevolence.

Looking upward, one would discover a figure crouching atop a small platform near the ceiling of the hall.

Yasen did not dare to breathe heavily. His limbs, stiff from remaining motionless for a long time, had grown somewhat numb, yet he still dared not make the slightest sound.

Upon being teleported here, Yasen had immediately seen a dozen dark knights standing quietly in the hall twenty meters below him.

Yasen recognized them at once; these were unmistakably dark knights riding undead giant steeds. These cavalrymen, symbolizing death and terror, were unadulterated elite units among undead creatures.

Yasen was facing the most dangerous situation since he had become a professional.

Unable to waste time on lamentations and grievances, Yasen minimized the noise he made, stalling for time in the hope of seizing a glimmer of a chance to escape alive.

Meanwhile, just outside the Dark Hall,

Lisi had no idea that his teammates were so close to him. Instead, he was pressing extremely close to the stone wall, slowly inching his steps sideways.

As for the reason for such caution?

Not far from him, a figure noticeably taller and larger than ordinary dark knights was pacing back and forth slowly. The evil aura emanating from it caused Lisi physical discomfort even from such a distance.

Strangely enough, the upper body of this dark knight was completely empty—it had no head.

Lisi naturally knew who this was.

The Dullahan, Lalrenz!