[Lord of Abundance] Chapter 43 — Guardian of the Ruins?

 

Chapter 43 — Guardian of the Ruins?

It didn’t take long for Kun to arrive at the true core of the underground ruins.

After all, it was impossible to miss.

A pool of water shimmered with rainbow-like colors, as though every hue in the world had gathered within it.

It was mana made tangible.

Among mages, it was known as Ether Liquid—the primordial essence of magical elements.

Back when Kun had researched parasitic red algae, his original goal had been to use its abilities to concentrate magical elements from the atmosphere.

From that, he had hoped to refine this universal spiritual liquid, second only to the alchemists’ so-called Philosopher’s Stone.

Unfortunately, he had failed.

At the center of the pool stood a petrified wooden pedestal.

Upon it rested an ancient triangular stone tablet engraved with countless patterns and symbols, alongside an ordinary-looking wooden box no larger than an adult’s fist—small to the point of seeming pitiful.

The material of the pedestal closely resembled the root-wall surrounding the core of the ruins, yet there were subtle differences upon closer inspection.

Branches and leaves could still be seen upon it.

Which meant the pedestal was not made from the Mother Tree’s roots at all.

It was very likely carved from one of the Mother Tree’s branches.

To the ancient elves, the Mother Tree had been sacred beyond compare.

In modern terms, it would be akin to using a strand of the Sky Goddess’s hair to bind a divine oracle scroll.

But what kind of revelation would require the goddess’s hair itself to bear it?

Yet none of those things drew the eye as much as the skeleton submerged within the pool of Ether Liquid.

After being soaked in pure magical liquid for countless years, its once-white bones had crystallized.

Clusters of rainbow-colored crystal clung to the skeletal warrior’s body like a magnificent crystal armor, giving it an almost holy appearance.

Its left arm was missing.

The longsword in its right hand was broken in half, as though it had suffered damage in some terrible battle not long ago.

As the group approached, blue soul-fire ignited within the skeleton’s empty eye sockets.

An overwhelming aura descended upon everyone like a collapsing sky.

It felt less like facing an undead skeleton—

and more like standing before a resurrected skeletal dragon.

“Careful! It’s a guardian of the ruins! It killed the earth dragon!”

The crystallized skeleton’s jaw opened and closed, and a shrill roar of the soul exploded toward them like artillery fire.

There was nowhere to dodge.

This was an assault on the soul itself.

Several guards with weaker wills were instantly blown off balance by the invisible soul screech, collapsing to the ground and losing all combat capability.

“I bear… the name… of the Sun God Ha…!”

“The Sun Elves… rejected the Seven Gods… claimed divinity for themselves… unforgivable sins…”

“Slaughter… elven accomplices… sever… the inheritance… of life…”

“All who approach… shall die!”

The fragmented soul-voice could not be blocked by covering one’s ears.

For those with weak spiritual strength, the message was nothing more than deafening, meaningless shrieking.

Among the entire group, only Kun managed to understand fragments of it.

Seven Gods?

Across the continent, only six true gods were widely acknowledged.

The Church of Light worshipped the Sky Goddess, ruler of the heavens and light.

The Death Church worshipped the Underworld God who governed the realm of the dead.

The Earth Church worshipped the Earth God.

The War Church worshipped the Blood God.

The Moon Church—and the elves themselves—worshipped the Moon Goddess.

The beastmen worshipped the Dragon God.

Sky Goddess, Underworld God, Earth God, Blood God, Moon Goddess, Dragon God.

These were the true divine faiths of the continent.

All other gods were considered false deities—

or worse, evil gods.

But the Sun God?

Kun had never once heard that name.

Even the Mythic Chronicles compiled by the ancient elves contained no mention of such a deity.

The closest thing was a self-proclaimed Sun God from the Dark Realm.

But hadn’t the Dark Realm been destroyed long ago during the divine wars of the Age of Gods?

Could this Sun God be another rogue evil deity, much like the mysterious Abundance Mark in Kun’s possession?

Still…

Seven gods versus six gods.

The difference was only one.

That coincidence was far too precise.

Or perhaps this so-called Sun God had fallen during the war against the Ancient Elven Empire, leaving no chance to claim faith upon the Eternal Dawn Continent.

Which was why the world now had six gods instead of seven.

Unlike Kun, whose thoughts raced even while enduring the soul shriek, Dawn did not struggle like the ordinary guards around him.

Instead, he instantly entered a transcendent state where self and world faded away.

The oppressive aura, the aura of death, the soul shriek—

All fear and distraction were shut out from his mind.

This was the Fearless Realm, unique to warriors.

Only those with a true warrior’s heart had any chance of comprehending it.

Within this state, only the enemy remained.

Even if a god stood ahead—

even if he would be reduced to ashes the next instant—

He would still swing his sword.

“Power of the Storm—Acceleration!”

“Whispering Winds—Battle Aura Enhancement!”

“Hurricane Armor—Full Enhancement!”

“Chaotic Wind Fourfold Break!”

Dawn swung only a single strike.

Yet four concealed wind blades shot toward the crystallized skeleton within the pool.

The blades tore through the air with terrifying pressure, making everyone present feel as though their chests were being crushed, nearly suffocating them.

An ordinary third-tier warrior capable of using two combat techniques simultaneously would already be considered elite.

Yet Dawn unleashed four advanced combat arts at once.

In a single instant, he exhausted every ounce of battle aura within his body to deliver a desperate strike approaching fourth-tier power.

It was breathtakingly brilliant.

Privately, Kun had always believed that in terms of martial talent alone, Dawn absolutely possessed the qualifications to enter the fourth-tier Heroic Realm.

Unfortunately, bloodline limitations and his background had gradually buried that talent among the masses.

If both Dawn and Marquis Lawrence were given the same bloodline potion, Dawn’s awakening success rate would easily surpass his father’s by several times.

The four wind blades arrived in an instant.

The crystallized skeleton slowly raised its broken sword.

Boundless undead aura erupted skyward, transforming into pale white flames that wrapped around its body.

For a brief moment, it looked as though Death itself had descended into the mortal world.

Even more shocking—

The skeleton made no attempt whatsoever to block Dawn’s full-force attack.

The pale flames swelled violently in the wind, spreading from the skeleton’s arm onto the broken blade itself.

Then, from high to low, it casually slashed toward the insignificant ant daring to challenge it.

“Dawn, move!”

The four wind blades that had drained Dawn’s entire battle aura struck the skeleton’s body—

and were instantly devoured by the pale flames surrounding it.

Like pebbles thrown into an abyss.

Gone without a trace.

Meanwhile, the skeleton warrior’s casual swing seemed to split the very space itself in two.

“Life Magic—Ironwood Barrier!”

Six layers of high-tier defensive magic formed instantly before Dawn.

The situation had erupted too suddenly.

This was already the absolute limit of what Kun could do.

Compared to fourth-tier magic, which required lengthy incantations despite possessing greater defensive power, third-tier spells cast instantly at double mana cost were far more suitable for emergencies like this.

Yet even after all that—

The crystallized skeleton warrior’s strike shattered through the Ironwood Barriers one after another like dry twigs.

Dawn barely managed to twist his body aside.

One of his arms flew into the air.

Kun’s expression changed drastically.

Without hesitation, he pulled a living flesh sphere the size of a fist from his storage space.

Veins and blood vessels covered its surface.

One hand pointed toward Dawn’s bleeding, severed arm.

The other pointed toward the fleshy construct that had been thrown onto the ground.

“Life Magic—Curse Transfer!”

There were many kinds of magic.

Some required only the proper incantation.

Others needed special materials or magical catalysts to function.

What Kun used now belonged to the latter category.

In an instant, the once-vibrant Substitute Flesh Puppet withered away completely.

At the same time, Dawn’s severed arm also shriveled dry.

Cold sweat formed upon Kun’s forehead.

“What terrifying curse power… The Substitute Flesh Puppet is a flesh construct I created with Life Magic, capable of perfectly imitating a person’s life force and even soul fluctuations.”

“The moment activated, its vitality can exceed that of a normal third-tier lifeform by tenfold…”

“And yet all life within it was stripped away instantly.”

“So this is how it broke through the Mother Tree’s root defenses and entered this place.”

Some mages believed death itself was a form of curse.

But even Light Magic—the magic most adept at purging negative effects—could not erase the curse called death.

Unable to dispel it directly, Kun had instead found another solution.

Transfer it elsewhere.

A nearly cheap method of evading unnatural death.

The crystallized skeleton warrior clearly attacked anyone who entered this place—

But it obviously wasn’t a guardian of the ruins.

If anything, it appeared hostile to the Ancient Elven Empire itself.

Perhaps the one who shattered the ruins’ great gates…

The true culprit that destroyed these elven ruins…

was this horrifying existence.

“Clack… clack…”

The skeleton’s fleshless jaw opened and closed, producing grating sounds like grinding teeth.

After unleashing that terrifying strike, the crystallized skeleton warrior did not attack again immediately.

The blue soul-fire in its eye sockets flickered continuously as it watched Kun’s actions with visible amusement.

Like a vicious feline predator toying with a trapped mouse before killing it.

No matter how high their rank or holy their appearance, the undead could never escape their nature—

their hatred of the living,

their delight in tormenting life.

Only through slaughter could these eternally hollow beings experience even the faintest sense of satisfaction.

“This is fourth-tier peak level… no, possibly even a fifth-tier demigod undead.”

“Damn it… this is the Forest of Eternal Darkness, not the Forbidden Scorched Lands. One fourth-tier ancient dragon was already ridiculous enough—how did a fifth-tier undead appear too?!”

Feeling the skeleton warrior’s horrifying gaze upon him, Kun’s scalp tingled numbly.

Had he known something this monstrous lurked here, he would have acted far more cautiously.

This time, he might truly have capsized in the gutter.

Whether any of them could leave alive was uncertain.

Even that fourth-tier earth dragon had died beyond all hope of revival.

Even if Kun himself managed to escape…

What about Dawn?

What about the guards?

Sure enough.

Greed was humanity’s ultimate source of destruction.

No one could escape it.

The last time an undead of this caliber appeared had been three hundred years ago.

Someone had trespassed into the Forbidden Scorched Lands in search of ancient elven relics.

Not only had they found nothing—

They had awakened a terrifying Undead Lord.

With a mere wave of its hand, thousands of living people perished and rose again as undead slaves under its command.

At the time, the northern region of the kingdom had nearly become a paradise for wandering undead spirits.

Countless people died.

In the end, only the intervention of the Holy Knights of the Church of Light—and the power of a sacred relic said to have been personally bestowed by the Sky Goddess—had succeeded in suppressing the legendary undead.

“…Wait.”

“Don’t I have the Golden Sacred Beetle?”

Kun froze briefly.

Then his eyes lit up.

There was still hope.

The fragment of the sacred relic sent by his cousin—the severed leg of the Golden Sacred Beetle—had originally only been intended for research.

Kun had wanted to study the essence of higher-order lifeforms and perhaps create several bloodline-fusion potions from their blood.

But the process had become far more complicated than expected.

Influenced by kingdom legends, Kun had always assumed the Golden Sacred Beetle was a light-attributed transcendent creature.

Instead, its primary attributes were Sharpness and Adamantine.

Even more shocking, he had discovered half a drop of divine blood bearing the Sky attribute.

A single insect leg had somehow become a chaotic stew of absurdly high-quality materials.

Kun had spent enormous effort separating the divine light power and the Sky divine blood from the beetle leg.

He hadn’t wasted the Sky divine blood either.

Part of it had been used to create several divine blood fusion potions—

with a mortality rate of ninety-seven percent.

Even Kun himself dared not drink them.

As for the divine light power, he had stored it within a light-attributed crystal core.

Originally, he had intended to study the structure of divine energy.

But now…

that precious crystal would probably have to be sacrificed.

Grinding his teeth, Kun made his decision instantly.

His staff swung through the air, and third-tier spells rained down upon the crystallized skeleton warrior within the Ether Liquid pool like a storm.

“No treasure is worth more than my life.”

“One crystal containing the Sky Goddess’s divine power in exchange for a possible fifth-tier demigod undead…”

“…and the secrets hidden within these ancient elven ruins.”

“Worth it.”

While the barrage of high-tier spells temporarily stalled the skeleton warrior’s movements, Kun completely shed his usual lazy demeanor.

His expression turned solemn and reverent.

Golden radiance glowed faintly within his golden eyes.

At that moment, he resembled not a mage—

but an utterly devout believer.

To Kun, nothing inspired greater devotion than truth itself.

Magic was truth.

Especially the truths he had personally organized, mastered, and created with his own hands.

With a casual motion, he sliced open his storage space.

A massive handful of green seeds scattered into the air.

Then he withdrew a crystal vial filled with luminous liquid and smashed it violently against the ground.

The instant the seeds touched the glowing liquid, they erupted into explosive growth.

Endless vines surged outward like a tidal wave, sweeping away the guards behind Kun indiscriminately before flooding toward the crystallized skeleton warrior.

Kun needed time to complete this spell.

There was no way the low-tier warriors of the guard could stop such a powerful undead creature.

And Dawn had clearly lost the ability to continue fighting.

Which meant Kun had no choice but to stall for time himself.

“Distant starlight, silver moon eclipsed…”

“Star of life, descend from the heavens…”

“Thunderfire and molten seas, oceans boiling…”

“Thus was life first born, blessed unto the mortal world…”

“Rainbow light fills the skies before falling…”

“Tiny sparks gather into rivers…”

“Iron trees and silver blossoms, torrents of fate…”

“The faithless perish for the gods…”

“The faithful are reborn for themselves…”

“Life Magic…”