Even though the thick fog limited visibility to almost nothing, every small path in this place had long been burned into Greg's mind thanks to completing the original game's map eighty-one times.
From within the dense fog surrounding him came the occasional hollow roars of undead creatures, intermingled with students' startled cries, chanting of spells, and the muffled booms of magical explosions.
Clearly, quite a few student teams who had taken on the mission had already ventured deep into this area and engaged the undead in battle.
Greg didn't stop his pace.
He had a clear objective for this trip and had no intention of getting involved in these scattered skirmishes.
Helping Victoria was his purpose here, but he didn't plan to intervene directly in a high-profile manner.
Since recent discussions about him in the academy were running way too hot, he needed to deliberately lay low and let the buzz cool down naturally.
Therefore, he decided to make use of the undead's traits to help Victoria in a highly discreet manner.
Undead creatures were monsters with an exceptionally strict hierarchy and power system.
Low-level undead instinctively obeyed high-level undead, even falling under their mental suppression and direct command.
Once a high-level undead acting as the command core was killed, the low-tier undead under its control would enter a brief state of paralysis, losing all organization and becoming extremely easy to pick off one by one.
This characteristic of the undead provided Greg with the perfect opportunity to offer indirect assistance.
A single low-tier undead posed a limited threat.
A full-scale horde of undead might look dangerous, but as long as one precisely decapitated the highest-level commander among them, the entire horde would collapse in an instant.
According to information from the original game, during this "Return of the Dead" event, the highest-level undead leader lurking in this cemetery was none other than the LV30 Undead Knight located in the Central Catacombs.
"LV30..."
Greg calculated in his mind.
This level was roughly on par with Associate Professor Audrey during the end-of-Chapter-One event.
However, Audrey was fundamentally a theoretical-type professor, meaning direct combat wasn't her strong suit. The Undead Knight was entirely different—it was a pure killing machine that knew no pain, possessed high resistance to physical attacks, was immune to a wide variety of conventional alchemical poisons and potions, and held the ability to command an undead army.
In the early game, this was definitely one of the most troublesome bosses.
Following the normal progression of the original game, when the protagonist Victoria reached this point, her level would be around LV22–23 at most, requiring teammates, tactics, and a bit of luck to clear it.
But now, this formidable foe that had required seamless teamwork from the protagonist's party to narrowly defeat in the original game could be directly suppressed by Greg in terms of raw level.
This was an experience that had never existed in the original game.
A barely discernible arc curved at the corner of Greg's mouth.
Before I take that guy down, Little Gray, you'd better hang in there!
He thought silently, quickening his pace.
Pfft!
A Necromancer wearing tattered robes, dark blue soulfire flickering in its eye sockets, suddenly lunged out from the dense fog on his right. Its withered skeletal claws reached toward Greg as faint death energy gathered at the tip of its staff.
Greg didn't even slow his stride. He casually raised his right hand and tapped with his index finger.
A fist-sized yet dense, scorching orange-red Fireball launched instantaneously, striking precisely in the hollow chest of the Necromancer.
Flames burst forth, instantly swallowing its fragile bones and soulfire core.
Without even being able to put up a decent fight, the Necromancer collapsed into a pile of charred bones.
Although his Fireball proficiency was still LV2, its power had indeed increased along with the growth of his total mana and control.
It was more than enough to insta-kill lower-level ordinary monsters.
"Still, my current offensive methods are definitely too one-dimensional."
As Greg moved forward, he calmly evaluated his own shortcomings.
Currently, the only attacks he could use out in the open were the most basic Fireball LV2 and Water Gun LV3.
Skills involving dark-attribute mana—such as Tentacle Entanglement, Void Erosion, and Dark-Erosion Armament—could absolutely not be exposed lightly in front of others.
He had also tried listening carefully during academy lectures to learn those elemental Mid-tier offensive magic spells, but the results were depressing.
The professors' lectures on constructing mana circuits, principles of elemental resonance, and coordinating spell incantation syllables... sounded like complete gibberish to him.
Obviously, he lacked talent in that area.
Thus, he could only pray that whenever he hunted monsters in the dungeon later, they would drop some more conventional-looking attack skills.
Once I fully conquer the second layer and my Luck stat increases by another point, I'll go farm monsters again. Hopefully, I can get some skills that fit my needs to drop.
He quietly made a plan in his mind.
Boom!
Another Undead Warrior that darted out of the mist had its head pierced through by a casual Water Gun from him, scattering across the ground.
Finally, Greg crossed the thickest fog zone and arrived at a relatively open wasteland area.
Here, crooked tombstones were even more numerous, and even more skeletal remains lay scattered across the ground.
At the center surrounded by all the tombstones stood an extraordinarily tall, ancient stone tombstone.
From the gap where the bottom of the tombstone met the ground, a chilling dark aura seeped out faintly.
"This is the place."
Greg walked up to the tombstone, ignoring a few low-level skeletons wandering around.
Reaching out, he rapidly pressed down on several specific indentations on the side of the tombstone in a precise order.
Clack... click...
A muffled sound of gears turning echoed from underground.
Immediately following, the entire heavy tombstone slowly slid to one side, revealing a downward-sloping flight of stone stairs beneath. A thick stench of death mixed with stale, earthy odors rushed over his face.
Without hesitation, Greg stepped onto the stairs, his figure quickly swallowed by the darkness below.
The stairs were long and damp, the air terrifyingly dead-silent, with only Greg's own footsteps echoing through the narrow space.
Occasionally, broken murals depicting ancient funeral or sacrificial scenes could be seen on the walls, though most had been eroded by time and moisture beyond recognition.
After walking downward for about two or three minutes, a faint light appeared ahead.
At the end of the stairs, it connected to a space converted from a natural cavern.
More broken coffins and bones lay scattered on the ground, and the air was bone-chillingly cold.
Greg didn't tarry. Crossing through this foyer-like cave, a vertical hole leading downward appeared ahead.
He knew his destination lay right below.
"Undead Knight, the king who killed you eighty-one times has returned!"
Standing at the edge of the opening, Greg took a deep breath and leapt down!
Plummeting briefly through the air, he adjusted his posture and landed firmly on his feet.
The view before him suddenly opened up.
This was an extraordinarily vast, natural subterranean cavern with a soaring ceiling and a level ground. At the center of the cavern sat a square, altar-like platform constructed from some kind of dark stone.
But where the Undead Knight should have been standing, a magic circle was currently in its place. Within the radius illuminated by the magic circle's glow, a figure clad in a dark gray cloak stood facing away from the entrance, originally engrossed in drawing some kind of runes.
Yet with Greg's sudden intrusion, the figure at the edge of the platform abruptly froze, her hands maintaining the runes coming to a halt.
Turning around almost instantly, two sharp, razor-like gazes filled with shock, anger, and vigilance locked onto Greg from under the shadow of her hood as he appeared at the tomb entrance.
"Who are you?! How do you know I'm resurrecting the Undead Knight?!"
The stare shooting out from beneath the shadow of her hood was brimming with icy killing intent and scrutiny.
"........"
Greg stood where he was. Looking at the murderously intent hooded woman and then at the Undead Knight about to fully awaken in the magic circle behind her, he fell silent for two seconds.
Then, he let out a quiet sigh in his heart.
Sigh, my -10 Luck stat is still consistently hard at work.
Rate on N.U.
