"Clang! Clang!"
After knocking the hooded woman flying with its sword, the Undead Knight closed in once more with heavy, clanking steps.
Though unsure of what was happening, Greg quickly adjusted his stance and kept a vigilant eye on it.
However, after coming closer, the Undead Knight did not attack. Instead, it stopped a few paces in front of Greg, dropped to one knee, bowed its head, and rested its greatsword on the ground.
Is this gesture... an offer of submission?
Greg was momentarily startled, then lowered his gaze to his 【Dark-Erosion Armament】, which radiated a deep, pitch-black aura.
Is it because of this armor? Or because of the dark-attribute mana I'm demonstrating right now?
He instantly connected it to this power derived from Nightmare.
Could dark-attribute mana have an unexpectedly strong suppression effect on undead creatures? It seems I'll have to ask Nightmare about what's going on once I get back to the dungeon.
"Lowly human..."
A voice dripping with resentment and shock echoed from the direction of the stone wall.
Huang Quan used her inhuman arm to slowly push herself free from the stone wall she was embedded in, showering the floor with loose gravel.
Her gray robe was completely shredded, revealing an eerie body beneath made of withered tissue intertwined with deep purple crystals. Several visible cracks marred her chest and shoulder, yet no liquid flowed from them.
Just as Greg had expected, the undead possessed an extremely high resistance to pure physical impact. The Undead Knight's blow—powerful enough to shatter stone monuments—had failed to inflict structural damage on her.
"It seems you hide... some special power within you as well."
With her hood gone, Huang Quan turned her face of fractured crystal toward Greg. The crimson soulfire behind her cracks flickered wildly, weaving hatred together with an unyielding resolve.
"No matter what... for the sake of Lord Demon King, who rescued me from human hunting and torture... I will kill you today!!"
Before her voice fully faded, the death mana around her burst forth with explosive force, far more violent than before!
A ghastly green glow seeped from the fissures in her broken crystals. Abandoning long-range spells, she concentrated her magic into her arms. Sharp, purplish-black bone spurs shot forth from her already inhuman finger joints like blades. Her entire body blurred into a grayish-green residual shadow, pouncing toward Greg with a suicidal, manic momentum!
"Phase 2 already?!"
Greg's eyes narrowed. Instead of retreating, he stepped forward!
Beside him, the kneeling Undead Knight seemed to receive a silent command. It abruptly rose and swept its greatsword across, blocking Huang Quan's flank.
Seizing the moment, Greg focused shadows into his left fist—encased in his 【Dark-Erosion Armament】—and delivered a vicious uppercut straight into the jaw crystals that Huang Quan had left slightly exposed during her charge!
Bang! Crack!
The Undead Knight's greatsword and Greg's heavy fist connected almost simultaneously!
Huang Quan was hurled back once more, her spine crashing violently against the stone wall with a sickening crunch.
Yet Greg's assault didn't stop there. The instant his fist made contact, he called out mentally:
"Void Erosion!"
An exceedingly subtle thread of dark-attribute mana, acting like poison in her very bones, silently seeped along his knuckles into the crystal fissures covering her body.
【Target inflicted with "Weakness"!】
【Target inflicted with "Paralysis"!】
【Target inflicted with "Confusion"!】
...
System prompts flashed through his mind.
Greg felt a wave of relief and prepared to step back, waiting for the erosion effects to stack.
With a thought, he dismissed his 【Dark-Erosion Armament】 to stop draining his mana. After all, she was now trapped in an erosion state and pinned against the wall by the Undead Knight. It wouldn't take long for her to die on her own.
However, the very second Greg dismissed his armament—
"Arghhhh—!!!"
Huang Quan let out an inhuman screech. Completely disregarding the Undead Knight's greatsword pressed against her neck, her knife-sharp left bone claw plunged straight into her right shoulder blade.
It was the exact spot Greg had struck with 【Void Erosion】!
Screeech—!
A sickening tearing sound echoed through the air!
Without a second thought, she brutally tore away a large chunk of flesh and bone from her shoulder—covered in crystals and tainted with tiny gray spots of shadow mana—and hurled it far away!
No blood oozed from the wound, only churning green acid and jagged, broken crystal surfaces.
Immediately after, she snapped the fingers of her free right hand together. In her palm, a sphere of intensely churning, pungent dark-green acid materialized!
Moving with lightning speed, her hand bypassed the greatsword's guard and struck like a sharp drill, plunging deep into the Undead Knight's breastplate at point-blank range!
Sizzle—!!!
The strong acid reacted violently with the enchanted armor, making a horrifying corrosive hiss.
Huang Quan's hand actually forced its way through the Undead Knight's protective chest piece, driving all the way inside!
The moment her hand sank in, the faint blue soulfire in the Undead Knight's eye sockets flickered violently, letting out a silent wail.
"Give it... to me!!"
Huang Quan barked, ripping her arm back!
In her acid-etched, smoking hand, she gripped a wildly burning core of blue soulfire.
It was the Undead Knight's Soul Core—the absolute essence of its existence!
Without the slightest hesitation, before Greg could even attempt to stop her, Huang Quan opened her jaws and swallowed the blue soulfire whole!
Gulp...
It was a chilling sound.
BOOM—!
A violent shockwave erupted from Huang Quan at the center!
Deprived of its core, the Undead Knight's body collapsed like a hollow husk, its armor scattering across the floor.
Having consumed the Soul Core, Huang Quan underwent a terrifying mutation.
Her body expanded in size, and the purple crystals on her skin jutted out far more viciously. The light seeping from her cracks was no longer green, but a chaotic blend of faint blue and deep crimson.
The aura she emitted was easily several times stronger than before!
The price, however, was that her form became increasingly warped and unstable, looking as though it might shatter at any moment.
"Die—!!"
Having empowered herself through devouring the core, Huang Quan gave Greg no time to react. Her form turned into a whirlwind of death as she lunged at him again!
Faster! More fierce!
Damn it, I relied too much on game knowledge and forgot that in reality, the undead can use self-mutilation to break debuffs!
Greg cursed inwardly.
The distance between them was far too short. Activating 【Shadow-Step】 required a tiny window of time, but Huang Quan's strike was utterly relentless!
At the critical moment, Greg's pupils contracted.
"Insubstantiality!"
His body instantly became translucent.
Huang Quan's disemboweling claws passed straight through his afterimage.
Seizing the moment when her attack missed and her momentum carried her forward, Greg rematerialized and slapped another 【Void Erosion】 onto her back!
【Target inflicted with "Mana Disorder"!】
【Target inflicted with "Life Drain"!】
...
Yet the moment the notifications appeared, Huang Quan acted as if she had anticipated it—or simply didn't care about the incoming damage.
Releasing a painful howl, she didn't slow down. The bone spurs on her other hand whipped back and stabbed directly into the marked spot on her back, savagely tearing away her own flesh once again!
Another massive chunk of flesh dotted with gray spots was cast aside!
Her body was now horribly mutilated. Enormous cavities gaped in her left shoulder and back as death mana leaked continuously, her body's repair speed falling far behind the rate of destruction.
Yet the crimson soulfire in her eyes burned with even greater madness, locking onto Greg without slacking her offensive in the least!
This extreme fighting style... I guess only the undead could pull something like this off!
Greg executed 【Shadow-Step】 once more, narrowly pulling away to create distance.
His face paled slightly. Using skills continuously along with two applications of 【Void Erosion】 took a heavy toll on his mana.
While he could barely squeak out one more 【Void Erosion】, if she neutralized it a third time through self-mutilation, he would be near mana exhaustion and plunged into an absolute disadvantage.
No, I have to try a different approach!
Greg's mind raced. His eyes darted across the remains of the Undead Knight on the floor before settling back on Huang Quan, who was physically mangled yet radiating an even more tempestuous aura.
That's right! Since she's also undead, she must have a Soul Core too! As long as I find a way to destroy her Soul Core, I can end her in an instant!
A dangerous plan took shape in his mind.
Rate on N.U.
