Passing through the passage that connected to the front hall, the view ahead suddenly opened up, but the heavy sense of oppression that followed made Raine and the others’ hearts involuntarily tremble.
The scale of the space here was similar to the front hall, but what it presented was an apocalyptic scene far more despairing. A massive number of Stone Golems looked as though they had been ruthlessly crushed by an invisible giant hand. They lay collapsed and ruined in massive swathes, with rubble piled mountain-high everywhere, nearly blocking off half the space.
On the ground, various Sen Bai remains were densely layered one over another, almost entirely obscuring the original floor. The walls on both sides of the passage entrance were also covered in huge craters and deep claw marks. Even though time had already blanketed everything in thick dust, the shocking scene before them still made everyone hold their breath.
Raine’s gaze immediately swept past the tragic ruins of this ancient battlefield and settled on the far end of the space. However, what greeted his eyes was only a stretch of bottomless darkness. Everyone’s hearts sank in unison.
Judging by the time, it was currently the dead of night in the outside world. Coupled with the dense jungle canopy above, it would be difficult for even a sliver of moonlight to seep in. This undoubtedly meant they had to step forward and confirm with their own eyes whether the door holding their final hopes still offered a glimmer of survival.
"Stay alert. Move forward," Raine’s low voice broke the team’s silence.
Suppressing their lingering unease, the group gathered their wits and carefully stepped over the crunching remains beneath their feet, slowly advancing into the darkness ahead.
However, they had only advanced less than twenty paces when Sodden and Winnie, who possessed Dark Vision, came to a halt almost simultaneously. Their bodies visibly stiffened.
"There’s something... up ahead," Sodden kept his voice extremely low, every muscle in his body rapidly tensing. Beside him, Winnie subconsciously took a half-step back, her oversized hood trembling slightly.
Although Raine lacked Dark Vision, he quickly picked up on the abnormality ahead, relying on his recently increased Perception Attribute. An immense sense of oppression was rolling out from the darkness before them.
He narrowed his eyes, struggling to adjust to the gloom at the edge of the Magic Halo. Just beyond the reach of its illumination, a neat formation of pitch-black silhouettes suddenly became visible. It was an Undead army composed entirely of Human Race skeletons.
They stood silently in the darkness, nearly filling more than half the space. A rough sweep indicated there were easily two to three hundred of them.
At the very forefront of the Undead army, a particularly burly figure stood as tall and imposing as an Iron Tower. Its height exceeded even that of the Bear Goblins, and its bones were terrifyingly thick. It was draped in severely battered, thick Armor, its hands gripping a giant Long-handled War Axe that was almost as tall as itself. The blade of the axe was covered in chips and rust, yet it still exuded a chillingly sharp aura.
Ghostly blue Flames burned fiercely within its hollow eye sockets, and a dense black mist—visible to the naked eye—coiled around its bones and Armor like a living creature.
As for the skeleton soldiers behind it, even though their weapons and defensive gear had long decayed into nothingness over the years, their formation remained impeccably strict, exuding a synchronized and chilling aura.
"That is my ancestor!" Kaelin’s voice was laced with uncontrollable trembling and excitement.
Even though the figure before her had long been reduced to a skeleton, the resonance originating from the depths of her Bloodline continued to thunder in her heart like a beating war drum. It made her clearly perceive that the Undead Commander before her was the very target of her journey—Duke Fenglang Garson, who had fallen here five hundred years ago!
This was the eternal protagonist of her childhood bedtime stories, the hero who always managed to turn the tide.
However, this thrill of a blood connection lasted for only a fleeting moment before Kaelin quickly snapped back to reality. Her Legend ancestor had similarly failed to escape the erosion of Negative Energy.
Judging by the black mist radiating from her ancestor’s body—which was even thicker than that of the previous Elite Bear Goblin Skeleton—the erosion he had suffered must be far deeper. This undoubtedly meant that her ancestor’s remaining will had long been completely submerged by the Negative Energy. He would not fall into confusion at the call of his bloodline, unlike the Undead of those ordinary soldiers in the front hall.
Now, he would likely only follow the purest instinct of the Undead, treating any living beings who intruded here as enemies that must be purged.
However, if they did not get past him—if they did not cross this final barrier formed by the Undead army—the group would be unable to reach the fortress gate and confirm whether that final path to survival still existed.
After a brief silence, Kaelin gave Raine and the other two a heavy nod, her expression as resolute as iron. "Let me give it a try."
"Be careful," Raine replied in a low voice. The Longbow in his hand was already drawn to the full, tightly locked onto the burly figure. Sodden also leaned his Giant Shield forward and squatted slightly, looking like a reef ready to brace against the incoming tide. Arcane Energy silently flowed at Winnie’s fingertips as she, too, stood ready to strike.
Kaelin took a deep breath. Clutching her hastily bandaged injured arm, she slowly walked toward her ancestor. As she approached, she once again announced her identity in a sonorous, powerful voice.
This caused the ordinary Undead Soldiers, who had been restless and eager to strike, to become somewhat bewildered. A hint of disarray appeared in their once-impeccable formation.
However, the Undead Garson, acting as the main commander, showed absolutely no reaction. He simply stood there in silence, his ghostly blue eye sockets staring blankly ahead.
Finally, Kaelin stopped just a few paces away from the burly figure. The Magic Halo clearly illuminated the faded wolf-head emblem on Garson’s battered Armor, along with the dense cluster of claw and tooth marks scarring his thick bones.
Looking at that battle-scarred, towering frame, Kaelin felt as if a chunk of red-hot iron had lodged in her throat. She didn’t perform a Warrior’s salute, but instead slowly dropped to one knee—the highest sign of respect a child of the Northern Territory could offer an elder.
The address slipped out naturally; she didn’t call him ’ancestor,’ but directly addressed him as ’grandfather.’
She gazed up at his skeletal face without the slightest trace of fear in her eyes. "My name is Kaelin. I am of your Bloodline.
"I grew up listening to stories about you. My father said your shoulders could hold up the entire sky of the Northern Territory, and your battle cries could shatter glaciers.
"Look. My blood is the same as yours. It has never gone cold, and it continues to flow. It tells me to be just as brave as you."
She raised her hastily bandaged arm, her voice trembling with the timid hope of a little girl, yet edged with desperate urgency. "Can you... help us?"
Before she could even finish, the only response she received was the deadly arc of the giant War Axe suddenly swinging upward. An icy killing intent surged from the black mist wreathing the skeleton, instantly freezing her in place.
The Undead Garson’s hollow eye sockets burned with ghostly blue Flames. They held not a single trace of emotion that belonged to "Garson"—only an absolute hatred for the living!
The Giant Axe was raised to its absolute peak before hacking down with a ferocious momentum that threatened to cleave through everything! The Shadow of death instantly swallowed Kaelin’s frail figure.
SWOOSH!
A sharp Arrow tore through the air, heading straight for Garson’s right eye socket where the ghostly blue Flame burned.
Driven by pure combat instinct, Garson’s giant War Axe forcefully halted its downward swing. With a sudden jerk of his arm bones, the thick flat of the axe blade was brought up, shielding his face like a Shield.
CLANG!
The Arrow slammed viciously against the flat of the axe, letting out a deafening crash of metal striking metal. Sparks flew everywhere as the arrow’s shaft failed to withstand the tremendous impact, instantly shattering into splinters.
This fleeting opening, as brief as a spark from a Flint, bought Kaelin precious time. She staggered backward hastily, still vainly trying to call out to him. "Grandfather! Wake up!"
"He can’t hear you! Fall back!" Raine’s roar came from behind. The muscles in his arm holding the Longbow were pulled taut, a second Arrow already nocked on the Bowstring.