Since Ye Dui’s grimoire upgraded once more, he gained a new ability: the power to create spells himself.
Creating spells required three foundations: magical principles, comprehension, and constraints.
As long as he mastered these three, Ye Dui could almost craft any spell he envisioned in his mind. This was practically a cheat ability. The hardest of the three was comprehension, which boiled down to the form a spell took: how to control magical elements to make the spell unleash its maximum power when cast.
Having endured the information explosion from his previous life, he drew direct insights from countless games, anime, and films. As for magical principles, they posed no difficulty for someone proficient in all magic systems. Constraints were not an issue either. Thus, Ye Dui could nearly recreate any spell he imagined.
[Sunshine Radiance] was one such example. It used light magic principles, drew comprehension from a boss’s ultimate move in a game, and its constraint was the massive magic power it consumed, plus an ultra-long cooldown after use. None of that mattered.
Now, as Ye Dui unleashed this spell, the sun-like light and heat instantly incinerated the Invincible Priest, who had merged with the stone room, into ashes.
Before he could catch his breath, his eyes turned to the stone casket on the nearby platform. Affected by Ye Dui’s spell, it now glowed a deep crimson, that same crimson tinting the four tall statues behind the platform. The one representing the beast spirit god already bore numerous cracks.
Spirit gods were hard to kill, but the earlier attack, even if it failed to destroy the beast spirit god possessing the Invincible Priest utterly, had wounded it severely.
With a wave of his right hand, under wind magic’s influence, the stone casket swiftly left the platform and flew to Ye Dui. He caught it gently, and [Doomsday Frost] spread from his palm, cooling the casket instantly. He held it in his grasp.
A trace of worry stirred in him. When casting [Sunshine Radiance] earlier, he had spared the casket from too much light and heat, but in that state, his magic had been nearly uncontrollable. Inevitably, the casket had endured excessive scorching. He feared its contents might have burned to ash.
With a flick of his left hand, the casket’s lid rose on the wind and shattered upon landing. Ye Dui peered inside.
A head with nearly perfect features lay quietly asleep within: the headless knight’s head. Ye Dui had seen her in the illusion!
“This is the headless knight?” Daibi and the others hurried to the casket’s side to gaze at the head.
“She was defeated by the devil in the age of the gods, over five thousand years ago at least, yet this head remains flawless… Such a beautiful woman.” Green could not help sighing. At over twenty, he was a bit older, and his feelings about women were more straightforward.
Posley shot Green a glare, but even she had to admit it was a beautiful head.
“Our purpose here was this head. Now, after all this chaos, we have it. Let us leave.” Ye Dui said next. He did not need to verify its authenticity, for as soon as he opened the casket, he felt the necromantic relics in his grimoire’s storage space begin to vibrate, as if sensing their owner nearby.
Daibi leaned in closer, her big eyes fixed on the headless knight’s flawless face. In a tone of wonder, she said, “She is really beautiful. Is she alive or dead now?”
“Judging by this head, I think she still has consciousness. The headless knight is no ordinary person; her life might be immortal.” Posley said from the side. “I recall reading in the magic guild’s tomes that the headless knight may be the longest-lived being in this world, ten thousand years older than the god of gods. She witnessed the demon emperor’s rise, later betrayed him, and became the god of gods’ close companion.”
“Perhaps she had an intimate relation with the god of gods.” Daibi added. “I heard that in the divine realm, the gods are basically either the god of gods’ wives or his children. Even those divine beasts are descendants of his magic pet, Dragon Treasure.”
Posley was stunned by Daibi’s line of thinking for a moment, unsure how to refute it. She said awkwardly, “Not everyone is the god of gods’ wife or child…”
Ye Dui had long sensed that the house of Selti now swarmed with people outside. They might burst in soon. Now was not the time for such talk. He reached out to lift the headless knight’s head and store it away.
But as his hand touched her hair, the headless knight’s closed eyes suddenly opened.
Ye Dui had meant to grab her hair to pull her out, and his hand already held it. Seeing her eyes open, his body jolted and froze stiff.
Daibi and the others started too. Daibi cried out at once, “She is alive! Look, she is alive…”
“You, you…” The headless knight’s head parted its lips, emitting a crisp but raspy voice. It matched the one Ye Dui heard in the illusion: odd intonation, but recognisable, and quite pleasant. Likely from not speaking for ages, her words came haltingly. Ye Dui quickly withdrew his hand and said to the head, “You are awake…”
“Go, go quickly!” The headless knight’s head shouted abruptly.
Ye Dui and the others trembled again, instinctively sensing trouble. At the same time, the head’s eyes began to glow. Her eyes were beautiful: bright, clear, with deep black pupils. But in that instant, those pupils turned into pools, a vortex forming in each pool. The vortices expanded rapidly, swallowing everything in sight.
Ye Dui tried hastily to hurl the casket away, but his body would not move. Amid Xilaisi’s and Daibi’s cries of alarm, the group was involuntarily engulfed by darkness…
Crack. The casket fell and shattered on the ground. Ye Dui, his companions, and the headless knight’s head had vanished without trace.
Moments later, with a crash, the stone room’s door was shoved open. Divine guards rushed in swiftly, followed by the third prince, seventh prince, eighth prince, Xueyi, and several prince guards. Seeing the room empty, they all showed worried expressions.
The stone room’s walls were pitch black, with ashes scattered on the floor. The scorching heat had not fully dissipated; standing there still brought that burn.
Xueyi’s brows furrowed deeply. They had surrounded the house of Selti, yet Ye Dui’s group escaped anyway. But as she looked to the sole remaining high priest of the three, her expression froze slightly. That priest was smiling.
Xueyi approached him and asked respectfully, “Priest Hoy, do you know what happened here just now?”
The last high priest, named Hoy, looked seventy or eighty, his face full of wrinkles, utterly aged. Hearing Xueyi’s question, he smiled and nodded, about to speak when someone rushed in, causing a stir.
Xueyi glanced over and saw it was the ninth prince.
Seeing the ninth prince, a flicker of displeasure rose in Xueyi’s heart. Not for his lateness, but because she had learned from the divine guards that the ninth prince first spotted Ye Dui’s group. They had entered the temple by coercing Priest Ganong. Earlier in the aerial garden, when they met Priest Ganong, Ye Dui and the others disguised as his attendants. For some reason, the ninth prince saw through them, yet he never told Xueyi.
Later, the ninth prince secretly notified the Invincible Priest to wait here for Ye Dui’s arrival. No matter the outcome, the ninth prince’s status among the divine people would rise. Xueyi had chosen to ally with him, even hinting at marriage. If not for his constant refusals, they would have deeper ties by now. Yet he hid this from her.
Was it distrust, or pure selfish desire for sole credit?
“What happened to Ye Dui and the others?” The ninth prince asked. His voice held no hatred, but faint concern. His eyes showed care too… though no one noticed.
Ye Dui knew the ninth prince poisoned the eldest prince to frame him, yet said the eldest prince had an ace: his guardian spirit unused. Now, with the ninth prince here, what of the eldest prince?
Hoy, interrupted earlier, now smiled in answer to the ninth prince’s question. “Ye Dui and his group are no longer here. They have been sent to… the necromantic realm.”
“The necromantic realm?” No one had heard the term, not even the mid-level priests, who found it utterly alien.
“Correct. Just as the secret realm world is a space independent of the outer world, the necromantic realm is another space world: the abode of the undead, crafted by the god of gods specifically for the headless knight.”
Hoy explained slowly.
“The headless knight is the ferryman of the undead. Her task is to send souls to the underworld. But some undead refuse rebirth. They wish to keep fighting, becoming undead warriors awaiting the god of gods’ call. The spirit realm houses those undead warriors.”
“A thousand years ago, the first emperor of the Star Empire, our spirit god king, found the headless knight’s head and the necromantic relics. Through study, he discovered the relics’ control over undead was actually a key to open the necromantic realm. The book of the undead stores them, but those undead are sent to the necromantic realm. With these three relics, one can enter it.”
“In the necromantic realm lie countless undead warriors, far outnumbering those in the secret realm world now!”
“The spirit god king sought to subjugate those undead warriors. The door to the necromantic realm is the headless knight’s head. But over three hundred years ago, when he entered, unrest struck Divine People City. A high priest then believed the spirit god king wrong, that summoning the undead army would doom the world. So he took the three necromantic relics and fled. His followers became the sand people, and the relics were lost.”
“Without the key, the spirit god king remained trapped in the necromantic realm. The spirit god king never slumbers; he is merely confined there.”
“But the spirit god king is patient. He knew someone would unite the tribal sand people, gather the three necromantic relics, and free him.”
“Now, Ye Dui has collected the three necromantic relics. They smoothly opened the necromantic realm’s entrance and were drawn inside. After three hundred years, the necromantic realm is the spirit god king’s domain. He commands the undead army within. Ye Dui and the phase king mage will meet their end there!”
“Though the Invincible Priest died, he fulfilled his mission.”
After learning Ye Dui appeared in the temple, the Invincible Priest waited in the house of Selti: a trap. But the trap’s true nature was not for the Invincible Priest to kill Ye Dui. It was to drain Ye Dui’s group’s strength, ensuring they carried the three necromantic relics into the necromantic realm smoothly.
That was the real trap.
