Chapter 1204
[The 8th Perfect Embryo: Mortalius]
Chapter 1204 [The Eighth Perfect Embryo: Mortalius]
Inside Ash Slope City, Xia Xiu stood on a high stone path near the city wall, his gaze passing over the layers of gray-black rooftops, looking out at the mid-altitude mountains outside the city, shrouded in poisonous fog.
The black mark in his palm was slowly heating up. The echo of the same origin was not blurred, but became clearer and clearer, like an invisible line that was constantly tightening from a distance, pointing directly at the city.
His descendants are approaching this place.
Xia Xiu wasn't in a hurry to acknowledge him immediately; he needed to observe what kind of person Lao Ba was.
Moreover, he could also sense that the atmosphere in Ash Slope City was clearly off.
This already oppressive mid-altitude city is now stretched to its limit, like a string that could snap at any moment. Several open spaces near the city walls and outer slopes are filled with armed troops who have been assembled in advance.
It was a temporary undead military camp.
The outermost layer consists of swarms of skeletons, the most numerous of them, dressed in cobbled-together rusty armor and leather scraps, wielding spears, scimitars, bone crossbows, and short-handled axes.
Individually they may not seem strong, but once arranged in an array, the dense rows of white bones still create a very oppressive feeling.
Behind these skeleton soldiers stood even heavier rotting corpse soldiers and armored corpse guards. They were much larger, and many still had muscles and fascia that had not completely rotted away. Their chests and backs were sewn shut with layers of iron plates and animal hides. They carried heavy hooks, armor-piercing hammers, and huge shields as big as doors, clearly designed to withstand frontal attacks.
Further on, there are some war dead that are clearly more valuable.
Xia Xiu saw a bone beast being led by iron chains next to a military post. The creature was probably some kind of large four-legged creature, but its flesh and blood had been mostly stripped away, leaving only a blackened skeleton, poisonous tendons wrapped around it, and eye sockets that were constantly emitting green smoke.
They were also equipped with saddles and bone spikes on their backs, used to carry cavalry or necromancers to move quickly through enemy lines.
Further down the slope, several more enormous undead war creatures were resting.
The thing looked like a product of forcibly sewing together a giant beast, a corpse, and siege equipment. It had a throwing arm on its back, and its abdomen was filled with venom sacs and corrosive mud bombs. When it took a step, even the ground trembled slightly. It was obviously designed to bombard city walls, smash positions, or assault large settlements.
In addition, between the city wall towers and watchtowers, there are many poisonous winged flying insects and ghost-like reconnaissance units. They are not large in size, but they are fast and numerous. Moreover, they are obviously covered with a strong necromantic aura. Once they are released to search the mountains, ordinary people will not be able to hide at all.
The deployment of this entire force is no longer a simple patrol or guard post.
This is preparation for war, and for a battle that is not small.
However, this army was clearly somewhat anxious, and they were obviously filled with fear and dread about the enemy they were about to face.
As always, Xia Xiu activated [Presence-Weakening Element] on himself, making him seem to slip out of the perception of those around him. He sat on the side of the street, walked through alleyways, and strolled leisurely among the guards and patrolling undead, yet no one really noticed him.
He was happy to have some free time, so he strolled around Ash Slope City at his leisure, watching the troop movements in the city and listening to the bits and pieces of information coming out of the mouths of various people, piecing together the most valuable intelligence about the city at the moment.
Soon, he spotted a gathering place that was clearly not open to the public.
The place was located on a high platform near the inner city of Ashhill. There were no ordinary undead soldiers on the outside; instead, there were mage guards dressed in black robes, carrying bone staffs, and covered with poison sacs and necromancy.
Further inside, there were several large bone beasts and corpse-carrying beasts, and a gray-white magic array was laid on the ground to suppress the rising poisonous fog. It was clearly not for ordinary officers to hold meetings.
Xia Xiu didn't stand on ceremony. He walked through the gate and courtyard wall as if no one else was there and went straight into the necromancer's gathering place. He then found a seat in a corner and sat down, listening attentively to the group's internal discussions.
The atmosphere inside the room was very tense.
Seated to the left of the head seat was a necromancer general clad in white armor. He was tall with broad shoulders and back, and most striking was his inhuman physique.
He has four arms. Two main arms rest on the edge of the table, while the other two auxiliary arms hang naturally at his sides. His finger bones and nail plates are sharpened to an extremely sharp point, as if he could draw his sword and kill someone at any moment.
This undead general is named Cocytus.
At this moment, his complexion was clearly not good.
"The Plague Lord is coming..." Cocytus said in a low voice, his tone heavy and muffled, "Do you think the Sorcerer's Guild will win this battle?"
Sitting next to him was a female dark elf named Bella. Bella answered the undead general's question almost without pausing.
"We will win."
The dark elf Bella said with absolute certainty:
"This time, the overlord not only mobilized the Archmage Uz, but also deployed all the undead elites, including you and me. The three mountain lines around Ash Slope City have been fortified, and the undead army and the poison mist array have all entered a state of war."
"With so many of us, it's impossible that we can't control Mortalius alone. No matter how strong he is, he's still just a rebel who tried to kill his father."
After saying this, Bella seemed to suddenly realize something, and her gaze involuntarily shifted, cautiously looking at the person opposite her who had not spoken.
He was an old man, dressed in a very out-of-place black suit. The fabric was well-fitting, the buttons were neatly fastened, and a silver pendant hung on his chest. He didn't look like a necromancer from Abalus, but rather like an old butler who had come from some ancient city.
What is most striking is the pair of dragon horns on his head that curve backward, ancient, steady, and naturally exuding an imposing aura of otherworldly power.
Taqi the Dragonman, teacher of the Plague Lord Mortalius, and the most trusted chief steward of internal affairs under the Necromancer overlord Nikel.
Bella carefully chose her words and added in a low voice:
"Lord Taqi, I know you once personally trained the Plague Lord, but he has now betrayed His Majesty Nikel, so those words just now..."
Taqi sighed softly.
"It's alright."
“What you just said isn’t wrong. Mortalius is already a rebel.”
He paused for a moment, then continued in a low, slow voice.
"However, those of you who followed His Majesty Nikel later may not really know how this so-called Plague Lord came to be."
The room fell silent.
Xia Xiu, sitting in the corner, finally showed some interest, while the dragon butler, Tachi, slowly began to recount the past in the quiet.
"Lord Mortalius is not a native descendant of Abalus in the normal sense, nor is he a child born in any valley village, much less a descendant of any old colonist lineage."
Bella, the dark elf, muttered curiously, "Then where did he come from? Did he just pop out of the stone?"
Her words were clearly a joke, and the dragon butler remained silent for a moment before continuing:
"Motalius really appeared out of nowhere. I was the first person to discover him... and he just suddenly appeared on the summit of Pale Peak."
When Tachi said this, the expressions of the people in the room changed slightly, and even Bella was visibly surprised and opened her mouth wide.
Because every Abalus person knows what Pale Peak is.
That was the territory of the necromancer overlord Nikel, the highest peak in the entire plane with the most poison, the densest death aura, and the thickest poisonous clouds, and also one of the most terrifying cores of the peak rulers.
Normal people, let alone reach the summit, often die from lung rot, blindness, or poisoning before they even get halfway there, let alone reaching the area.
The head steward recounted the story to everyone. "When I first found him on Pale Peak, he was just an infant, wrapped in a tattered cloth that was almost completely corroded by the poisonous fog, and placed on a patch of dead white stone on the outer edge of the peak."
“Normally, necromancers would be devoured by the poison gas there, but that child was alive, breathing steadily, with intact skin, and he didn’t even cry. When he saw me, he even gave me a cackle… I will never forget that lovely smile.”
"And this matter quickly alarmed His Majesty Nikel, because in Abalus, being able to survive in such a place is beyond the explanation of good or bad aptitude... This child is born with an extraordinary affinity for the most deadly part of this world."
"So His Majesty Nikel did not kill him, nor did he throw him off the mountain, nor did he dispose of him as some kind of ominous sign. On the contrary, His Majesty took an interest in him, so he brought him back to Pale Peak and adopted him as his son."
Upon hearing this, Bella couldn't help but whisper:
"In other words, His Majesty Nikel placed high hopes on the Plague Lord, but why did he..."
The dragon-man butler sighed and said:
"His Majesty Nikel has devoted himself to the Plague Lord, imparting all his skills to him."
"From the initial manipulation of poisonous fog, to how to operate in high-altitude areas, how to distinguish the direction of the dead air currents at different altitudes of Abalus, how to fight in the mountains, how to control the undead, how to command an army, how to hunt, how to kill, and how to survive—His Majesty Nikel taught him almost everything he could."
"And Mortalius certainly did not disappoint His Majesty."
This time, it was Cocytus who spoke.
His tone became noticeably somber, as if even he couldn't completely suppress his apprehension when he spoke of that name.
"When he was fourteen, he began leading troops on his own, clearing out the villains from the mountain outposts, and dealing with the unruly undead tribes and outlying territories on Pale Peak. From that time on, the name of the Plague Duke became known in all the outposts."
"He's grown up too fast."
Taqi said in a low voice:
"It's not just physical growth, but strength, willpower, battlefield judgment, and that innate instinct to know how to survive in this world."
“He almost never took a wrong turn, as if he was born to stand at the top. Even His Majesty once believed that the future of Pale Peak would be inherited by Mortalius.”
"But then, things changed."
The room fell silent again.
Xia Xiu also heard the most crucial part.
Taqi stared at the oil lamp on the table, his voice lower and deeper.
"Motalius did not continue upwards."
"He began to look down. He defied His Majesty's decree and walked all the way from Pale Peak to mid-altitude, and from mid-altitude he saw valleys and lowlands."
"When he witnessed the human sacrifice, he led his troops back to the palace and confronted His Majesty Nikel, asking why such an atrocity had been committed against innocent mortals. His Majesty Nikel, enraged, severely injured him with psychic power, reiterated the ban, and warned him: 'If you dare to go down the mountain again, you will never come back alive.'"
"He changed after that."
"Instead of becoming another ruler sitting atop the mountain as His Majesty Nikel had hoped, he turned around and, under the cover of night, fled the mountain fortress once more, heading downhill towards the human villages in the valley."
"And then..."
Taqi paused for a moment after saying this.
There was an indescribable weariness in his voice.
"He's rebelled."
After hearing this, Bella's expression froze for a moment, and then a sense of absurdity, almost incomprehensible, arose.
She clearly couldn't understand why someone who should have stood at the peak and was destined to inherit the position of overlord would, in the end, turn his knife back on his adoptive father and the upper order of the entire plane for the sake of the peasants in the valleys and lowlands.
She couldn't help but speak, her tone clearly showing contempt and incomprehension:
"I really can't understand why the Plague Lord would go to such lengths for those peasants."
“What are those lowland people? They’re just a bunch of livestock barely surviving on poisonous wheat, rotten roots, and murky ditches. They’re kept in the valleys to pay taxes, farm, make sacrifices, and do odd jobs. That’s all they are.”
"It's laughable that someone who should have been at the top would turn against his own father for a bunch of peasants who can't even hold their own lives. It's as absurd as someone turning against their master for chickens, ducks, cows, and sheep."
Upon hearing this, Tachi remained silent for a moment before slowly saying:
"The plague is caused by humankind."
Bella retorted almost immediately, her tone uncompromising: "How can that be the same?"
As she said this, she leaned forward slightly, and her eyes turned cold:
“He is human, that’s true, but he grew up on Pale Peak. From the day His Majesty Nikel adopted him, he was no longer the same as those peasants in the valley.”
Ultimately, people are not ranked by blood or flesh, but by position, ability, and who stands higher.
"Even if those peasants are of the same race as him, they are just the bottom layer of material waiting to be driven. But the Plague King has clearly climbed up, yet he turns around and smashes his own ladder for the sake of the group of corporate slaves below. This kind of thing is ridiculous in itself."
She then simply made her point out directly:
“In Abalus, what truly determines who a person is is never where he originally came from, but rather where he stands later in life.”
“Since the Plague Lord was raised as an heir, he should have been at the top. If he had any brains, he should have followed this path instead of making himself into this state of pleasing neither side for the sake of those peasants who couldn’t even withstand the poisonous fog.”
After hearing these words, Cocytes slowly nodded.
Not only him, but the other necromancers in the room also showed similar expressions, clearly believing that Bella's words were profound truths.
In their view, the Plague Lord's reasons for rebellion were simply too absurd.
Even Tachi, though he didn't say anything more, the deep, complex look in his eyes showed that he, too, couldn't truly understand Mortalius's choice.
Ultimately, he couldn't figure it out either.
That child clearly had the potential to become the second Nikel, or even surpass Nikel. He had already grasped the door knocker at the summit, so why did he ultimately choose to put himself in opposition to the rulers of the entire plane for the sake of the livestock in the lowlands?
Just as the discussion inside the room had not completely subsided, a sudden, loud drumbeat came from outside.
Boom!Boom!Boom!Boom!
That wasn't the rhythm of a normal patrol changing of the guard; it was the sound of war drums, the sound that only rang out when the entire Ash Slope City truly entered a state of war.
Immediately following was the roar of undead soldiers and city defenders mixed together, which blasted in from the high platform, city walls, ramps and outer camps.
"The Plague God is here—!!!"
The moment that sound entered the room, everyone's expression changed.
The necromancers who had been sitting and talking just moments before stood up almost simultaneously, causing the bone cups, poison oil lamps, and map scrolls on the table to rattle loudly. Taqi, on the other hand, suddenly raised his head, his gaze passing over the doorway and looking directly at the mountain path outside Ash Slope City shrouded in poisonous fog.
Xia Xiu, who had been listening to Lao Ba's stories, also spread his great spirituality and began to gaze upon—the Plague God Mortalius.