Chapter 1207
Reunion
Chapter 1207 Reunion
Mortalius stood among the remains of the bone dragon, leaning on his scythe, without speaking immediately.
He merely raised his head slightly, his grey-amber eyes peering through the tattered breathing mask at the approaching figures. There was no panic or agitation in his eyes, only an almost suppressed calm.
Having come this far, how could I possibly stop?
So Mortalius slowly straightened up, gripped the [Silent Scythe] tightly again, the blade hanging diagonally on the ground, the edge still bearing traces of death and plague fire from the recent battle.
His voice, deep and resonant, came through the breathing mask at that moment.
“Tachi, you’ve followed Nikel for so many years, you should know best that if I were capable of turning back, I wouldn’t have come down the mountain in the first place.”
Mortalius looked up at the most elite undead warriors in Ashhill City before him, his gaze sweeping over the dragonman steward, the undead general, and then Bella, before finally continuing:
"Let's just get started."
The next moment, attacks came from all directions simultaneously.
Bella and the necromancer group behind her were the first to make their move. Large swaths of gray-black spell light rained down on the ruins where Mortalius stood, with curses, decay, corrosion, slowing, and soul tearing layer upon layer.
Meanwhile, Cocytus had already led several elite undead warriors to charge forward, raising their weapons with all four arms at the same time. Heavy axes, hooks, bone spears, and cleavers all pressed down on Mortalius's chest, abdomen, and neck in one go.
Mortalius did not retreat, and he cannot retreat now.
The battle with Uz had already depleted most of his health, and the impact of the bone dragon's fall had completely wrecked his armor, breathing mask, and internal circulation system.
Even the Overlord's avatar, [Nelgal], has temporarily retreated. The fact that he can still stand is already a testament to his willpower.
Even so, when that barrage of spells and blades pressed down on him at the same time, there was still no sign of him admitting defeat.
Mortalius first kicked off the broken bones of the bone dragon's remains, using the momentum to shift to the side, causing most of Bella's first round of curse spells to miss, with only a few grazing her shoulder armor and back, leaving a trail of rapidly spreading black marks on the armor's surface.
Immediately afterwards, he swung the Silent Scythe upwards with a fierce flick, the blade first knocking aside the heavy axe in Cocytus's hand, then slicing diagonally across the waist of an undead swordsman who had circled around from the right rear.
The elite undead soldier didn't even have time to shout before his upper body slid out, death energy and bone fragments spraying out from the severed wound, and his body fell into the ruins on the spot.
"Hold him back!"
Bella shouted from behind, slamming her staff into the ground, and more necromancy arrays lit up beneath Mortalius's feet.
Mortalius's reaction was still surprisingly fast.
He slammed the scythe handle into the ground, and with that push and pull, he flipped over, almost touching the edge of the soul nails, and landed instantly within the casting range of Bella's group of mages.
Bella's expression changed.
She clearly hadn't expected that even after Mortalius had fought so badly, he would still dare to advance instead of retreat, charging directly at their vulnerable mage core.
"Stop him!"
Before she could finish speaking, Cocytus attacked from behind, his four arms creating four different attack trajectories, giving Mortalius no room to dodge or maneuver.
The two mages in front also began to retreat frantically, casting curses and soul shocks as they went.
But at that very moment, Mortarius suddenly slumped his shoulders.
His actions became more ruthless and direct.
Without any unnecessary changes or fancy techniques, he simply charged forward, enduring the cursed light crashing down from one side, letting his shoulder armor and ribs suffer another round of corrosive impact, thus gaining that half-step close-range distance.
Then, he slashed horizontally with his scythe, severing the necromancer on his left who was a step too slow to retreat, along with his staff.
"This guy is a monster!!"
The dark elf was terrified by the sight; the two mages were already dead. She immediately turned around and tried to distance herself.
But she still underestimated Mortalius, a monster who had carved his way out of mountains of corpses.
She had only taken two steps back when she felt a shadow suddenly loom over her.
The next moment, the handle of the Silent Scythe struck her staff directly, knocking the entire staff and both of her arms askew, while Mortalius grabbed her shoulder robe and pulled her directly in front of him.
The dark elf's eyes finally revealed true terror.
"and many more--"
Mortalius didn't listen at all.
The sickle flips and slashes downwards at an angle.
The dark elf's slender body was instantly slashed open with a terrifyingly deep wound. He was sent flying backward, crashing heavily onto the ruins. He twitched twice and then fell silent.
"Motalius, you dare to be so arrogant!!!"
The undead general Cocytus finally caught up completely at this moment. He exerted force with all four arms, and his weapons, imbued with death energy, slammed into Mortalius.
boom! boom! boom!
The three heavy blows landed almost simultaneously, and the armor plates on Mortalius's chest and left shoulder burst open on the spot.
He was knocked so hard he staggered, coughing up a mouthful of black blood that tasted like poisonous mist, and even the hand holding the scythe trembled slightly.
"Motalius, your life ends here."
Mortalius: "You talk too much nonsense."
The moment he finished speaking, he actually charged towards the undead general.
Cocytus swung all four arms at the same time, his four weapons blocking the way like a net, but Mortalius managed to squeeze through the narrowest gap.
He allowed one of the hooks to slice through his abdominal armor, while another bone spear grazed his ribs and pierced half an inch in. In this life-or-death struggle, he managed to bring himself right up to Cocytus.
click-
A single scythe decapitates.
The Silent Scythe slashed fiercely from near to extreme distance, its star-iron blade slicing through Cocytus's neck and the base of his two secondary arms.
The opponent's entire head, along with half of its shoulder and back, flew off. The four-armed undead general's massive body lunged forward two steps before crashing heavily to the ground.
The remaining attackers had completely lost their previous momentum.
They originally thought that with Uz dead, Mortalius the Bone Dragon falling and melting away, and being dragged into the encirclement of so many elite undead, he should be at his last gasp.
But only now do they truly understand how terrifying this plague king is.
Mortarius gave no one a chance to catch their breath.
He carried his scythe and stepped forward, cutting down the remaining elite undead one by one. When the battle finally came to an end, only the dragonman steward, Taqi, remained standing.
The dragon butler never actually made a move from beginning to end, or rather, he never found the right opportunity to do so.
Mortalius himself had also reached his limit.
He leaned on his sickle, slamming one knee heavily on the ground, his chest heaving violently. The wounds on his abdomen and back were getting deeper and deeper, and blood kept flowing down from the cracks in his nails. Even the hand holding the sickle began to tremble uncontrollably.
At this moment, he seemed to be too exhausted to fight any longer.
The dragon butler stood not far away, but did not immediately step forward.
He simply watched Mortalius, who was kneeling on one knee, leaning on a scythe, covered in blood, and the complex emotions in his eyes gradually subsided, as if he had finally pieced together a complete picture from many fragmented clues.
Because he knows this child too well.
Mortalius was someone he had watched grow up, from the infant who survived the most poisonous place on the Pale Peak to the Plague King who carried a scythe, traversed the mountains, and commanded armies in battle.
Taki knew better than anyone that although the boy sometimes seemed stubborn to the point of being obsessive, he was not stupid.
That's why he finally understood that the path he was taking, fighting his way up from the bottom and risking his life for others, was not a desperate charge by a lone hero.
This is a plan.
It was something the child had long prepared for—a death.
The dragonman butler, Taqi, looked at Mortalius and revealed his plan:
“You know very well that you, in your current state, are no match for His Majesty Nikel, the overlord.”
"So what you wanted was never to walk alive before His Majesty; what you wanted was to die before him and then rise up in a more terrifying way."
Mortalius raised his head and looked at his former teacher through the tattered breathing mask.
Taqi continued:
"Necromancy is only the first step. The spell has already been planted in your body. When you are truly on the verge of death, the super-level necromancy within you will take over your body and peel you out of your human shell."
“But what you want is not just necromancy. You want to go further and use yourself and the battles you have fought as a sacrificial performance to please the gods, in order to please the four monarchs in the ether. You intend to make death more than just death, and to make decay and disease your second skeleton.”
"You want to use your resurrection to achieve a true ascension."
At this point, Taqi's gaze turned completely somber.
"So you've been wanting to die all along, haven't you?"
After those words were spoken, the ruins fell into a moment of silence.
Mortalius was breathing heavily, his breaths, tinged with blood and foam, echoing in his chest.
In the midst of this silence, he surprisingly chuckled. The chuckle was soft and hoarse, yet it sounded like a sense of relief after finally being seen through.
"As expected of a teacher."
"You figured it out after all."
He leaned on his sickle, slowly raised his head, his gray-amber eyes revealing weariness, but also a calm that showed he had already made up his mind:
"Yes, I really didn't intend to use this body to kill my father... Nikel. I know all too well the gap at the top, and I know all too well that even if I take a few more steps forward, I'm still still lacking something."
"So I will die in Abalus, die in front of him, die at the most opportune moment, when I truly fall, the super-level necromancy left in my body will be activated."
"At that time, I will leave this old human shell here and burn all the death, plague, resentment and fighting spirit accumulated along the way into the new body."
“When I stand up again, I will no longer be the plague god I am now.”
"I will become the legendary Skeleton Knight, a war undead with the plague rank and the authority of immortality, and then continue to rise, continue to kill Nikel, continue to tear apart the peaks that this world presses down on the valleys and lowlands."
As he spoke, his voice grew lower, yet more resolute. "As long as I can stand up again, I will continue to fight for the liberation of Abalus."
After listening, Taqi remained silent for a moment, then gently shook his head.
"Silly child, that's called God's Chosen One."
When Mortalius heard this address, his eyes flickered slightly, but he didn't argue anymore. He simply straightened up a little, leaning on his scythe, as if he were trying to gather his last bit of strength.
Then, he looked at Tachi and said in a low voice:
"Then, teacher, come on."
Taqi didn't say anything more.
He simply sighed and then walked step by step toward Mortalius.
Soon, the sounds of clashing weapons and tearing flesh echoed once again amidst the ruins.
click-
……
……
When the battle ended, Mortalius was lying on the ground with his chest completely ripped open, his armor and flesh torn apart, and his breathing mask mostly shattered.
He was vomiting blood, mouthful after mouthful, which flowed down his chin.
He looked like he was about to die, yet he was still clinging to his last breath.
But he did not show any sign of pain.
On the contrary, as he coughed up blood, he chuckled softly. The laughter was intermittent, mixed with blood and foam, yet it carried an extremely clear sense of regret and mockery.
"Teacher...it seems you won't be able to open this gift beforehand."
On the other side, not far from him, was the extremely mournful Taqi.
The dragon butler had his limbs completely severed and lay in a pool of blood. His black suit was torn to shreds, and a deep, terrifying wound was ripped open in his chest and abdomen.
But there was no ferocity or resentment on his face.
He smiled, his eyes closed, as if he had finally seen the child he had raised since childhood, truly reaching the place he was meant to be.
His last words to Mortalius, amidst this blood and ruins, were as light as a sigh.
“You’ve grown up, Mortalius.”
With the death of Taqi, the siege of Ashhill City, specifically set up to suppress the Plague King, finally came to an end.
The Sorcerer Uz died in battle, and Cocytus, Bella, and a group of elite undead all fell in the ruins and pools of blood. Even the dragon butler who pressed forward last died under Mortalius's scythe.
At this point, the entire force responsible for suppressing the plague was wiped out.
Mortalius, lying on the ground, was now finding it difficult to even lift a finger.
He felt very close to death, and it was on this brink of death that he suddenly realized that the person he wanted to please was looking at him.
There were two gazes in total.
The first gaze was lukewarm, viscous, and damp, carrying an almost benevolent yet nauseating sense of acceptance, like some enormous mountain of flesh that was constantly expanding, rotting, and secreting, slowly bowing down in the far distance of darkness.
His outline could not be defined normally; one could only barely see countless layers of fat, rotten, festering, yet still thriving flesh piled on top of each other, with pustules, putrefaction, pus membranes, rotten flesh, and parasitic life writhing together.
Disease, decay, pus, rot, and an incurable vitality—this is the gentlest grace!
He was looking at Mortalius as if he were looking at a child who had finally come to the door and was finally qualified to be embraced by him, as long as Mortalius took another half step into death.
That power belonging to decay, plague, and immortal decay would immediately pour into his body, elevating him from a dying human into another, higher, and more disgusting being.
The other gaze, however, was quite the opposite.
It was a crimson expanse, an endless scarlet, a bronze throne formed somewhere extremely high, from blades, armor, seas of blood, severed limbs, roars, and ceaseless slaughter.
Countless bones piled up like mountains beneath the throne, and scalding blood flowed like rivers. A colossal silhouette forged from iron and fire sat atop all of it.
He stared at Mortalius's body, which was already broken and shattered, yet still refused to fall, with a pure and violent gaze.
Under His gaze, Mortalius felt that his fatal wound had become insignificant; if he wanted, he could fight on with countless such fatal wounds without any effect.
A mere fatal wound is nothing compared to the thrill of battle!
The Blood God's favor was more direct than that of the benevolent father. He didn't want Mortalius to continue lying down; He wanted him to stand up, to keep fighting, to keep challenging the strong, and to keep enjoying himself.
Mortalius could even clearly sense that as soon as he breathed his last, the Father would bestow upon him decay and plague, while the Blood God would grant him slaughter and willpower.
Both of these immense and almost irresistible powers will simultaneously elevate him to a higher level of status.
Death at this moment is no longer just the end.
It's like a door.
A door that will be pushed open the moment he falls.
But just as those two gazes lowered further and were almost truly settling on Mortalius...
From the depths of the ether, a pitch-black sun suddenly shone.
It lacks the damp and nauseating vitality of a loving father, and the all-consuming rage of a blood god.
It simply hung there high, dark, silent, and enormous, like a great sun that had burned light and heat into absolute will.
As soon as it appeared, the black sun forcefully blocked the two approaching gazes.
In a daze, Mortalius felt the blood, poisonous fog, wreckage and the distant ethereal scene before him flicker, and then he saw a figure squatting in front of him.
It was a blond young man wearing a black robe. The other person squatted in front of him, with a very obvious look of scrutiny on his face.
Lao Xia, who had been watching the show from the sidelines, finally decided to personally cut off the internet connection when she discovered that her child was actually planning to follow those two gazes and was even about to sign the "black online loan."
Of the four monarchs' loans, which one was a legitimate loan?
What kind of benevolent father offers low interest rates? What kind of blood god grants quick approval? In the end, they all just give you a little taste of sweetness first, and then drag you away with interest.
To avoid regretting it later when he saw his child, and to avoid shedding tears himself, Xia Xiu decisively pulled out the two "network cables" that were almost inserted into Mortalius's body on the spot.
"Cough cough cough~~~"
When Mortalius was pulled like that, the wounds that had been somewhat stopped burst open again, and the most severe lacerations on his chest and abdomen started bleeding again.
He was jerked so hard that he arched his back, followed by a violent, uncontrollable cough that made his shoulders tremble and his breathing become rapid and disordered.
He truly didn't even have the strength to speak anymore, and at that moment, his father naturally started chatting with him.
Xia Xiu: "Do you know who I am?"
Mortalius: "..."
Xia Xiu: "I am your father."
Mortalius: "..."
Xia Xiu: "To be honest, of all the children I've found so far, you're the only one who's thinking of borrowing money from the Four Monarchs. I don't know whether to call you stubborn or inflexible."
The eighth son, Mortalius, couldn't help but roll his eyes, and at the same time, coughed up blood again in front of his father.
Seeing this, Xia Xiu, who had been scanning Mortalius's body, began to slowly repair his body after confirming that the influence of the Father and the Blood God had been cleared.
Soon, Mortalius's breathing, which had been almost completely broken, finally stabilized again, and the most serious wounds on his chest and abdomen stopped reopening. Although he was far from fully healed, he had at least regained some strength, enough for him to sit up again.
His first reaction upon sitting up was to recall his weapon.
With a soft whooshing sound, the [Silent Scythe] that had fallen on the other side of the ruins flew back and landed steadily in his hand.
Mortalius gripped the scythe, his movements still stiff and sluggish from his injury, but his vigilance was undiminished. He raised his head, his grey-amber eyes fixed on Xia Xiu.
Xia Xiu: "You want to cut me up?"
Mortalius: "..."
Xia Xiu was quite self-aware and understood the child's little scheme.
"It's normal to have such thoughts. After all, a stranger suddenly appears here, his origins are unknown, and he comes up to you claiming to be your father. He doesn't seem like a normal person at all."
"So you want to try to see if you can deal with me first, but you also know very well that you can't beat me at all. And more importantly, you have already felt it yourself. The blood in your body is telling you that I am not lying to you."
Mortalius listened without responding.
He remained silent for a few seconds, but ultimately did not actually attack Xia Xiu. Instead, he silently stood up.
After standing up, he didn't intend to ask any more questions, nor did he intend to follow Xia Xiu's words in the direction of "recognizing his father." Instead, he picked up the [Silent Scythe], turned around, and strode directly towards the distant peak.
That's the direction where the Overlord is, and also the direction where Nikel is.
Xia Xiu stood there, watching Lao Ba's injuries not fully healed, yet he turned around and was about to go back up the mountain to die again. He couldn't help but raise his arms, cross them to his chest, and ask, standing there:
"You're going to fight Nikel alone?"
Mortalius did not turn around.
He simply carried the sickle, his steps never faltering, his voice low and brief.
"Yes."
Xia Xiu: "Do you need my help?"
Mortalius: "..."
Look, when this child encounters a difficult question, he simply falls silent.
Xia Xiu thought for a moment and then rephrased it:
"Want to make a bet?"
(End of this chapter)