Ch214-Pieces Of Cake

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Ch214-Pieces Of Cake

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Undead, as a species, were not creatures the vast majority of people would describe as “fast.”

Which was absolutely fair, even undead without physical bodies were usually limited to a somewhat slow speed, let alone zombies and skeletons.

Shades were the worst of both worlds in that sense of the word, they were weak, and they weren’t even that fast to make up for it. The speed at which they moved through shadows was only a little faster than the speed at which they could run. Normal shades couldn’t even do that, they had to “swim” through shadows to move around.

Sylver’s shades were fast but comparing Sylver’s shades to natural-born shades was like comparing a cheetah to a house cat. Sure, the general shape may appear similar, but the internal mechanisms were as different as night and day.

And yes, vampires can be fast, but they were an exception because, despite public opinion, those bloodsuckers were closer to being “alive” than “dead.”

The main point was that the undead weren’t built for speed. They didn’t have the right parts for it, their bodies couldn’t move the heat created by friction away from their joints, their muscles didn’t have the proper flexibility, and more often than not, they were either bloated, or dried up, and it was rare that an undead managed to stay somewhere in between.

Assuming they had flesh of course, but undead without any meat on them could only move as fast as their magic allowed them, and unless the undead in question was a capable of manipulating this aforementioned magic directly, they were pretty fucking slow.

They made up for their lack of speed and in many cases strength, with unparalleled persistence.

The living might be fast, their wounds might heal without them having to stitch them closed, and they might be able to overpower the undead using small bursts of strength, but may all the gods in the world help you if you’re up against an undead you can’t immediately kill.

The only thing worse than that is an undead that you can’t kill for good.

Such as a lich, for example.

Liches loved defeating someone by plain and simple wearing them down.

It was one of those things he had little control over due to becoming a lich. He had gotten pretty good at not hoarding valuable items for the sake of hoarding them, but he was helpless when it came to whittling down someone significantly bigger and stronger than him.

It wasn’t malicious, it was completely instinctual, Sylver got a rush out of it the same way a dog got a rush out of chasing something.

Sadly, he couldn’t just give in to his base instincts because it came into conflict with his desire not to cause undue harm to people. Even if they did something awful, Sylver wasn’t going to prolong their suffering more than absolutely necessary, just because a small part of him got a kick out of it.

It would be a lie to say he had never been tempted.

And it took a significant amount of effort to resist the urge to pull back his army just a little bit to give the other side time to recover, but so far, Sylver had never given in to it.

Even now, a small part of Sylver was enjoying the fact that they were all stronger than him, and that he was chasing after them, but as much as he wanted to just keep riding Ulvic until they eventually ran out of stamina and had no choice but to stop, he knew he would feel awful about it.

He’d feel bad about wasting his limited time on something so stupid, and then he would feel bad for making them spend so long-running around afraid.

On the bright side, these cultivators were very fast, and even when he empowered Ulvic to the point that Sylver’s skin was starting to melt off his hands, they weren’t even close to catching up to them.

Sylver was almost upset with himself when he figured out a way to slow them down, but now that the idea had entered his head, it would be wrong to ignore it.

Aleri, the 6-winged chimera Sylver had been given by Bruno, appeared next to him and kept pace with Ulvic without breaking a sweat. The wolf shade was dishearted by this revelation, but Sylver just patted the shade on the back and later explained that he shouldn’t compare himself to something that could fly.

“He died for nothing,” Ria said, as Sylver summoned a ball of explosive into his hand, and very gently took the trigger mechanism out of it.

“I’m not going to argue with you Ria, he tried to kill me, and I-”

“No, I know, I understand why you killed him, that’s not the part I don’t get. I can even sort of understand why they tried to kill you specifically. I even get that they couldn’t leave Mora or me alive because we might attack them in revenge. But why didn’t they even try to talk? You could have explained you can’t be killed, we could have killed one of them painlessly, or even found a way forward without killing anyone,” Ria said, as Sylver molded the explosive clay into small balls, and fed them to Aleri.

“There’s a good chance they had planned this from the start. Why else would they allow a complete stranger to accompany them? They knew the sacrifice room was ahead and decided it was better to sacrifice a random guy, than one of their own,” Sylver explained, as Aleri told him that he couldn’t fit any more clay inside, and Sylver started gently wrapping it around the shade’s feet.

“That… I didn’t think of that…” Ria said as Sylver allowed the bird shade to check if the weight was small enough for her to fly.

“On the other hand, it is possible red robe made a split-second decision, and these 3 are completely innocent in regards to the attempted murder,” Sylver explained, as Ria formed a tendril for Aleri to sit on as Sylver took the clay ring off one foot, and spread out what remained so the shade was balanced.

“But why did they run?” Ria asked, as Sylver felt around his shadow and decided how to approach this.

“Because they are unaware that despite being a witch, I am fair and reasonable. One of them attacked me so, of course, I’m going to try to kill all of them in retaliation,” Sylver answered, as he summoned the blue robe heir’s brother’s finger, and melted the flesh away.

“So, you’re trying to catch them to explain that?” Ria asked, and if it weren’t for her completely serious tone, he would have thought she was sarcastic.

“No, I’m going to kill them. If I can, I’ll leave one alive to help me get out of here,” Sylver explained, as Ria cocked her head to the side at this.

“Why are you going to kill them if you think there’s a chance, they’re innocent?” Ria asked as Sylver finished loading the tiny finger bone up as much as his mana allowed and gave it to Aleri to hold in his beak.

“Because it doesn’t matter if they had nothing to do with the attempt on my life. I killed one of theirs’, therefore they will eventually try to get revenge. So, it’s better to kill them now, before they tell their sect and inevitably turn this into an even bigger pain in the ass,” Sylver explained, as Aleri flapped his wings, and disappeared.

“I see…” Ria said.

Sylver waited for his mana to regenerate back to full before he gave Aleri the signal to start.

“Personally, I think they planned this from the start. I say that, because I think the brother sacrificed himself, so they wouldn’t have to. Maybe it was prearranged since the moment they came in here, maybe he used up all his strength or something and thought he was useless, but as I said, it doesn’t matter… What about you?” Sylver asked.

“What about me?” Ria asked.

“Do you want to kill them? For the attempt on my life, on Mora’s, and on yours?” Sylver asked.

He heard a shout from up ahead, but no explosion.

There was a pause, during which Sylver heard a swishing sound, followed by a muted explosion.

“I don’t know. I would have defended you if I saw it coming but killing them now, in retaliation…” Ria answered, and Sylver nodded at her, as he waited for his [Advanced Water Manipulation] to connect to the water that had been stored using [Bound Bones] in the finger bone Aleri had been carrying.

“I appreciate the honesty,” Sylver said, as he got close enough and felt his mana core almost shit itself as he forced his mana through one of the shades using [Greater Undead Channeling] and made shards of razor-sharp ice explode out of the water.

He could tell right away this was ineffective, but despite appearances, he wasn’t trying to kill anyone.

He just wanted to get their shoes. Although he wasn’t going to complain if someone got unlucky and lost an eye to Sylver’s ice.

“Why aren’t you angry?” Ria asked as Sylver concentrated on his spell, and Mora clogged up the mechanism in the ceiling and stopped the darts from flying out using a thin sheet of compressed string.

“In regards to the attempt on my life? To be perfectly honest, I’m angrier at the fact that he said “I’m sorry,” before slicing us up. If you’re going to attack someone while they’re off guard, don’t fucking warn them. I mean, what if he was slow enough for me to stop him because of that?” Sylver asked and was nearly thrown off Ulvic as the shade came to a sudden halt.

Once again, they had a choice between 3 different passages. And as he had predicted, the blue arrows on the walls had been scratched out and soaked in enough Ki that Sylver wouldn’t be able to figure out which arrow was the newest by examining the paint.

“Wait, so you don’t care that he tried to kill you?” Ria asked, as Sylver jumped down from the large wolf, and very gently felt around the floor with his mana.

“Not particularly. As I said, it was either an on-the-spot decision, which I can both understand and respect, or it was planned from the start, which I can both understand and respect. If he didn’t say “I’m sorry,” there’s a possibility I wouldn’t have killed him,” Sylver explained, as he channeled his mana through the palm of his hand and smiled a little as dark green footprints appeared on the otherwise perfectly clean floor.

The mossy footprints weren’t as clear as Sylver would have liked, but considering they had literal droplets of water to work with, he couldn’t complain.

Sylver wasn’t sure whose shoes he had successfully marked, but he had a feeling they weren’t going to split up. They had presumably understood that he wasn’t just a simple [Swamp Lord], and were hopefully cautious enough to stick together.

“So, you killed him because he showed remorse for what he did?” Ria asked as Sylver followed the footprints that went through the middle passageway.

He pinched the bridge of his nose as the footprints continued appearing in front of him.

“I just realized… they might have lied about the end being close… They’re faster than us, so unless they stop at some point, we could be chasing them for days. And this footprint thing isn’t going to last forever, there isn’t anywhere near enough moisture in the air to sustain it,” Sylver said, as he jumped back onto Ulvic, and tried to come up with a plan that didn’t involve waiting for them to run into a dead end.

Their options were limited, by the fact that this was essentially a maze. If Sylver tried to veer off course, he doubted he would be able to find them. And while he fumbled around and tried to find the end or a way out, those guys would either leave, or get to the end, and leave.

Once the moss on their shoes ran out of water, that was it. Sylver could track the blue robe heir using the brother’s blood, but it would only point him in the heir’s direction, it wouldn’t help Sylver navigate a maze.

He patted himself down, and as his fingers brushed up against the soft, faintly glowing, pages, he got an idea that he really didn’t like.

He stared at the glowing page, with the word “QUESTION” written on it.

Should I chase after them for a day or so, before asking the ancient dragon to help me?

Would I even be able to explain what I need help with?

And then what? How could it help me?

Could it teleport me directly to them?

Will it help me?

What if it decided that I’m incompetent, or thought I was working against it?

Thankfully, Sylver realized he was inside a dungeon that contained a hat that belonged to the person who imprisoned the aforementioned dragon. This felt like it could lead to a life-threatening misunderstanding.

He was very gentle as he folded up the mana-soaked piece of paper and put it back into his robe.

“What do you think are the chances that they will get stuck in one of those 12 door testing rooms? With an enemy, they aren’t able to defeat with a single swipe of the sword?” Sylver asked, as Ulvic jumped over one trap, and then another.

Most had already been tripped, and given the lack of corpse, were ineffective, but there were a couple that had waited for Ulvic’s foot to activate it. As Sylver looked through his available perks, and out of habit looked through his status, he found a solution for his problem.

Mora was already halfway to sticking herself onto his back when he summoned a dagger into his hand and carefully moved his internal organs around.

“What are you doing?” Ria asked, as Sylver’s robe started to wrap itself around her, and gradually shrunk until it was almost thin enough to be described as skintight.

“I am going to hope we’re close enough to them for me to cover the distance in under 100 seconds,” Sylver explained, as he held his dagger with one hand, and used his other hand to line the tip up properly.

Ideally, Sylver would have remembered he possessed this perk and used it the moment they started to run, but there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about his past mistakes.

[Perk: Hare’s Great Escape]
-While in contact with the needle and below 20% health, dexterity increases by 500% for 100 seconds.
*Can only be used once every 24 hours.

Sylver took a metaphorical deep breath, as he glued his eyes onto his HP, and slowly stabbed himself through his first heart.

According to the system, stabbing his first heart was worth 450 HP, whereas cutting his head clean into two did a little under 50 HP worth of damage. Sylver twisted the dagger and made the hole he had created a huge pain in the ass to fix but was thankfully provided with an extra 200 HP worth of damage.

It didn’t hurt, he didn’t feel “woozy” from his blood pressure dropping slightly, but the gaping hole in his chest immediately started to feel itchy. Sylver pressed on, and slowly pierced his lung equivalent, and while it did feel like being strangled, it was only worth 250 HP.

Sylver stabbed himself through the eye, slit his throat, and even forced a liter of blood to leak out, but the system simply refused to drop his HP below 20%. It was as if it was mocking him for wearing a flesh suit over his “real” body.

It also seemed to calculate the damage based on how annoying it would be for Sylver to fix.

Sylver moved his hand to his back and slid the dagger between his vertebrae. His legs spasmed for a second as he became paralyzed from the waist down, but more importantly, that bit of damage pushed him right over the edge of 400 HP.

The amount of strength Sylver’s legs could give out remained the same, but the amount of force he could exert per second increased 5 fold.

Sylver’s old body, before his transformation, wouldn’t have been capable of this. The bones in his legs would have shattered, along with his knees, and possibly his hip.

But his new body, merely destroyed Sylver’s enchanted boots, from the sheer pressure the soles of his feet exerted onto the leather material.

Sylver hit the ground running, and after about 10 steps, realized running on all 4 would be the better option. It was fortunate that his spine was currently in 2 parts because it provided him with the proper flexibility to bend his back like a cat as he ran.

He pushed himself forward with his legs and simultaneously pulled himself forward with his hands. It was significantly easier said than done, but Sylver got the hang of it quickly enough.

Mora helped him by reducing the air resistance, as Sylver sprinted through a slowed-down world. The darts flying from the ceiling, which had previously been nothing but dark blurs, now flew slowly enough that Sylver was certain he could catch them.

After roughly 20 steps, or leaps, or whichever word a person would use to describe a necromancer running on all 4s like a wild animal, Sylver realized his mind was faster than his body, just enough that his movements felt sluggish. Sadly, he was too preoccupied with keeping proper form and enhancing his limbs, to provide himself any further magical assistance.

Ria kept count for him, by the time he was close enough to the running cultivators that he could sense the sweat dripping off their backs, he had 18 seconds left.

He had 11 seconds left as he turned the corner and could see all 3 men running just a bit slower than him right now.

Sylver didn’t waste a fraction of a second as he leaped towards the blue robe heir, and channeled every drop of mana into his arm, as he prepared to slice the boy’s body into two.

He ignored the sharp pain on his hand, as Ki washed over him, and focused everything on killing the boy.

Sylver had 5 seconds left, as he saw orange robe stop running and turn around on his heel. The orange bathrobe wearing cultivator grasped the hilt of his sword, and even with his enhanced speed Sylver still, couldn’t properly see the man’s movements.

He knew exactly what the swordsman was about to do, as Sylver released the spell out of his palm and fingers and hated the fact that he needed literally another quarter of a second to “win.”

To Sylver’s eyes, the blurry man awkwardly crab-walked forward and gently waved his sword up and down as if he was trying to shake off paint from the tip of his long brush.

But he wasn’t painting a picture, he was slicing Sylver’s extended arm into flat patties, and was gradually moving up his wrist, forearm, elbow, bicep, shoulder, and then Sylver’s head.

Having realized that getting blue robe right now just plain and simple wasn’t on the table, Sylver used what little mana he had available to fling his entire cut-up hand slices at the blurry man’s face. He was about 50% certain he was looking at an afterimage, but he got lucky and managed to use his own bone fragments to scratch the man’s eyes.

Sylver didn’t have enough mana to properly gouge them, but he did succeed in forcing the man to break his stance for a fraction of a second.

Sadly, the now blind man’s focus returned, as he continued gently waving his sword up and down Sylver’s head, and with every blurry swing of the blade, sliced through Sylver’s forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, neck, shoulders, and finally, his sword shattered as it collided with the top of Sylver’s unbreakable ribcage.

The small head inside Sylver’s chest, the one that continued Sylver’s “real” brain, had been purposely squashed down into the ribcage it was attached to, the way a turtle might retreat into its protective shell. But because Sylver’s ribs had a limited amount of space, the top part of his skull was in the open.

Sylver didn’t see what had happened, but the moment [Hare’s Great Escape] ran out, he was flung towards the wall and landed into a pile of his own flesh and bone discs. He didn’t even get a moment to catch his breath, as orange robe tried to stab Sylver through the chest with what remained of his sword.

He felt Ria work in tandem with Mora to deflect the blade, but neither of them had the physical strength to stop cultivator’s attack. Sylver summoned 2 bombs right in front of his chest and detonated them.

Since his back was already against the wall, and Sylver had thankfully managed to get the angle right, he mostly remained where he was. The shockwave from the explosion shredded the front of his robe and ripped apart every inch of skin on his chest, stomach, and thighs, and it was only now that Sylver discovered that his legs had also been sliced to pieces.

Sylver’s pain was blocked by the fact that he was undead, and what little managed to slip through was drowned out by unadulterated rage.

A part of him had to admit, orange did good, and while Sylver couldn’t help but respect his suicidal attack, he simultaneously knew just how much effort fixing his body would take, and lost all sympathy for the bastard.

To his credit, orange robe didn’t try to finish Sylver off this time, and since the explosion had almost breached his Ki armor, he had mere seconds of life left.

“IT’S HIS CHEST!” the man screamed, so loudly that the volume threatened to burst Sylver’s eardrums.

As the man took a breath to scream again, an invisible floating razor wrapped around his neck. It immediately sawed through his brittle Ki armor and sent bright blue sparks flying everywhere, as Mora’s magic interfered with what remained of the man’s Ki.

Sylver hadn’t realized he had been holding his breath, until he saw the man’s head fall to the ground, a moment before his orange bathrobe wearing body did.

[Human (Fangs Of The Blue Tiger) Defeated!]
[Due to defeating an enemy 110 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]

[Swamp Lord] has reached level 58!
+5AP

[Necrotic Mutilation (IV) Proficiency increased to 62%!]

[Vigorous Conditioning (III) Proficiency increased to 100%!]
[Vigorous Conditioning (III) rank up available!]

Even though there wasn’t a second to spare, Sylver was plain and simple too angry, and disappointed, to properly concentrate on pulling himself back together. His paper-thin meat circle slid toward him, and like slugs climbing up a desecrated corpse, slithered into a pile that formed his chest, neck, head, and finally created a limb that could roughly be described as an arm.

Sylver had to mix his [Necrotic Mutilation] armor and his shadow into the limb to hold it together. Thankfully his legs had only been cut in 4 places, and Mora had already brought them to him by the time he was done aligning one of the mana channels in his hand.

Sylver forced his legs to heal first as he got up from the floor and walked over to the corpse that had all but killed him.

There wasn’t so much as a droplet of Ki inside the man’s body, Sylver absorbed him into his [Bound Bones] storage with the same ease he absorbed corpses of magical creatures.

Under different circumstances, Sylver would have taken the time to sit down, to lick his wounds, but even as he shuffled the discs that made up his arm to get them in the right order, Ulvic was already forming underneath him to hopefully catch up with the two remaining cultivators.

He was barely in one piece, he struggled to form a fist with his left hand, he was in severe pain, that he was ignoring, but aside from that, Sylver was almost done.

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