Mezrolash stared at the unknown entities surging from all directions, gradually encircling them.
He recognized these monsters; he had once seen them recorded in a necromancer's journal.
"Blights! It's blights!"
"They are a plague that spreads dark contagion. They draw dark nourishment from the soil and scatter across the land carrying these ancient, malevolent wills."
"In forests blighted by their corruption, trees and vegetation grow at an unnatural speed. Vines and dense undergrowth rapidly choke out buildings and roads. Once the blights slaughter or drive away every inhabitant, an entire village can be wiped out in a matter of days."
Mezrolash swung his sword, lopping off a thorny tendril lunging from the dark, and cursed sharply, "Damn it! Legend says the first blights were nourished by vampire blood—that old vampire prepared for this long ago!"
Alger gripped the Everburning Greatsword and thrust it straight into the twisted limb of a vine blight.
Raging flames ignited along the blade, engulfing the vine blight in an instant and reducing the screeching monster to ashes.
Alger shouted a warning, "They catch fire easily!"
Now that the creatures lurking in the dark canopy and deep brush had revealed themselves, the players began to show off their respective talents.
Mantou stared at the vine creature before him as information refreshed on his interface:
Vine Blight
Challenge Rating: 1 (200 XP)
Mantou exhaled a long breath of relief, quickly followed by irritation.
"Here I thought it was some horrifying fiend, but it's just a trash mob! How dare you try to spook your Grandfather Mantou? Die for me!"
Brandishing his sword, he charged right in.
The creature of tangled vines trembled, letting out a voice filled with terror: "It's got me... Don't leave me behind..."
"Help me..."
Vine blights were the only kind of blight capable of speech. They could mimic fractured syllables in the voices of their slain masters to mock and torment victims.
Yet, seeing the monster's health bar, Mantou felt no fear. Instead, he felt indignant at being made a fool of, the fire in his chest blazing hotter.
"Still trying to scare me?"
"Go to hell!"
His longsword slashed straight into the brittle vines.
As the Ring of Burning on Mantou's finger gleamed faintly, scorching fiery power surged along the blade and into the vine blight, setting its dry, withered, twisted body ablaze.
Mantou withdrew his blade and chuckled smugly, "See that? One hit, one kill."
Singo loosed a Fire Bolt, ruthlessly chiming in from the side, "Who was the one trembling so hard his knees went weak just a moment ago?"
A flicker of anger burned in Xiaye Qiuyu's golden eyes as well. Her lips parted slightly.
Aganazzar's Scorcher!
Boom!
A sweeping line of churning fire rolled forward, instantly charring over a dozen blights along its path into cinders.
Yet that was far from the widest area of effect among the players.
The guild leader of Eternal Glory, a player named Chenguang Xiwu who played as a Light Cleric, charged straight into the depths of the dark woods, raising his mace high.
Channel Divinity: Radiance of the Dawn!
Centered on the cleric, an endless burst of radiant sunlight descended.
The surrounding darkness was swept away entirely.
Bathed in that sacred brilliance, the hundreds of blights surging toward him were purified before they could even wail, reduced to fine, crumbling ash.
Meanwhile, Gangtie Kuangchao ostentatiously clamped a cigar between his teeth and tossed out runic incendiary bombs one after another.
"Art is an explosion!"
Amid deafening detonations and spreading firelight, every blight standing before him was blasted into cinders.
The blights lurking in the darkness might have been able to claim the lives of stray civilians or pick off lone adventurers, but against a horde of players armed with strange abilities—and an especial love for burning and explosions—they were completely helpless.
After all, the ancient evil powers had never taught them how to fight the Fourth Calamity.
Hacking through thorns and brush, the players swiftly traversed the deadly woods and arrived before Lakeman Castle.
Behind them, the Twilight Garden was now thick with billowing smoke and raging fires, littered with the charred remnants of incinerated blights.
***
A thin crimson veil seemed to hang across the sky.
Lakeman Castle stood battered and derelict, as though ravaged by endless ages. Built from black stone, its walls were covered in cracks, creeping moss, and mottled bloodstains.
The tips of its spires pierced the cloud-choked sky, radiating a chilling atmosphere. The windows were secured by iron grilles and sharp spikes, giving off a suffocating sense of imprisonment and menace.
The shadow cast by the fortress cloaked the surrounding land in gloom, weighing down the air with dread and oppression.
Mezrolash looked up at the castle and remarked jokingly to Alger, "You used to live in a godforsaken dump like this?"
"No wonder you turned out so twisted and sick."
Alger shook his head gently. "No. It wasn't like this when I left."
He stared at the castle's heavy gates, his expression turning solemn. "Perhaps that Vampire Duke did something to make it this way."
A piercing screech tore through the sky.
Alger snapped to alert immediately, shouting, "Look out!"
"Everyone, that's definitely not the wind!"
His years of combat experience told him that whatever was coming was no ordinary foe.
The group hurriedly scanned their surroundings, but saw nothing on the ground.
"The enemy is in the sky!"
"Damn it!"
Beneath the dreary sky, a massive bone eagle was spreading its wings in flight.
It possessed no feathers, only yellowed, splayed wing bones trailing ghostly green phantom flames behind them.
It was the wind rushing through the gaps between those skeletal joints that produced the piercing screech, like the mournful wailing of ghosts.
Perched upon the bone eagle's back was a skeletal knight clad in terrifying plate armor. Beneath his helmet, baleful light burned within the empty eye sockets of his skull, overflowing with boundless malice toward the living.
It was a death knight!
"Intruders!"
"I will... kill you all!"
The airborne knight rasped in a gravelly voice, diving toward the ground at breakneck speed.
Alger stared fixedly at the bone eagle rider, murmuring under his breath, "Old Ward..."
Old Ward had been Alger's drillmaster back when he served in the Northwind Eagle Guard—the man who had taught him everything he knew.
Ward Chris had once campaigned across the south and north for the Principality of Lakeman, winning illustrious military honors from the back of an eagle, yet in the end, he had asked only to serve as an instructor training the next generation of Eagle Guards.
And now, this fiercely loyal veteran had suffered the fate originally meant for Alger, transformed by the duke into a death knight. Condemned to ride a bone eagle and wander Lakeman Castle for eternity, he mindlessly guarded the duke to whom he had sworn his allegiance.
"I will give you peace..."
"You tiresome old man."
Alger couldn't help tightening his grip on his greatsword, swearing a silent vow in his heart.
Chapter 132