The antipaladin slashed out a Divine Smite laden with evil malice, its power barely falling short of one wrapped in Holy Light.
Though the mercury soul puppet possessed formidable spell resistance, it had suffered severe damage each time it endured so many Divine Smites earlier.
Yet precisely because it had taken so many hits, when faced with this even more imposing, blood-red Divine Smite, the mercury soul puppet was no longer foolish enough to take it head-on.
Its blurry humanoid shape wriggled and deformed rapidly, turning into a diamond-shaped shield that forced the crimson edge of the Divine Smite to glance off at an angle.
This was a shield made of mithral, inheriting the metallic property absorbed when it had previously devoured paladin equipment.
Adamantine could enhance a weapon's sharpness, while mithral was virtually indestructible, making it ideal for crafting shields and armor.
The mercury soul puppet could replicate the properties of both metals, and deflecting the Divine Smite with a mithral shield was the optimal solution it had devised.
The vast majority of the crimson blade's force was deflected by the shield, yet a sliver of blood-red energy still penetrated through, entering the mercury soul puppet's body.
A violent convulsion seized it, and the mercury soul puppet let out an ear-piercing shriek, sounding like countless steel needles scraping against glass.
The divine power of Loviatar subjected the mercury soul puppet to the most horrific agony of its existence. The poor little thing couldn't even maintain its form, its body spasming and deforming in every direction.
However, the female knight's momentum was also broken by the scream, preventing her from following up with another slash in time.
By then, the other mercury soul puppet had already rushed over. Still in humanoid form, its hands suddenly morphed into octopus-like, silvery-white tentacles that lashed violently across the warhorse's legs.
Well-fed mercury soul puppets packed quite a punch. The cluster of tentacles whipped across, snapping the tall warhorse's forelegs clean through. With a mournful cry, the beast stumbled, about to collapse.
Yet a bloody glow flared from the female knight, washing over the warhorse as well.
The broken legs snapped straight again—not because the injury had healed, but because the pain had been transformed into pure strength.
Even though splintered bone had pierced through its flesh, the warhorse stood firmly upright. Entering a state of frenzy, it twisted its body and kicked out at the mercury soul puppet with its hind hooves.
The force of the kick stamped two deep hoofprints into the mercury soul puppet.
Yet this also allowed the mercury soul puppet to cling tight. Amid bursts of agonized shrieking, the creature endured the excruciating pain of a thousand cuts and fully engulfed the warhorse. Had the female knight not sensed danger and leapt from the saddle in time, she might have been enveloped as well.
The enormous mass of mercury squirmed continuously. The warhorse struggled to break free, but could only collapse to the sound of blades puncturing flesh. The mercury soul puppet released the dead steed, devouring its barding and horseshoes in the process.
Dozens of puncture wounds riddled what remained of the corpse, its neck hanging by merely a flap of skin; no tolerance for pain could overcome that.
Anbaixiu almost wanted to applaud the little fellow. Having witnessed the agonizing pain its companion suffered after touching the bloody glow, the second mercury soul puppet had braced itself, which was how it managed to endure the pain and finish the strike.
Meanwhile, the first mercury soul puppet had recovered as well. The two silvery-white blobs began shifting into various forms, launching a pincer attack on the female knight from both sides.
This thorn-armored female knight was indeed quite capable, somewhat stronger than Alan had been back then. Yet besieged by two mercury soul puppets, she was hard-pressed to defend herself and looked thoroughly flustered.
She had already noticed the puppets' potent corrosiveness toward metal, so she dared not let the two masses of mercury get close. She unleashed vile spells in rapid succession—Aura of Fear, Contagion, and others.
Yet the mercury soul puppets demonstrated their spell resistance to perfection. All these spells were resisted by the puppets, producing no effect whatsoever.
Under these circumstances, she could only rely on the spiked whip in her hand for defense. The weapon was formidable indeed, imbued with an overbearing evil energy so potent that a mere graze would plunge an opponent into agonizing torment.
Even though the mercury soul puppets did their best to endure, each lash still wracked their bodies with spasms and left them briefly paralyzed.
This was power from a deity; spell resistance could not mitigate it.
Yet the spiked whip served mainly as a deterrent and couldn't inflict much real damage. Now it had become a battle of attrition; whoever gave out first would lose. Except if the mercury soul puppets couldn't hold out, they could simply flee; if the female knight faltered, the puppets would eat the armor right off her body and pierce dozens of bloody holes through her flesh.
With the fight reaching this stage, the female knight was at a total disadvantage. She was forced to bark orders at the scattered bloody slaves to converge and expend their lives to exhaust the puppets' strength.
Spellbound and unable to comprehend victory or defeat, the thralls charged fearlessly toward the mercury soul puppets the moment they heard the order, using their own bodies to obstruct the puppets' shapeshifting.
Seizing this opportunity, the female knight whipped wildly with her spiked lash, heedless of whether she struck her own subordinates, attacking the two mercury soul puppets at all costs.
Thus, the scales of battle tipped back toward the female knight.
Anbaixiu estimated that in the end, the mercury soul puppets would exhaust most of their strength and be forced to break out of the encirclement, unable to kill the female knight.
The test had gone far enough. The combat prowess of the mercury soul puppets had clearly improved; if they encountered Alan again, they wouldn't need Anbaixiu's help and could fight the paladin on even terms.
Provided, of course, that Alan didn't don the high-tier equipment of the Ryan Empire—top-tier enchanted sets that even Anbaixiu found troublesome.
Overall, he was fairly satisfied. The performance of these two little fellows justified the effort spent nurturing them, and they still had plenty of room to grow. He could consider outfitting them with suitable magical gear later on to bolster their combat power even further.
As for the other elemental undead, their combat ability still felt rather mediocre, though their intelligence had seen a marked boost. That suited Anbaixiu's needs just fine; he had originally created them merely to harvest faith and have them pray to top up his account. Higher intelligence was all that mattered.
"Time to wrap this up."
Anbaixiu dispelled his invisibility and waved his hand to summon several teleportation circles. A swarm of aberrant skeletons and Erha, clad in a black cloak, appeared beside him. Anbaixiu patted Erha on the shoulder and said, "Your turn. Let's see how well your new gear works."
Erha nodded and directed the aberrant skeletons into the fray. Under his control, these mantis-like, diminutive skeletons began an exceptionally efficient slaughter.
Knowing these bloody slaves felt no pain, the skeletons targeted their joints, severing hamstrings before crawling up to tear out throats and pierce hearts, or blinding their eyes first so the slaves fell into a frenzy, attacking friend and foe indiscriminately.
Naturally, the aberrant skeletons did not escape unscathed; once driven mad, the slaves managed to dismantle quite a few of them.
It was a war of attrition with casualties mounting on both sides, but Erha was a lich.
Anbaixiu had expended great effort modifying and strengthening this undead vessel, and Erha was now a qualified assistant. With a raise of Erha's hand, the fallen corpses staggered back up and lunged at their former comrades.
When fighting the undead, the enemy only grew in number the longer the battle dragged on.
After raising the zombies to aid in the fight, Erha lifted his black cloak, revealing his gleaming white skeleton and a peculiar-looking weapon—a magitech rifle.
Erha had found this among Anbaixiu's collection, an early prototype left over from previous research. Having handled bows his entire life, Erha had touched a gun for the first time and fallen hopelessly in love with it.
No need to draw a bowstring and hold the tension, no need to maintain steady aim under strain, no need to account for the shudder and spin of an arrow in flight—just raise the rifle, aim, and pull the trigger.
He had only known that magitech cannons were formidable; he had never imagined a downsized magitech rifle could be this fun.
Seeing how Erha couldn't bear to part with it, Anbaixiu had spent some time modifying the weapon: reinforcing the barrel's durability and altering the magic circle's charging mechanism so Erha could use his own mana to replenish the wind-pressure formation within the barrel.
The modifications had cost Anbaixiu a fair sum of gold coins. In terms of cost-effectiveness alone, Anbaixiu looked down on this magitech rifle, but the contraption seemed to stimulate Erha's soul, bringing him a step closer to becoming a true high-tier undead.
Now, Erha raised the magitech rifle and aimed it squarely at the female knight clad in heavy thorn armor.
The trigger was pulled. Tremendous wind pressure propelled the bullet, crossing more than fifty meters to strike the female knight right in the head.
The bone bullet shattered upon colliding with the heavy helm, doing little more than knocking her head slightly to the side.
The female knight had been wary of Erha's bizarrely dressed skeletal figure, which looked nothing like an ordinary undead. But the pathetic impact of the shot instantly put her mind at ease; it was just an empty showpiece.
Unfortunately, that relief did not last long.
The crushed bone dust drifted down, rapidly proliferating midair into sprawling clusters of bone coral.
The bone coral formed a massive cage of white bone, trapping the female knight within.
The bones appeared brittle enough to shatter with slight effort, but before the female knight could break free, another bone bullet arrived, thickening the bone cage by another layer.
Erha's marksmanship was uncanny, likely tied to the elven bloodline of his past life, a gift retained even after becoming undead. Back when he wielded a bow, he could shoot weapons cleanly from the hands of the Twilight Guard; now, with an even more precise magitech rifle, he was a peerless deadeye.
None of the bone bullets packed much raw power, but each impeccably interrupted her movements and wove an ever-thicker cage of white bone.
Emptying an entire thirty-round magazine of bone bullets, he sealed the female knight firmly inside the bone cage. The cramped space left her no room to swing an arm or exert any leverage, freezing her just like a Hold Person spell.
Swiveling the barrel, Erha began popping the heads of the bloody slaves one by one with the magitech rifle.
Without armor to protect them, the magitech rifle showed its true lethal power: once embedded deep in flesh, the bone-colonizing virus within sprouted into bone coral, tearing the flesh apart.
Just as Erha was shooting merrily, Anbaixiu slapped a hand onto the magitech rifle.
Anbaixiu snapped furiously, "Testing it is one thing, but why are you wasting bone-colonizing virus bullets on cannon fodder? Do you think those grow on trees?!"
Squandering money might feel satisfying, but Anbaixiu was nowhere near financial freedom; he still had to pinch his pennies.
With Erha's wasteful behavior put to a stop, the battle had by now reached its close. The bloody slaves were practically all dead, and the two vindictive mercury soul puppets hovered around the bone cage, eager to seep inside and finish off the female knight.
Anbaixiu waved his hand, ordering his subordinates to back away.
A god-favored antipaladin was bound to fetch a handsome sum. Even if he didn't ransom her back to the Flaying family, the Ryan Empire would surely pay top dollar—such evil creatures were prime "sacrificial offerings" they couldn't refuse.
Anbaixiu dismantled the bone cage, dragged the female knight out, and prepared to pry loose some intel—such as where the Duke of Flaying kept his vault, and how many gold coins were inside.
However, this woman was a devotee of the Goddess of Pain. Ordinary torture would likely be pure pleasure to her, and mental spells might not work on such a God-favored.
While Anbaixiu pondered how best to interrogate her, the female knight took off her helm before he could even speak, revealing a hideous face crisscrossed with scars.
She then dropped to her knees before Anbaixiu, holding the spiked whip high in both hands, and spoke with utmost reverence: "Praise Pain. Great God-favored, I did not know these undead were your servants. Forgive my ignorant offense, and please, punish me."
Anbaixiu: ...
*God-favored?*
*Could it be that the Goddess of Wealth was finally moved by my devotion?*
Chapter 106