Chapter 1388: Compromise

Edward laughed. Meanwhile, Lin Yun shook his head, and looked at Edward pitifully.

“Fool, you’re approaching the end of your life. What you offer in the end will only be your own life. Let me guess. The last ritual requires a light mage, preferably a holy light mage, right? If they are unavailable, then a fire mage is a good replacement, even though the mana cost will increase.

“Eventually, you will turn into a lich that doesn’t require a phylactery. You will be flawless, won’t you?”

Dazzling light suddenly burst out of Edward’s eyes. Before he said anything, the two young Archmages by his side cried, “Idiot, you’re about to die. The great Sir Edward will rule over this place. The power of death has corrupted this plane, which will soon turn into a paradise of death. We’re all Sir Edward’s loyal subordinates…”

“Just curse and yell. The angrier and more hateful you are, the more useful you will be as a material. A lot of stupid lone mages die here every day. Nobody pays any attention to them…”

Hearing the two young Archmages’ curses, Edward suddenly put on a smile.

“Indeed. It doesn’t matter how you learned all that, because you’re about to die…”

Lin Yun shook his head. He had obtained all the information he needed. The floating island above his head actually belonged to this idiot who was determined to transform into a lich. A lot of his time could be saved.

Standing inside the array, Lin Yun suddenly spouted a law rune. Instantly, three green vines emerged from the ground, and tied up the three people.

The two Archmages were unable to put up any resistance. They were instantly tied up, and even their mouths were gagged. As for Edward, he suddenly unleashed the power of death, hoping to decay the vines.

After the power of death corrupted the vines, the green vines suddenly turned red, and the sharp thorns retreated. However, tiny mouths that were full of sharp teeth appeared on their surface, howling and mauling Edward’s skin. Instantly, Edward’s expression changed, and he screamed. The vines then stoppered his mouth.

The two young Archmages were frightened. They turned into dry bodies in only a couple of seconds. Edward’s body was shrinking too. His power of death was being swallowed. The more power of death he lost, the thicker and redder the vines became.

“No need to feel surprised. They’re hybrids of Hell Vines and Death Thorns. Technically speaking, it’s called Bloody Thorn, and can absorb the power of blood and death. It’s perfect to restrain undead mages.

“For the sake of your alchemy lab, I won’t let you die in ignorance. There is no such thing as a flawless lich. A lich that doesn’t have any weakness means that he might get killed any moment. So, your ritual won’t transform you into a lich at all, but will offer your everything to another lich.

“Can you tell me where you learned the ritual?”

Edward’s eyes were full of fear and hate. He didn’t believe what Lin Yun said at all. Lin Yun shook his head.

He would not need to waste so much time if the impact of the exile was gone. He could’ve summoned Lord Shawn, and asked him to search the guy’s soul.

Lin Yun walked out of the gravity array one step after another, as if it didn’t work on him at all.

He walked to the teleportation array. Flames arose behind him, burning the three bodies and the thorns to ashes.

Through the tiny teleportation array, he reappeared on the floating island above his head. Around him were empty buildings that didn’t contain any living creatures. In the center, there was a 10-floor mage tower. The teleportation array was established not far in front of the mage tower.

Apart from the buildings, the only things that could be seen were the tall trees that erupted from the ground. The trees seemed normal, but Lin Yun noticed that they were actually just branches of the gigantic tree down below. The branches had penetrated the floating island and grown out.

Seeing the gigantic tree, Lin Yun’s eyes glittered. There were no fallen leaves at all in this place. The leaves on all tree branches were green. There was not even a yellow one.

He fetched a few leaves with a Mage Hand. Watching the patterns on the surface of the leaves, Lin Yun put on a smile.

He tapped the trunk of a tree that was more than three meters thick.

“Hey, would you please come out? I’d like to make a deal with you. That stupid undead mage has been killed. You must be already aware of that. After all, nothing here is a secret to you.”

He waited for a couple of seconds, but there was no response from the tree. There was still nothing but dead silence.

Lin Yun tapped the trunk of the tree again. “Listen up, big guy. You must know that the Plane of the Undead and the Leviathan Plane have collided. Right now, the space within a radius of several thousand kilometers has overlapped.

“You must’ve realized that the laws of the Leviathan Plane and its core are being corrupted. It won’t be long before this place is completely corrupted by the Plane of the Undead.

“You should know that the undead creatures loathe things with vitality. You will surely be destroyed. Do you know where that stupid mage got the sacrifice ritual?

“There must be a lich king behind all this. It has already noticed this place. Are you going to keep silent forever? You would rather be destroyed by undead creatures in silence than talk to a human mage?”

Lin Yun shook his head. When he saw the tree that lifted the floating island, he knew that it was a branch of a Ladder Ancient Tree. Only the floating islands lifted by such trees would attract the other floating islands.

However, not all Ladder Ancient Trees were conscious. At least in the future records, most Ladder Ancient Trees were unconscious.

When the Leviathan Plane was conquered, it was almost shattered in the battles against Leviathan. There was an enormous tree in the center of the Leviathan Plane that supported the continent.

The continent had already been shattered into countless floating islands. Most of them had collapsed, while the Ladder Ancient Tree was broken into countless smaller trees. The consciousness of the level-49 Ladder Ancient Tree fell into pieces too, and melted into the smaller Ladder Ancient Trees.

Leviathan was permanently gone, and the Ladder Ancient Tree was broken. Leviathan might have been ferocious, but it didn’t do anything to the Ladder Ancient Tree. Human mages, on the other hand, destroyed it. It was natural that those ancient lives didn’t like human mages…

When Lin Yun was about to turn around and leave, the surface of the gigantic tree moved, and an ancient face appeared. Then, it stared at Lin Yun without moving, as if it were just an engraving on the trunk.

After staring at the wooden face for a couple of minutes, Lin Yun suddenly put on a bitter smile. He just remembered something important…

“Hey, buddy, listen to me. I know that thousands of years might just be one day for you, but we don’t have so much time right now. If we spend hundreds of years talking, this plane will be doomed.

“So, would you please hurry up?

“Five years. In five years at most, in human time, nobody will be able to stop the Plane of the Undead from swallowing the Leviathan Plane!”

Lin Yun’s words seemed to have worked. The wooden face slowly turned, and an ancient and slow voice came out of the face.

“Human, what do you want?”

Lin Yun felt a headache. It was truly troublesome to communicate with such individuals. That was almost the fastest speed of talking for them. It was said that they could spend years greeting each other.

“Listen, it’s not what I want that matters. I’m here to help this plane and you. I’m going to cut apart the connection between the Leviathan Plane and the Plane of the Undead so that the Leviathan Plane won’t be swallowed.

“However, I need a little bit of your help right now. I’m wounded. I need some of your sap. Also, I need you to find two people for me.”

The face on the trunk was silent for more than five hours before it suddenly talked again.

“Human beings are not trustworthy.”

Lin Yun put down the Book of Ten Thousand Mantras in his hand and rolled his eyes. It had been five hours, and he said just that?

“Listen, if you continue being so slow, a lot of undead creatures may be here ready to dig out your roots by the time we make a deal.

“Do you think the undead creatures are more trustworthy than me? At least we’re used to the environment here. We welcome the Ladder Ancient Trees. However, I don’t think any of the undead creatures will keep you.

“This is the last time I’ll speak to you. If you don’t believe me, so be it. I will drive away those undead creatures even without your help. 10 seconds. If I don’t hear a reply in 10 seconds, then let’s say goodbye.”

10 seconds later, the face on the trunk suddenly opened its mouth, and spouted glowing fluid. Lin Yun picked up the sap with a bottle.

After spouting the sap, the tree face stared at Lin Yun.

“Human, who is it that you’re looking for?”

Lin Yun gave Xiuban’s and Reina’s waves to the tree face, and finally put on a smile.

“If you find them, let them meet me here. Don’t worry. We will drive away the obnoxious undead creatures.”

Holding the Ladder Ancient Tree’s sap, Lin Yun entered the mage tower. Outside, the face on the trunk became frozen again. Five hours later, it mumbled slowly, “Human, I will send out the message. I hope you won’t disappoint us again.”

Lin Yun ignored the Ladder Ancient Tree. Communicating with them could be exhausting. It would take a decade to negotiate with them. They could only utter several dozen sentences in an entire year.

At this moment, Lin Yun was busy making potions. The alchemy lab in the mage tower was quite complete. It might not have the best facilities, but it had everything necessary.

The sap of the Ladder Ancient Tree was the legendary source of life. Similar to the sap of the forest elves’ mother tree, it contained the purest power of life that could give birth to new life.

But the sap was only effective when it was voluntarily given away. The sap that was collected forcefully didn’t carry such power, and could only be used as a regular material.

With the unexpectedly available material, it was a lot easier to make the potion.

Two bottles of potions were made in three days. One of them was purely black, and the other was purely white.

Lin Yun swallowed the black potion. A few seconds later, feeble space waves spread from Lin Yun’s skin. It seemed that they came from inside his body.

Those special space waves were quickly dispersed and absorbed upon appearing in the normal space.

A few minutes later, Lin Yun took a long breath of relief. The remaining impact of the exile was finally gone. His connection to his Natural Demiplane was restored to the perfect status.

The exile hadn’t cut off the connection, but had enshrouded Lin Yun and blocked his connections with the outside world. Under such circumstances, the coordinates he calculated couldn’t be correct.

The negative effect of the exile was gone. Lin Yun then swallowed the white potion, which was meant to heal his wounds.

After he swallowed the potion, the gentle power of life appeared. He felt that he was soaking in a hot spring. A few minutes later, the power leaked into his soul, and soaked his soul in the hot spring too.

It was the Rebirth Potion, one of the rare potions that worked on the soul. Its main material was the sap that the Ladder Ancient Tree voluntarily offered, known as the source of life.

The potion would remain effective until he fully recovered. His recovery would be greatly accelerated, and he probably would be able to wield extraordinary power again in half a month.

The most urgent problem had been resolved. Then, Lin Yun needed to consider the undead creatures’ invasion. As far as he had learned, human beings didn’t have a lot of advantages in Dirty Blood, mainly because the most powerful mages didn’t dare to go there easily.

There were definitely more top experts in the Plane of the Undead than there were in Noscent. Some of them had existed for countless years, and were even beyond the Heaven Rank.

They might not be interested when the Plane of the Undead swallowed a new plane, but if the experts such as Agalon entered the battlefield, the situation might be different.

So, the situation didn’t look promising. They were caught in an impasse with the undead creatures. Lin Yun didn’t know more details. After all, this was just a small city far away from the frontline.

The Leviathan Plane was quite chaotic. Organizations large and small, and even some lone mages, had come to the Leviathan Plane, seeking returns.

Edward had been one of them. Lin Yun read the notes that Edward had left, and confirmed his speculation. That poor guy had been going to voluntarily offer his soul, life, mana, knowledge, and everything to a lich according to a method in the journal.

The method looked like a perfect lich transformation ceremony, but it had been modified. Some of the knowledge it utilized was arcane and sophisticated. Even Lin Yun couldn’t understand all of it, not to mention Edward. He was only carrying out the instructions.

According to the notes, he wasn’t the only one who had the journal; some other mages were aware of the transformation ceremony.

After checking a few times, Lin Yun became solemn. The lich’s name was hidden in an inconspicuous corner of the journal. It was a special combination of words that didn’t seem to carry a deeper meaning on the surface. When it was translated into the Enno language, it was the name of a lich that Lin Yun knew.

Dereksey, the Bloody Lich, was a level-49 grand lich and the lord of the Bloody Lich’s Dominion. He had existed in the Plane of the Undead for tens of thousands of years.

The Enno language was a language created by the ancient liches of the Plane of the Undead. It was full of ominous and deadly power.

There were no more than three people in Noscent who knew the Enno language. It wasn’t really recorded until Bane conquered the Plane of the Undead, and forced the liches to surrender it.

Lin Yun had every reason to feel terrible when he saw Dereksey’s name in the journal. The Blood Lich’s dominion was quite far away from Dirty Blood.

There was at least a distance of tens of thousands of kilometers. However, of all the undead experts on Dereksey’s level, his dominion was the closest to Dirty Blood…

Still, it was quite surprising that Dereksey was already taking action…

Those who had acquired the journal were mostly experts in Noscent. They needed to be at least level-9 Archmages in order to hold the transformation ceremony as noted in the journal.

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