The first to sense something amiss was Felix.

"Shut up!" A faint negative energy emerged in a subtle trajectory across the bloodstained battlefield. In a trance, the word 'undead'—an absolute taboo for the living—flashed through Felix's mind. The aura of the undead!

The woman known as Silver Fox also sensed something strange. She shifted her angry gaze away from Felix and, to the shock of everyone, the lifeless bodies on the ground began to tremble increasingly.

Finally! The lifeless, even headless bodies staggered to their feet!

A Northern mercenary, still clearing the battlefield, was caught off guard by a half-centaur corpse at his feet. Before he could react, he was toppled and devoured by several undead that rose in succession, accompanied by eerie sounds of flesh being eaten and the mercenary's dying screams.

"They're zombies, a type of semi-undead creature summoned by necromancers!" Silver Fox, with a grave expression, drew her dagger and glanced at Felix. "There must be a necromancer nearby, one who eluded my senses. We're in big trouble; there's a necromancer of the golden rank in this realm!"

"This realm?..." Felix's gaze swept over the mysterious Silver Fox. Although he didn't understand 'realm', he felt strangely familiar with the term.

The increasingly panicked mercenaries regrouped and armed themselves, terrified at facing the most evil of necromancers, more daunting than a tenfold enemy. The mid-ranked mercenary captains looked equally grave. The exceptionally tall captain approached Silver Fox, but she interrupted him.

"No need for words. Organize defenses within the wagon circle! I'm going to confront that necromancer." Silver Fox gestured, her gaze briefly resting on Felix. "Kid, interested in a showdown with a golden-ranked necromancer?"

The Northern captain looked shocked upon hearing her words, reassessing Felix as if he truly understood him for the first time. Only he knew what terrifying species this woman belonged to, a pinnacle of intelligent beings. But he hadn't expected the seemingly frail Felix to be a hidden master.

Felix, wiping blood off his iron sword, furrowed his brows without speaking.

His mind was not at peace, feeling an uncanny familiarity with this undead energy, as if something deep in his memory was struggling to surface, yet bound by an invisible force, inaccessible.

Suppressing the turmoil in his mind, Felix leapt onto the roof of a wagon.

The corpses from the earlier battle had all resurrected, now 'zombies' as the mysterious woman called them, shaking and charging towards the front of the caravan.

Their movements were stiff, their strength immense, and decapitation seemed ineffective. Luckily, the weapons from the battlefield were collected earlier, so these zombies, despite their strength, couldn't immediately harm them.

Felix's eyes swept over a distant hill. "The magician's corpse is gone!"

"Eh?" The masked woman was also startled. As a top assassin, she was confident in her skills. She was sure her dagger had pierced the magician's left ventricle, and she had shattered his heart upon withdrawal.

Was the magician undead?

Even formidable creatures like vampires would inevitably perish with a shattered heart.

Only true undead, known as liches, are immune to all physical harm. This type of true undead is called a lich.

The mysterious woman was certain the magician wasn't a lich, as their aura is too distinct and sensitive. The only explanation then was that the magician embarked on the path to lichdom at the moment his heart was destroyed...

The mysterious woman known as Silver Fox had already formulated a plan in her mind. She glanced at Felix beside her, hesitated for a moment, but decided to share her thoughts.

"To become a lich, a large amount of fresh flesh and blood is needed for the sacrificial offering.

The souls of those who died in vain or with resentment are key to becoming a lich!" The masked woman stared intently at Felix's somewhat pale face and continued, "This is a grassland, and it's difficult to find the flesh and blood of the living at short notice. It has just become an undead, lacking enough souls and flesh to sustain itself, and it will soon dissipate."

"A newly advanced undead is very weak. It must be nearby!"

Although a lich is a pinnacle existence among undead creatures, it is extremely vulnerable when it first transforms. If it doesn't have enough flesh and blood to support the soul gate where it stores its souls, it will completely dissipate at sunrise the next day.

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In the short span of one night, on the vast grasslands, the chances of finding fresh flesh and blood are very slim. Whether willingly or not, the black magician, forced to advance prematurely into a lich, had to keep tangling with this group of mercenaries.

"I can try to sense its location."

Felix glanced at the woman beside him and then slowly closed his eyes. Liches are masters of concealment; they don't emit any life force. Only when they use their power do they emit elemental fluctuations.

Felix tried to extend his mental web over the entire battlefield, then waited quietly for the moment when the opponent would lose patience.

These zombies alone couldn't possibly annihilate the entire caravan; at most, they could cause a bit of trouble.

Felix was waiting for that moment when the lich would make a move.

If his memory served him right, that lich was waiting for an opportunity to use a spell.

A spell that could turn the tide completely - Corpse Explosion!

The scene was filled with the grotesque sound of bludgeoning weapons on flesh. The blonde beauty by Felix's side turned as pale as snow. The bloody sight nearly made her vomit, but the terrifying atmosphere left her unable to do so.

Several merchants, unaccustomed to such gore, were also pale and trembling. A young worker, terrified to the point of delirium, babbled incomprehensibly and started walking outside the wagon circle.

Fortunately, a quick-reacting Northern mercenary knocked him out with a decisive chop, pulling him back into formation. Otherwise, the young man might have been torn in half by the zombies outside the wagons.

The atmosphere became eerily tense. Unless chopped into pieces, the zombies would continue to move even with severed heads. Facing these undead, even the battle-hardened Northern mercenaries hesitated.

Without their captains' command, they might have thrown down their weapons and fled. This was probably what the newly advanced lich wanted to see. Once fear enveloped the enemy, what followed was a performance of nocturnal hunting.

In the eyes of the undead, no living being could hide.

Felix waited with closed eyes for the newly advanced lich to lose patience.

Though the zombies were troublesome, they alone couldn't defeat the Northern mercenaries.

After the battle, they had collected all the weapons and armor from the field. Stripped of their armor and weapons, these zombies, even fearless and impervious to pain, would struggle to defeat the mercenaries supported by five mid-tier professionals.

A high-tier undead was excellent at hiding. If the lich deliberately stayed hidden, even Felix might not sense it. But Felix believed it wouldn't wait long; it couldn't afford to.

“E%$#^#$&^$@$^^%&U&**((($^@$!#$!%$%”

Mournful chants of dark spells began echoing around the wagons, the sounds coming from all directions, indiscernible to the naked eye.

But for Felix, sensitive to elemental fluctuations, these techniques were futile. The energy gathered by the spells would guide him.

As a grey mist started enveloping the battlefield, Felix finally pinpointed the direction of the energy fluctuations.

"East, behind that hill," Felix pointed out the direction of the new lich, and then the previously motionless mysterious woman beside him pounced out like a swift leopard.

"Hold your breath," said Silver Fox, leaping out of the wagon circle. Felix immediately retreated into the crowd, covering the mouth and nose of the blonde beauty beside him, then shouted to the fighting Northern mercenaries, "Hold your breath, it's Death Cloud."

Among many dark spells, Death Cloud was a nightmare for the living. This wide-ranging spell was a favorite of black magicians for sneak attacks. Any living creature enveloped by Death Cloud would be incapacitated by the toxic gas in no time. Those with low resistance might even die instantly.

"Purification Spell."

The blonde beauty, freed from Felix's grasp, muttered a few incantations and used her last bit of magic for a purification spell.

A glimmer of white light emerged from her hands, briefly holding back the encroaching black cloud, but it soon faded under the assault of the Death Cloud. A Death Cloud cast by a newly advanced lich, though not yet at golden rank, was beyond the purification ability of a mere magic apprentice.

If there was a priest specialized in holy light, maybe they could have tried. After all, it was daytime, when the light element was more active.

"Ahhh!"

From the front, where the zombies were attacking, came the dying screams of mercenaries.

The black Death Cloud, combined with the zombies' assault, quickly broke the Northern mercenaries' tight defense. Blinded and holding their breath, they struggled even more to fend off the zombies.

Before they could react, several Northern mercenaries were grabbed from the darkness and effortlessly had their necks snapped.

The zombies, lacking high intelligence, relied solely on the scent of life to distinguish friend from foe.

That's why the Death Cloud was their perfect cover.

"Fall back to the wagons, don't engage with them!" Felix snapped the neck of a horse beside him, then single-handedly lifted the dead animal and hurled it towards the oncoming zombies, buying time for the other mercenaries.

Under the incredulous gaze of the blonde beauty and the merchants, Felix lifted a wagon loaded with heavy pelts with both hands.

Then, with a thunderous crash, he hoisted the 8,000-pound wagon, smashing it onto the advancing zombies.

The ground shook violently, and the not-so-sturdy wagon shattered on impact. The tightly roped pelts on it temporarily filled the defensive gap in front of the wagons, halting the zombies' advance.

A deathly silence fell all around.

The blonde beauty stared at Felix's pale, slender hands with an odd look. Her cherry-red lips parted slightly, seemingly unable to believe that these delicate hands, this slightly effeminate, thin figure, could possess such terrifying brute strength.

It was a power even savages couldn't match.

Felix ignored the bizarre looks around him. His strength was indeed freakish, evident from the time he tossed the bearded dwarf out of the tavern with one hand. He had never fully gauged the limit of his power, but his emergency action just now gave him an idea of it.

When he threw the wagon, he felt he still had a third of his strength left.

A loud boom came from the east, followed by the thick Death Cloud beginning to dissipate. The zombies, desperately assaulting the wagons, suddenly lost their supporting strength and collapsed back to the ground.

On a distant hill, the silhouette of the mysterious masked woman appeared.

Her body was splattered with blood, but there was an inexplicable excitement in her demeanor.

Felix's gaze involuntarily moved downward, his pupils suddenly narrowing, focusing on what the masked woman held in her hand.

The mysterious woman known as Silver Fox was holding an exquisitely crafted skull.

A lifelike skull, entirely made of purple amethyst.