Night fell with no stars, no moon, no chirping of insects, only an irritating ‘rustling’ sound that seemed endless: rustle, rustle, rustle...
Felix's group had long passed the last town. In this land shrouded in corrupting elements, ordinary creatures struggled to survive. The land here was corrosive, decayed, fallen, devouring...
This place was now a forbidden zone for the living. Even the greediest merchants deliberately avoided it, opting to take a three-day longer journey by water to the next city. Even the most vicious bandits stayed away, for here, they were merely lambs to the slaughter!
Undead, armies transformed into undead — the simple combination of these two words signified the most destructive killing machines on this plane!
Since entering the Vulture Plain, the chimeric Ximiel warhorses, with a quarter of their bloodline from magical beasts, grew restless. They breathed heavily, anxious and fearful, their hooves kicking the dirt, alertly watching the flickering green lights in the mist – the ghostly fires unique to the land of lost souls.
Felix stepped down from the carriage and gently stroked the forehead of ‘Snowfluff,’ a renowned Ximiel warhorse that once single-handedly killed a grown tiger in the snowy mountains. He pressed his forehead against its snowy white mane and softly said, “Don’t be afraid, the Lord is with us.”
Bits of holy light gathered in Felix’s hand and slowly infused into the horse, the warm, pure light of goodness driving away its fear and gradually calming it. Snowfluff nuzzled Felix’s cheek in a show of affection.
“You shouldn’t waste your power here,” said the middle-aged nun, her face more serious than ever. She gazed at the distant eerie green glow and, after a long silence, spoke softly, “The dark aura here is very dense. The overly concentrated dark matter strongly repels holy light energy. Here, we can't summon the holy light that drifts above the clouds.”
Felix lifted his head, his eyebrows arching, not surprised in the least – this was all within his calculations.
The notion that light restrains darkness is nonsense!
The key to determining the restraint between opposing energies lies in the scarcity of the opposing energy nearby. Usually, in bright areas of human activity, holy light energy and natural elements abound around us, while dark energy and negative elements hide in shadowy corners, scarce and repelled by other energies!
On one side, there's 80% pure holy light energy, and on the other, less than 10% negative elements. When casters are of similar strength, this forms the so-called suppressive notion of holy light energy restraining dark matter!
But here, in the Burial Ground of Bones, it's the exact opposite!
Over 90% negative energy repels any kind of light element. Here, casters can only muster a tiny amount of holy light energy, because there's hardly any to summon!
Suppression is relative. The decisive factor is the richness of the elemental magic used by the practitioner!
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Magic is full of unpredictabilities. It's not a simple matter of zeros and ones. Though precise, it's not rigid or dogmatic. Those who understand how to use the ebb and flow of elemental tides, and the concentration of elements in different locations, can create infinite possibilities!
In the Burial Ground of Bones, users of holy light energy find it extremely difficult to replenish their elemental energy, as in such a highly suppressed negative energy environment, they can only rely on the sparse elemental reserves within their bodies – the holy light energy absorbed during Elemental Transformation!
Every time he thought about this, Felix couldn't help feeling helpless. Clearly, the leaders of the Notre Dame were a bit lacking in smarts. Whether hiring adventurers or using other forces, anything would be better than sending a bunch of people who were utterly suppressed, right?
All of the above were theoretical analyses Felix had made along the way. However, it was obvious that the somewhat old-fashioned middle-aged nun wouldn't understand, as she had made a decision that Felix considered incredibly foolish!
"Let's rest for a while and set out after dark," the middle-aged nun said in a deep voice as she passed by Felix.
Felix was shocked on the spot. He even wondered if the nun's brain was made of tofu! Did she make this decision because there were more ghost fires at night that could be used as streetlights?
"Wait a minute!" Felix stopped her without a second thought, furrowing his long eyebrows. After organizing his thoughts, he finally spoke: "Reverend, I suggest that we start moving after noon tomorrow."
"The negative energy here is very dense. The night is an active period for negative elements, especially between 1 am and 3 am. Under such high concentration of negative elements, the activity of dark elements can even increase by 20%, or more!" Felix checked his pocket watch; it was 6 pm now. Resting a bit before moving meant they would hit the peak activity period of negative elements — the time of day when undead creatures are strongest!
Glancing at the somewhat bewildered nun, Felix couldn't help but slap his forehead. The woman standing in front of him was a devout nun, a believer who dedicated her soul and body to the "Lord," not a rational thinker or a scholar well-versed in magic. Speaking to her using such technical terminology was useless!
“Simply put, at night, the negative energy here becomes very active, making these undead creatures more vicious and aggressive. At the same time, our ability to harness holy light energy will be absolutely suppressed, becoming weaker and even impossible to summon!”
The middle-aged nun still seemed somewhat confused, clearly not understanding the energy correlations Felix was talking about. Felix patted his forehead and decided to explain in the simplest terms to the nun, how foolish her decision was: “At night, the undead get stronger, we get weaker.”
“During the day, the undead get weaker, we get stronger.”
Seeing a look of understanding finally dawn on the nun’s face, Felix let out a sigh of relief. If she still didn’t get it, Felix felt like he could smack her!
Since they couldn’t change the concentration of elements here, losing the advantage of the terrain, the always cautious Felix had to focus on timing.
Elemental tidal movements can be divided into major and minor tidal movements. Major tidal movements occur roughly every thousand years, while minor tidal movements happen daily.
The fluctuations of minor tidal movements are small and almost have no impact on nature, but for knowledgeable spellcasters, these movements present an opportunity. Simply put, the minor tidal movements have two time periods: from midnight to 3 am, and from 11 am to 2 pm. During the early morning period, negative elements are more active, while in the noon period, light elements are more active.
These fluctuations are not obvious in the external world, but in places where a single element is excessively concentrated, these fluctuations are greatly enhanced!
Although the change in holy light energy isn’t significant, during these two time periods, the increase in negative energy can even reach more than 40%! To put it simply, the combat power of undead creatures at dawn is 120%, while at noon, it's only 80%!
This is a considerable data disparity that, if properly utilized, could even slay a death knight!
However, Felix obviously wouldn’t share these details with the middle-aged nun.