Undead are unholy abominations spawned from black magic from a hellish dimension. They can emerge due to the unresolved grudges of powerful magical beings or the accumulation of a large amount of death energy in a particular location. Undead can also be created by necromancers.
Necromancers, with their ability to wield black magic, are shunned by society as their magic heavily depends on death energies. Anyone known to possess such power is hunted by mages and mercenaries, as they are seen as a plague to all living beings.
I really hoped that the undead weren't a result of necromancy. (S tier) undead required at least an (S+ necromancer) to summon. If it truly was the work of an (S+ necromancer), it would spell doom for us and eventually for the entire continent. It had been a few centuries since an (S +tier) being had last appeared in Lux continent. The last known and documented (S+ tier) ranker was the final human emperor, whose death was shrouded in mystery. Various accounts of his demise existed – some claimed he was assassinated by a mysterious force from other continents, while others believed he was cursed by God with an incurable disease.
His dead served as a constant reminder to me not to flaunt my abilities and power until I reached an omnipotent state. It was akin to the idiom, "There are always higher mountains than the highest mountain in your world."
"If you want at least a 10% success rate, we'll need a holy weapon," Valcy warned me.
Holy weapons are weapons blessed by divine beings from a holy dimension. In normal cases, they function as regular weapons, but they are extremely effective against undead. Holy attribute weapons are practically impossible to buy with gold coins due to their value, and only religious institutions and high nobles might possess them.
"I had no clue where we could find a holy attribute weapon, but I had a crazy idea that might be able to help us produce a holy weapon for our upcoming quest. So, one last time before I closed my eyes to use my ability, I checked the picture on my phone to etch it in my mind.
I wasn't 100% sure whether my plan would work or not, but we should always try before drawing any conclusions. I reminded myself.
I closed my eyes and, like the last time, I imagined going to a very specific place in my mind. After a while, my spirit left the confines of my body, and my incorporeal form was back on Earth 1218. I was teleported inside a very large gothic-looking Catholic church.
After looking at my surroundings, the pictures, and statues, I recalled from my memory that this was the exact place I had seen on the internet. Okay, no doubt I am in St. Peter's Basilica, the largest church in the world located at the Vatican City. You guessed it right—I was here for one thing only: the holy water. I was really curious about it since Hollywood often advertises it in their exorcism movies or portrays it as very effective in dealing with demonic beings.
Okay, time to find out the truth. I murmured to myself. So, without wasting more spiritual energy, I quickly located the holy water basin, which wasn't far from where I had appeared.
As soon as I touched the basin:
Holy Water Basin
This basin was crafted by Francesco Moderati in 1720. It was just a normal basin when newly made, but after many centuries of absorbing faith energy from believers, it had turned into a basin that could produce holy water—the cure for all ailments and bane of all unholy beings.
Summon Origin: Earth 1218
Summon Tier: S tier
Summon Type: Holy water-producing artifact
Quantity: 2 Liters
Mana Required: 500
Summon: Yes/No
After I read the information on the blue floating screen, my non-existent jaw almost dropped to the floor. Who would have thought that holy water was the real deal? Does that mean the Christian God exists? What about other gods? Do they exist too? I contemplated seriously.
I could have gone to any religion on Earth to try my luck, but at that time, only holy water came to my mind due to its popularity in Hollywood horror movies. Well, that doesn't matter now. A success is a success. I rejoiced in my mind.
I didn't want to take the whole basin, though. Why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? So, I touched only the holy water to summon it back to Terra. With this, my dream of demon hunting, Van Helsing-style, can finally begin. Thank you, Jesus. I said it out loud in happiness.
The mana cost was high, but I didn't mind. I still had around 1300 mana remaining.
After a while, I regained consciousness in Terra. Since I had closed my eyes for only 2 or 3 odd seconds here due to the time difference, I quickly checked my inventory, and sure enough, the holy water was there. I would need a container to store it, though.
"Hey, guess what? I just found something that can give any weapon the holy attribute," I informed Valcy with a huge grin on my face.
She was still confused by what I meant, so I quickly summoned a bowl from my room and took out 500 ml of the holy water. The moment I took out the holy water, it actually sparkled with a golden hue. It had turned into golden sparkling water from normal clear water.
"Such divine radiance! Where did you find such a divine essence?" Valcy exclaimed in shock. She was confused because I had told her that Earth 1218 had no demons or gods who liked interfering with mortals, and the civilization was based on science, technology, and normal humans.
I was shocked too. I never thought that the holy water would undergo such a drastic transformation after being summoned to Terra. I guess this dimension can make anything from Earth evolve or devolve. I thought in amusement.
Holy Water
This holy water is the product of the holy basin, which was crafted by Francesco Moderati in 1720. It was just a normal basin when newly made, but after many centuries of absorbing faith energy from believers, it had turned into a basin that could produce holy water—the cure for all ailments and bane of all unholy beings.
Summon Origin: Earth 1218
Summon Tier: S tier
Summon Type: Holy water
Quantity: 2 Liters
Mana Required: 200
Attributes:
- Cures all curses (S tier)
- Cures all ailments (A tier)
- +90% Damage to all demons and unholy creatures (S tier)
"With this, we might be able to pull it off," Valcy said in excitement. Even though she couldn't read the stats of the holy water directly like me, she could probably see how potent the holy water is with her Aura vision.
"Yes, but now we need to find the most effective way to use it," I confirmed. My first thought was to put the holy water into potion vials and throw them at the bone dragon, but I wasn't confident in my accuracy. Additionally, I didn't know if "+90%" meant an augmentation of damage inflicted by weapons or not. Throwing the holy water stored inside vials sounded like a waste of resources to me. We needed to find the most efficient method.
So, to test my theory, I took out a bullet from the magazine and dipped it into the holy water to see if it would turn into a holy attributed bullet.
Bullet Stats:
- 5.5 holy bullet: After the holy essence seeped into it, it became a holy attributed bullet from a normal bullet. This bullet would inflict +90 more damage to undead and unholy beings.
Summon Origin: Earth 1218
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Summon Tier: D tier
Summon Type: Ammunition
Attributes: Holy
"Holy s***, this actually works!" I exclaimed. The bullet now had a golden glow to it; anybody would think it's no ordinary bullet.
Valcy was also awed by the bullet's transformation. She took it in her hand and inspected it curiously.
"This bullet contains the holy attribute," she exclaimed in surprise.
After my first experiment succeeded, I took out all the remaining ammunition from my inventory and started soaking them in the holy water. While we were soaking the bullets, I realized that the holy water was actually slowly diminishing from the bowl, as if the bullets had absorbed it.
I felt it was quite wasteful to augment the holy water into single-use items like bullets. So, I tried it on my Scar-l.
To my surprise, the gun absorbed almost 100 ml of the holy water, and the metal changed color to golden. After I checked the gun's stats with some expectation, it actually showed that any bullet shot with this gun would deal 50% more damage to undead and demons. So, without wasting more time, we augmented all our weapons. Valcy's AS50 now had a golden body, the katana and kukri knife both had a golden hue on their blades, and my pistols both got golden augmentation. It was like they had received a high-quality paint job, as their colors were shinier than gold.
I wasn't satisfied yet with such a meager number of weapons, so I went and got us a 'bazooka AKA unguided missile launcher' from the same arms market where I freaked out the dealer. I summoned two launchers and around 10 unguided missiles inside a crate. We augmented them too; we also stored some holy water inside empty HP potion vials as a precaution against curses or corpse poison just in case. —10 vials for me and 10 vials for Valcy. After all that, our holy water had decreased from 2 liters to 1 liter.
I had to save some summon counts for today, as I couldn't be 100% confident that we would need only these weapons to defeat an S tier undead.
"Do you think we are ready now?" I inquired of Valcy. We were loaded and strapped with holy attributed weapons. I wanted to know if her confidence had been boosted or not.
"I am ready, boy. I hope this won't be my first and last attempt to slay an undead dragon that even dragon slayers fear to confront," she said with a smile.
'That was kind of reassuring,' I thought in amusement. I hoped it wouldn't be my last time either. If things got bad, we could always run, as undead never wander far from their spawn location due to their heavy reliance on death energy present there. unless a necromancer is present to control and supply them death energies, they can't sustain themselves without death energy for long.
By the time we reached near the Undead Valley, it was already 12 pm. Before entering the valley, we stopped to review our plans.
"Our main objective is to search for the entrance to the Nome's inheritance in the valley. If confrontation with the bone dragon isn't necessary, we'll quietly retrieve the inheritance or artifact and leave the valley. However, if it's inevitable, we'll go all out," I informed Valcy again.
She just gave me a nod. I couldn't read her facial expression because we were both wearing gas masks augmented with holy water to prevent inhaling the undead miasma.
The Undead Valley was located between two large rocky hills. The valley was filled with huge rocks, which meant we couldn't use our vehicle to reach it. The inner areas of the valley made even the sunny desert seem gloomy, as sunlight couldn't reach there. As soon as we set foot inside the valley, we saw many dead animals that were unfortunate to wander there and inhale the miasma.
The quest info hinted that the undead bone dragon was inside a rocky cave, but it didn't specify the exact location. As we carefully advanced, we saw more bones of deceased animals, and the miasma became thicker and thicker, almost like thick fog on a winter morning. However, the miasma had a violet color to it. My range of visibility had decreased to barely 6 or 7 meters, so we had to rely entirely on Valcy's Aura vision for any potential ambushes.
"I can see some undead auras approximately 20 meters, get ready; they are crawling toward us," she warned me.
She quickly readied her AS50 and fired shots toward the direction of the undead. I readied my Scar-l too but couldn't see them yet due to the miasma. So, I waited for them to become visible.
Valcy fired 20 shots and then stopped. "I think I got all of them," she informed me. We headed toward the location to check.
Sure enough, I saw many humanoid skeletons, all mangled bones scattered all over the place. It seemed like the holy bullets had done their job. I didn't see them moving anymore. Undead skeletons are low-level monsters with weak defense but are notoriously hard to kill unless the weapons attacking them have a holy attribute. Even if their limbs or heads are cut off, they can still attack you.
"Good job," I praised Valcy. "But we should use our bullets sparingly. I only have 3000 AS50 rounds remaining." I cautioned her. I wasn't sure how many holy bullets it would take to bring down an S-tier undead.
"Understood. I'll use the Hatana next time," she replied.
She was obviously hinting at her katana strapped to her hip. "It's called a katana" I corrected her. Well, whatever. We don't have any Japanese people here to get offended by your mispronunciation.
'Does Earth's languages and accents sound different here, or maybe I needed to show her the spelling?' I thought with amusement.
"We might be getting closer to the center. I can spot more auras of undead in front," she informed me.
After a few minutes of walking, we confronted the second group of undead. Due to the thick miasma, only the eerie glow of red eyes became visible at first. As we got closer, their skeletal bodies became visible. This time, I clearly saw them – some skeletons still wore their rusty iron armor, and some were even dragging their rusty iron swords. They looked like soldiers who had fallen in battle a long time ago.
As we got closer to the undead, I realized that our weapons were glowing brighter, perhaps a sign of undead nearby. We stopped at a distance of 4 or 5 meters away from them. They seemed afraid to get closer to us due to their instinctive fear of holy weapons.
"Okay, cover my flanks," Valcy requested. She dashed directly towards the undead with a katana in one hand and a kukri knife in the other. I quickly obeyed her command and not wanting to accidentally injure my companion started firing at the far corner of the undead group.
I witnessed insane acrobatic combat skills from Valcy. She could easily jump 10 feet vertically, twice the height of a normal human. Her landing spot was the skeletons' heads. She was basically destroying undead left and right with her holy attributed weapons. She seemed to be enjoying herself since the undead were too slow to hit her.
'When will I have that much high physical stats?' I thought in envy.
After 10 minutes of one-sided slaughter, we emerged victorious. We had slain around 30 undead skeletons.
Along the way, we had ignored a few wandering undead who were too fearful to attack us. But after traveling a quarter of a mile farther, our path was blocked by more skeletons and a pack of zombie wolves. These wolves had turned into zombies due to the miasma and looked even more horrifying than the skeletons, and they had no intention of letting us pass the valley peacefully.
"Okay, get ready. Wolves are fast even in their undead state," Valcy warned me and took out her rifle. The instant she fired a shot, the wolves made a speedy dash towards us, followed by the skeletons.
"What the F**K, they're fast!" I cursed while firing nonstop. The zombie wolves were sprinting on all fours, faster than normal humans on Earth. If we didn't have automatic and semi-automatic rifles, we would have been seriously overwhelmed by them.
Some wolves even got as close as 3 meters to us before eventually getting shot by Valcy's lightning reflexes. After intense firing and reloading, we finally defeated all of them.
after the short battle I realized that our party seriously lacked a tanker in full battle armor enchanted with holy water to go full juggernaut on these undead b*t*hes. 'We'll need to find such a person before taking on any undead-related quests next time,' I contemplated seriously.
"Hey Valcy, we can use the bazooka from afar, next time if you spot such a large group," I suggested. Using the bazooka at such close range would have been fatal to us, so I refrained from using it this time.
"Yeah, that's a good idea," she agreed.
So, I told her to inform me first if she spotted any undead within 90 meters. I didn't accurately know the range of her aura vision, but hopefully, it was more than 90 meters.
The rocky hill ranges spanned almost 2 miles. We had a long way to cover, so we continued moving towards the center without any rest. Our plan was to hopefully find the entrance and return before sunset.
"Gray, pass me the launcher," Valcy said to me abruptly. She may have spotted more undead.
"What do you see?" I inquired while loading the now-golden glowing rocket for her. She informed me that she could see roughly 50 auras of undead gathering about 70 meters away from our location. However, she couldn't distinguish the types of undead, as the aura color of wolves and skeletons appeared the same to her.
After reloading, she carefully took aim and fired. After 5 seconds, we heard a loud boom from the impact. "Did you get all of them?" I asked. I really hoped it hadn't hit any rocks or trees before hitting the undead, but I had faith in her.
"Even better than expected. This weapon's area of damage is simply awesome," she complemented honestly.
After 10 minutes, we went to inspect the area. We saw only 10 moving undead, in rough shape with their skeletal limbs blown off, and some zombie wolves with missing limbs. Valcy and I made quick work of them.
After traveling half, a mile and defeating more undead along the way, Valcy abruptly stopped me.
"Gray, I think I've spotted the entrance of the inheritance vault, and it has advanced magic blocking array all over the place but" Valcy informed me, with her voice quavering with fear.
"But what?" I ask her, I already have some guess why valcy was suddenly stricken with fear but, I needed her affirmation.
"But the undead bone dragon is guarding it, and its death aura is massive" she completed her sentence.
"Where is it located " I inquired with a grim look on my face, she pointed at the general direction of the cave.
'The Boss fight is finally about to begin' I thought with adrenaline pumping through my veins.