Chapter 70: The Corpse Mage and the Old Monster’s Secret

A day passed.

The dawn in Leaf-Fall Town pierced through the lingering mist.

A speck of light within Lia’s spiritual world began to stir, moving directly towards the town.

The day for procurement had arrived.

Lia sat by the window, her gaze idly drifting over the bustling street scene below, yet her mind was already poised, awaiting his arrival.

As the figure clad in black leather armor appeared at the street corner, Lia rose and descended the stairs, her form merging into the bustling crowd like a drop of water dissolving into a stream.

The Veil of the Hidden once again activated, subtly deflecting light and magical energy around her, reducing her presence to its bare minimum.

At the livestock market, the figure paused, and just as before, skillfully selected stout, healthy animals.

Lia’s steps blended seamlessly with the surrounding flow of people, as she unhurriedly moved through the crowd behind him.

In the fleeting moment they brushed past each other, her fingertips grazed the leather armor at his lower back.

The old mark was erased.

A brand new mark, modified by her magic, silently affixed itself.

The entire process transpired in less than a breath, smooth as flowing water.

The three-ring mage seemed to freeze for a moment.

He turned back, a puzzled expression on his face, his gaze sweeping over the area behind him.

His vision encompassed only the ceaseless stream of townsfolk, each bustling about their daily lives, presenting no discernible object of suspicion.

Lia, meanwhile, had already moved far away, vanishing into the shadows of the street corner.

Only after confirming that his perception was no longer focused on her, did she lean her taut body against the alley wall, feeling her heart pound fiercely from the recent daring act.

Upon returning to her room, she walked to the table and sat down, closing her eyes and immersing her consciousness within herself, reaching for the brand new magical model.

In an instant, her consciousness felt as though it were being yanked from her skull by an invisible hand, traversing spatial barriers and projecting into an entirely new perspective.

The scene before her was no longer her inn room.

Instead, it was the boisterous livestock market.

She could see the three-ring mage’s somewhat stiff movements.

She could see the fat, cackling chickens before him.

She could even smell the mingled stench of animals in the air.

The impatient urgings of vendors, the hushed whispers of the surrounding crowd, and even the faint currents of magic within the environment…

All of it, presented in her perception with exquisite detail!

Lia’s chest rose and fell, a profound sense of accomplishment almost compelling her to burst into laughter.

What surprised her even more was the shockingly low magical energy consumption required to maintain this spell model.

She watched as the three-ring mage paid, haphazardly stuffed the live animals into a cloth sack, then purchased some common magical materials before departing in the direction of the Silent Valley.

As he stepped once more into the ruins, Lia’s spirit became acutely tense.

Soon, he returned to the stone house where the young mage had been imprisoned.

He pushed open the door.

A potent stench of blood and decay, mingled with the scent of some unknown potion, assailed her senses.

Lia’s gaze swept across the interior of the stone house.

The furnishings were sparse.

Yet in the corner, a colossal transparent container instantly seized her full attention.

The container was filled with a viscous green liquid, akin to a putrid swamp.

And within that liquid, shockingly, lay the submerged corpse of the young mage!

His eyes bulged, his face frozen in a mask of terror and defiance from the moment before death.

An aged yet robust voice emanated from the deep shadows of the stone house.

“You’ve returned?”

Lia’s gaze shifted accordingly.

An elderly man, dressed in a lavish but outdated noble’s ceremonial robe, slowly emerged from the gloom.

His hair was meticulously styled with pomade, his face gaunt, and his eyes deeply sunken, yet the avarice and madness flickering within them marred the overall aesthetic.

‘This was the old monster!’

The three-ring mage offered no reply, merely walking mechanically to the wall, standing motionless like a soulless statue.

The old man approached the transparent container and gently rapped its outer wall with his knuckles, producing a dull thud.

“A truly excellent specimen, brimming with vitality and possessing sufficiently resilient spiritual energy. A pity, though, that he was still too weak.”

“Nevertheless, his life force is enough to advance my research a small step further.”

Having spoken, he pressed his withered hand against the container and closed his eyes.

Lia distinctly observed tendrils of visible green light, transforming into countless writhing luminous insects, being extracted from the young mage’s corpse and surging wildly into the old man’s body, flowing up his arm.

A look of rapture spread across the old man’s face, his shriveled skin appearing to plump up slightly.

‘Could this be the secret behind his hidden refuge?’

‘Stealing the life force of others!’

Lia felt a wave of visceral revulsion.

It was akin to an engineer from some minor nation who, incapable of constructing a machine, would only savagely dismantle others’ creations to scavenge parts.

Such a theory, founded upon destruction, was fundamentally a dead end.

Over the next few days, Lia spent most of her time observing the old monster’s every move.

Gradually, she uncovered more unsettling anomalies.

The three-ring mage, it seemed, never rested.

Day or night, so long as the old monster gave no command, he would stand rigidly in the corner, utterly motionless, not even blinking.

Even when rats scurried past his feet, he remained unresponsive.

The old monster would periodically toss him a piece of dry, tough steak.

He would catch it, then mechanically stuff it into his mouth, performing the motions of swallowing.

Yet the following day, Lia witnessed him move to an unoccupied corner, his body twitching unnaturally, and then, the almost unchanged steak simply dropped from his trouser leg.

‘He possessed no digestive system whatsoever!’

‘And then there were his wounds.’

The wounds sustained during his previous battle with the young mage had still not healed; they gaped hideously, the flesh at their edges exhibiting the pallid, lifeless hue of a corpse.

‘No blinking.’

‘No rest.’

‘No normal physiological responses.’

‘No pain sensation from wounds.’

Clue after clue began to piece together in Lia’s mind.

An absurd, yet undeniably logical conclusion exploded within her consciousness.

‘He… was not alive.’

‘He was a corpse!’

‘A cadaver, controlled by the old monster, capable of movement, of combat, and even retaining some of its habits from life… a mere husk!’

‘So, the three-ring mage who had stumbled upon her in the ruins, guided her to the treasure, and even brushed past her, had been nothing more than a walking corpse all along!’

Lia forced herself to calm down, closed her eyes once more, and re-established the connection of her consciousness.

This time, as her gaze returned to the stone house, she witnessed a scene that would forever be etched in her memory.

The old monster stood before a colossal magic array in the center of the stone house.

He channeled the life force extracted from the young mage, along with the vital essence seized from the living animals, all into a fist-sized, emerald-green orb of light.

Then, he slit his own wrist.

What dripped out was not fresh blood.

Instead, it was a murky, grayish liquid.

He carefully dripped this single drop of liquid into the pure orb of life force.

Sizzle—!

A piercing shriek, like boiling oil poured onto ice, reverberated through the stone house.

The emerald-green orb of light, like a heart injected with potent venom, instantly writhed and pulsed violently, as if imbued with its own life, thrashing and wailing in madness!

The old monster watched this spectacle, his eyes filled with a fanaticism and anticipation bordering on madness.

“Soon… it will be soon…”

“As long as I can purify this convoluted life force, as long as I can create the perfect ‘Prime Life Essence’…”

“Immortality will no longer be a mere legend!”