At the southwest end of the Trace of the Dead, less than two hundred meters away from the oak forest, ghost-like humanoid creatures are constantly crawling out of the charred black soil.
Their bodies are dilapidated, their faces are dark, and they look like humanoids from the front. But if you look at them from the side, you can see that the width of these "creatures" is abnormal, and they are as thin as pieces of paper!
Their faces are made up of large blocks of shadow, as if they don't have faces at all.
The movements of these "paper creatures" when walking are extremely unnatural, somewhat similar to zombies.
Every time they take a step, a bunch of sparks will fall on their bodies.
When the spark falls to the ground.
The originally clean soil will be stained with a layer of black.
Gradually.
The ends of the scars of the dead also expanded.
When Matthew and others rushed here, this was what they saw.
There are about a dozen paper creatures wandering around the end with nothing to do.
But as soon as he noticed Matthew's approach.
As if they had found their target, they suddenly became energetic and rushed over in unison!
puff!
Rhaegar took the lead and chopped down a paper creature with his sword.
The latter's body was easily torn apart by the two-handed sword, and suddenly turned into fly ash and disappeared into the air.
Rhaegar kept up his efforts.
He rushed forward alone, slashing left and right with the big sword in his hand. In a short while, he killed all the paper creatures that were emitting sparks!
This scene stunned Matthew and others.
"Is this the trouble you're talking about?"
Rega placed the big sword with both hands on the ground contentedly, turned around and looked at Matthew with a smile:
"I can kill them easily without sword oil!"
Matthew looked at the traces of the dead behind him, his eyes full of doubts.
It can be counted in seconds.
His expression suddenly changed and he said:
"Get back!"
Rhaegar didn't react slowly. Hearing Matthew's call, he quickly drew his sword and took two steps back before turning his head.
This sight made him take several breaths of air.
But on the scorched earth of the Mark of the Dead, more than thirty circles glowing with red light suddenly appeared. On the ground covered by the circles, charred black hands stretched out from inside!
In silence.
A large number of paper creatures emerged from the circle.
Their number has doubled compared to before.
What's even more terrifying is...
The paper creature that appeared this time actually had a face, and it looked exactly like Rhaegar!
At this time, even the most nervous person realized something was wrong.
Rhaegar raised his hand suddenly, and almost couldn't hold the big sword in his hand:
"My energy seems to have been sucked away!"
Matthew tried his best to sense the information of those paper creatures.
He didn't dare to use balanced perception for fear of causing further changes in the Mark of the Dead.
Fortunately, after a while.
There was a reaction on the data bar.
…
"Hint: You encountered an "ash pawn"!
Your partner Rhaegar killed all the "Ember Pawns". In the process, part of his body elements were extracted and copied by the Ash Pawns.
"Ash Pawns" will become more numerous and powerful with the help of "Ashe Lords"!
A new batch of ash pawns have launched a charge against you!"
…
"This is "Ashes of Life"?"
Matthew's heart skipped a beat.
Seeing that everyone was about to take action again, he quickly called them to fight and retreat:
"Don't fight with ash beings near the Mark of the Dead. They are immortal and will absorb elements from living people to increase the power of the Mark of the Dead!"
I heard Matthew say this.
Only then did everyone stop and quickly retreat towards the oak forest.
But even so.
Half of the Ashes pawns were killed in tears by the crowd because they charged too hard.
When a group of people retreated to the edge of the forest.
You can vaguely see many red circles appearing on the ground of the Mark of the Dead!
"The numbers are still increasing!"
Rhaegar cursed:
"And why do most people look like me?"
During the conversation.
He couldn't help but slash with the big sword in his hand, and accidentally wiped out half of the remaining pawns!
"No more!"
Rhaegar sat down on an oak tree.
His face was extremely pale and he was sweating like crazy on his forehead.
"Because you killed the most pawns and also had the most life elements sucked away."
Matthew said calmly:
"I have seen the introduction of this kind of creature in the information provided by the Seven Saints Alliance. They are not separate lives, but an extension of the Mark of the Dead. If the Mark of the Dead cannot be severely damaged, then this kind of creature called "Ashes"
The creatures will accumulate more and more, until we are completely unable to defend them, and they will advance with great success, thus further expanding the coverage area of the Mark of the Dead."
Rhaegar gasped and said:
"Then why didn't you tell me earlier?"
Matthew said helplessly:
"You cut too fast, much faster than I expected from you."
Lei Jia stared angrily for a while. Seeing that a new wave of Ash pawns was coming, he couldn't help but asked worriedly:
"Can your oak forest stop this monster?"
Matthew shook his head and said:
"I'm afraid not."
Just the next second, Silver Moon Zombies crawled out from the entrance and exit between the cemetery and the surface. They walked steadily towards the more than fifty ash pawns who looked like Rhaegar.
"But my undead can."
Matthew said so.
The words just fell.
The swarming zombies easily tore these ash pawns into pieces!
After some time, red circles lit up again in the Mark of the Dead, but this time, the number of red circles did not increase!
"Sure enough, the number of pawns killed by the undead will not increase because they cannot absorb life elements."
Matthew breathed a sigh of relief.
As early as the moment it was confirmed that Ash Lord would send troops to hunt him down, Matthew began to prepare for today.
During this period, the information provided by the Seven Saints Alliance made a great contribution.
The data clearly points out that as a semi-deactivated tentacle left in the main material world by the Lord of the Void, Euclus, the main area of the Mark of the Dead is "ashes".
Regarding this area, the Alliance has also conducted in-depth research and summarized data.
Matthew found out after reading it.
Ashes and immortality are actually two conceptually overlapping areas.
Both cover at least part of "death".
Compared with the immortal realm, the two major elements that are more important after sublimation are:
"Transcendence" and "Eternity".
The realm of ashes embodies the "embers" and "destruction" produced when the entire universe is heading towards the inevitable end of withering.
These two fields are destined to overlap and be in direct opposition to each other.
Therefore using the undead to fight enemies in the Ash Realm is a good way.
in league history.
There has also been a project to recruit a large number of necromancers to delay the expansion of the Mark of the Dead.
At the specific implementation level, the project produced good results. For this reason, Baiyan City and Jade Cangting entered a long honeymoon period at that time.
But very quickly, due to some unknown factors, the project was inexplicably stopped within the alliance.
Since then, the Mark of the Dead has never been seriously restrained.
In a summary report, an anonymous person in charge clearly pointed out that the failure of the project had nothing to do with the Necromancer, and vaguely pointed out that the alliance's infighting was the real reason for the project to be stopped.
Of course, Matthew extracted this report from a bunch of confusing information.
The Alliance's information on the Mark of the Dead is very strangely contaminated.
The polluters seem to want to cover up some information, but they are also unwilling to destroy the real information. In the end, they can only make it extremely bloated.
It's like a concise and beautiful novel and 100 garbage works mixed together in random order.
It is undoubtedly very difficult for ordinary people to decipher it.
Fortunately, Matthew has never been normal.
His idea is very simple. Since this plan has been proven to be effective, he might as well continue following this idea.
If you can reap stable happiness, there is no need to be unconventional.
Now.
Matthew controlled 240 zombies and skeletons so that they were evenly distributed between the southwest end of the Mark of the Dead and the oak forest.
These undead bear the mark of Matthew.
The Ash pawns obviously do not have the ability to distinguish between Matthew and Matthew's summons.
They only know how to attack the undead without thinking.
Then he was easily killed by the undead.
Gradually.
The situation is temporarily under control.
The refresh time of the ash pawns has also become very regular——
Within three minutes after each death, a red aperture will appear on the ground of the Mark of the Dead, and the pawns will be reborn within the aperture. After a slow trek of less than 1 minute and a combat time of no more than 15 seconds, they will turn into
The ashes return to the scorched earth.
This cycle seems endless.
"Is there no way to eliminate them from the source?"
After everyone watched for a while, Rhaegar asked.
Matthew shook his head:
"This is all we can do for the time being. As far as I know, if you want to completely eliminate these ashes of life, you have to severely damage the Scar of the Dead itself. This is not an easy task."
"What do you think?"
He looked at the others.
The number of people who came to Matthew's house for dinner tonight was not that large. The main reason was that Zeller went to the South Trading Post to deal with the haunting incident and has not returned yet. Li Weiqi went to Gao Yeling again for some unknown reason. Therefore, the people present
Apart from Rhaegar, the only ones left were guard captain Brad, Mr. Richard from the Craftsman Protection Association, and Old Faron from the Veterans Mutual Aid Association.
Matthew's eyes mainly looked at the two people at the back.
The reason why he was willing to spend money to treat everyone to a mutton feast for three consecutive days was that on the one hand he found that eating mutton and drinking mutton soup really helped him master the malicious transformation technique, and on the other hand he wanted to seek help from the knowledge of these two people.
and experience.
Needless to say, Richard is a suspected legendary thief with rich experience.
Old Faron is also a knight who has returned from purgatory. He has equally rich experience and seems to have hidden many treasures. Matthew is naturally willing to interact with him more.
However, the two old foxes remained silent while facing Matthew's questioning gaze.
Only the bearded man is still thinking seriously about countermeasures:
"If only the undead can hinder the progress of these monsters, then do we just need to provide Matthew with enough undead so that these zombies and skeletons can form a human wall and tightly wrap the traces of the dead inside?
, will this thing never expand?"
Matthew raised his eyebrows, and finally smiled and said encouragingly:
"It's also a way of thinking."
However in fact.
Controlling so many undead at the same time is close to the upper limit of Matthew's mental power. Fortunately, the Ashes are vulnerable. He only needs to give orders to the undead to defend and counterattack in place, without spending extra energy.
But if it goes on like this for a long time.
He would inevitably feel tired, not to mention controlling hundreds of thousands of undead at the same time to cover the Mark of the Dead.
That's a complete fantasy.
Think of this.
He looked at the two old foxes again with pleading eyes.
Old Faron cleared his throat, as if he wanted to say something.
But at this moment.
Rhaegar suddenly jumped up from the ground:
"Someone!"
Matthew looked sharply in the direction he was pointing.
But see it under the moonlight.
On the hillside on the other side of the Mark of the Dead.
Seven or eight wooden carts rolled down the hillside in succession.
Matthew has sharp eyes.
He clearly saw the corpses of cattle and sheep piled on the wooden cart!
Rumble!
Those carts fell into the Mark of the Dead, and the corpses on them quickly dried up, and a large amount of life elements were integrated into them.
Suddenly.
A huge red circle appeared in the center of the scorched earth.
At the edge of the large aperture are hundreds of densely packed small apertures.
…
"Warning: The Ash Warriors are coming!"
…
The top of the hillside.
A figure slowly appeared. It was a man with a pimpled face and fierce eyes.
He waved to everyone from a distance, and then shouted loudly:
"Hey! The Silver Frost Brotherhood greets you!"
"By the way, I would like to say a few words to those guys in your cell - let them sit in the cell well and don't think about coming out! The brothers outside already have me as their new boss, and I will also take care of their wives and children.
Take good care of them and let them never miss you!"
"By the way, my name is Setrunk, the Scarlet Letter Hunter worth a bounty of thirty thousand!"
During the conversation.
A dozen figures appeared behind him.
Each of those people had a handcart, but this time, what was on the car was no longer the corpses of cattle and sheep, but bloody human corpses!
Hululu!
One cart after another drove into the scorched earth.
Matthew could feel it clearly.
The power of ashes in the scorched earth is becoming more and more powerful!
"I'll get rid of them!"
Rhaegar said with a vain step.
Matthew stopped him with one hand:
"No need."
Rhaegar frowned and said:
"Is there any way you can stop them?"
Matthew winked at him:
"Didn't you notice that there is one less person around us?"
Rhaegar turned his head.
Surprisingly, he found that only old Falon was still looking at him with a smile.
On the ground next to it.
Also missing was an exquisite gentleman's walking stick.
…
I don’t know what I ate. I had another binge at night. I feel like I’ve been marked by the King of Plagues. Let’s keep the number of words short today, 3900, to save everyone a little and give me some time to relax. The monthly ticket will soon be over 10,000. It’s the end of the month, everyone.