Nalya looked back once more - she was sure she heard something.

Slurry and sticky sounds...... It was as if something had crawled out from under the thick sludge, dragging its footsteps that it couldn't lift, snapping, snapping, slowly but without pause, approaching little by little.

For a moment she even wanted to extinguish the torches...... Its light makes them so striking that it resembles a three-storied pagoda standing in the sun.

The voice grew heavier and clearer, and it stomped on her heart. When she could finally see the looming shadows at the edge of the darkness, she gritted her teeth and swallowed back an exclamation.

What was this? She hadn't seen it before.

Is...... The undead are just that.

However, once you think about where these undead come from...... Thinking about who they were, an indescribable panic welled up from the bottom of my heart.

She raised the torch and forced herself to look at the wooden faces, the eyes that were no longer bright...... She found Oliver Cobain.

The young man who was a hanger, but always looked at her with a warm look, his dark eyes frozen in blood that had not yet dried up, his collapsed chest revealing white broken ribs, and his own dagger that was too fancy stuck in his neck.

He apparently resisted before he died, but was unsuccessful.

And he would never say those self-righteous "jokes" to her again...... How disgusted she used to be, how much she misses it now.

Anger and grief made her scream, piercing the darkness and silence of the earth. She wanted to shake off Ed's hand and draw her sword...... But Ed gripped her harder.

The desecrated dead in front of them are not their real enemies at all.

Ed looked in the other direction—another passage. More undead crowd there...... There were even little children among them.

They were surrounded in this cramped corner. But other than that, these undead don't do anything else. There was no hunger and thirst to pounce on them and tear their flesh, nor did they make any sound.

The person who can control them so firmly will not be very far away.

He didn't know what the men were trying to do, whether it was a demonstration, a mockery, or a wish he could cast a spell in a panic - his power would of course feed the black cracks behind him.

But it's not the first time he's faced this ...... Don't they know?

He deflected a little consciousness and reached between the stone bricks, as a three-storied pagoda could do. He saw dark figures crowded together in the passage on the other side of the wall, statue-like, motionless.

They can't break through the walls and get out of here. He couldn't find a living person among them.

Ed moved his fingers. He knew he could summon the Wind Blade and cut a bloody path through the undead, just as he had dispelled the black mist in the valley of the Mountains a few days ago...... It's even easier than that.

After all, these undead still have bodies.

But even if he could avoid Ollie, there might be someone among them who had rubbed shoulders with him on the streets of Stonebug.

He hesitated, then raised his hand and pressed down. In a matter of moments, the temperature around them dropped dramatically—a thin, icy mist of water filled the air, seeping into the undead's skin before it began to decay, freezing their flesh and bones.

Since they don't move, simply let them not move at all.

However, the manipulator, who was hiding somewhere, seemed to understand Ed's intentions in an instant.

The undead moved, quickly regaining their agility after their initial sluggishness, rushing at them as fast as they were dead.

Ed cursed silently from the bottom of his heart.

He's not fast enough. If this were in the sea, he could freeze all the undead in the blink of an eye, but here...... He can't make something out of nothing like Iss can out of nothing like he did when he used his talents.

He does control the power of the world itself, but it is far from strong enough.

Naria broke free of him without a sound, drew her sword from its sheath, and without hesitation slashed at the head of the undead who rushed at the front, and stabbed the torch into the face of the other undead - she could always be more decisive than Ed when she had to.

The wall of wind pushes more undead in all directions. The thick air becomes a powerful defense...... But it also hindered Naria's sword.

Naria silently withdrew her sword.

Ed struggled to think of more ways to manipulate the power he could wield. Nowadays, there are no ready-made mantras that have been created, summarized, and handed down by countless predecessors for him to recite without thinking...... He really needs to practice more!

At the same time, he had to avoid inadvertently casting magic that he was more familiar with...... Those spells have been proven to be effective enough for the undead countless times. Behind him, the cracked air was already like a piece of glass about to shatter, and he didn't want to accidentally knock it again.

- But he wasn't the only one who could make the move.

At one point, he subconsciously turned back. A cold, dark aura that he had become more and more familiar with was waving over his neck, making his hairs stand on end in an instant.

“...... They have slowed down. Narya spoke in surprise.

She didn't have that much sensitivity to magic, and the changes in the undead in front of her were easier for her to notice.

A thought flashed through his mind, and Ed almost burst out.

He had forgotten about it...... Necromancy is also a spell! The power may come from hell, the power of hell...... But it may be of the same origin as the gods.

It seemed like it was just a blink of an eye, and chaos began to be. More and more of the undead lost control, some stood still, motionless even if knocked down, some began to let out a frantic roar, instinctively driven by recklessness to rush towards Ed and Naria, piling up in a ball beyond the wall of wind.

Nalya struggled to resist the urge to swing her sword. It was indeed not the first time she had faced the undead...... But in the Far North Light, she was dealing with bones with rotten flesh and blood, which was terrifying and almost ridiculous. And in the valley where she returned home from Anktan, with more companions by her side, she was not trapped in such a narrow space by the undead as she is now, and her eyes were full of hideous, twisted but expressionless faces......

She didn't say anything—Ed would have to endure more than she did.

She heard Ed chanting aloud. He seldom did that, and the tonal inflection of the language was vaguely like the dragon language spoken by Is...... But it seems to be much lighter.

There was a wind overhead, as if something had fallen down. As she looked up, Naria couldn't help but consider the possibility of being buried in the ground by the collapsed stone bricks...... She understands why Tess hates the underground so much.

But what fell was something she couldn't see.