An Unexpected Windfall
The two factions were completely engrossed in their fierce, chaotic clash.
The grey-robed Mansi Sect.
And the crimson-robed Cheonhyeol Sect.
While their attention was entirely consumed by each other, Tvalier stealthily stepped out into the hallway.
First, I'll head in the opposite direction.
The battle was raging in the right corridor. Naturally, Tvalier turned left, moving swiftly down the dimly lit passage.
As he ran, he focused on gathering information about his surroundings.
The stone floor beneath his feet was perfectly smooth, polished without a single unevenness.
On both sides of the wide, sprawling corridor, rooms identical to the one he had just escaped were lined up at regular intervals.
This place is massive.
Only after stepping into the hallway could Tvalier truly grasp the scale of this subterranean structure.
It looked large enough to easily accommodate several thousand people. The number of doors he had already passed easily exceeded twenty.
Did humans really carve all of this out of solid rock by hand?
Unlikely. They must have used magic. There was no way a structure of this magnitude could be built purely with manual labor.
Shaking off his idle thoughts, Tvalier focused.
As the end of the corridor drew near, tension began to creep into his chest.
Strangely, he hadn't encountered a single obstacle so far. Which meant that whatever lay ahead, likely at the bend of the corridor, was bound to be significant. There was a high probability that something was waiting for him there.
There's no way they left this place completely unguarded.
Summing up the situation so far: the Mansi Sect had been blindsided by the Cheonhyeol Sect. Finding themselves at a disadvantage, the Mansi Sect had to evacuate their base in a hurry.
They had packed up or stored whatever portable resources they could carry. Anything too heavy or impossible to move had been burned or destroyed.
If he were to open any of the doors he had just passed, he would likely find nothing but ruined debris inside.
In fact, a few of the doors were already slightly ajar. Through the gaps, he could see shattered furniture and the charred remains of scorched items scattered everywhere.
Yet, there must be things they couldn't bring themselves to destroy, things too valuable to leave behind. But they wouldn't just leave them for the taking either.
It was only natural. No one would abandon precious resources in their base without a second thought. And they certainly wouldn't hand them over to their enemies on a silver platter.
They must have set a trap.
Because that's exactly what I would have done.
Tvalier let out a faint, nostalgic smile.
Back on the Seven Continents, before the wizard factions were clearly established, during that era of extreme chaos, wizards went to extreme lengths to prevent their magical resources and knowledge from falling into the hands of others or rival factions.
That was the age when countless wizard dungeons were born.
This place has a very similar vibe.
Of course, while there was a massive difference in scale between a wizard's dungeon and this place, the core concept was identical. When forced to leave valuable assets behind, setting a trap of equal caliber was basic common sense.
Tap, tap.
As he reached the end of the corridor, Tvalier braced himself, his senses on high alert.
He might run into Mansi Sect disciples at any moment.
Yet, surprisingly, he didn't sense a single human presence as he approached the corner.
What is this?
An inexplicable sense of unease washed over him, forcing him to halt his steps.
And then...
"This is..."
He stood before a room whose door had been completely shattered. It was the very last room at the end of the corridor.
But this room was different from the others he had passed. Inside, there was something left entirely intact.
Thump!
A strange, pungent odor—a mix of chemicals and blood—wafted from the room. Inside lay a trap Tvalier had never anticipated.
Or rather, to be more precise, a row of corpses.
The moment he saw them, a realization struck him like a bolt of lightning.
"Ah... so the Mansi Sect is a group of necromancers."
Finally, he understood why he hadn't sensed any living presence here. They didn't need to waste time setting complex mechanical traps. They had left behind a single, lethal deterrent.
Creak! Crackle!
The moment the corpses locked eyes with Tvalier, their eyes flared with a crimson glow. Rising from their tilted coffins, they lunged out into the corridor, charging fiercely toward him.
"Isn't it a waste to leave the Blood Jiangshis behind, Senior Jang? Ten of them were right on the verge of completing the grand ritual... Couldn't we have taken at least a few?"
"It is a waste, but we had no choice. We didn't have the luxury of time to transport them. Still, we couldn't let those bastards have them, so setting them to rampage and escaping was our best option."
"Sigh, the more I think about it, the more painful it is. We spent nearly thirty years of our sect's time and wealth to refine them... My teeth still grind at the thought of throwing away such immense resources. To think we have to discard them just to kill a few Cheonhyeol Sect bastards."
"Do not dwell on it. Look at the bright side. From what I saw earlier, at least two of their squad leaders came. If the jiangshis take those two down with them, we've more than broken even."
Senior Jang.
As Jang Won-ik, a high-ranking cultivator of the Mansi Sect, leaped over a boulder on a small hill and replied, the junior cultivators following him asked in surprise.
"A squad leader-level swordsman came in person? That means they must be at least of the sixth rank. If we can drag them down to hell with us, then indeed, it's a worthy trade."
As the fleeing Mansi Sect disciples nodded in agreement, their expressions easing, Jang Won-ik looked back toward their now-invisible secret base and sneered.
"Heh, those fools from the Cheonhyeol Sect probably raided us thinking this was just a simple storehouse. That's why they came with such a small force. They have no idea they've walked straight into their own graves."
"Still, the sacrifice of our White Bone Unit brothers is a pity."
Remembering the members of the White Bone Unit who had stayed behind to hold off the Cheonhyeol Sect, the disciples fell into a solemn silence.
Seeing this, Jang Won-ik, who was leading the pack, spoke up.
"Tsk, their role was to lure the enemies into the base's trap, so it couldn't be helped. But as promised, the families of the White Bone Unit will be taken care of in the inner court of our main sect."
"That is a relief."
To form a master-servant bond with the new Blood Jiangshis, the necromancers here had left all their existing Iron Jiangshis back at the main sect. As a jiangshi's grade increased, its ego grew stronger, making it necessary to return their previous puppets to the sect before attempting to tame the higher-grade ones.
"Sigh, I really thought I'd finally get my hands on a Blood Jiangshi this time. What a shame."
"And they said these new models had massive performance upgrades, too."
"Ugh, indeed."
Excluding the legendary Living Jiangshis, the Blood Jiangshi was practically the highest grade of jiangshi. A single Blood Jiangshi could take on three peak masters of the Murim. It was an astronomical force.
"If I had obtained just one completed Blood Jiangshi, my rank in the sect would have skyrocketed..."
"Well, there's no use crying over spilled milk now."
"True. And complaining in front of Senior Jang is pointless anyway. He had to return twenty Iron Jiangshis for this..."
Chatting amongst themselves, the Mansi Sect necromancers continued their rapid retreat.
They believed that the disaster of today would end here. After all, they had left ten Blood Jiangshis—even if incomplete—as a lethal trap.
They could never have imagined that an entirely unexpected variable would swoop in and steal those very Blood Jiangshis right out from under them.
Tvalier instantly realized he had just hit the jackpot.
The ten drooling corpses lunging toward him...
His instincts told him these were top-tier ghouls, the kind that required a high-level lich or necromancer to spend an immense amount of time and effort to create.
"My word. They say even if you fall into hell, you can survive if you keep your wits about you."
To think such incredible fortune would find him here. The old sayings truly never lied.
Tvalier lightly formed a hand seal toward the violent fortune rushing his way. Since he lacked mana, he had to take the tedious route. He had to use hand seals to resonate with and draw upon the ambient mana of heaven and earth.
On top of that, they didn't even establish a master-servant bond so they could force the ghouls to rampage!
It was a double blessing.
The final trap left by the Mansi Sect would have been a fatal blow to anyone lacking knowledge of necromancy. The catch was that for someone with specialized knowledge in the field, it was a trap that could be bypassed with ridiculous ease.
Grrr...
Tvalier smiled warmly at the ten ghouls, who had frozen like stone statues mere inches from his face. This was an even greater gift than the artifact he had picked up earlier. Even the sour, putrid stench of the ghouls smelled sweet to him now.
A cheerful hum naturally escaped his lips.
"Now, what should I do first~?"
Tvalier bit his fingertip to draw blood, then lightly flicked a droplet of blood onto the forehead of each frozen ghoul.
The ghouls shuddered slightly. Then, extinguishing the crimson glow in their eyes, they quietly bowed their heads.
Having swiftly established a temporary master-servant bond, Tvalier approached them and smoothly stabilized the dark mana boiling like lava inside their bodies. He had completely pacified the rampaging energy that had been forcefully triggered from the outside.
"Phew. But they used a highly unusual method to trigger the rampage. There's actually something to learn from this."
This was Tvalier, a man once revered as the God of Magic in the lower realms. He was a monster who had mastered every form of magic in existence—from orthodox elemental magic to necromancy, spirit magic, and even dragon tongue and holy magic.
Even to him, the necromancy of this world had a unique flavor. It felt crude, almost primitive. It lacked refinement, but it possessed a raw, wild beauty.
"Well, it's dangerous here, so let's get out first before I analyze it further."
The only disappointing thing about controlling these ghouls was that they seemed incomplete, lacking energy relative to the size of their vessels.
"Wait, was the 'sacrifice' those bastards talked about meant to complete these ghouls?"
The efficiency would have been horribly abysmal, but what if they intended to consume all the children in that room to convert them into energy?
Tvalier quickly ran the calculations in his head and nodded.
"Then it actually makes sense. Even if it's incredibly inefficient."
It was a horrific thought, but sacrificing all those children—even with a massive energy loss of about a hundredfold—would have been just enough to fill the vessels of these ghouls.
This world's magic style is definitely barbaric.
It was quite intriguing. Only ancient shamans would resort to such ignorant methods. As a seeker of magic, he had dabbled in the dark arts before, but this crude approach didn't appeal to him at all. It lacked elegance.
"Anyway, I need to get out of here first. You, come here."
Tvalier called forward the sturdiest-looking ghoul among them, climbed onto its back, and commanded:
"From now on, your name is Number One. First, let's head outside."
"..."
Perhaps because its vocal cords had been damaged during the chemical refinement process to become a high-grade ghoul, it did not reply. However, it nodded as if it understood the command and began to move.