Chapter 45: The Terrifying Effect of Death Glare
"Who on earth are you? Why can you summon so many powerful undead creatures?!"
Neil's voice was filled with shock and terror, and the chains surrounding his body vibrated violently.
He was acutely aware of the immense power these chains possessed, yet facing the skeleton warriors before him, they were completely ineffective.
This meant that the attribute power of these skeleton warriors was even higher than his own mental strength!
How was this possible?
He was a semi-lich; even though he had only undergone a partial transformation, he was certainly not comparable to ordinary undead.
Let alone the fact that these were mere low-level skeletons!
Watching the next wave of attacks about to arrive, Neil momentarily lost his composure.
He raised his hand to cast an ice shield, shrouding his entire body, while the soul fires in his eyes flickered violently as he chanted an obscure incantation.
"Come forth, my servants."
The next moment, a pale grey vortex appeared, and a massive surge of undead creatures poured out from it.
Of course, "massive" was only relative to Neil.
In reality, it totaled merely 20 ghouls and 5 bloated abominations.
[Ghoul]
[Level 20]
[Summoned Creature]
[Health Points: 150,000 / 150,000]
[Attack Power: 1,580]
[Physical Defense: 500]
[Magical Defense: 420]
[Skill: Devour]
(This undead creature always carries the stench of decay in its mouth.)
[Abomination]
[Level 20]
[Summoned Creature]
[Health Points: 800,000 / 800,000]
[Attack Power: 1,960 / 1,960]
[Physical Defense: 800]
[Magical Defense: 700]
[Skills: Meat Hook, Disease Cloud]
(This ugly fellow is stitched together from various corpses.)
The appearance of the 25 summoned creatures instantly gave the remaining skeletons, which couldn't reach Neil, a new target to attack.
The next instant, a barrage of arrows and fireballs poured down from the sky. The moment Neil's summoned servants stepped onto the battlefield, they were focused down and beaten into sieves.
Given Su Mubai's current strength, a mere Level 20 Dark Gold-tier boss was simply not worth mentioning.
"You are nothing more than a human, how dare you..."
Before Neil could finish, Su Mubai's gaze narrowed, instantly cutting off his subsequent words.
[Death Gaze]!
In a flash, the soul fire within Neil's eyes distorted violently.
[Prompt: You have used "Death Gaze" on the Forsaken - Neil. It has been determined that your life tier is higher than the target's.]
The system prompt rang out, and Neil's overall attributes instantly plummeted by 40%!
It should have been 20%, but Su Mubai was a cheater; empowered by his class calamity traits, the effect was directly super-doubled!
Neil's originally massive health pool of 3 million was instantly slashed down to just 1.8 million.
That wasn't all. An expression of extreme terror surfaced on his face, the azure light in his hands vanished instantly, and his spellcasting was directly interrupted.
Neil looked as though he had laid eyes on some terrifying entity, continuously letting out terrified shrieks. Like a headless fly, he clutched his head and scurried blindly amidst the skeleton legion.
-50,740, -126,850, -50,740...
Gray-white numbers popped up continuously. Upon reaching Level 11, Su Mubai's spell power had increased by 40 points, pushing the damage of [Death Gaze] past the 50,000 mark.
"Cease attack."
Observing the frantic, maddened Neil, Su Mubai raised a hand to halt the skeleton legion's offensive.
He wanted to test whether the fear effect of [Death Gaze] would be reduced when facing a boss.
The system prompt from earlier made him realize that his life tier was higher than a semi-lich's.
Yet the information provided by the Myriad Realms game explicitly stated that humans were a very weak race across the realms.
Otherwise, individuals like Neil would not go to such lengths to transform into liches.
Under these circumstances, Su Mubai could only think of one explanation.
It was that the Lord of Death class had elevated his life tier!
Su Mubai was not disappointed; Neil remained thoroughly terrified for a full ten seconds, and even after [Death Gaze] ended, he failed to recover his senses.
"Death... how... could it... no... too terrifying..."
Judging by the peerless Neil, his body was still trembling even now.
The impact brought by the burning of the soul was clearly far more complex than the skill description suggested.
At the very least, a Dark Gold-tier boss could not withstand it in the short term.
A full three seconds later, Neil managed to control his emotions, casting a fearful glance at Su Mubai.
As a boss, he had actually been frightened to the point of not daring to fight back by a mere player!
"Finish him."
Su Mubai had no intention of letting him go. With a casual wave of his hand, the skeleton legion immediately unleashed their full firepower.
Neil, whose health was already reduced to less than a million, was directly killed in an instant.
[Killed Level 20 Dark Gold-tier boss "The Forsaken - Neil". Extra 50% EXP bonus acquired, EXP +750,000 points. "Far Ahead" takes effect, extra EXP +150,000 acquired.]
As Neil collapsed, Su Mubai's recently leveled EXP bar instantly surged to 47%.
From Level 11 to Level 12, the required EXP had increased to 2 million.
The soul fire in Neil's eyes extinguished completely, and the chains around his body gradually shattered, drifting away with the wind.
Looking at the items dropped by Neil, Su Mubai couldn't help but complain:
"It's fine if regular mobs don't drop anything, but even a boss is this stingy?"
Despite his disdain, Su Mubai still picked up the single item Neil had dropped.
It was an irregular metal fragment, carved with intricate runes, inexplicably radiating an ominous feeling.
[You have obtained Dark Gold-tier item: "Cursed Crown Fragment" × 1.]
"A fragment?"
Su Mubai was slightly startled, then checked the attributes of the fragment.
[Cursed Crown Fragment]
[1/7]
[Dark Gold-tier Item]
[Gathering all fragments will automatically repair the Cursed Crown.]
[Those who carry it will suffer a curse, constantly enduring the erosion of dead Qi.]
The moment he picked up the fragment, Su Mubai felt a trace of imperceptible energy flow into his body.
However, this sliver of dead Qi was no different from nothing in his presence.
It wasn't even as potent as the dead Qi absorbed by [Death Drain Feedback].
The latter was, after all, an SS-tier skill. If Su Mubai's guess was correct, it should correspond to Mythic-tier equipment.
How could a mere Dark Gold-tier fragment possibly compare?
Furthermore, his class was the Lord of Death!
Dead Qi? Merely a plaything.
Nevertheless, Su Mubai was quite interested in this Cursed Crown.
If shattering into seven pieces still yielded Dark Gold-tier items, how powerful would it be as a repaired Epic-tier equipment?
When that time came, he could freeload another wave, and another Legendary-tier equipment would be his!
With this thought, Su Mubai's mood improved drastically, and he stopped complaining about the Forgotten Land's lack of drops.
"I wonder where that fellow Rhodes went."
Controlling the skeleton legion to move out of the area, the sea of skeletons swarmed around him once again.
Just as Su Mubai was preparing to deal with Rhodes, the fellow appeared on his own accord.
"Wonderful, you have granted Neil release."
"Let's hurry and kill... oh, I mean, let's hurry and save the next person."