Chapter 277
Found a ghost, everyone
After the Night Walker Knights left, almost everyone in their group was covered in a thin layer of frost, except for Eivass, who was clean and untouched.
This was because, as a priest, his abundant Mana Pool of light and fire elemental powers easily dispersed the cold energy brought by the negative energy of the dark attribute. After leaving the strange cold current, the slight loss of his Life force was also replenished at a visible speed.
Haina directly exerted force, shattering the thin frost on her body, her face unchanged—she even seemed to be enjoying it. It felt like playing with a decompression toy.
After all, she had tough skin and strong vitality.
To Eivass’s surprise, Lily also showed no reaction. She casually removed the frost covering her, her face not even pale or red from the cold.
It was important to note that the resistance provided by Path Adaptation was not strong. Both Hunters and Assassins were fragile, unable to withstand damage or control.
However, the Path of Love had good resistance…
Only little Sherlock was now pale and shivering uncontrollably from the cold. Eivass couldn’t help but feel fortunate that he had performed their initiation ritual into Mithraism for Sherlock first… Although Sherlock had not yet officially transferred to become a Mitra Worshipper, it had provided some enhancement to his Life force.
Otherwise, he might have been unable to endure it and cried out.
“But it wouldn’t matter even if you cried out…”
Eivass sighed, placed his hand on little Sherlock’s chest, and warm Radiance flowed into his body, dispelling the cold. “The King of the Wild Hunt is not on duty today. They don’t kill people, they just scare you for fun—of course, if you get scared and attack them, you’ll be taken away.”
Haina was stunned at such a precise explanation. “Mr. Eivass, you know about them too?”
She thought city people wouldn’t understand these things!
“Of course, I am a priest. The wandering ghost legion, the Night Walker Knights who signed a Contract with the Great Philosopher… the intersection of the Great Philosopher’s and Amber’s powers.”
Eivass replied, “They mobilized with the sound of lightning, systematically clearing out wandering Undead.”
In a sense, the Night Walker Knights were beneficial to the World.
They were like vultures or hyenas, an important part of the ecosystem.
Those wandering Undead—as long as they were not “redeemed” by a priest through a Funeral Rite, anyone could be transformed into a ghost or Undead on a night when Twilight power was strong.
All sorts of Undead often appeared in mass graves, as well as some adventurers who died in the wild, or soldiers whose corpses were not properly buried… like the Earthbound Spirit Eivass had seen before.
These Undead wandering outside could easily injure people.
The reason why Undead were not commonly seen was simple.
Within the city, it was the priests’ usual blessings and dispersal efforts. In the wild or in villages, it was the King of the Wild Hunt in the vicinity that was doing the harvesting.
Whenever there was a stormy night, the “King of the Wild Hunt” would lead his attendants to wander under the cloak of night, sweeping away all the wild Undead they saw. Skeletons would fall apart, zombies would collapse, and their souls would be captured by the King of the Wild Hunt.
“Strictly speaking, they are part of the regular army. In a sense, they are temporary Disc of the Pillar Gods…
“They just have a heavy hand and sometimes kill normal people they shouldn’t.”
Eivass added mentally, like a 360 scan cleaning up a disk.
If living people attacked them, or ran around and shouted on the road where the King of the Wild Hunt was marching, they could be attacked, killed, and taken away.
“…Those who are dead and have corporeal bodies have their four domains stripped away; those who are dead and have souls stripped away their six domains; those who are dead and have no souls stripped away their eight domains. These Night Walker Knights who joined the King of the Wild Hunt’s march are merely ghosts, but they have additionally received the Great Philosopher’s blessing, freeing them from this Binding. This allows them to have Wisdom and Thinking ability even after death without a physical body.
“Similarly, they have also accepted the Great Philosopher’s treaty. They cannot attack or enter any room with a lighted lamp and closed door, nor can they enter any area near a church guarded by a Bishop, nor can they attack the sick, pregnant women, and disabled people.
“These King of the Wild Hunt Legions almost only sweep through the wilderness on rainy nights. If it is not raining or thundering, and the King of the Wild Hunt is not present, they are just running around having fun. After all, they can only appear at night, and they will start to Dissipate if they stop, so they cannot stop their Action.
“If you are attacked by Undead at night in the wild, it is best to pray that a Night Walker Knight sees you and comes to your rescue… Although the King of the Wild Hunt is not present, if they see Undead passing by, they will take them away as well.”
Eivass explained to Sherlock and Lily.
Children in the village were warned by their parents not to go out on stormy nights for this reason.
However, Eagle Cape Village was clearly their respawn point, so they could encounter them every night as soon as it got dark…
“…There are such beings.”
Sherlock frowned. “I’ve heard before that some people disappear without a trace on stormy nights. Then their corpses appear very far away. So this is the origin of that legend…”
“That means it was the end point of the King of the Wild Hunt’s march. Their souls should have been taken by the King of the Wild Hunt upon meeting.”
Eivass shrugged. “Undead in the city are generally handled by priests for dispersal, so Sherlock, you wouldn’t have encountered this. The churches in cities are basically fully covered… larger cities will have multiple churches.
“There are too many villages, and the churches don’t have enough Bishops to send out, but they can at least help complete the Funeral Rites to let the dead find Anxi. As for the Undead… they can only rely on the nearby King of the Wild Hunt to help clear them out.
“Ordinary villagers might not encounter the King of the Wild Hunt once in several years or even decades… after all, not many fools would rush out of their homes on a stormy night.
“Anyway, the simplest way to survive is this: if you see the King of the Wild Hunt mobilizing, just put your hands on your head and lie down on the spot, and you’ll be fine. Standing up, if you get scared and your legs go weak, it won’t be good if you bump into someone.”
“Then how do you know all this?”
Sherlock retorted, “You haven’t left Glass Island before, have you?”
Eivass smiled. “I am a priest, my great detective.
“The scale of these King of the Wild Hunt legions will eventually grow larger… When the scale of the King of the Wild Hunt in an area becomes too large, they will send Bishops to regularly hold large intercessory ceremonies during the day to bury the nearby Undead and weaken the scale of the King of the Wild Hunt. This is the truth of the so-called ‘festivals’.
“After all, these Night Walker Knights are essentially unrestrained ghosts. Only by being purified can they gain release from endless wandering and work.”
Of course, if they could find the corpses, even the lowest-ranking assistants could complete the redemption.
But the problem was, who knew where these knights joined this legion!
Their corpses could be anywhere. They might have even weathered away or been eaten by wild beasts on the roadside.
If their corpses could not be found, they could only mobilize the masses and set up multiple Blessing areas in this region—placing items blessed by the Bishop in specific locations, such as windows.
When the King of the Wild Hunt legion passed by and touched these blessed items, a ball of white flame would ignite and they would be dispersed.
Because they were not evil spirits, they were easily dispersed.
In a game, they would have Divine Vulnerability and Dispersion Vulnerability, and dealing four times the damage of a normal dispersion with a single dispersion spell from a Priest. Like Law Masters or Supervisors, they could also deal effective damage with light-elemental skills.
Moreover, these Undead would not change their marching path for any reason—this meant that if one ran fast enough, they could retreat to the roadside immediately after taking down a few Undead. Only those knights with long-range Attack abilities would launch token attacks.
So Helchin is here…
Eivass felt a stir of interest.
—If he remembered correctly, Sir Helchin was an Elf Knight and a renowned hero.
At that time, this island was still the territory of giants, and Arthur’s Round Table Knights had not yet been formed. Arthur himself was still a Crown Heavenly Envoy, without having descended to the human world…
At that time, Helchin was the first to stand up, uniting humans and elves to resist the giants. He was not a noble, nor even human. But because of his bravery, he was posthumously made a Knight by the Hrasal Empire.
Of course, the final result was failure.
He and his subordinates had their remains scattered—those who died in battle were lucky, their corpses were simply cooked and eaten; those captured alive experienced inhuman torture. The execution ground left behind centuries of wailing souls.
…It now seemed that Eagle Cape Village was likely the site of that unknown execution ground.
Although he failed, as the first resistor, his Action was of special significance—it was precisely for this reason that the Great Philosopher chose him as the King of the Wild Hunt.
The battle aura that Helchin carried was a very powerful area-of-effect buff.
The “Source War Song” with the same effect was an burst Spell that could only be mastered at the Sixth Tier of the Path of Beauty.
Not to mention his combat power.
Helchin, being an Undead blessed by Amber, possessed a strong Earth attribute—somewhat counter-intuitively, Undead in this World usually had Earth as their primary attribute rather than Dark.
Because the Earth attribute included properties of solidification, stagnation, silence, and sealing, which were closely related to Amber. Only ghosts that hated the living, or evil spirits that had killed living people, would have the Dark attribute.
Eivass happened to be in need of an Earth-attribute Phantom Demon.
If he missed Helchin… then he would have to go to the Iris Flowers to capture a Moon Child of Phantom Demon level. And even a Seventh Tier Moon Child would certainly not be as powerful as Helchin. He was not the strongest King of the Wild Hunt, but he was undoubtedly the King of the Wild Hunt with the best aura.
—Found a ghost, everyone!
He wants to go home with me!
… The only problem was that Eivass couldn’t capture him now.
If Eivass forcibly went to take a look, it might turn into Helchin “finding a person, everyone”.
His true level was unknown, but during the level 60 version, he could be a high-level Phantom Demon with an overflowing level balanced to exactly level 60, which meant he was at least higher than level 60.
Now his level had been balanced to level 50, which was Sixth Tier—the same level as the Eternal Pope.
Eivass was definitely no match. Even if he brought Lixia over, they wouldn’t be a match.
If he could bring the Pope over, it would be fine due to the counter. After all, Helchin’s desire to Attack was not strong; he was the type to hold back—as evidenced by the rewards he gave, Helchin did not truly exert himself. This was because he had always maintained goodwill towards humans and elves.
But how could he possibly drag the distinguished Pope to a place like this…
Eivass shook his head repeatedly, dispelling the absurd thought.
However, even if he couldn’t capture him, it was rare to find a fixed spawn point for a rare monster… he should at least remember this place.
From another perspective.
Since this was the execution ground where the giants of the past executed criminals… his grandfather probably didn’t choose this place for retirement at random.
—There must be something else here.
Update complete!
Today happens to be Haina’s birthday! Happy birthday, Haina, meow!
