Chapter 83: The Dark Castle (III)

The mysterious shadows hidden in the darkness gradually approached Agus and his companions. The roar, akin to that of a wild beast, didn’t frighten Agus much; instead, his face showed only a mocking expression.
“Oops, it seems the master’s guards aren’t planning to treat us friendly… Well, after all, we’re unwelcome intruders!”
“…” After a brief moment of silence, a furry, beast-like figure slowly emerged from behind the bookshelves in the darkness not far away, staring intently at Agus and the others with its pale yellow eyes.
“This is…” Connel, who had night vision, immediately recognized their identity.
“A werewolf?” Pule murmured in the light of the soul flame. “How could there be werewolves here? I thought they only appeared in the central regions of the empire…”
“I told you it’s just a rumor!” Agus laughed mockingly, glancing at Connel with a teasing look. “Hey, Connel, your compatriots… You don’t seem surprised at all!”
“Of course—I wouldn’t be surprised!” Connel said in a flat tone, staring at those beast-like figures. “Even before entering here, I could smell their stench!”
“Wow!” Agus shrugged mockingly, then looked at those nocturnal creatures and said jokingly, “I’m actually surprised—never thought I’d encounter werewolves, which only appeared during the Alchemy Era, time and again. Tsk tsk… Should I be glad about my luck? Well, these guys don’t seem friendly at all. It seems they want to play around with us…”
“Be serious, Agus!” Pule said in a low voice, frowning at him. “You should feel it—the powerful dark force lingering in the air… Don’t say I didn’t warn you—I can smell death in this darkness!”
“A necromancer?” Agus seemed to become slightly serious, scanning the surroundings casually. With a hint of mockery in his voice, he said, “What rude folks—sending just servants to greet guests. Isn’t the master coming out himself?” He licked his lips and added softly, “Well then, I guess I’ll have to play around with these scoundrels!”

Hearing Argus compare the werewolves before him to mere foot soldiers, Connel instinctively snorted, speaking in a tone that was half a reminder and half mockery, “What an arrogant tone. I really hope these guys can tear your mouth apart!”
“Heh, is that really what you wish? I guess you’ll be quite disappointed!”
As soon as Argus finished speaking, the werewolves seemed unable to hold back any longer and charged at him with roars.
“Hey! You fools who don’t know death!” With a cold laugh, darkness swirled beneath Argus’s feet—darkness like the profound silence of night, instantly swallowing up the little light around him. Vaguely, one could see a dozen dark tendrils moving back and forth like whips. The werewolf at the forefront was barely touched by those tendrils before being flung away, crashing into a row of bookshelves with a loud bang.
The other werewolves seemed surprised, and their fierce attack slowed down. They quickly moved between the bookshelves, searching for weaknesses in their prey, which surprised Argus, who had experienced the Asher Werewolf incident before.
“Huh? These guys can even think! They don’t seem like puppets…”
“Watch their eyes!” Connel interrupted Argus, speaking in a low voice. “You’d better not compare these guys to Ivor Beric’s shoddy creations! What’s in front of us… are real werewolves!”
Just then, there were several thuds as the werewolf that Argus had flung away climbed out from among the piles of magic books.
“Heh, is that so?” With a faint smile, Argus licked his lips, speaking with great confidence, “Let me see the power of the werewolves that terrified everyone in the Alchemy Era!”
“Roar!”seemingly in response to Argus’s provocation, a werewolf leaped out from behind a bookshelf at incredible speed. Before Argus could react, its claws reached for his neck.
It had him!
But…
“Wow! Can’t a powerful werewolf even crush a weak human?” Argus said mockingly, with his throat gripped by the werewolf’s claws. “I’ll give you three more seconds—make good use of them… Three, two, one—over!” As he spoke, the dark energy around him condensed into the shape of a spear, instantly piercing through the werewolf’s heart.
“What a pity!” Argus shook his head, feigning regret, as he watched the werewolf collapse limply. Shrugging, he said, “This is no longer your era!”

“Hmph!” Glancing at Argus, Connel took a deep breath, then suddenly disappeared from his spot—no, not disappeared, but his speed was so great that it was impossible to track with the eyes. “Boom!” A punch struck a moving werewolf squarely, and with his immense physical strength as a Gungro, Connel forced the werewolf to crash into a solid wall, creating a large hole. After all, Connel was the strongest Gungro ever—something between a vampire and a werewolf—whose strength and speed far surpassed those of these werewolves. Werewolf battles always relied on speed and strength, but in this clash, Connel clearly had the upper hand. In just over ten seconds, he had taken down three werewolves—this was the difference in rank. In fact, these werewolves were quite strong; against ordinary people, they might even be impossible to detect. But in front of Connel and Argus, they seemed utterly weak… It was clear these werewolves were fundamentally different from Asher’s wolves. After failing against Connel and Argus, they immediately shifted their target to Pule. Unfortunately, even this young necromancer was beyond their reach. Under the impact of the two mental magic spells, [Soul Tremor] and [Death Howl], which targeted the mind, the werewolves, who already had low magical resistance, immediately showed their true form, writhing in pain on the ground. “Soul Whip!” In an extremely short time, Pule cast a third mental magic spell. His expression remained unchanged, seemingly unbothered by casting three spells at once—truly a standout among the younger generation of necromancers. “Tch! Is that it already?” Reaching out, Argus controlled a stream of dark energy to tightly wrap around a werewolf’s throat. Shaking his head in disappointment, he clenched his right hand. With a crack, the dark energy easily severed the werewolf’s windpipe. A total of twenty-eight werewolves—such strength would have terrified any lord in the Alchemy Era. Yet here, in front of Argus and his companions, they couldn’t last even three minutes, and that was without them using their full power…

Watching the last werewolf slowly collapse before his eyes, Argus shrugged and shook his head, saying, “Hey, this is my first battle to regain all my strength—let me at least vent my anger at those Church scumbags who seriously hurt me. I’ve been holding back for so long…”
“Stop talking nonsense!” Connel frowned as he casually threw away the werewolf corpse in his right hand. “If I’m not mistaken, these guys are just werewolves created using my blood—I’m not after them!”
“So they’re just byproducts of your research,” Argus said with a half-smile before frowning as if suddenly remembering something. “Wait! You said… these were created using your blood?”
“Yes, and so what?” Connel asked, frowning at Argus.
“I was wondering… if it’s your blood…” Argus stopped mid-sentence when he saw the seemingly dead werewolf in front of him suddenly move, then miraculously stand up. Staring at this strange phenomenon, Argus said with a bitter smile, “It seems I don’t need to ask anymore—Hey, Connel, you must know, right? How to kill a Gungro?”
Gungros were dark creatures born from the transformation of werewolves after death. But they far surpassed werewolves in strength and possessed immortality. They could devour souls to replenish their life force, making them advanced beings among known dark creatures. The problem was, not every werewolf transformed into a Gungro after death…
“It seems you’re right, buddy. Someone really is using your blood to research immortality…” Looking at the Gungros rising one after another, Argus licked his lips and whispered, “And this research has reached a certain stage…”
Connel naturally understood what Argus meant, as he saw one of those Gungros staring at him with a mocking gaze. This meant they weren’t soulless puppets without autonomy. Even if trapped in this dark basement for decades or centuries as guardians, losing their ability to speak, they still had intelligence and souls. This was nothing comparable to that worthless alchemist, Eivo Beric’s ridiculous experiments.
“Now we’re in trouble!” The necromancer Puhl voiced what Argus and Connel were thinking.

Indeed, if they were just wolves, even dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of them wouldn’t be able to harm these three people. But it’s different with Gungro—its unimaginably terrifying power is enough to intimidate a large group of people. Even Agus and his companions would have a hard time dealing with dozens of Gungro.

Fortunately, what they encountered were just newborn Gungro, not ones like Connel who had devoured thousands upon thousands of souls.

“This is going to be fun!” With a faint smile, Agus quickly made several hand signs in front of his chest before shouting, “Go!”

As soon as he spoke, a black glow flashed across his forehead, and a hazy mist gradually appeared behind him. The mist continuously absorbed Agus’s dark energy, growing larger with each absorption. In the blink of an eye, the mist took shape into a bizarre shadow.

It was a shadow with two heads, and faintly, one could see that it also had a pair of wings. Yet the entire shadow was so hazy that it was hard to make out clearly. The only thing visible were its slowly opening pale red eyes…

What kind of experience lay behind those eyes!

Out of curiosity or confusion, Connel glanced at it—just once. Suddenly, a strong desire to dominate surged in his heart, for money, power, status, women, or even the entire world…

Along with this intense desire for domination came boundless fear…

Such pressure… At least it was that of a demon at the level of a Demon King! Could it be a great demon from the abyss?

That guy, Agus, had actually made a contract with such a powerful demon… Tch!

Feeling the immense pressure emanating from Agus, Connel secretly felt relieved. If he didn’t possess 240,000 souls, he would likely have been killed by this man already…

It was very possible!

Although Agus seemed easy to talk to, his heart was extremely cold. Even if they were temporarily allies, Connel wouldn’t dare take him lightly.

“Is this the demon that grants you power, Agus? Such intense negative emotions…” Pul stared in shock at the shadow behind Agus, not daring to look directly into those terrifying eyes. “Incredible… I can actually feel it… Agus, what level of great demon is ‘it’?”

“Rank?” Argus smirked wickedly and said mockingly, “In the face of my master’s immense power, rank is nothing but a joke. My master is the only ‘god’ I acknowledge!”
“A god? What nonsense?!” Connel couldn’t help but sneer. “Some guy who shows up out of nowhere dares to call himself a god—I admit it’s a powerful force, but it’s by no means a god!”
Glancing at Connel indifferently, Argus waved his finger and said slowly, “Is that your perception? I’ve only shown a trivial amount of power—perhaps one percent, maybe one thousandth. Unfortunately, I’m no genius; my mental power can only control this much!”
One percent? One thousandth?
What nonsense! Not to mention Connel, even the necromancer Pule was filled with disbelief. After all, the pressure emanating from Argus now far exceeded that of a grand mage!
Look at those Gungroos—none of them lacked a look of shock and fear.
This was an extremely powerful force!
“Roar!” Forced by Argus’s astonishing pressure, those Gungroos launched frantic attacks—no, rather suicidal attacks, because their assaults had no effect on Argus at all. The shadow that gradually enveloped Argus was like solid armor; no matter how fiercely the Gungroos attacked, they couldn’t shatter it.
On the contrary, countless thin strands of dark energy, like threads, emerged from the shadow. Every time they pierced through a Gungroo’s body, it would let out a painful, agonized scream.
The dynamics seemed to have changed. The werewolves, who had once been hunters, had mutated into Gungroos with several times greater strength and speed, yet they had become prey—prey of that shadow behind Argus.
The roaring sounds in the air were accompanied by the incessant, agonized screams of the Gungroos. Those seemingly fragile black threads could easily cut through the bookshelves in the room, and even the Gungroos’ bodies became as defenseless as paper in front of them.
While Pule inwardly mourned the magic books about necromancers stored in that room, those twenty-odd Gungroos kept dying and rising again. Their bodies were effortlessly torn into pieces by the endless black threads, which then fell to the ground. Even after regenerating from their black blood, they could only endure the same agony once again.

The twenty-some terrifying Gungro, according to rumors, were nothing but easy prey before the unleashed power of Argus—they had no chance to fight back. What was even more frightening was that Argus hadn’t used all his strength yet; it was only the dark forces attached to him that attacked the Gungro, with Argus himself remaining motionless.

The Gungro were indeed far more troublesome than the werewolves before them. Under Argus’s overwhelming power, those Gungro died and revived, over and over again, about dozens of times, taking over half an hour before finally perishing completely.

During this time, Connel noticed something: those black threads formed from Argus’s dark aura absorbed some of the dark energy from the Gungro each time they made contact…

[Absorption]

Connel couldn’t help but think of a little demon named Thos—similar abilities, similar illusions, similar pressure…

That little demon…

“Hey!” Just as Connel frowned in memory, Argus’s voice suddenly came to his ears.

“It’s over—Truly worthy of being the strongest vampire Gungro. Such a tough opponent!”

Seeing Argus’s smug smile, Connel immediately understood what he meant. With a cold laugh, he said, “If you want to try killing me 240,000 times—go ahead and give it a shot!”

“No, no, no! How could I ever harm you? You’re my companion, though only temporarily…” Argus shook his head repeatedly, took a deep breath, drew several hand signs in front of his chest. Then, the shadow behind him gradually disappeared after closing those terrifying pale red eyes.

However, upon closer inspection, Argus was actually under considerable strain. He had only maintained his strongest state for half an hour, and since he hadn’t cast any magic, a thin layer of sweat still covered his forehead.

This was the fundamental reason why Argus feared Connel—because he had no certainty of being able to kill this most powerful Gungro in history 240,000 times… After all, 240,000 lives was almost equivalent to eternal life!

Of course, if Argus could use even more powerful forces, Connel might no longer have the right to stand on equal footing with him—after all, in terms of strength, Connel was inferior to Argus.

“Huh!” After Argus dispelled that phantom, Pur, no longer under the endless pressure, secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Looking at the lifeless corpses of the Gungro, whose soul powers had been exhausted, Pur’s heart struggled with conflicting emotions.

Argus had once told him that he could grant Pur powers surpassing even those of a grand mage. It wasn’t hard for Pur to guess the method—similar to Argus, it would involve swearing loyalty to a great demon above the level of a demon king and sacrificing one’s soul to gain immense power.

Pur disagreed with this approach. Though necromancers were criticized by dark mages, they remained free—they didn’t gain greater power by swearing loyalty or sacrificing their souls. Yet, despite his disagreement, he still couldn’t help but envy such extraordinary power…

Just then, a faint blue light appeared in the room, along with an old voice.

“Leave this place, ignorant humans! This is not a place for you!”

“Oh! Has the master finally couldn’t hold back?” Hearing this, Argus frowned and looked around, but sadly saw no one. It seemed the speaker wasn’t there.

“Who is it?” Pur also looked around and asked with a frown.

“Ignorant human, you have no right to ask me questions,” replied the old voice in a deep tone. “Leave—we don’t want to be disturbed!”

“We?” Connel narrowed his eyes slightly, showing a cruel expression, and whispered, “If we’ve disturbed you, I’m sorry—Is Vlad hiding here?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about—leave now, or you’ll surely face death!” The old voice added a hint of threat this time.

“Hey, it seems we can’t reason with them!” Argus pointed in the direction of the faint blue light and whispered to Connel, “Shall we go take a look? Hey—see what kind of trickster this is!”

“Mm!” Connel nodded and followed Argus toward the light. Behind them, Pur lowered his head, seemingly lost in thought.

Indeed, the voice came from a very distant place. Following the light, ignoring repeated warnings, the three of them passed through room after room until they finally reached the room where the voice was coming from.

It was an incredibly vast room, and what was placed there were no longer magic books related to necromancers, but wooden coffins—seemingly hundreds of them at first glance. The carvings on them clearly showed styles from decades ago.

Even more astonishing than these coffins was the speaker before Argus. It turned out the speaker wasn’t a person at all, but a huge pale blue crystal stone. The light they saw emanated from there. They also noticed eight smaller pale blue crystal stones in the room, but those eight were very dim; without the light from the central crystal, Argus and the others might not have even noticed them.

What was incredible was that from this huge crystal stone, which continuously and steadily emitted waves of magic, Argus and the others felt an unusual pressure.

“Fools! You will pay for your ignorance and curiosity!”

The crystal stone trembled slightly—it seemed angry?

But how could a crystal stone speak? This left Argus and the others utterly astonished.

Wait…

There seemed to be something inside this crystal stone…

A faint white figure, like a veil…

A ghost?

No!

Ghosts don’t have vaguely visible bones!

This is…

Staring intently at the crystal stone, Puhl’s expression grew increasingly alarmed, and then he exclaimed in shock, “Lich?!”