Chapter 359: The Bone Wasteland, the Necromancer Castle

After eliminating this group of undead, Donald sent an owl to scout the area. Soon, through the owl’s perspective, he gained a general understanding of the terrain and situation within ten miles around them.
“No demons in sight, but there’s a group of undead not far ahead. Among them are many intermediate-level undead, along with a necromancer as their leader. Let’s take care of them and capture one to interrogate!”
Amphus, who hated undead deeply, immediately accepted the task. Maintaining his human form, he spread his wings and flew in the direction Donald indicated.
Donald and Carlisle followed behind Amphus.
By the time they arrived, the battle was already over. A group of just a few hundred low to intermediate-level undead was no match at all for a demi-god demon.
At Amphus’s feet lay a human-shaped undead clad in black-gray mage robes. Its dried skin made it clear that this was a necromancer born from a sorcerer’s death, driven by resentment and corrupted by negative energy.
Ordinary necromancers do not retain their original souls or personalities; they are twisted wills created by negative energy. However, since the sorcerer’s soul was strong, these necromancers did not become foolish undead like zombies. Instead, they inherited some of the sorcerer’s magical abilities and the negative-energy spells inherent to undead spellcasters.
There are also powerful sorcerers who, for some reason, retain most of their soul memories. Such necromancers remain extremely strong and are often referred to as naturally born liches!
The necromancer subdued by Amphus was clearly not of high rank. Judging by the strength of its soul flame, Donald estimated it was at most at the beginning stage of silver rank.
“Let go of this guy!”
Donald wasn’t worried that the necromancer would escape. Amphus had already acquired a lot of soul energy by killing those lower-level undead like zombies and skeletons. This captured commander would allow him to interrogate it about the situation here.
Under Donald’s strong intimidation, the rather stubborn necromancer quickly revealed everything it knew. It wouldn’t be so easy to get truthful information from cunning demons, but these undead were much simpler.
It turned out that over the past few years, the forces from the Bone Wasteland on the ninth layer of the Abyss had been invading the Barbarian Demon Realm.

Although these two connected realms have been at odds with each other since their inception, with their leaders both attempting to conquer the other to become even more powerful Abyssal Lords, a few years ago, Ahaz, the demi-god lord of the Barbarian Demon Realm, the King of Strength Demons, and the Skull Shatterer, suddenly weakened. Seizing this opportunity, Yezina, the Duke of Bone Wasteland, who ruled over this area, naturally wouldn’t let it slip away. As an immortal demi-god, its combat strength was quite formidable among the demi-gods, roughly on par with that of the King of Strength Demons, and neither could overpower the other. Now that Ahaz had inexplicably fallen into a state of weakness, the Duke of Bone Wasteland, who had spent thousands of years fighting in the Abyss to achieve his current status, knew well the principle of striking while the enemy is weak, so he immediately dispatched his army of the undead to test the enemy’s strength.

The chaotic Abyssal Will also encouraged such warfare—endless slaughter was a way for the Abyssal Will to grow stronger. The more powerful it became, the more worlds it could encompass, allowing it to devour more realms and turn them into parts of its own body!

Now, Donald and the others understood why the Abyssal passage to the eighth layer of the Barbarian Demon Realm opened up in an environment filled with the undead. Originally, this spatial passage was indeed located in the Barbarian Demon Realm, but a few years ago, due to the aggressive attacks by the Duke of Bone Wasteland, it had moved to the boundary between the two realms. Now, it had even advanced into the land of the original Barbarian Demon Realm, making it part of the Duke of Bone Wasteland’s domain.

The group of undead that had been eliminated earlier was support sent by the Bone Wasteland to the border. There were at least hundreds more such reinforcement units, but Donald wasn’t worried. These low-level undead were merely there to supply him with soul energy.

Since these two realms were adjacent to each other, travel between them was very convenient. By continuing toward the edge of the undead forces, they could enter the Barbarian Demon Realm, hunt demons, and at the same time help Amps deal with his long-time rival, Ahaz, the Skull Shatterer.

“Since that’s the case, let’s keep going!” Donald said. Immediately after, Carlisle sliced apart the corpse wizard’s body with his sword. Without a physical form, the soul fire was instantly absorbed by the Soul Sphere, eliminating the corpse wizard. The three of them then continued in the original direction taken by this group of undead.

On the way, they encountered two groups of undead creatures of similar strength, most of whom were skeletons and zombies, with a few ghouls and corpse puppets. However, no particularly advanced undead had appeared yet. It seemed that the Bone Duke was well-versed in using expendable tactics, deploying these lower-level undead to wear down the forces of the King of Evil Demons. After all, the advantage of undead lies in the fact that as long as there are corpses and bones, they can be summoned through magic endlessly. Isn’t it easy to obtain negative energy in lower planes like the Abyss?

Donald and his companions traveled dozens of miles. The exposed bones around them gradually became fewer, appearing only sporadically, while the temperature rose steadily, and the smell of sulfur grew stronger. They realized they had reached the edge of the Bone Wasteland’s territory and were not far from the Barbarian Demon Plane!

Typically, the Abyssal Plane is an environment suitable for ordinary demons to live in. Volcanoes and magma are a source of power for demons, so places where demons dwell are either filled with foul evil aura or are dry and hot volcanic regions. Of course, rare races like aquatic demons, as well as outsiders such as undead and other evil creatures, are completely different.

Especially those creatures who fell from the main world into the Abyss, even though their souls bear the mark of the Abyss, still prefer to live in environments similar to those of the main world—extreme environments like volcanoes or swamps—places that almost no normal intelligent beings would want to live in!

Just as the three were about to leave the Bone Wasteland’s territory, Donald suddenly noticed something unexpected.

A necrotic castle blocked their path to the Barbarian Demon Plane, with a large number of undead gathered both inside and around it.

“What do we do?” Carl asked.

Donald smiled at him and said, “Of course, we’ll take down this castle. Not to mention whether they’ll let us pass or not, how could we miss such a great source of soul energy? Maybe after I become a god, there will be plenty left over, and then it’ll be your turn to benefit!”

“Hehe!” Carl laughed excitedly. “I knew following you would be exciting! I hope there are opponents in this castle worth my while—no point coming here for nothing!”

Amphus added, “Don’t worry! A necrotic castle of this scale is only something a legendary undead could possess. The hierarchy among undead is even stricter than that among us demons. Those advanced undead wouldn’t dare to overstep in the slightest!”

Carlisle was overjoyed upon hearing this. After greeting Donald, he rushed toward the castle built among the canyons using countless bones. Donald had no intention of stopping him; with Carlisle exploring the way, it would be perfect for him to assess the strength inside the castle. Then, he and Amps could act together to deal with any surprises that might cause some beings to escape. So, as Carlisle left, Donald turned to Amps and said, “Once we’ve taken care of your old rival, let’s head back to the Bone Wasteland and deal with that Bone Duke as well!” However, Abyssal Demon Forger, who always followed Donald’s lead, unexpectedly voiced a different opinion. “Master, I’m afraid the Ninth Bone Plane isn’t suitable for us to hunt in!” “Oh? Why?” Amps seemed to think of something that frightened him and paused before saying, “We need to talk about the origin of the Bone Wasteland!” “The origin of the Bone Wasteland?” Donald had some guesses after hearing this, but he needed Amps to continue before he could understand fully. Like many abyssal planes, they either fell into the Infinite Abyss by force or on their own from the Main Material World or other planes, becoming part of the most evil and chaotic entities in the lower realms. There were legends and records in the books of the Main World and among demons about the origins of some of the upper abyssal planes. “Before being pulled into the Infinite Abyss, the Bone Wasteland was a subcontinent plane. A demigod on the verge of becoming a true god ruled this plane. Its rules were naturally not as strict and powerful as those of the Main World, giving demons an opportunity to invade. Of course, a mere demigod couldn’t resist an attack led by a demon king.” “But that demigod was also fierce. Realizing he couldn’t turn the situation around, he sacrificed half of his life force and used forbidden, powerful spells to channel massive amounts of positive energy from the Heaven Mountain Plane into it, transforming the entire plane into an environment filled with positive energy.” “According to that powerful demigod, since he couldn’t avoid falling into the abyss, he at least wanted to cause trouble for his enemies.” Donald couldn’t help but smile at this. If it were him, he would likely do the same. Through Amps’ account, Donald understood the whole story.

Positive energy is like poison to the creatures in the lowest depths of the abyssal planes. Naturally, one cannot simply bring the poison of one plane into the abyss, as that would greatly reduce the favor of the Abyssal Will. So, the Demon Lord summoned powerful negative energy using reverse spells in an attempt to neutralize the positive energy.

However, it seemed the Demon Lord’s spells went too far. The positive energy was eliminated, but a massive amount of negative energy accumulated. As a result, just a few decades after this ninth plane fell into the abyss, it became a desolate land inhabited by undead creatures. Even demons with strong constitutions could no longer live here for long. Thus, this plane was abandoned by the Demon Lord. After countless years of development, it evolved into a negative-energy plane dominated by undead creatures—the Bone Wasteland.