The Black Knight darted through the dark and withered forest like a streak of black lightning.
From the branch of a slender yet towering oak, he leapt toward another equally tall yew tree. His movements were as light as a falling leaf, and the heavy, rusted armor upon his body seemed to have lost all its weight.
The swarming undead battled fiercely on the ground against the suddenly descended horde of corpse creatures, completely unaware of the shadow gliding past the night sky above them.
Black and red blood splattered under the night's depth, accompanied by roars and shrieks.
The Witcher silently leapt onto the tallest pine tree within the withered woodland, frowning as his eyes swept around the battlefield.
The spatial fluctuations caused by the conjunction of the spheres had gradually calmed down.
The Ghouls that had fallen from the sky—aside from those unlucky ones who died on impact or broke their limbs—had already climbed up from the ground and were now fighting against the undead, zombies, and wraiths drawn by the commotion.
As the Witcher had expected, they were completely suppressed by the undead.
There were simply too many of them.
The few hundred scattered Ghouls were ferocious enough to tear zombies and undead apart, yet against the half-corporeal wraiths, they were utterly helpless.
Under the dim green ghostfire, they were torn to pieces by scythes, spears, pitchforks, and all manner of crude weapons.
Only when massive beings crawled out from the largest black rifts of the conjunction of the spheres—beings awakened by the shock of transdimensional travel—did the Ghouls manage to launch a few effective counterattacks under their command.
[Name: Corpse King]
[Level: 56]
[Attributes: Strength 99, Agility 34, Constitution 73, Perception 24, Mysticism 54]
-----------------------------------
[Name: Corpse Queen]
[Level: 49]
[Attributes: Strength 43, Agility 43, Constitution 99, Perception 42, Mysticism 63]
When Allen had completed the first-stage Ghoul hunting contract before, the monsters brought forth by the Conjunction of the Spheres hadn't even appeared before they were crushed to death against a valley wall by a summoned tentacle during a ritual.
Later, when he was collecting monster materials, he had only found a pile of mangled flesh.
This time, Allen finally witnessed with his own eyes what kind of large-scale monsters the Conjunction could summon from the Ghouls.
The Corpse King was three men tall, its entire body covered in grayish, decaying flesh, a humanoid giant with bulging muscles. The Corpse Queen looked almost identical, except her swollen abdomen made her seem as if she were pregnant.
In the first-stage conjunction of the spheres of the Drowners, four large monsters had been summoned — two Drowner Kings and two Bog Nymphs.
But for the first-stage fusion of the Ghouls, there were two more.
Three Corpse Kings, and three Corpse Queens.
And judging by the numbers, the Ghouls that had fallen from the sky this time were also more numerous than during the Drowner event.
He didn't know whether the Ghoul fusion was naturally meant to be on a larger scale than the Drowner's, or whether it was due to the Emerald Gate — the Gate of Ard Gaeth — which was now clearer than before.
There was also another interesting point.
For the Drowners, it was understandable that there weren't any related large monsters within the Witcher's world.
But Ghouls were one of the few creatures that gathered in large packs, and when the number was sufficient, they could evolve into commanders (Alghouls), living bombs (Rotfiends), and even advanced explosive variants (Scurvers) — forming an entire lineage of corpse-type monsters.
Allen had always believed that the large monsters summoned by the Conjunction of the Spheres would likely be Alghouls.
Yet surprisingly, they were not.
Instead, two completely unfamiliar creatures appeared — and among all the monsters that fell from the sky, there were only Ghouls. No other corpse-type monsters at all.
That was truly strange.
According to the worldview of the Witcher's world, almost all monsters came from the great cataclysm fifteen hundred years ago — the original Conjunction of the Spheres.
So why did the conjunction of the spheres of Ghouls bring forth the Corpse King and Corpse Queen — monsters that seemed to have never appeared in the Witcher's world at all?
Had they once existed, but for some reason quickly degenerated or perished without leaving descendants?
Or had they never actually crossed over into this world during that ancient Conjunction?
Moreover, Drowners, Ghouls, Rotfiends, and Alghouls — all of them have independent Conjunctions recorded in the Witcher Journal.
Does this mean that these corpse-eating creatures all come from different worlds?
But if these necrophage creatures aren't from the same world, then why—within the Witcher's world—can they gather together in harmony, hunting and fighting side by side?
"Roar—!"
A Corpse King with knotted, bulging muscles raised its head toward the sky and roared furiously, interrupting Allen's train of thought.
Almost at the very moment when the six massive monsters—the Corpse Kings and Corpse Queens—awoke, the Ghouls that had been fighting the undead in disarray suddenly became organized. In an instant, they began to retreat methodically, regrouping and forming ranks to guard the Corpse Kings and Queens.
After only a brief pause, they split into groups of five, tearing through the dense formations of undead like a disciplined army.
Allen merely glanced toward the center of the monster battlefield. The ashen-blue flame in his eye sockets narrowed to slits, and he hid within the darkness of the pine forest, his gaze scanning the chaotic, withered woods before him.
"Not here… and no sign of any unusual magical fluctuation…"
"With such violent changes, even the magical prison that bound the mountain folk has been shattered—yet they still haven't shown themselves…"
A harsh metallic scraping came from within his rusted helmet.
The warlocks of Ban Ard were even more patient than he had imagined.
Across the entire forest, only in the far east could faint shouts in Elder Speech be heard amid the sounds of battle—bursts of thunder, gales, and ice magic flashing brightly. Closer by, the clashes between necrophages and undead raged on, but elsewhere, the woods were utterly silent—devoid of all life.
If Allen were not well-versed in ritual magic himself, he might have truly believed there were no warlocks hiding here at all.
But that was impossible.
Within this withered forest, there were definitely ritualists skilled in the art of ceremonies—and not just one or two of them.
Otherwise, there was no way they could sustain a ritual circle of such magnitude—one large enough to nearly cover two Erland-sized territories.
Moreover…
"The undead are moving with more order…" Allen narrowed his eyes.
Moments ago, the undead were scattered and broken under the necrophages' assault. Yet now, they had structure—organization.
The frail, human-like corpses took the front line as cannon fodder, drawing the monsters' attacks. The tougher, sharp-toothed corpses lingered behind, waiting for the chance to finish off the dwindling Ghouls.
As for those eerie wraiths carrying ghost-green lanterns—they flickered directly behind the Ghouls, alongside the Corpse Kings and Queens.
The undead who hadn't been drawn into the fray earlier were now quickly gathering.
Some drifted in from the outskirts, while others moved directly toward the west of the forest—the direction Allen had come from.
"The ritual is gone, yet the warlocks' control over the undead remains," the Witcher murmured, lifting his gaze toward the unusually bright moon. "That means the ritual that covered the sky wasn't meant for controlling the undead."
"A space isolation spell?"
"Most likely. The spatial fluctuations have stabilized. The ritual must've served, at least in part, to block the teleportation of the Aen Saevherne. Otherwise, with how few of the Free Elves remain—and how many of their mages specialize in portal spells—there could've been no hope of a proper siege."
"And they've already sensed me… No… It's more likely that when I passed through that eerie green magical barrier, I triggered the ritualist's awareness."
"Otherwise, if they had sensed me through the undead themselves, they would've ordered those undead to surround this pine tree by now…"
-----------------------------------
The witcher hid himself among the pine branches, blending into the darkness as he tried to gauge the limits of the Ban Ard sorcerers' power—while also searching for the hiding places of those cunning spellcasters.
But in truth...
The moment the first-stage conjunction of the spheres shattered the barrier that sealed space and blocked teleportation, the witcher's mission had already been accomplished.
Francesca's free elves could now escape through the opened portal.
However, looking down at the ragged undead wandering below, Allen's human sense of morality stirred—he wanted to do more. He wanted to cleanse this place of those filthy sorcerers who dared commit such sins.
To break the ban—and for what? For a dying race of mountain folk—and yet to recklessly wield necromancy, turning living humans into undead in a single night... such necromancers did not deserve to live past dawn.
Otherwise, he didn't even dare to imagine—what if ten thousand undead appeared at Kaer Morhen in the dead of winter, when the witchers were drunk and celebrating by the fire?
And worse—what if Sunny and Ortolan, emboldened by the gains of abusing necromancy this time, became dependent on it? If one day the Sorcerer Kingdom were truly established, then the world would face an undead catastrophe.
That possibility was far from impossible.
To be honest, Allen had always viewed Tissaia de Vries's plan with pessimism.
Not because he thought the rescue of Hen Gedymdeith would fail—but because even if Hen Gedymdeith were successfully freed, even if he managed to suppress the radicals led by Sunny, and drive away Ortolan and his Rissberg Group's Civil Cooperative…
The formation of a Sorcerer Kingdom would still be highly probable, at some not-so-distant moment in the future.
Hen Gedymdeith's reforms would only ever be internal, mild corrections and adjustments.
Would he kill Sunny?
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
But he would never kill every radical. Nor could he possibly eliminate all those who dreamed of a kingdom ruled by sorcerers.
Especially now—when the very possibility of such a kingdom had been revealed to all, and when the attitudes of the worldly monarchs remained so ambiguous—the birth of a Sorcerer Kingdom had become almost inevitable.
For sorcerers, whose power surpassed mortal men, interference in worldly affairs was a nearly destined outcome.
Even Philippa Eilhart herself had once expressed regret to Allen—that she joined the rescue only because of her position within Aretuza, not because she truly opposed the founding of a realm governed solely by mages.
From beginning to end, it seemed only Tissaia de Vries still tried to preserve the old Novigradian Union. The fact that no other magical faction aside from Aretuza had intervened was proof of that.
Tissaia de Vries—just like the one Allen had glimpsed in the "future"—was still far too naïve.
Of course—
The mission to rescue Hen Gedymdeith still had to continue.
Whether the first King of the Sorcerer Kingdom would be Hen Gedymdeith or Sunny—for the School of the Wolf, the difference was like night and day.
It was precisely because the founding of a Sorcerer Kingdom seemed almost inevitable in Allen's eyes—
That these necromancers, those who had mastered necromancy, practiced necromancy, and wielded necromancy—must not be allowed to live. They had to be eliminated as thoroughly as possible.
He didn't want to one day find his "backyard" set aflame while he fought desperately on the frontlines against the Wild Hunt and the White Frost.
Necromancy was not some simple craft—it was a branch of top-tier magical knowledge, rivaling the difficulty of advanced Mutation theory, and this was large-scale necromancy at that.
As long as this group of necromancers was wiped out, the chance of necromancy reappearing in the future would be reduced a thousandfold.
Having made up his mind, the witcher concealed himself even deeper—
And used a Mirage Pearl to cast an additional illusion, merging seamlessly with the half-withered pine tree.
"They're cautious. Extremely cautious," he thought, watching the ghoulish creatures being pushed back below and the gathering undead in the distance.
"They haven't revealed themselves even after the spatial blockade was broken, even though the free elves could flee at any moment…"
"Did the conjunction of the spheres scare them off?"
Allen rested his right hand on the pine's rough bark and muttered, "Possible—but that's not a bad thing."
"With the spatial seal lifted, the free elves can come and go freely… but so can those necromancers."
"The undead are still being controlled—that means that while the fusion frightened them, it hasn't scared them away yet."
"They're watching. And that's good…"
As he thought this, Allen suddenly recalled the annoying rats at Kaer Morhen.
Many times, even the most skilled witchers who could hunt hideous, powerful monsters found themselves helpless against those sneaky little creatures that burrowed holes into corners.
They would come out at night, when everyone slept, to feast on stored meat, flour, and vegetables—which would inevitably lead to Witcher who preapre food Lumen's furious roar echoing through Kaer Morhen come morning.
At the slightest noise, they'd vanish again—only to stay hidden for a long while.
Cautious, yet greedy and opportunistic—they never passed up any morsel of food within their reach.
The best way to get rid of those rats wasn't to use Igni to burn out every hole, but to lay poisoned dough, meat, or cheese-baited traps instead.
In the end—it came down to patience and bait.
"I have patience," Allen frowned slightly, "and the free elves don't need my help anymore. But…"
"What should I use to lure out those Ban Ard necromancers? What kind of bait would they take?"
"Raaahh—!"
Below, the battle between undead and ghoulish creatures reached its peak. The enormous bodies of corpse kings and corpse queens were swarmed with zombies and specters— from afar, they looked like maggots crawling over rotting flesh.
Watching the scene, Allen muttered with grim amusement, "On the bright side, at least necromancers don't breed as fast as rats."
Just as he was lost in thought, pondering how to draw out the Ban Ard mages—
A cold, metallic system chime suddenly rang in his ears:
"Ding! conjunction of the spheres — 'Ghoul' Stage I complete. Current fusion progress: 1%..."
"Ding! Main Quest Detected: The World's Revival. Accept?"
......
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