The Carrion Vulture was an extremely common undead creature. Wild Carrion Vultures had a challenge rating between levels 1 and 3, a range that corresponded to a first-tier Mithril-rank veteran adventurer.
In appearance, the creature resembled a vulture, though its size was terrifyingly large: its wingspan exceeded five meters, and both wings were covered in greasy black feathers, ragged and rotting.
Portions of its skeleton were exposed to the open air, and within its eye sockets burned an icy blue ghostfire, a telltale feature of undead creatures. It gave off a nauseating stench of decay.
This creature possessed formidable strength and agility. Its natural gift for flight made it a veritable reaper of death in the skies. Its claws carried disease, and its rotting breath could cover a thirty-foot cone. Anyone caught in the blast would, at best, suffer rotting muscles, and at worst, organ failure.
Because the Everdusk Forest was saturated with decaying humus and necrotic energy, it served as a breeding ground for undead creatures. The Carrion Vultures thrived here like fish in water, nesting within the forest and waiting for every prey that wandered in.
The Carrion Vulture's combat style was distinctive and vicious. The moment battle was joined, it would use its superb flying ability to launch a diving attack, hurtling toward an adventurer with fearsome speed, either piercing straight through an unsuspecting victim's waist or tearing open their throat. Its methods were brutal, and effective.
But right now, what worried Orum was not the Carrion Vulture itself.
What worried him was his teammates!
Orum began racking his brain, wondering how he might snatch a Carrion Vulture kill away from the Gold-rank knight, Cyrus.
The presence of this high-ranking adventurer weighed on him like an invisible pressure.
Combat erupted in an instant! Cyrus gripped his Runic Two-Handed Greatsword, his entire being blazing like incarnate fury, and brought it down in an overhead strike against the Carrion Vulture diving straight at him!
It was the simplest, most unadorned of knightly combat techniques: the Greatsword Strike.
No flashy movements.
No complicated technique.
Only pure strength and speed.
Yet this single, simple strike unleashed a might that shook the heart.
Along the blade surged a condensed, razor-sharp sword aura!
That sword aura glowed a pale blue, wrapping around the blade as though it had taken on physical form, making the already massive greatsword appear to swell to fully three times its size!
The air was torn apart with a sudden, ear-piercing shriek!
The force of this single strike was enough to shatter the courage of any lesser monster!
"Gaaak!"
The Carrion Vulture let out an agonized, heart-rending shriek.
Squelch...
The runic greatsword cleaved down through the very center of the Carrion Vulture's skull, plunging clean through its body and splitting the massive undead creature straight in two!
Black-green pus and blood sprayed out like a fountain!
The foul fluid reeked of nauseating rot, and where it splattered onto the ground it hissed and sizzled with a corrosive sound.
The first carrion creature died instantly. Its shattered body plummeted from the sky and slammed into the ground, splashing up a great mist of black-green blood.
In an instant, the entire battlefield was thick with the peculiar reek of the undead.
Right after, Felix struck at almost the same moment.
From both of Felix's hands radiated an intense, icy blue light. Thick waves of mana rippled through the air, and the pressure they carried was far heavier than what he had displayed back at the goblin camp.
First-circle spell: Ice Blade!
In that instant, the moisture in the air condensed into three sharp blades of ice, each gleaming with a cold light, refracting the morning sun into a blinding blue-white glow.
The ice blades fanned out and shot toward the second Carrion Vulture, moving so fast their trajectories were almost invisible to the eye!
Hiss, hiss, hiss.
The sound of the ice blades slicing through the air was sharp and piercing.
Before the creature could even react, all three ice blades struck home, and a massive burst of icy mist exploded outward!
Boom!
In the instant the frost mana detonated, black feathers scattered like snow, mixing with shredded flesh that flew in every direction!
In that single moment, within the blast radius of the Ice Blade spell, the Carrion Vulture's left wing was completely torn apart, and black-green pus and blood sprayed wildly out!
Frost mana instantly invaded its body, freezing the joints of its wing solid into blocks of ice!
This once-fearsome undead predator let out a howl of despair as its body lost all balance and it plunged from midair!
Thump!
The Carrion Vulture slammed into the ground, kicking up a great cloud of dust.
It struggled desperately, its jet-black claws gouging deep furrows into the earth, the icy blue ghostfire in its eye sockets flickering wildly, betraying the mad throes of a dying beast.
It could no longer take to the air.
Right then, a colossal shadow, like a black fortress given form, charged in from the side!
It was Raygore, the half-orc warrior clad head to toe in heavy black iron armor, letting out a low roar!
His massive frame charged like a war-bear on the attack, barreling straight toward the wounded Carrion Vulture!
The pitch-black greatsword in Raygore's hands rose high overhead.
The weapon, shaped almost like a tombstone, traced an afterimage of death through the air as it came crashing down!
The greatsword struck the ground with a dull, thunderous impact that seemed to shake the entire Everdusk Forest!
BOOM!
Under that single blow, the Carrion Vulture's skull was smashed into a pulpy mess! Black-green blood and brain matter splattered in every direction!
Watching two Carrion Vultures fall, every muscle in Orum's body suddenly tensed, and his presence surged to its peak in an instant.
Violent power poured into his legs, every muscle fiber trembling.
The leg muscles fused with the [Bugbear Tendon +4] now unleashed a terrifying burst of energy!
In his field of view, the last Carrion Vulture, having watched both its companions die in an instant, felt its every instinct for survival flare to life!
"Gaaaah!"
The Carrion Vulture let out a terrified shriek, beating its wings frantically as it fled desperately into the sky.
The Carrion Vulture's flight speed was extraordinary, capable of reaching a hundred feet per second. To the naked eye, it could only be seen as a blurred afterimage.
In the blink of an eye, the monster had soared high into the sky.
Against the deep blue heavens, it dwindled into a shrinking black dot.
At this distance, the creature was on the verge of escaping everyone's attack range.
Just as everyone believed the third Carrion Vulture was about to escape, Orum moved.
He gripped the Flame-steel Glaive in his hand with sudden force.
Forged from flame-steel, the weapon gleamed a jet-black sheen beneath the sunlight, its triangular blade seeming to tremble wildly, as if consumed by its own fervor.
Orum gritted his teeth, and from head to toe, poured a violence like rivers pouring into the sea down through his legs.
Within his chest, two hearts and four lungs churned at a frantic pace. Every muscle in his body suddenly erupted with a raw violence like an exploding volcano.
The colossal strength supported by his [Ox-Head Troll Bones] converged into both his arms in that single instant!
Orum suddenly stepped forward, and the soil of the Everdusk Forest sank several inches beneath his feet.
"Die!"
Orum twisted at the waist, unleashing the full power of his entire torso!
He hurled the Flame-steel Glaive!
In that instant, the Flame-steel Glaive seemed to transform into a terrifying bolt loosed from a siege ballista!
Whoosh!
The air was torn apart! The Flame-steel Glaive let out a shriek more piercing than ever before!
The glaive tore across the sky like a bolt of black lightning.
Along its flight path, the air itself warped and rippled from the sheer friction of its speed.
The Flame-steel Glaive cut through the heavens, and under everyone's stunned gaze, struck true, hitting the fleeing Carrion Vulture dead on.
The creature did not even have time to scream.
The glaive pierced straight through its back, its sharp blade tearing through rotten flesh and splitting the entire body clean open.
BOOM!
The Carrion Vulture burst apart in midair.
Black-green pus gushed out like a fountain, mixing with shattered bone and rotted innards to bloom across the sky like some grotesque flower.
The entire sky seemed stained by the sight.
Thick, viscous fluid rained down in droplets, splattering with a steady patter.
Heavy chunks of the corpse plummeted from more than seventy meters up, smashing deep craters into the ground below.
Inside those craters, scattered remains of flesh and blood lay strewn about, and the stench of rot rose straight into the clouds.
Right in the center of Orum's vision, a familiar panel notification popped up.
[You have slain 1 Carrion Vulture!]
[Stage reward available: Monster Organ, Carrion Vulture Eyeball! Spell-like ability, Deadsoul Fire!]
[Next stage reward: Slay 10 Carrion Vultures to obtain an advanced reward!]
Staring at this notification, Orum froze completely.
Carrion Vulture Eyeball?
Spell-like ability, Deadsoul Fire?
Countless question marks flashed through his mind, and his heart began to pound wildly.
"Could this be... some kind of eye technique?"
A low mutter escaped Orum's throat, his eyes flickering with an indescribable, unnatural light.
Glare at someone and set them ablaze?! An undying flame of the undead that never went out?!
Wasn't that a little too powerful?!
This monster organ was actually pretty amazing!
But in the very next second, Orum's excitement was cut short by the sight before him.
The shattered remains of the carrion creatures lay scattered across the ground, and the flesh that should have lain silent and still had begun to twitch!
Every fragment of the corpses squirmed, as though each had taken on a life of its own.
To Orum's shock, disgusting strands of flesh began sprouting from the torn edges of the corpse fragments!
Those purple-black tendrils writhed like a swarm of repulsive maggots, reeking of intense decay, frantically stitching the shattered bones and flesh back together!
And it was not only the one Orum had killed.
The two Carrion Vultures that Cyrus and Raygore had killed earlier also began to give off an overpowering aura of death.
That aura was bone-chillingly cold, as if it could freeze a soul solid, and in an instant it blanketed the entire battlefield.
Every corpse was reassembling itself in a way that turned the stomach, flesh writhing, bones clicking and cracking, as though death had been nothing more than a brief rest.
"These Carrion Vultures... they've all turned into Carrion Vulture Zombies!"
Ronald's voice was full of shock as he pointed at the writhing corpses.
A wave of unease rippled through the group at once.
The enemies they had just slain were rising again!
A thought flashed through Orum's mind in an instant.
This was exactly what made the Everdusk Forest so terrifying!
On this land, so thick with the aura of death, undead creatures could have two lives, or even three!
Still, the tension and alarm within the Ice Hawks Company lasted only an instant.
Felix spoke up calmly to reassure them. "These Carrion Vultures aren't particularly strong to begin with. They couldn't beat us even when they were alive, so once they've turned into zombies, they'll only be weaker."
Hearing Felix's reassurance, the others immediately understood, and their panic gave way to calm as they fixed their eyes on the Carrion Vulture Zombies now taking shape before them.
The zombified Carrion Vultures now looked nothing like they had in life.
Their already-rotting bodies, having been reassembled, had become even more hideous and terrifying.
Bone-white ribs jutted out from beneath torn skin, hung with blackened strands of flesh.
Black feathers, matted with thick blood and tissue fluid, clung wetly to the skeletal frames, giving off a nauseating stench.
The icy blue ghostfire within their eye sockets flickered erratically, brightening and dimming, as if it might go out completely at any moment.
But none of this concerned Orum in the least.
In his mind, there was room for only one unexpected thought.
If he killed a Carrion Vulture Zombie, would it count as a separate entry in the monster codex?
The moment this thought surfaced, it seized his entire mind.
Orum's heart raced, and excitement surged through him at once.
If the Carrion Vulture and the Carrion Vulture Zombie did not count as the same species...
Then he could claim two separate panel rewards!
"Let's find out!"
Orum's eyes lit up in an instant.
His entire bearing changed completely in that moment.
Without a moment's hesitation, his body reacted instantly.
Quick of eye and hand!
Orum shot forward like a cheetah toward the nearest Carrion Vulture Zombie.
His footsteps churned the soil, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Throughout the charge, his muscles were strung tight to their absolute limit, power gathering in every single cell of his body.
In the blink of an eye, Orum arrived directly before the Carrion Vulture Zombie.
Without any hesitation.
He raised his right leg and channeled the strength of his entire body into a single kick.
That kick landed like an ancient war god stamping the earth to pieces.
BANG!
The instant Orum's foot struck the torso of the Carrion Vulture Zombie, the entire creature burst apart at once.
Black-green pus and shredded, rotted innards sprayed outward like a fountain.
Under that single kick, the entire Carrion Vulture Zombie disintegrated completely into countless tiny fragments.
The icy blue ghostfire in its eye sockets went out in that same instant.
Just as the zombie collapsed completely, another panel notification popped up in the center of Orum's vision!
[You have slain 1 Carrion Zombie!]
[Stage reward available: Monster Organ, Carrion Vulture Zombie's Diseased Claw!]
[Trait: Diseased Claw]
[Next stage reward: Slay 10 Carrion Zombies to obtain an advanced reward!]
"It actually works!"
A smile Orum could not suppress crept onto the corners of his mouth.
Kill one Carrion Vulture, then kill the zombie it turned into, and it counted as two kills.
The feeling was absolutely exhilarating!
While Orum launched his attack, the other members of the Ice Hawks, along with Cyrus, their temporary bodyguard, also moved into action, striking together to finish off the remaining Carrion Vulture Zombies.
Afterward, the party set about thoroughly clearing the battlefield.
No experienced adventuring party ever let anything of value go to waste.
The party began collecting the Carrion Vultures' plumes, plucking them one by one from the corpses. These plumes carried an eerie black hue and gave off faint ripples of mana.
A single plume was worth 2 gold coins, no small sum in the Southern Territories. In total, the group collected 40 plumes, worth 80 gold coins altogether.
Besides the plumes, there were also the creatures' claws.
These claws were a purplish black, giving off a faintly unsettling aura, clearly steeped in disease toxins and even carrying an innate curse.
A single carrion claw sold for 30 gold coins. This battle yielded six claws in total, worth 180 gold coins.
Combined with the earnings from the plumes, the total value of materials gained from this battle reached 260 gold coins, a substantial income for any adventuring party.
That said, given the Carrion Vultures' combat strength, an ordinary adventuring party would not have found it easy to kill three of them, so this considerable sum of 260 gold coins had not come cheaply.
While his companions cleared the battlefield and gathered materials, Orum set off alone in the direction the Flame-steel Glaive had flown.
He needed to retrieve the weapon he had thrown.
They had already reached the outer edge of the Everdusk Forest, where the terrain grew complex and strange.
Thick undergrowth and crisscrossing ravines reduced visibility to almost nothing. Even during the day, only dim light filtered down through the canopy overhead.
After trudging some two hundred meters, Orum finally spotted the Flame-steel Glaive lying in a patch of flattened underbrush. The weapon was jammed at an angle into the dirt, its black shaft still coated in the creatures' blood and tissue fluid.
He walked over, gripped the long haft, and with a firm pull drew the weapon smoothly free of the soil.
Recalling the trouble this whole trek had cost him, a thought crossed Orum's mind. He shook his head, at a loss for words, and muttered to himself, "I really can't keep throwing my weapon around so carelessly."
In terrain this complicated, once a weapon was thrown, it was all too easy to lose for good. Even when it could be recovered, it often cost a great deal of time and effort.
And in a genuine life-or-death struggle, losing his weapon would mean a drastic drop in combat power, a fatal weakness indeed.
Orum continued turning the thought over. "Maybe I should have the Flame-steel Glaive enchanted with a 'Homing Weapon' trait sometime."
A weapon bearing the Homing Weapon trait could return automatically to its owner's hand within a short time after being thrown.
It was as if some invisible chain had been fastened to the weapon, one that could be reeled back in with the slightest tug.
In this world, there were veteran Berserkers who trained specifically in throwing attacks. The iron spears they hurled carried terrifying force, capable of punching straight through steel plate.
The Homing Weapon enchantment was essential for any Berserker who built around throwing weapons. Without it, a throwing-focused Berserker was playing with fire, one careless moment away from losing his weapon for good.
Orum silently resolved that once he made it back to Threshold City, he would seek out a veteran enchanter and have this trait added to the Flame-steel Glaive.
Fortunately, Orum had thrown the Flame-steel Glaive at an angle greater than eighty degrees, which kept it from flying too far. That was the only reason he had managed to find it within a mere two hundred meters.
Gripping the glaive, Orum retraced his steps and soon made it back to the party's rally point.
Felix, Cyrus, Raygore, and the others had already finished sweeping the battlefield and tallying up the materials they had gathered.
Orum noticed Cyrus gazing toward the depths of the forest, in the direction of the outpost.
"Everyone," Cyrus said, his voice low and carrying an unmistakable air of authority.
Every eye turned to him at once.
"I suggest we leave the carriages here for now." Cyrus's tone left no room for argument. "Everyone proceeds on foot. Once we've determined the situation at the outpost, we can decide whether it's safe to bring the carriages in."
After a moment's thought, Felix nodded in agreement. The suggestion made perfect sense.
If they rashly drove the carriages into an unfamiliar outpost that might be riddled with danger, the horses could panic in the chaos of battle, or simply be shot down by enemies. Without the horses, the carriages would be useless.
Cyrus then had his retainer Terry stay behind to guard the two carriages.
Terry accepted the order.
He pulled a strange powder out of his pack.
The powder was a grayish brown and gave off a pungent smell.
It was a specialized powder meant to ward off monsters.
Terry scattered the powder in a circle around the two carriages.
It formed a rough defensive perimeter. Even if wild monsters wandered close, the smell alone would be enough to drive them off.
Meanwhile, Raygore carried a large basket woven from black bamboo and rattan on his back.
Inside it lay Melina, curled up and deep in an unconscious sleep.
The female adventurer remained deeply unconscious, entirely unaware of what was happening around her.
For safety's sake, the Ice Hawks kept her close by.
The group formed up and pressed onward, stepping deeper into the Everdusk Forest.
Every step was taken with caution, and the outpost's gate gradually came into hazy view not far ahead.
It was a fortress built of gray stone, with thick walls and arrow towers, looking sturdy and formidable.
Yet as Orum drew closer, he caught the thick, coppery smell of fresh blood.
The gray stone fortress before them was built along the lines of a small medieval star fort, its four corner towers arranged in a diamond pattern that enclosed a central square courtyard.
The main gate faced east, set into the thick curtain wall. Its hinges now hung broken, clearly torn open by sheer force.
The whole fortress was built on a slight slope, a design meant to make it easy to defend and hard to assault, yet under the cannibal tribe's assault it had become nothing but a slaughterhouse.
Orum raised his eyes and saw fresh blood streaked across the fortress's outer walls, a sight that struck the heart with horror.
The outer walls were covered in deep claw marks and gashes from blade strikes.
As Orum stepped into the interior of the outpost, Ronald let out a disbelieving gasp beside him.
"Oh God..."
Ronald's eyes went wide as he stared at the square courtyard at the outpost's center.
The place was an utter wreck, soldiers' bodies strewn everywhere, blood pooling and seeping into the cracks between the flagstones, thick and coppery, flooding across the ground.
Many of the soldiers had been decapitated, their heads impaled on wooden stakes and arranged into hideous, ghastly totems.
These soldiers, all clad in standard-issue iron armor, bore clear and unmistakable wounds.
Most of the wounds had come from arrows and blades.
Some arrows still jutted from the bodies' chests or necks, their heads coated in a black poison.
Ronald crouched down and examined one of the bodies closely.
It was a young soldier, perhaps around twenty years old, with three feathered arrows lodged in his forehead. The arrowheads had an eerie, bone-like structure, the signature weapon of the Voodoo Cannibal Tribe.
The moment Ronald leaned in, the rank stench made him cough violently. The soldier's body had long since lost any semblance of human shape.
The standard-issue vambrace on the soldier's left arm had been smashed to pieces, shards of iron embedded in the flayed-open flesh, with the shattered ulna jutting out at an angle from the bend of the elbow.
His skin had been peeled back, exposing the raw, dripping mess beneath, as horrifying as anything from a slaughterhouse.
"The Voodoo Cannibal Tribe." Ronald's voice trembled, and his face had gone ashen.
The Voodoo Cannibal Tribe.
The very name was synonymous with bloodshed, terrifying as an omen of the apocalypse itself.
This savage faction was infamous for cannibalism and brutality, one of the most feared powers in the entire Everdusk Forest.
"Every one of these soldiers is dead. Not a single survivor."
Felix's gaze swept across the bodies, growing colder with every passing moment.
According to the information gathered earlier, this outpost within the twilight forest had been thoroughly garrisoned.
Three Mithril-rank professionals, twenty well-trained soldiers, and a sturdy fortress to defend it.
In theory, such a garrison should have been enough to withstand most threats.
But in reality, all of that defense had proven utterly useless.
The outpost's entire garrison...
From the three Mithril-rank professionals down to the twenty trained soldiers, every single one had died.
What manner of enemy could have wiped out an outpost with such formidable defenses in so short a time?
A memory surfaced at once in Orum's mind, something Felix had mentioned before.
In Ith's letter, he had mentioned that the ones who attacked his party were the Voodoo Cannibal Tribe.
A large tribe of at least eighty members, and Ith's group had fallen victim to their ambush.
Ith's entire party had been wiped out, and he alone had managed to escape by sheer luck.
And now, even the outpost the Kingdom had established at the edge of the twilight forest had been destroyed.
It was plain to see that this cannibal tribe devoted to voodoo had grown into a truly bone-chilling threat.
Taken together with the approaching Dark Conclave, Orum could sense that dark, treacherous currents were surging beneath the surface of the entire Everdusk Forest.
Orum stood in a relatively clean corner, raising his eyes to look at Felix, the Ice Hawks' captain, who was inspecting the scene around them.
At this moment, Felix's expression had turned unusually grim.
His gaze swept across every corner of the outpost's interior, a cold light glinting in his jade-green eyes.
Felix turned to face the group and spoke in a heavy tone, explaining the situation to Orum and the others. "Everyone, we need to find the Priest of Amaunator stationed here at the outpost."
"Otherwise, we won't be able to obtain the Blessing of Light."
Felix's words hung in the air.
The entire party fell silent.
The Blessing of Light. Orum was no stranger to the term.
The Blessing of Light could grant an adventurer a buffed state lasting nearly a month, bestowing traits such as Darkvision, Blindfighting, and Curse Resistance.
[Darkvision] was a special ability that let a creature see clearly in dark environments. A creature with darkvision could see in total darkness just as it would in a well-lit space, though what it perceived was usually rendered in shades of black and white.
Dwarves possessed 120 feet of darkvision, while elves generally had a range of 60 feet, and dark elves, the Drow, had darkvision extending to 120 feet.
Ordinary gnomes had a darkvision range of 60 feet, while deep gnomes possessed superior darkvision reaching up to 24 meters, roughly 80 feet.
Dragonborn, Aasimar, and Tieflings likewise all had 60 feet of darkvision.
[Blindfighting] was a combat style feat commonly found among fighters, rangers, and paladins.
An adventurer with the Blindfighting feat gained ten feet of blindsight, along with improved combat ability in darkness.
Within that range, even one who was completely blind or shrouded in darkness could use their senses effectively enough to "see" anything not hidden behind full cover.
Beyond that, an adventurer could also perceive invisible creatures within that range, unless the creature had successfully concealed itself.
As for [Curse Resistance], it was a fairly self-explanatory trait, one that weakened the endless and extremely dangerous curses found throughout the Everdusk Forest.
The effects of curses within the Everdusk Forest came in every conceivable form.
Some slowly drained away a person's life force, some drove people to madness, and some could rob a person of their very soul outright.
For this reason, obtaining the Blessing of Light from the outpost's priest was an absolute necessity, a safeguard on which their very lives depended.
Ronald frowned and spoke up. "The question now is..."
"Is that Priest of Amaunator even still alive?"
"If every last one of the outpost's guards has been slaughtered..."
"then that priest has probably met a grim fate as well."
"Let's find the body first," Felix sighed.
"If he's alive, we find him. If he's dead, we find his corpse."
Just as the group continued searching the interior of the fortress, trying to find the Priest of Amaunator...
A voice suddenly rang out from above the fortress walls, a hoarse yet youthful girl's voice.
"Are you all looking for this? The thing Aravia is holding?"
There was an eerie innocence to the girl's voice.
Like a child showing off a toy she had just gotten her hands on.
The instant he heard the voice, Orum's whole body went rigid.
Everyone's heads snapped upward together, pupils contracting sharply.
Atop the fortress's high wall stood a figure draped in a tattered black dress, her long black hair falling in disarray over her shoulders, stirring gently in the breeze.