The Paladin in the Abyss

Little Isha can turn into a bat, Soveris can turn into a raven, and Fran can change her appearance with magic, but Lancelot can only maintain his succubus form — he has to rely on those bat wings on his back to fly. However, with his current appearance, if he just flew out like that, he would definitely become the center of attention instantly, making it impossible to observe in the shadows.

Fortunately, he had another special ability, well-suited for the current situation.

Lancelot’s divine sense found a small inconspicuous black spot on his wrist; that was the essence of the Divine Artifact, Eye of Sarizdon. After Androlina killed the Dark Weaver, he also acquired the abilities of Shadow Jump, Shadow Cloak, and Shadow Web. Shadow Jumping aside, although its activation conditions had more restrictions than the Mage’s Flash Technique, it had still performed heroic deeds on previous adventures; while the Shadow Cloak could envelop his entire body in barely recognizable darkness, combined with Lancelot’s own Concealment cultivation technique, it created an excellent stealth effect—just had to be careful to avoid enemies with True Sight.

As for the last Shadow Web ability, its effect was to make all creatures within a range of sixty feet only able to move in his direction, provided there were shadows around. This ability sounded great, but there was one fatal flaw: he couldn’t move while using it, and standing still while getting hit had never been Lancelot’s style, so after one use, he shelved it.

Taking advantage of the cover of darkness, one person and three birds flew out of the inn, quietly maneuvering among the spires and tiles over the town. From above, the situation became much clearer; the town was full of teams of undead. There were over a dozen teams of more than a hundred led by skeletal knights, all repeating the work their companions had just seen: selecting a building, entering it, killing any resistance, loading the bodies onto makeshift carts; the living were all detained within the teams, then they moved on to the next building.

The group quickly figured out the pattern of the undead targeting: every three hundred feet or so, attacking the largest building in their direction of advance. Clearly, they were not targeting a specific populace or organization, which only increased the unease in Lancelot’s heart.

The undead sweep was nearing its end, finally converging at the central square of the town. About a thousand living were surrounded by five times as many zombies, skeletons, ghouls, and corpse demons, while the bodies were also transported, piled into a high mound nearby. Though the undead hadn’t started yet, the scene looked like a public execution.

Many residents of the town had already experienced death, some more than once, but the fear of death was something mortals couldn’t control. With Lancelot’s vision, he could clearly see many people had already wet themselves in fear, and some had even fainted directly, while the undead surrounding them ignored this, but anyone who tried to escape would be killed instantly and their body thrown onto the ’mound’ nearby.

Lancelot kept silently calculating, pondering how he might save these people. As a knight, it was his duty to lend a hand to those in dire straits, even if they were strangers. But with the sheer number of enemies below, even if he was at full strength, it would be impossible to defeat all the enemies alone. Moreover, even if he broke through the undead encirclement by force, then what?

Escaping with a group of civilians through an enemy many times larger was impossible, but Lancelot was not a perfectionist, never expecting to save everyone. The knight had made up his mind that as long as there was a shred of hope, he would act decisively, hoping the surrounded people would resist, saving even one person was worth it.

But before he could convey his thoughts to his companions, a sudden descending figure extinguished the spark of hope. A blue-white Portal appeared high in the sky, and a Lich in a deep red robe emerged, floating in the air like a Celestial. Its aura far exceeded Lancelot’s Spirit Perception limit, as blinding as the noon sun, overwhelming the light of all other beings around.

Even more bizarre, a larger Lich figure appeared in the sky, seemingly composed of stars, shining brightly in the permanently gray-black sky of this Demon’s Domain. Lancelot had no doubt that, no matter where in Derrick Kingdom one looked up, they would see the figure in the sky. With his limited knowledge of mysticism, he could tell that even if this was a magic illusion, it was definitely a Ninth Circle spell, or possibly an even higher-level power.