Whether it was the mages of the kingdom of Bracada, the necromancers of the kingdom of Heresh, the druids of the kingdom of AvLee, or the magic professionals of the world of Ashan, they had always believed in a truth: Knowledge represents power!
The power of a mage was certainly related to their magic power, but knowledge was also an important factor in determining the level of achievement a mage could reach.
Death Lord Arantir was a true scholar. In Heresh, he was the most knowledgeable. His every word and every action was calm and imposing; his eyes shined with a dazzling light as vast as the sea of smoke. Every person who came into contact with him would be subdued by his wisdom. Even his enemies, while resenting him, had to admit that he was a worthy opponent.
Of course, this referred to Arantir in his normal state. If someone mentioned the Dragon of Order, Asha, in front of him, it would be another matter.
At this time, Arantir would let you see what a fanatical believer looked like…
In Ashan, dragons were not only ‘giant-winged, fire-breathing reptiles’, but they were also the gods and incarnations of the magic of the world.
The mortals of Ashan knew about the existences of dragons and maintained respect for them, sometimes even fear. People swore in the name of the dragons, and the existence of dragons permeated every facet of people’s daily lives.
In the poems praised by the world, the Dragon of Order, Asha, was the most unique existence. People firmly believed that she was the Creator Goddess, the Mother of Space and Time, the Weaver of Fate!
She brought the world into existence and then hatched the Six Elemental Dragons to rule over it; she controlled the fates of all mortal creatures—she spun forth their destiny at birth, measured it through their life, and cut it at their death. These three roles were the three aspects of Asha in this world’s myths
Namely: birth, life, and death!
Among the Order races in Ashan, they often believed in the first two aspects of Asha. However, in the undead kingdom of Heresh, although the necromancers here chose Asha as their goddess, they believed in Asha’s final aspect: the dark aspect of death!
The necromancers’ perception of Asha’s power and characteristics was distorted, and they even embodied their faith in Asha’s dark aspect. They believed that the incarnation of Asha’s dark aspect was a gigantic, pitch-black spider. This spider was the so-called ‘Fate Weaver’, and it was the mark of the necromancers.
The spider tattoo on Arantir’s forehead came from this. He was a fanatical believer of Asha’s dark aspect. He had obtained great power through studying necromancy, but he attributed his accomplishments to Asha’s favor in him. He claimed that he was the Chosen of Asha and that he had the destiny of being chosen by the Spider Goddess! In his opinion, the goddess’s younger brother —the Dragon of Chaos, Urgash-resisting her and his descendant demons were also his archenemies, and restoring the order of the Asha world was his destiny! Regardless of whether the title of Chosen was true or if he had hypnotized himself, Arantir was indeed determined to fulfill his duties.
According to legend, Asha maintained absolute neutrality. She showed favor to neither good nor bad people, dwarfs, elves, nor orcs. Everything was Asha’s creation. But she had shown the most direct opposition to the chaotic creed represented by her twin brother and his crazy children, demons. Precisely because of this, Arantir loathed demons throughout his life.
Now, Arantir had appeared in this Desert of Death because of the sixth lunar eclipse that had appeared without warning four years ago. During this lunar eclipse, the sudden appearance of the demon army shocked the entire world of Ashan. The kingdom of Erathia, the strongest country on this continent, was invaded by demons, and its capital, Steadwick, had almost been destroyed in this demon invasion.
With the help and strength of the various allied races, Erathia ultimately protected its capital and temporarily repelled the demons. But Arantir smelled something unusual in this short peace.
After the war, Queen Isabel of the kingdom of Erathia seemed to have changed drastically and did many incomprehensible things. Although many people were saying that this might be because her husband, Nicolai, was killed by the demons in the war, and she appeared to be somewhat irrational in her grief, Arantir felt that it was probably not that simple.
In addition, some intelligence and signs indicated that after the demon invasion, in the kingdom of Bracada, some fallen mages who worshipped the power of demons chose to follow them. They secretly supported Eeofol and sent minerals and resources to the demons.
In the kingdom of Heresh, many necromancers had been forced to go into exile because of the persecution of the mages of Bracada, so Arantir did not have a good impression of the mages of Bracada. After these fallen mages revealed signs, Arantir listed them as enemies to eliminate.
This time, after coming out of Heresh, Arantir’s purpose was to investigate the current chaos in Erathia and find a way to eliminate the demons of Eeofol. He believed that this was his responsibility as the Chosen.
But to achieve these goals, Arantir had to have a powerful army…
In order to gather a large army, Arantir had been wandering all over Ashan for a long time. He found many rotten corpses in decaying tombs and turned them into zombies. In poisonous swamps, he recruited many liches. In the cemeteries of the dragons, he risked his life to dig up dragon bones to create bone dragons. Now, he went to the Desert of Death in hopes of finding the remains of ancient warriors from the tombs of the pharaohs from thousands of years ago and recruiting them to join his undead army.
Relying on his ability to sense lands of death, Arantir brought his army to this oasis. But when he arrived here, he found that someone seemed to have alarmed the undead here, and a great battle broke out. Bones were scattered all over the oasis, and the undead that had been brewing for thousands of years had been destroyed.
Originally, Arantir did not care that much if they perished. The Desert of Death was vast, and there were many similar places and pharaoh tombs. He could look for other spots. But the aura left in this oasis made Arantir very concerned.
“This smell of sulfur and flames, it is the smell of demons!” Arantir lightly sniffed the information in the breeze and carefully checked the footprints left on the ground. As he looked, he said, “There’s also an enormous creature. I don’t know what it is, but it looks like the footprints of some kind of dog. The footprints it left are the deepest… There’s also the footprints of a human woman here, but it’s difficult to determine if she is really human…”
What made Arantir tense the most was another set of footprints!
Arantir found several footprints on the ground, but these footprints were a mass of solid black ice. To be precise, they were a small piece of frosted ground! The middle of the frosted ground was very solid, and the traces of freezing spread in all directions. Arantir observed for a while but could not see any signs of melting on the black ice. And on top of the black ice, there were sunken footprints. From these footprints, Arantir had restored a muscular claw model.
Crouching down, Arantir tried to reach out to touch a solid ice footprint. Unexpectedly, when his hand touched it, there was a slight numbing sensation, and he could feel weak electric currents!
At the same time, he could feel that the magic power on his fingertips had disappeared slightly…
“Asha uses all!” Arantir said the creed of the necromancers in surprise. “What kind of demon left behind these footprints?”
Yes, from the footprints with sharp claws, Arantir determined that they were footprints left behind by a demon. However, in his impression, many demons left behind flaming footprints, making it very easy to judge. But this black frost footprint actually contained traces of lightning and devoured magic power. Arantir had never seen anything like this before!
Just as Arantir was in doubt, a vampire count with sharp canine teeth, wearing a cloak and holding a longsword in his hand, stepped forward. “Your Lordship, these footprints have not been covered by wind and sand, which means that the owner of the footprints has not left too long ago. Should we chase after him and see?”
“Yes, Count Giovanni. We have to catch up and take a look!” Arantir turned his head and looked at the vampire count expressionlessly. “This may be a powerful demon with unknown power, and his appearance is unlikely a good thing for Ashan. We have to find out his whereabouts as soon as possible. You and your vampire troops are very mobile. Perhaps as vanguards, you can catch up and see first. But don’t clash with the demon. Wait until my army arrive later!”
“As you command, Lord Arantir!” Giovanni grinned, touched his hand to his chest, and bowed. “Asha uses all!”
“Asha uses all!” Arantir replied.
Then Giovanni’s body suddenly turned into a huge bat and chased in the direction were the footprints left. Behind him, a large number of vampire troops followed the count and turned into numerous bats as they flew forward.
Looking at this scene, Arantir was still expressionless, but his right hand hidden in his wide sleeve suddenly lit up.
A small Wizard Eye appeared in the air and quietly followed behind Giovanni and the vampire troops…
