Ander tried using Accelerate Decay to attack a lone zombie. However, he only managed to rot a small patch of its face before exhausting all of his mana. The enraged zombie chased him relentlessly, sending Ander into a frantic scramble. Frustrated, he abandoned this unrealistic method. After shaking off the zombie, he found himself inexplicably returning to the grave of the Giant Axe Skeleton.
Propping his skull up with a bone arm, Ander felt utterly helpless. Was this really all he could do—hide and absorb moonlight for decades?
What nonsense. According to the memory fragments he had found, undead in the Withered Bone class could only evolve into a King upon reaching level 24. That's when they could reshape **—but who knows how long that would take?
There had to be another way. He was still alive after all, not some helpless corpse...
Damn it, even if I wanted to die from holding my pee, I don't even have the chance!
With some frustration, Ander absentmindedly dragged his right hand across the ground. Suddenly, his fingers touched something hard. Looking down, he found the Giant Axe Skeleton's massive bone axe. Annoyed, Ander grabbed the axe and almost threw it away, but when he saw the jagged edge, an idea suddenly sparked in his mind.
Ander gripped the bone axe horizontally, then with all his might, he dug into the ground. A large mound of dark-red soil was lifted, and he tossed it aside.
As if he had found treasure, Ander tightly embraced the bone axe. He had come up with a brilliant plan—he would dig traps!
By the time the twin crimson moons rose, Ander had dug a pit about half his height deep. He piled the dirt and bones he had excavated nearby into a cluster of blood-arrow grass. The location was ideal—right in the middle of several blood-arrow grass clusters, with a dead tree nearby, long decayed. Ander estimated that if he could successfully lure in prey, there was a 90% chance it would fall directly into the pit.
The wandering undead creatures near Ander's location didn't notice the skeletal mage frantically digging. Of course, this was also due to the fact that Ander immediately stopped and hid whenever another undead creature passed nearby.
"Whoever said skeletons don't get tired... damn, my lumbar spine feels like it's about to break three times over. Thankfully, I can still move... oh, the moonlight feels so nice..." Lying sprawled out beside the half-dug pit, Ander relished the nourishment from the crimson moonlight. He could feel his mental and physical strength slowly recovering.
After making sure there were no other undead creatures within a hundred steps, Ander stared at the twin C-shaped moons in a daze.
How many years had it been since he'd seen the moon since entering the city? He remembered how, as a child, he would fall asleep every summer night to the sounds of insects and frogs, bathed in the gentle moonlight...
For work, for status, and for other inexplicable things, the moon had long since become a distant memory. Back then, all he wanted was just a meal. When had it changed?
Suddenly, Ander recalled a line his best friend had said when both of his parents had passed away in a car accident and his girlfriend had unexpectedly broken up with him. In his despair, his friend had said:
"Ander, there are some things you only realize you miss after they're gone. If you don't want to lose them, you have to learn to cherish them. I hope you understand this."
Ander let out a bitter laugh, realizing how foolish he had been. It only now dawned on him that what his friend had meant to cherish was family, friendship, and the carefree attitude of youth. He had mistakenly thought that money and status would give him everything, but it only led to more loneliness. When he had received the promotion to department supervisor, no matter how envious or jealous his colleagues were, he only felt lost inside. That was never what he truly wanted!
But then, what did he really want?
As Ander mulled over this, the soul fire inherited from Haigel began absorbing the energy from the crimson moons. When Ander snapped back to his senses, he realized that about two-thirds of the energy he had used during the day had already been restored, which left him stunned.
According to Haigel's memories, even if he absorbed the moonlight all night, he would only recover about one-third of his energy. Why was it recovering so quickly?
Curious, Ander plunged his consciousness into the soul fire, attempting to figure out what was going on.
The moment he thought about entering the soul fire, Ander found himself in the middle of a chaotic starry sky. The black sky was filled with countless crimson stars, flickering in and out of sight. Like being pulled by invisible threads, every now and then, a few crimson stars would fall to the ground where Ander stood, merging into him.
After observing for a while, Ander realized that these crimson stars were the moonlight of the twin crimson moons, and the fallen starlight was being absorbed by his soul fire. With this understanding, Ander had a bold idea—why not try to use his consciousness to draw the energy points?
He scanned the sky and locked onto a particularly bright crimson star. Now, what should he do?
Ander stood momentarily stunned. After weighing his options, he decided on the most likely approach. He split off a small part of his consciousness and extended it towards the sky, attempting to bind the massive energy point with his awareness.
He succeeded! Ander's consciousness connected to the star, but his reckless act nearly cost him his soul.
The moonlight from the twin crimson moons was not as delicate as it seemed. Each energy star not only contained energy but also boundless negative emotions. The larger the star, the more negative emotions it contained, which was a key reason why high-tier undead were so much more insane than lower-tier ones.
Given the current level of his soul fire, Ander should have been absorbing the smallest energy points. But, like a fool, he went for the largest one. Through the connection of his soul thread, the brutal, bloodthirsty, violent, resentful, lonely, and greedy negative emotions surged into his consciousness like sharp, piercing wails, sending an unbearable coldness through his mind.
His skeletal body tumbled over the ground, knocking over a cluster of blood-arrow grass before finally collapsing into the pit he had spent all day digging. If Ander couldn't overcome these invading negative emotions, the pit he'd worked so hard on would become his grave.
Unaware that his skeleton had already fallen into the pit, Ander continued struggling in his consciousness. The negative emotions had manifested into shrieking ghosts that circled his fragile soul, occasionally passing through it and further darkening it with each pass.
This was it. He was really going to die...
Facing the powerful ghosts born from negative emotions, Ander struggled to hold onto the last vestiges of his consciousness. But he could feel himself growing lighter, his soul becoming fainter.
No! I don't want to die like this!
Ander silently screamed, desperately contracting his soul in an attempt to evade the attacks. His soul condensed into a tiny, minuscule point, tightly packed together, almost physical in form. At the same time, the red soul fire he had inherited from Haigel contracted as well.
"Yin and Yang, the way of heaven and earth, the laws of all things, the parents of all changes, the origin of life and death."
As Ander expended all his mental strength, shrinking his soul as much as possible, a line of words suddenly appeared in his mind. Instinctively, he positioned his shrunk soul and soul fire in a delicate balance, then collapsed into unconsciousness.
Sensing Ander's resistance fade, the ghosts born of negative emotions laughed wildly, cheering as they vied to destroy the almost invisible soul.
But their laughter abruptly stopped, as they realized they had become helplessly trapped in a massive whirlpool.
A yin-yang fish, formed from black and crimson, had appeared at some point. Its eyes were Ander's soul and soul fire.
As the yin-yang fish spun faster, the ghosts were torn apart, their energy absorbed into the fish. In a moment, the black-red soul fire filled Ander's skull once again. Countless streams of crimson moonlight poured from the sky, flooding Ander's soul fire consciousness, cleansing the area within a two-meter radius of all moonlight energy.
Ander's skeletal form began to change as well. His bones thickened, grew stronger, and whitened. His entire frame grew taller. The dry bone staff lodged in his neck also grew to half his height, and the rod's rodent skull transformed into a feline skull, with red light flickering in its empty eye sockets.
Such a large disturbance naturally attracted the attention of higher-tier undead, and a few powerful presences soon enveloped the entire Withered Bone Wasteland. The undead in the area trembled and knelt on the ground. No undead dared to violate the dignity of these stronger beings by absorbing the crimson moonlight.
Among these powerful presences, there were varying levels of strength. The slightly weaker ones, sensing the two most powerful presences, respectfully withdrew. The two most powerful ones, however, collided fiercely.
"Bone Rider Dororigus, you're in my way!" one presence, filled with a strong murderous aura, roared at the other.
"What a joke... Anubis the crawler, is the Withered Bone Wasteland your domain?" a cold presence replied unyieldingly, instantly destroying countless weak undead in the region with their powerful consciousness.
"Dororigus, are you trying to start a war between kings?!" the presence called Anubis fumed in anger.
The Bone Rider, Dororigus, let out a low laugh, clearly pleased. Then, as if inviting Anubis to come and stop him, he moved forward step by step. His black-and-white soul fire burned brightly, casting a powerful shadow.