MTL - For Thousands of Years, My Weakest Brother Has Become a Demon King (1000 Years Later, Even My Weakest Follower Has Become A Demon King)-Chapter 233 Lich

   Time goes back not long ago.

  After leaving the sanctuary of the underground root system, William asked Ebony to go back to the Holy Mother Temple of the Holy Tree to wait for his news.

   Playing with the rough obsidian dagger in his hand, William fell into deep thought along the way.

   "Trial three, huh..."

   threw the dagger in his hand high, and a tiny space crack opened on the path where the dagger fell, engulfing it precisely.

   There is no doubt that this judgement weapon, which the other party claimed once belonged to Neh, was said to be an extraordinary weapon that could actually harm a certain phantom king. It was just a fake.

  After all, the iron-hearted widow Elle just said to herself in the Black Crow not long ago that the current "Judgment 3" is in the hands of the Tacoma Order. Since the Riddlers regard it as a bond and a bargaining chip to maintain contact with the Void King, there is no reason to send it to Ravenwood for nothing.

   But the fact that this dagger is a fake, William didn't intend to tell the other party clearly, in fact, as a reward, it was an unexpected surprise to be able to get Neh's phylactery.

   And the next thing I should figure out is why these things appear here.

   When he arrived at this dagger, he asked Ebony:

   "Since you already know who I am, you should also tell me where these things come from, right? Whether it's a phylactery or a trial weapon."

   "This... I said it before, I once made a secret contract and can't say it..."

   Ebony at that time replied with a sullen expression.

   For this answer, William continued to ask:

   "Whose secret contract is it with, which magic caster? Or is it the Mother of the Sacred Tree or the Great Spirit of the Wilderness, or is it an existence in the Moon Realm?"

The reason    is asked is that the punishment mechanism for breaking the oath varies greatly depending on the object of the "oath".

  The contract signed with the magic caster through the summoning spell is essentially nothing more than a spell based on a specific keyword or behavior. With his ability, he can completely help the opponent weaken or even offset the backlash punishment for breaking the oath.

   And if the contract signed with the existence of the moon, as long as the oath is not the void king, then he can also use physical (or magic) persuasion to make the contract object "voluntarily" give up the right to exercise the punishment for breaking the oath.

  The real trouble is the oath you make to the gods as a believer…

   "I can't reveal this either..."

   The other party shook his head.

The answer    "can't disclose" itself is an answer, and William, who had roughly guessed the contract partner, sighed in his heart.

  It's troublesome...

   If the object of the oath is a god, whether it is the old god, the Holy Spirit, or the king of nothingness. Once a believer breaks his oath, the punishment for breaking the oath will befall him like an inevitable fate, which even he can't stop.

   And what's even weirder is that the trigger that triggers the oath-breaking effect is not like contract magic, it is established by the specific actions or keywords of the oath taker.

   Determining that the trigger for breaking an oath is something that should be quite subjective, like "feeling that I have betrayed the gods".

   It was as if the gods had sent a prosecutor to sneak into his mind, monitoring the other's thoughts at all times.

   And this is also the most essential difference between magic and faith, as a supernatural power - whether he is the master of the power, or just the agent of some high-ranking existence.

   But then again, this is too weird...

   Thinking deeply about this issue for the first time, William suddenly felt some disobedience.

   Is this really something that can be done? It does not test the behavior or language of the swearer, but simply uses the swearer's subjective will as the basis for judgment.

   After all, the free will of mortals is an ultimate mystery similar to the creation itself, and in theory it should be a sacred realm that can never be violated.

Even the illusion of the divine domain level cannot read the mind or directly control the mind; even the king of nothingness cannot directly read or change a person's mind; It only has an effect on memories such as ghosts that remain in the world, and has no effect on living people at all.

  Why... those gods can peer into the deepest thoughts of their believers?

   These doubts passed in a flash, after all, it was not the time to ponder these questions, so William opened his mouth and asked another question.

"I heard that Neh once returned to the Holy Tree City more than a thousand years ago, on the grounds that he hoped to regain the title of Forest Druid. After he was rejected, he left sadly... What happened at that time? , isn't this also a clause in the confidentiality contract?"

   After all, the [Anti-Entropy] barrier in that tree hole was probably created by Neheb, and William didn't think the truth at that time would be as simple as rumored.

   This question made the other party hesitate for a long time, and finally he said very tangled:

"This is a history that only the listeners of the Holy Tree will be told, and a scar that Ravenwood Forest will never mention. But since you are the savior who will save Ravenwood again in the prophecy, at the same time You are also the leader of the Watcher's Tribunal, I think you are indeed qualified to know about this matter and know the truth of the year..."

So, on the winding road leading to the surface, Ebony told William about the piece that happened in Ravenwood Forest in the year 880 of the platinum calendar, two years after William's disappearance, and which has never been recorded in any official records. Things that have gone under the hood...

  …

   "Neh's legacy..."

   Time went back to the present. After hearing the other party's question, William recalled the history that Ebony told him earlier, and shook his head with a wry smile.

   "I knew that that guy would definitely leave behind some backhands for himself... It's impossible to leave Vic Continent in such a bleak state after being used by those scumbags..."

  William whispered to himself, then he looked up at the man in front of him and said:

   "Although I've noticed something from before, you're not actually alive, are you?"

   The woman who was still sitting on the Kurong Throne did not make a sound. After a moment of silence, she slowly took off her veil and carefully placed it on the armrest beside her.

  As the veil was taken off, the pale face of the other party was reflected in William's eyes, and the aura of "death" on the other party's body that could not be concealed like thick smoke was also reflected.

  Flalo Kane, the Duke of the Sacred Tree recognized by the Empire, the Lord of the Sacred Tree City, the Watcher of the Ravenwood Forest, the Chosen One of the Big Mother, the Lady of the Wild...

   The supreme ruler of Jade Province, who holds numerous prestigious titles, is actually an undead lich.

   This has to be said to be a great irony.

  The Lich Conversion Spell—a forbidden secret technique that originated in the Blackwater Marsh. Even the most enlightened wizards’ guild in dealing with necromancy at that time classified it as a non-spell because of its extreme evil.

  The caster separates his own soul from the body, seals it in an item called a "lifeguard", and uses the body controlled by the lifeguard to obtain false immortality.

Why is it false immortality? It is because the moment the body and soul are separated, the soul of the caster loses the possibility of reincarnation, and can only sew up his body that is increasingly riddled with holes by constantly plundering other beings in this world. Live with the soul, deformed.

  The body and soul of the lich will inevitably go to decay—the decay of the body needs to be replenished by devouring the fresh body; while the decay of the soul needs to be repaired by shredding and absorbing the soul that has not yet dissipated.

   As time goes by, the rate of decay of the two will be faster and faster, which means that the lich will need to plunder more and more body and soul, and the desire for the living will become stronger and stronger. Unless they enter eternal sleep, they will completely wear out all their rationality in a long time, and eventually become the undead disaster master who only plunders flesh and soul.

   Even more than a thousand years ago, in an era when undead magic was very open, people regarded the lich as an absolutely evil existence. And now, in Cuiyu Province, which hates undead magic the most, the Duke of Sacred Tree, the supreme leader, is actually a lich?

   This is as funny as the underground party lurking and finally becoming the boss of a hostile organization.

   to feel funny means it should never happen.

Even after a thousand years, the criteria for selecting forest druids in the City of the Holy Tree added a rule that only blind people were hired, and it was impossible for those druids to fail to discover that the person sitting on the Throne of Withered Glorious was a lich. .

   At least in theory.

but…

   "The spell you used to convert into a lich was an improved version left by Neh, right?"

   William continued to ask.

  Since the words were all for this sake, the other party nodded and admitted it very simply, and then said:

"I didn't expect that in addition to Rivenwood, Mr. Frost Witch also left his research results in the Blackwater Swamp. So you are the one who really controls the situation in Blackwater Province behind Vincent and Nezemar, right? No wonder you dare to Oppose the Empire with its own strength..."

   She said, looking up and down at the various accessories on William's body, as if waiting for the other party to take something off and reveal her own essence.

   It seemed that the other party mistook him for a senior brother who had gone out of the same school.

In fact, there is nothing wrong with this idea. After all, the people who have used [Anti-Entropy] in history, other than William himself, seems to be the only one who won the title of "Frost Witch" with this spell, and who claims to have explained all peak spells of Yeats. Of course, because there is no real eyewitness record, the academic community generally thinks that it is likely to be a joke.

  Frallo swept William back and forth several times, and even after using the "Eye of a God" again, he couldn't see the slightest hint of a necromancy on the other side, and asked very puzzled:

   "Since you are the inheritor of Mr. Frost Witch, why are you not a lich?"

   In this regard, William said:

   "What am I to put aside first, since it is confirmed that you are the one who got the Neh heritage, then I want to ask, or give you another chance."

"what chance?"

   the other party asked.

   "To buy everything including your loyalty, what price do I need to charge?"