“No time to expin the details.” The lich pointed out towards a certain direction quite a distance away from their current location.

  Despite Xuangu Wenren’s cold face not expressing any exhaustion, the undying soldier can see that he was exerting himself too much, as instant-activation of the successive killer moves requires a complicated method that expends more resources than normal.

  Nevertheless, with a gnce, the undying soldier could deduce what should be done since he had experienced situations like this countless times before.

  ‘Flickering AT-Field, darkness, unknown lifeforms approaching the periphery…’ It muttered under his breath, “Timed Defense Objective… Understood!” With a strong galloup, his acceleration almost allowed him to reach the maximum speed of half the speed of sound despite only being a rank 1 Official.

  The immortal soldiers, the subordinate of Captain Varkov, were a staunch supplier of manpower in dire times of need. They were originally Legendary Magus serving under their Paragon captain, but after the downfall of the battleship that forces Mizuki to burn off his cultivation base, he used the soldier’s truesoul as ‘battery’ to extend his time. As of now, of the four hundred immortal soldiers, only twenty or so are usable, the rest were reduced to rank 0 apprentices that are stored permanently as soul balls in the phyctery until there were enough resources to revitalize them.

  Unlike the wraith that Mizuki didn’t care too much about since they are low-tier undead that can easily be replenished, Varkov’s Immortal Soldiers were true blue Human Imperium military personnel who have lost their life fighting for Holy Terra. Mizuki would rather mutite himself rather than allow a single one of them to experience true death, those veterans did not get resurrected only to experience true death because Mizuki required a ‘battery’ to sustain himself.

  Despite what had happened, out of the twenty immortal soldiers that still maintain rank 1 cultivation base, half of them are moved under the lich’s command, which signifies how dire Mizuki’s situation was.

  “Do this nine more times, and everything should be all good…” Xuangu Wenren wanted to follow his original pn, but a quick calcution indicated he had already expended 20% of the 1000 soul balls given by Mizuki. Each of these soul balls were the sealed truesoul of nyctors.

  The metric of calcution of soul cultivator is man souls. For them, becoming a rank 1 official requires to have at least 100-man soul foundation, signifying that each official soul cultivator has the soul strength of 100 man. Naturally, rank 1 non soul cultivators typically only have 10% of a soul cultivator’s foundation. This gap would usually widen further as their cultivation realm increases, but there are always exception

  In the case of the nyctor however, the biggest differentiators are the fact that they are swarm intelligence.

  The higher one’s soul foundation is, the stronger one’s ‘ego’. This would result in those who had stronger soul foundations to be incredibly resistant to mind control or ensvement methods that suppress one’s sense of self.

  Since the Nyctor Queen rely on its gestalt consciousness to mobilize its warriors, each of their members have a significantly weaker soul foundation, merely worth around 4 to 6-man worth of human souls despite the majority of them being equal to rank 1 creatures. With this baseline number, he was provided roughly 5000-man worth of souls, which was quite a fortune for soul cultivators, as souls are not only traded as ‘currency’, but also real cultivation resources.

  The fact that he has exhausted around 1250-man worth of souls in merely a few seconds indicates that he truly has squandered the resources he was provided. Although he has gathered around 700-man worth of souls from the herd of metal reptile beasts, he still spent quite a sum.

  Nevertheless, Xuangu Wenren persisted that it was worth it. If there was no time constraint, he was sure that it might cost less than 7% instead of 20% of his resources, but it’ll take him a significant amount of time, a unique resource that he severely cks.

  He really didn’t like the efficiency when he’s forced to assemble the undead machines by himself. He’d rather have someone prepare the materials, only leaving the assembling to him. But he has no time to dwell on this. Another group of lifeforms had already gotten too close to the periphery, he had to move on to the next location.

  After properly refined the souls of reptiles into soul balls and stored them into his soul gem, he faced the opposite direction of the departing immortal soldier and prepared his next killer move.

  “Rank 1 bone-path killer move, [Marrowstride Surge]!”

  Xuangu Wenren’s soul essence, the energy of soul cultivators, swirls and changes. In a split second, they turned into soul runes that engraved itself onto his calcified metal body. At this very instant, he could feel his body seemingly lighter than normal as the killer move is a movement-type method that ‘ignites’ the energy within his bones, rendering him the ability to move faster.

  Boom! His first step shattered the sound barrier. The second unched him into supersonic speed.

  With this acceleration, he was already engaging in his next battle before the centaur knight reached his foe. Weaponizing his momentum, Xuangu Wenren crossed his hands, bone bdes grew from his forearms just before impact

  His target was a colossal, serpent-like monstrosity.

  It was a massive creature, its body over four meters thick, its length stretching well past a hundred meters. Segments of its obsidian-bck scales were yered in rust-colored armor pting, encrusted with minerals and entwined by bck vines that pulsated like living muscuture. Its head was unmistakably serpentine, yet its jaws split in unnatural, multi-jointed ways, revealing a gaping maw teeming with root tendrils, hooked barbs, and phosphorescent mycelium.

  Its armor and tendrils were in constant motion, a shifting biome of bark-like growth and sinewy flora. This wasn’t a beast, it was a moving ecosystem with smaller insects visible crawling and hiding behind crevices. The serpent’s massive body was host to a tangled network of vines, fungi, carnivorous pnts and myriad of insects, all thriving symbiotically, devouring and sustaining in equal measure.

  Xuangu Wenren’s supersonic impact struck with the force of kinetic artillery. The armor cracked, chunks of rusted pting and bck scales shattered, peeled away. In a split second, the bck vines reacted, slithering over the damaged segment and constricting slightly. Beneath them, a faint pulsation hinted at a regenerative process already underway.

  Still, the attack had succeeded in halting the serpent’s advance on the broken dwarven vilge. Now, its massive, bioluminescent eyes that look more fungal and serpentine turned towards the half metal, half-bone lich who dared to challenge it.

  Skidded across the jagged terrain, molten sparks trailing behind his heels as he redirected the force of the rebound, parts of the metallic rocks have grown some bone spurs due to the proximity. His arms hung low, both bone bdes shattered from the sheer impact, jagged remnants twitching and crumbling to metallic dust as his skeletal nerves sent violent pulses through the fractures.

  His investigative method activates, gaining intel of the beast.

  ‘This rank 2 creature is a moving colony… rich of souls.’ In a split second, he made his decision.

  Crack! With a dry, splitting sound, new bone erupted from his forearms. Denser, sharper, honed by necessity and lust for killing. The growth wasn’t smooth, bony protrusions jutted from his back, like a skeletal crown beginning to form a spine of armor. Segmented ptes spiraled outward along his limbs, shaping into jagged pauldrons and carapace-like greaves, their edges serrated and asymmetrical. His ribcage widened unnaturally, reshaping itself as calcified armor repced portions of his original metal shell.

  The ground beneath his feet groaned, granules of iron sand slowly calcified. As he fully unleashed his intense bone-path radiation, it changed his surroundings and his mortal shell. He became less metal, more bone.

  The serpent recoiled with eerie grace, its armor still reforming, roots tightening like sinews around its wound. Pale spores drifted from the creature’s mycelium-ced maw, faintly glowing as they released soft hiss that hinted at corrosion or hallucinations. A surge of hallucinogenic neurotoxin bnketed over the area.

  Xuangu Wenren did not wait. The cloud of spores were useless against an undead whose physiology is no longer the realm of positive lifeform.

  Boom! He stomped once, the calcified soil cracked beneath his weight. His spine bent forward like a predator crouching to strike. Then, from the middle of his right finger, the bone began to twist and spiral, growing rger with a sickening, grinding sound.

  It wasn’t just a nce, it was a drill. The conical spiral of compacted bone yers rotates on itself, powered by marrow-threaded mechanism beneath the surface. The weapon pulsed faintly in pale light, alive, as if eager for blood.

  His transformation neared completion, from his shoulder bdes, ribbed spines jutted outward like antennae, and a yered helmet of bone formed over half of his skull, leaving one hollow eye socket exposed, still growing with eerie soulfire. From behind fragments of phanges clustered along his spine and shoulders like bone wings waiting to unfurl. Long, heavy spinal tail grew from his tailbone, jagged with razor sharp bone spurs.

  The lich has become an armored bone beast.

  With renewed lust for soul, the lich crouched low, very low, before surged forward once more.

  The distance between the bone beast and the serpentine creature vanished in a blink.

  He becomes a blur of ivory streaking across the dark battlefield.

  The serpent’s fetid breath coiled in luminescent spirals, a toxic fog of spores and neurotoxin. Xuangu Wenren surged through it unfazed, his fleshless physiology immune to the effect of all material poison in realspace.

  The drill-nce screamed as it spun faster, marrow piston churning deep within. The bone grind against air friction so intense it lit pale arcs of phosphorescent sparks along the ridges.

  GURR! The sickly sound of flesh being impaled by a drill resounded through the air as the weapon plunged into the serpent’s lower jaw, boring through rusted caparace and flesh as if through cy. The creature shrieked, not from its throat, but through the fungal growth ced along its body, releasing a cascade of spiritual attack that cracked the rocks and made even the undead lich falter momentarily.

  But Xuangu Wenren shrugged off the spirit attack in a split second.

  Utilizing his spine tail, he twisted his torso unnaturally while boring through the lower jaw, his bone limbs creaking with unnatural torque. The spiral nce tore upward in an arc, slicing through jaw, skull, and cranial growth. Toxic mycelium sprayed like blood. Vines spasmed, trying to stitch bone, flesh, and scale back together, but the weapon’s spin denied their effort. The rusted helm of the serpent split wide open.

  Then, with an unnatural speed, he wrenched his body sideways, beheading the monstrosity in an efficient manner. Fountain of toxic fumes surged from both ends, threatening to tch on the lich’s body, but a milky white light stopped the blood from its track.

  The head stuck the rocky slope with a massive thud, slowly sliding downhill and shearing off fungal growth like dead moss. Xuangu leaped, nded softly on top of the head. His armor twitching, bone vents across his shoulder release plumes of bone dust and marrow vapor.

  With ritual precision, he raised his nce-hand. The bones morphed, twisted into smaller, more efficient weapons for piercing. With a flick of his wrist, he impaled the serpent’s skull, pinning it into the earth like a trophy.

  The energy within the pike quickly spread along the corpse of the serpent, releasing gentle waves of radiation. It wasn’t heat, nor light, only a quiet calcifying death. The fleshy tendrils that once writhed with predatory hunger stiffened. The vibrant hues of fungus dulled to gray. The corpse was turning into bone inside out.

  The battlefield fell silent. Xuangu Wenren pondered for a moment.

  As a lich, he was extremely sensitive to souls. The calcified head of the serpent is proof that it was already dead, yet the soul yield from killing it was less than expected.

  Then, a faint but undeniable sound stirred behind him. Tilting his head back, he understood.

  The headless corpse twitched. Vines recoiled in spasms. Fungal network shimmered. Then, from the torn neck stump, something pulsed. It was not blood, not spores, but vines,

  “A Native Lord of this world is truly something that Holy Terra has no comparison to. The durability of metal-path, and the lifeforce of wood-path. So which one are you?” Xuangu Wenren inquired rhetorically. “No, wait… the metal-path serpent lord is already dead before I kill it, you are just a parasite.”

  Realizing his foe hasn’t finished, Xuangu Wenren’s desire for sughter reignited as he put his hands onto the calcified head of the serpent. The pale corpse shuddered, its bone mass visibly decreasing as Xuangu Wenren’s form began to add more yers of armor.