End of the Magic Era

"Sir Merlin, help! It's truly not my fault. I've been set up! You must trust me! I've been set up…"

The Heaven Rank expert was weeping like a kid that had been bullied. Lin Yun was quite lost for words.

"Alright, Sir Morgan, can you get back to your feet?"

After Lin Yun said that, Morgan finally wiped his face with his robe, and stood up in embarrassment. He looked at the empty space rings that Marianna was holding, but didn't say another word.

Morgan didn't dare to say anything. His uncle, that old mage, remained silent too. He stood aside in shock, with surprise in his eyes.

It hasn't been long since we last met, yet Sir Merlin is already in level 6. He's truly unimaginable.

Besides his exceptional personal strength, his expertise in alchemy is terrifying too. The Gilded Rose has already exceeded the Henry Family by a lot in terms of power and number of branches.

I'm told that Sir Merlin is very close to the deans of the Starry Sky College too. It's possible that he will turn into a Saint Alchemist soon.

He's truly a terrifying man. The idiots of the Seiro Family claimed that he was a lone mage. Their eyesight is just as poor as their strength. The members of the family who haven't been killed yet should be prepared for the Henry Family's revenge!

Examining his body, Lin Yun glanced at Morgan, who looked quite pitiful.

"Tell me, what happened?"

Now that Lin Yun had personally asked him, Morgan could only reply honestly.

"The Seiro Family was originally a small family from the Sten Kingdom. It recently came to us and wanted to pledge loyalty to the Henry Family. Naturally, we accepted them without thinking.

"Nobody expected this to happen. That bastard told me that there was a perfect lich transformation ritual in an alchemy journal they found, but it was looted by a lone mage, and they wanted me to help.

"There's no way that the dark mages of the Henry Family would let go of a flawless lich transformation ritual. I didn't think much and simply came along. However, that idiot set me up…"

Lin Yun thoughtfully nodded.

"Did they reach out to you after the incident on the Leviathan Plane happened?"

Shocked, Morgan nodded obediently.

"Indeed. They didn't volunteer to pledge loyalty to the Henry Family until we came to the Leviathan Plane. They also voluntarily went to the frontline to fight for Noscent…"

Lin Yun frowned and considered the connection.

"Are there a lot of undead mages in his family?"

Morgan seemed completely shocked.

"Yes. There are only undead mages and frost mages in his family. Also, even the leader of the family was an undead mage too. None of us thought there was anything wrong when they wanted to pledge loyalty to the Henry Family that has a lot of dark mages…"

Immediately, Lin Yun inferred what happened.

Someone had most likely completed the lich transformation ritual in the journal, and offered their everything to the Bloody Lich. Such an offering could be terrifying.

Besides vitality, mana, and soul, their memories, personality, and understanding would be offered to the Bloody Lich too. When the Bloody Lich didn't control them, they would behave exactly the same as before, but there would be a mark in their soul that ensured their loyalty to the Bloody Lich.

So, there had surely been a hidden lich that concocted inside the Seiro Family.

After the people of the Seiro Family completed the ritual, a lot of the dark mages in the Henry Family would be transformed into liches too. Then, the Henry Family would be controlled by the hidden liches.

Then, they would spread from the Henry Family, and gradually corrupt other forces…

Lin Yun felt that his back was cold at the thought of that. The Bloody Lich didn't just want one victory or the Leviathan Plane. He had a greater purpose…

Lin Yun had thought that the Bloody Lich intended to create a lich squad in the Leviathan Plane, and rally an army of the undead. He realized that he underestimated the Bloody Lich.

The Bloody Lich didn't have such a plan at all. Rather, he planned to directly control the human forces.

As long as an internal conflict was raised, some experts would be killed and transformed into undead creatures. When they were gathered, then nobody could stop the Leviathan Plane from being swallowed.

Furthermore, with the help of the traitors, it wouldn't be difficult for the army to march into Noscent after the Leviathan Plane was swallowed.

Lin Yun tossed the original journal to Morgan.

"This is the journal you were looking for. Try it, if you've got the balls."

Morgan was quite stunned to acquire the journal so easily. He thought for a moment, and quickly returned it to Lin Yun. He didn't know what Lin Yun meant, but he knew that the journal was certainly not good…

"Sir Merlin, what exactly is going on?"

Lin Yun put away the journal, and sneered, "A perfect transformation ritual without flaws? Is there any idiot who actually believes that? If there were such a ritual, then why is none of the liches of the Plane of the Undead invulnerable?"

Morgan was a bit confused and disappointed, but he knew that it was likely the case.

"Isn't there the rumor that some lich kings of the Plane of the Undead are invulnerable and cannot be killed?"

Lin Yun glanced at him as if he were an idiot.

"Do you actually believe that? If any lich kings of the Plane of the Undead were invulnerable and couldn't be killed, they would've already dominated the Plane of the Undead. The other undead creatures would've been eliminated!

"Even the lich kings have their phylacteries too, except that most people cannot find where their phylacteries are kept. Even if they do, they won't be able to touch them unless they're strong enough.

"Those lich kings obediently acknowledged a skeleton as their monarch. You think they want that? It's only because the monarch is capable of killing them completely!"

Hearing that even the lich kings couldn't get rid of their fates, Morgan abandoned the pursuit. After all, Lin Yun didn't have a reason to claim the journal. He was already level-6 Heaven Rank before he reached 100 years old. He had great potential, and he was probably only studying the ritual.

"Sir Merlin, what exactly is this journal?"

Morgan shook his head, but wasn't too disappointed. He never wanted to transform into a lich anyway, and was only getting the journal for the old mages in his family. It shouldn't be difficult for them to transform into liches even without the journal.

Lin Yun didn't explain his speculation in detail. He simply reminded Morgan, "This is not a lich transformation ritual at all, but a sacrifice ritual. Although you will indeed transform into a lich without a phylactery in the end, you will no longer be yourself. Everything you have, including your soul, mana, life, memories, and understanding, will be offered to a lich king. You will turn into the lich king's puppet or clone.

"You'd better be vigilant when you encounter undead mages…"

Morgan seemed to have been reminded of something. He nodded in silence with an awful expression.

"Sir Merlin, there has been no news of you since the beginning of the war in the Leviathan Plane. The situation on the frontline doesn't look good. Gandaph is already there. It's said that he's gathered a lot of powerful alchemists, and he's looking for you.

"Sir Faleau of the Gilded Rose didn't know anything about you. Nobody knew where you were, and couldn't reach out to you. I've been back from the frontline for more than half a month. I don't know the details now.

"A lot of experts perished half a month ago, even including a level-7 Heaven Rank expert…"

Lin Yun's expression changed, and he frowned.

"Even a level-7 Heaven Rank expert died? How exactly did such a strong man perish? Did any level-8 or level-9 undead experts take action?"

It was very difficult for the level-7 Heaven Rank experts to die, unless they were much weaker than their opponents. For those on level 7 of the Heaven Rank, they had such a great understanding of laws that they would only get wounded in battles, and would unlikely die. They had truly mastered laws, and were unlike those in level 5 of the Heaven Rank, who had just passed the threshold.

Such strong mages could hardly be killed. In a life-and-death crisis, they could unleash 10 times their own strength at the cost of their soul power to survive. They could completely recover after a long time of rest.

If an expert of such a level had died, the greatest possibility was that a level-48 or level-49 undead creature took action.

Morgan shook his head, with fear glittering in his eyes.

"No, it was just a level-47 skeleton king. When the skeleton king appeared on the frontline, the expert who had grasped the law of light fought him. Nobody considered it a challenge.

"After the battle was over, the skeleton king escaped, and the light mage died three days later. He didn't even have a complete body…

"I don't know about the details, but I know that a plague has appeared on the frontline since then. Because of that, we pulled back our frontline by 2,000 kilometers…"

Lin Yun was solemn and silent. A level-7 Heaven Rank light mage versus a level-47 skeleton king. Anyone would've thought that the result of the battle would be obvious.

Light mages were always best at survival and causing damage in battles against the undead. Their Holy Healing could easily burn a low-level undead creature to ashes.

However, the skeleton king somehow escaped, and the light mage died from the plague three days later. What plague could a level-7 Heaven Rank light mage have contracted?

Nothing except the power of the Lord of Plague could've affected such a light mage. Light mages were strongly resistant to plagues in the first place. When plagues burst out in some places in Noscent, other low-level mages might not dare to approach, but a Magic Apprentice who was familiar with light spells would dare to pass through.

Morgan didn't really know much, but Lin Yun was already able to speculate what was going on on the frontline.

The Bloody Lich was causing trouble in the rear. Then, who was acting on the frontline?

The Bloody Lich certainly didn't have the power of killing a level-7 Heaven Rank light mage with a plague.

"Why did we stop after retreating 2,000 kilometers? The undead creatures didn't take the chance to break through our defense line?"

The undead creatures shouldn't have let go of such a great opportunity. Something wasn't right about human beings' retreat, unless level-8 or level-9 experts were deployed.

However, if the experts on such a level took action, the war would be out of control. Noscent couldn't afford a total war against the Plane of the Undead just yet.

Morgan grinned.

"It's because the stupid undead creatures were too busy fighting amongst each other after they had some advantage. There's an army of ghouls that are the craziest. They bit anyone they saw. They started the internal conflicts first.

"The Mesomiya Plain, which is the point of contact between the Leviathan Plane and the Plane of the Undead, is only 5,000 kilometers wide and 7,000 kilometers long. Half a month ago, we only had the last two kilometers. If we lost them, the army of the undead creatures would march forward, and we would lose the war.

"Fortunately, the stupid undead creatures didn't know any of that. They only fought for their own interests, which gave us an opportunity to breathe…"

Hearing what Morgan said, Lin Yun put on a weird expression.

The overlapping area was known as the Mesomiya Plain by human beings, and Dirty Blood by the undead creatures. It was almost the flattest land in the Leviathan Plane. Lin Yun had no doubt that one particular short ghoul was in the army of ghouls.

He didn't have a lot of time to brainwash Emir, but Emir had still made greater contributions than he had expected…

Some of the smart undead creatures knew that as long as they occupied the entrance and marched on, human beings would fail. However, Emir was there to stir trouble. If he just bit any random undead creatures, then they would surely attack the obnoxious ghouls, not considering the big picture at all…

Then, in the end, the ghouls would surely fight each other…

After the trip to the Plane of the Undead, Lin Yun realized that different undead creatures could attack each other easily if they weren't from the same race.

A battle might break out between a zombie and a skeleton just because of eye contact. The conflicts of undead creatures and dark creatures were even fiercer. They would surely explode when anyone instigated trouble.

Morgan remarked on the undead creatures' stupidity, but Lin Yun felt lucky that he had brainwashed Emir, who surely thought that he wouldn't get things he wanted until he claimed all the land.

After learning about the situation on the frontline, Lin Yun summoned magic battleships, and moved to the frontline quickly. He had sent a magic letter to Gandaph, but received no reply, which gave him a bad feeling.

While he was underway, Lin Yun tried reaching out to Gandaph again, but to no avail. He tried contacting Agalon. There was no response, either. At this moment, his feeling got worse and worse.

Opening his Natural Demiplane, he released all the recently manufactured magic battleships that were designed for wars inside a plane. Three of them were second-generation models, and the rest were first-generation models. All of them were controlled by alchemy puppets. The magic battleships even had puppet cores themselves, and were in a way gigantic and clumsy alchemy puppets that needed other puppets' help.

All the 30 magic battleships marched to the frontline dauntingly.

While they were on their way, Lin Yun sent Xiusi to investigate the overlapping area, and was slightly relaxed at the result.

The overlapping space was caused by the collision of the two planes. So far, the aftermath of the collision lingered, making the area much more unstable than normal space.

It was only possible to make use of level-7 Heaven Rank power in the Mesomiya Plain. Any greater power might cause uncontrollable changes to the space that hadn't calmed down yet.

The most likely result was that the channel between the Leviathan Plane and the Plane of the Undead would collapse. The Plane of the Undead was too big to be scared of such a destructive catastrophe. The worst possibility was that Dirty Blood would be destroyed in the Leviathan Plane. However, the undead creatures would lose the opportunity to take control of a new territory.

If the space collapsed, the Leviathan Plane would probably be destroyed. Even if it weren't completely destroyed, the disaster would continue for many years. The stable environment in the Leviathan Plane would be ruined, and the Leviathan Plane would embrace doom.

There might be consequences for Noscent too. Nobody was certain whether any disasters would happen to Noscent when the Leviathan Plane was destroyed, because they were so close.

At least, Lin Yun knew that when Noscent came to an end, its destruction was postponed for tens of thousands of years because of the Shelter Tower, but the planes that were attached to Noscent were destroyed earlier. All of them were destroyed one after another during the tens of thousands of years.