Torres stood in the center of the fourth floor of the labyrinth, the piled-up corpses of monsters around him almost reaching his knees.
His skin was as pale as paper, completely drained of color. Bulging blue veins could be seen on his neck, but there was not the slightest pulse.
His eyes were hollow and lifeless, turned a murky grayish-black. They held no emotion, leaving only a beast-like bloodthirstiness and frenzy. Wet bloodstains hung at the corners of his mouth, and saliva dripped down his chin.
"Sir Torres!" Elara took a hesitant step forward,
"What happened to you? Wake up!"
But Torres showed no reaction. He only let out a low, hoarse growl from his throat, sounding like a broken bellows.
He abruptly turned his head, his grayish-black pupils locking onto Elara. His stiff body began to move. His movements were not agile, but they carried an unstoppable, brute force as he lunged toward her.
The greatsword in his hand was raised high!
Ye Chuan raised a hand to block him. An invisible shield instantly unfurled, stopping Torres's pounce.
With a muffled thud, Torres's greatsword smashed against the shield, stirring up a ripple. He himself was rebounded two steps back, staggering and crashing into the pile of monster corpses behind him!
Terrified, Elara quickly hid behind Ye Chuan, her small hands tightly gripping the hem of his clothes. "Teacher... how, how did he end up like this?"
"Let me take a look—"
Ye Chuan stared at the faint green light covering Torres, his eyebrows raising slightly. Back during their special training, before leaving, he had given him a Healing Blessing—
It could continuously repair physical damage.
"He isn't completely dead, nor is he alive," Ye Chuan said.
"He suffered a fatal wound, and his soul has already dissipated. However, the Healing Blessing I gave him was too overbearing. It forcibly kept his physical body functioning, turning him into a living corpse that moves solely on instinct."
"A, a living corpse?" Elara's eyes widened, looking at the Torres in front of her in disbelief.
That honest and simple holy knight, who had silently guarded Princess Irena, had actually turned into such a state.
Torres crawled up from the pile of corpses and lunged at the two again. His hands flailed wildly, his nails having become sharp and pitch-black, still stained with the minced meat of monsters.
His attacks were completely disorganized, yet they carried a fearless, suicidal madness. Every strike caused the shield to tremble slightly.
"The Healing Blessing was supposed to save his life, but I didn't expect it to become a torment instead."
Ye Chuan shook his head, a wisp of faint mana condensing at his fingertips. "Right now, he's just an empty shell controlled by mana. It's best to put him to rest."
"..." Elara was both afraid of the current Torres and saddened for the man he used to be.
Failing to break through after continuous attacks, Torres seemed to be enraged by Ye Chuan's shield. He abruptly took a step back, opened his mouth, and let out a deafening roar. The voice was no longer human, but rather carried the brutality of a monster.
"Stop." Ye Chuan raised his hand, and the mana shot precisely into Torres's chest.
That streak of mana didn't cause any damage. Instead, like a key, it instantly dismantled the residual Healing Blessing.
The faint green glimmer receded like the tide, and the violent aura around Torres vanished in an instant.
His movements stiffened, his grayish-black pupils gradually losing their luster. His body went limp and collapsed, crashing heavily onto the pile of corpses, never to move again.
His physical body began to rot rapidly, almost blending in with the surrounding monster corpses.
Elara covered her mouth.
"Sir Torres..."
"Such a good person..."
Ye Chuan patted her shoulder and said softly, "It was something that had to be done."
Elara looked at the corpse on the ground, who knew what she was thinking. "Should... should we give Sir Torres a proper burial?"
"A burial?" Ye Chuan walked over to Torres's corpse without even turning his head. "Why would we bury him?"
"Eh, eh? But Teacher, it wouldn't be right to just leave him unburied, would it?"
Torres died in the labyrinth without even a grave. Wasn't that too pitiful?
Was he going to be left to rest alongside the corpses of those monsters in the end?
"Why bury him?" Ye Chuan was puzzled.
"Can't we just resurrect him?"
Elara stared blankly for a few seconds, seemingly unable to process what he said. "?"
"Teacher, what did you just say?"
"Just resurrect him. It's no big deal, he just died, right?" Ye Chuan said as he started preparing materials.
"T-Teacher, you even know resurrection magic? You know that kind of legendary magic? Teacher, are you also a healer?"
"Resurrection, well, it requires a bit of a price," Ye Chuan said.
"The stronger the target of the resurrection, the higher the mana required—it might even cost the caster's life."
Elara froze for a moment, her eyes widening in disbelief. "Teacher! Are you planning to trade your own life for Sir Torres's life?!"
"Don't! Then I'd rather Sir Torres stay dead here!" Elara directly hugged Ye Chuan's waist.
"Teacher, don't do this!"
Before Elara could finish, she received a karate chop to the head from Ye Chuan.
"Ouch—"
"Who said anything about trading a life for a life? What is Torres's strength level, and what is mine? Do I need to risk my life to save him?" Ye Chuan said.
Only then did Elara realize.
That's right, Teacher's strength is so great, and Sir Torres is much weaker.
After preparing, Ye Chuan directly cast a resurrection spell on the rotting corpse—
"Teacher, while you chant the resurrection spell, I'll stand guard for you." Elara hugged her staff and stood solemnly to the side.
"Why would I need to chant?" Ye Chuan raised his hand, and the light array of the resurrection magic appeared out of thin air, directly enveloping Torres.
"C-Chantless?!"
Elara was truly dumbfounded this time.
It was one thing to cast ordinary magic chantlessly, but even resurrection magic could be cast chantlessly?
Was that even allowed?
Under the effect of the light array, Torres floated in the center of the formation. His rotting flesh reversed its decay at a speed visible to the naked eye.
First, the scattered bone fragments, guided by mana, rapidly gathered together like iron filings attracted to a magnet. A pale golden bone marrow fluid oozed from the broken stumps, and the crisp click-clack sound of the bones piecing themselves together was incredibly clear.
Super assembly!
Blood vessels, muscle tissues, skin, and so on began to recover in sequence. The entire process took no more than a dozen seconds. Torres returned to his original appearance, except he wasn't wearing his armor.
Looking at the completely naked Torres, Elara was startled and immediately covered her eyes.
"Well, his body has been resurrected, now he's just missing a soul." Ye Chuan could sense that Torres's soul was scattered all over the place.
Then, he took out the Human Emperor Banner.
"Come."
The Human Emperor Banner lit up, and the surrounding soul power turned into specks of light, madly surging into it!
"Done." Ye Chuan filtered out the parts that belonged to Torres, used a little soul power to repair them slightly, and directly stuffed them into the resurrected body.
"..."
"Ugh?" Not long after, Torres's eyelids twitched. He slowly opened his eyes, only to see Ye Chuan standing in front of him.
"Lord Xi Xi, where is this... what happened to me?"
"I'm putting this on your tab," Ye Chuan replied.
Torres: "?"
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
ap a wealthy young lady? Or else I'll be eliminated by the system? Ye Feng, who awakened the Kidnapper System, originally wanted to live a peaceful life but never imagined he would become a kidnapper of young women. However, after some time, he discovered that all the girls the system ordered him to kidnap were far from ordinary. "Big brother Ye Feng~ You've kidnapped my heart, and now you're not allowed to leave me ever again~" "Ye Feng~ You kidnapped me back then, now it's my turn to capture you♡" "Little Feng, you're mine! You can only be mine!" "Ye Feng, none of them deserve you. Only I love you the most♡" ... This is madness, they've all gone mad! Wait, what? Why are all the girls I kidnapped yanderes?!
to panic—he has a system. As long as an investment target dies, he can claim a reward. And since he is immortal, the one thing he has plenty of is time. ... Countless years later. “Immortal Emperor of Longevity? I invested in him.” “Supreme Celestial Venerable? I invested in him.” “Undying Empress? I invested in her.” “...” “Heh. Once they’ve all died, even the Heavenly Dao will have to kneel and call me Dad.”
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
