Chapter 37: Thousand Souls Head!
A bountiful harvest festival is still ongoing.
In just half a day, the harbor of Modo City has become overstuffed. All the oak barrels that could be gathered have been used up, and finally, the excess catch has to be piled directly on the vacant land at the dock. The officials of Modo City are now starting to worry about how to preserve these catches, ultimately having no choice but to ask the priests and wizards of the Temple to set up a magic circle to store them at a relatively low temperature. Later, when they really had no other options, they could only let the catches pile up and send people to gather salt to make some salted fish for now.
The air above Modo Harbor is filled with the smell of fish.
Now everyone can only endure this pain and joy together. After all, such a bountiful harvest occurs only once or twice a year.
The Ocean Temple is the big winner in this migration of fish.
For a long time, the Ocean Temple has been suppressed by the Temple of Wealth in the competition at Modo Harbor, as the opponent is simply much wealthier. However, today the situation has dramatically reversed; the number of people making offerings at the Ocean Temple has surged, with many going to donate and pray to express gratitude for the blessings of the Ocean Goddess. Thinking back to the grim face of Priest Gold, the Naga Priestess in charge of the Ocean Temple can’t help but smile. She is now filled with ambition to use this opportunity to completely overshadow the Temple of Wealth.
Everything is still busy.
However, after the massive school of fish passed about ten kilometers outside Modo Harbor, small changes began to occur.
The school of fish started to split.
This time, the migrating school of fish is different from previous years; last year’s migrations mostly consisted of a single species, and even when there were signs of confluence, there weren’t many species of sea fish. But this time, almost every kind of fish seems to have passed through Modo City during this period.
However!
After passing Modo City, these fish began to change.
The foremost school of fish split into three streams, one continuing toward the Amazon rainforest, another heading south to the sea, and the last one continuing on in a straight line.
It all seems like a tremendous force is controlling the school of fish, forcing them all to pass by Modo City.
Then these fish began to migrate along their original route.
………………
In the Death Desert, underground ruins.
What has happened in Modo City is not enough for Gloria to use magic to send a message. He is currently busy looting the treasure vault of the Demigod Lich.
All the books must be taken away.
Any valuable experimental tools must also be taken. The bizarre organs from the undead experiments should be left behind.
These things are too disgusting.
Soren spent over an hour tidying up. At this time, most of the laboratory space had been emptied.
“Where is the Thousand Souls Head?”
Soren stood in front of the experimental table, frowning, and murmured, “Isn’t this thing nearby?”
Generally speaking, such legendary monsters formed from countless twisted souls possess a hint of divinity. Soren would never turn down divinity; finding and killing the Thousand Souls Head is a very meaningful task.
After confirming that there couldn’t be a Thousand Souls Head in this area, Soren prepared to return to the previous level.
Before him stood a strange soul boiler.
After some thought, Soren sealed the souls within using divine power. He also took a sample back. This object is often used by evil deities to extract souls and create powerful minions, and he could take it back for some research. Many death gods with insufficient strength in their foundations use this kind of boiler to extract excellent souls, finally transforming these souls into their own death god minions.
Death gods typically cannot handle everything personally; what mortals see holding a huge scythe are all death god minions.
Soren took a tour around the underground ruins and cleaned up a few skeletal undead along the way.
Finally.
He found a clue in a dim passage, as faint sounds of tortured wails from souls emanated from within.
“It should be here.”
Soren cautiously empowered himself with spells and then turned invisible to enter.
An empty hall.
In front of him are many piles of bones, and directly ahead is a huge furnace. Or should it be called a fireplace? There is no fuel inside, just a pile of bones underneath, and eerie blue flames are flickering within. The wails of countless undead can be faintly heard. Surrounding the walls is a large sealing magic circle, and the ground features a nine-pointed star array; all of these should have been left by the Demigod Lich.
“Soul furnace?”
Soren glanced around and confirmed the object before him—it should be the legendary soul furnace.
The Thousand Souls Head is inside.
Soren can feel a powerful undead aura; the Demigod Lich has sealed the soul furnace in some way and continued to extract divine energy from within, likely coming from the Thousand Souls Head or the soul furnace itself.
“I must break the seal first!”
Soren swung his blade and struck the wall. As the sealing magic circle was destroyed by divine power, a piercing scream erupted instantaneously.
Black mist filled the air.
Countless ghostly flames ignited on the surrounding bones, finally converging in front of the soul furnace to form a twisted monster with an indistinct humanoid outline made up of countless undead.
——“Thousand Souls Head!!!”
As the Thousand Souls Head gathered, a line of data wildly appeared:
“Influenced by [Fear Aura]!…”
“Passed the will saving throw!… You are immune to the negative effects of this aura!…”
“Influenced by [Chaos Aura]!…”
“Saving throw failed!… All your saving throws within the range of this aura are reduced by 2!…”
………………
The Thousand Souls Head.
As the name suggests, it is a monster twisted from over a thousand souls. Such creatures often possess extreme chaotic will; even if a powerful consciousness dominates the body, it will still be influenced by the other constituting souls.
Two aura domains.
Soren’s expression grew serious as he swiftly activated his Shadow Plane and Killing Domain, then summoned divine power to strike down with a blade.
Divine power must not be saved!
Soren has already prepared to temporarily exhaust all his divine power because the Thousand Souls Head is a being that exists between incorporeal and corporeal; it possesses a 50% chance to phase dodge any physical attack.
Any physical attack only has a 50% hit rate against it.
But that’s not the worst part; even more concerning is that the Thousand Souls Head, as a high-level vengeful spirit, has extremely high resistance and save capabilities against any spell attack.
It belongs to that rare type of monster that has dual resistances as a baseline!
To deal with such a monster, neither physical nor spell attacks are very effective; only divine-level power can deal real damage.
……………… (To be continued ~^~)
