Undead Body!

Hather was in shock, but that arrogant statement from Paul roused his focus once again. As he broke out of his daze, rage immediately came over him. He had no idea how this villager's body could be so strong, but this did not mean that he, as a magic user, had no chance against the villager!

"Don't get too cocky! You only managed to land a cheap shot because you took him by surprise! I won't make the mistake!" Hather retreated quickly as the soldiers opened a gap for him to pass through, then covered the gap back up and stood in front of him as guards.

At this moment, even though the soldiers were acting according to their usual battle plan, all of them frowned as they tightened their grips around their sword hilts in worry. They could tell that this villager standing before them was obviously really strong! At least, no one here stood a chance against him if they were to fight him alone. In fact, they might not even be able to beat him by fighting together!

All of them subconsciously turned their glances towards Hither, who was groaning in pain as he slowly pushed himself up from the ground.

At least he was not too injured to move, that meant they stood a much greater chance!

With that thought in mind, they started to feel more confident again, focusing their sights back on Paul. Like the disciplined regime that they were, all of them steadily held their swords in front of them at the exact same angle, prepared to deal with the opponent ahead.

"Cocky? Who is cocky? You speak like you superior, but look now!" Paul's face was completely serious as he drew his own sabre.

Paul had been honing his combat capabilities against animals for months, but this was the first time he had faced humans. Even so, he was not feeling nervous at all. Instead, he was extremely curious about how this improved body of his would fare against trained soldiers and magic casters of this world.

"Ice Javelins!"

Under the cover of the soldiers, Hather made the first move without further warning! The air in front of Hather started to twist and formed into the shape of 3 long javelins, each around 2 metres long. The temperature around them suddenly dropped slightly as frost vapour started to condense around the 3 javelins, transforming them into ice spikes as they completely solidified.

The ice javelins then shot out in a flash, flying over the soldiers and straight down at Paul!

Instead of blocking again, Paul stepped forward into the attack! However, he never intended to take the attack head on. With a slight tilt of his body, he just barely avoided one of the ice javelins. In fact, it was so close that his body actually touched the thicker end of the javelin as it flew past him and struck the ground.

It might seem like a stroke of luck, but it was all instantly calculated in his head the moment he saw the javelins approach!

The trajectory of the ice javelins, the speed at which it is moving, even the rate at which it was gaining speed, every factor was considered before the solution was formed in the head of the previous genius engineer. And now, he no longer only had a good brain!

He now possessed an even better physical body to keep up with his thoughts!

With unreal efficiency, Paul quickly ducked downwards and evaded a second javelin. But still, it was impossible for him to evade all 3 ice javelins.

With a swing of his sabre, he cut down towards the last of the javelins. He had no idea how strong these javelins were, but if they were as strong as the magic fists from before, he had nothing to fear!

Even so, he was not taking any chances.

The worst thing that could happen was for him to hold back on his strength and end up heavily injured by an unexpectedly strong power behind this javelin!

With a loud clap, the collision shattered the ice javelin into hundreds of pieces. Seeing that, the soldiers felt that what was being shattered into hundreds of pieces was their own confidence instead!

How was this villager this strong? He avoided two ice javelins, then crushed the last one with a single swing of his sabre. Was that really humanly possible? Perhaps only warriors of the General rank and above in the Noc Empire were capable of overcoming the ice javelins with such ease!

"Is this it?" Paul was rather pleased at the moment, but he took care not to let it show, putting on as much of a poker face as he could.

He realised that his strength was at a rather acceptable level now. These people in front of him were probably just low level mob in the game. He figured that if the animals in the forest were at level 1 out of 100, these people would probably be at around level 5. If he could not get rid of them easily even after a year of farming, then his method of playing this virtual game must have been wrong!

Even so, he was in no hurry to get rid of these opponents. This was his first exposure to magic casters after all, how could he not try to glean some answers from the group in front of him?

But in contrast to his rational thoughts, Hather was almost about to have a mental breakdown! His Ice Javelins was a spell that was a tier higher than Hither's, yet it was broken with similar ease. This villager in front of him wasn't even taking heavy breaths after that, as if it was all nothing special in his eyes!

"Hather, there's something wrong with this guy!" Hither called out from behind after picking himself up from the ground.

"Hither?" Hather turned his attention back to his partner, looking to hear what he had to say.

"I can feel it using my Necrolace, it's as if his entire body is a container for a large amount of death energy. It's like…he's an undead!" Hither shouted out as a warning.

"What?" Hather frowned upon hearing that.

The Necrolace was a necklace that the duo managed to stumble upon in an ancient mystic ruin a year ago. At that time, all they felt was an overwhelming power being emanated from the ancient necklace that was secured in the deepest depths of the mystic ruin. But after they retrieved the Artifact from the ruin with much pain, they slowly grew to realise that it had an unmatched capability of manipulating death energy!

With that, they started to study the class of death magic, hoping to achieve a breakthrough in their magic level. Although they still had not managed to learn much about the proper usage of the Necrolace, they had at least managed to learn its ability to detect death energy.

This was also the reason why they rushed over to the village the moment they heard about the strange phenomenon occurring here.

But why would the Necrolace detect traits of an undead from this villager? Could it be that he had held onto his own death Artifact for so long that the death energy emitted had already begun to transform his body?

If that was so, then they would have to completely change their way of fighting! After all, fighting an undead required a different strategy from fighting a living person.

But first, they had to ascertain if his body had truly transformed into that of an undead by now. The easiest way would be to inflict any wounds on him. Since an undead's heart does not beat, blood does not get pumped to all parts of his body. This meant that when inflicted with a wound, his bleeding would be very minimal, if any at all.

However, had he not been trying to injure him? The problem was that this villager was too fast and managed to evade his attacks!

"Get him together!" Hather quickly ordered as he gathered his mana for another attack.

The soldiers hesitated for a moment, but regained their senses quickly and charged forward into battle. From behind them, ice javelins and magic fists flew in as support as well. Hither had already recovered enough to rejoin the battle!

Looking at all the attacks rushing towards him, Paul subconsciously focused his senses which had been honed over the past year. He was no longer the inexperienced office worker who did not even know how to covertly approach a wild boar like when he first came. Now, he was perfectly capable of appreciate his surroundings, making split second decisions with every change that occurred.

Setting off towards his side, he started sprinting as fast as he could, trying to go around the soldiers and approach the backline where Hither and Hather were. Ice javelins and magic fists hit the ground where he was, but the attacks did not stop even after the first wave missed. More projectiles followed in his trail, crushing the ground as he ran around the group.

"Form up! Don't let him pass us!" one of the soldiers immediately realised what he was trying to do and shouted out.

He was much faster than everyone else, but at the same time he had to cover a far larger distance than the soldiers who were shuffling to guard the duo known as Wizard Mirror.

Paul quickly realised that this was going nowhere. These soldiers were too well trained and positioned themselves perfectly between him and the two magic users. While he was confident that his stamina could outlast the soldiers if he kept running, who knew how long that would take?

Making his decision quickly, Paul made a sharp turn and charged straight towards the nearest soldier!

Shocked by the sudden offensive, the poor soldier was one second too late to react.

The sabre in Paul's hands buried itself right into the soldier's exposed face, completely slicing his nose in half as it cut itself in. The soldiers died instantly as his brain was crushed, and Paul did not bother spending more time on him anymore.

Paul quickly retrieved his sabre and buried his sabre in the head of the next soldier, then the next. Every hit struck at the faces of the soldiers. They were donning full body armour after all, and Paul was not taking any chances by trying to break through the armour. After all, why bother when their faces were exposed?

Even though the soldiers were in battle mode, they completely could not keep up with Paul's speed! Paul skirted in and out of the group, dodging the projectiles flying his way as he slayed the soldiers one by one.

At this time, he could see the death energy emitted from the dead soldiers. It was multiple times more than those emitted by the animals that he hunted! Indeed, his previous hypothesis that humans might give more death energy was true! Since this is the case, he would definitely have to make full use of this group in front of him!

However, just as he was getting ready to welcome the death energy into his body, a powerful suction force dragged every bit of death energy in the air towards Hither!

What? Others can snatch this death energy from me? But I drew the Grim Reaper card!

Paul froze for a moment in indignation as his line of sight followed the stream of death energy that was swiftly absorbed into the black gem pendant at the tip of the necklace hanging around Hither's neck. It was the Necrolace that absorbed all the death energy emitted!

This time, it was his moment of hesitation that costed him, as his left arm got completely amputated by a full swing from a soldier's sword!

Everyone's eyes opened up wide. The villagers' in rage, the soldiers' in excitement, the magic users' in surprise, and Paul's in confusion.

He was initially shocked as he felt his arm fly off, but then another fact hit him even harder. He still felt no pain even when the injury was this serious? This was some serious benefit that the game was giving to him!

Even so, he knew that he could not afford to get distracted anymore. After all, if his other arm were to be taken out as well, was he supposed to bite them to death?

Not that he had never done so before, but he would like to avoid doing something that uncouth if possible!

Before the solder could cheer about his accomplishment of successfully injuring his enemy, a sabre pierced straight into his face, merciless ending his joy prematurely.

"He's not bleeding! Undead body!" Hither shouted out immediately.

"Defense!" all the soldiers warily took a few steps back as they took up defensive postures.

Even the villagers who were about to charge forth after seeing their Holy Messenger got his arm cut off stopped in their tracks.

Only a select few in the village, including the village chief, the old female doctor, and the two lookouts on the first night, knew about Paul's state when he first arrived covered in wounds that did not bleed. Everyone else had simply accepted the words of the elders and the chief, believing wholeheartedly when they announced Paul as the Holy messenger. So they were all shocked as they saw Paul nonchalantly continue fighting despite being inflicted with such a wound.

In addition, the wound was not spurting blood like it was supposed to! Could it be that these outsiders were right? That their Holy Messenger was an undead? Then hadn't it been really dangerous for them this past year?

Who knew when he would suddenly go crazy and go on a killing spree! Come to think of it, didn't he look to be enjoying himself as he killed these soldiers?

Paul was unfazed, and started towards the soldiers who were all poised defensively. There were less than half of them left, and even without one arm he didn't feel like he would lose.

Just then, a powerful frost aura originating from behind the soldiers caused ripples through the air. Clothes fluttered violently as pulses of shockwaves almost pushed everyone back. A huge fist shaped figure formed in the air, as big as a house. The frost aura that surrounded it showed just how much it had been imbued with powers of the frost element.

Hither and Hather had finally channelled their mana together for a combined attack!

"With this, we will completely crush your body into mash! Even if you are an undead, you will no longer be able to move after this! Take our strongest attack, Fist of the Frozen Giant!"

Well prepared for it, the soldiers grinned as they ducked downwards, providing a straight path for the giant fist to charge straight at Paul!