Chapter 131: The reward that was promised

The moment the Necromancer perished, an unthinkable scene unfolded.

The vast army of the dead consisting of hundreds of thousands of undead of every shape and horror suddenly froze in place.

The eerie glow burning in the sockets of every undead dimmed before flickering out one by one. Then, without a sound, their bodies began to crumble with loud creaking sounds.

Bones turned to gray ash, skeleton warriors and mages meeting their ends.

Rotting flesh withered into dust, signifying the end of countless reanimated corpses that were like soulless husks.

Weapons, armor, and undead alike collapsed into nothingness.

Watching what just happened, Ray guessed that they couldn’t survive without their creator.

Had he known that before hand, he wouldn’t have bothered to drive the Army of the Dead away from the Great Wall before killing the Necromancer.

A few notifications rang in his ears as both the Necromaner and his army met their ends at his hands.

♦️ You have slain a Peak Bronze Rank Master of the Dark Arts. You have gained several thousand experience points.

♦️ You have gained an additional few hundred thousand experience points for ridding the world of a great scourge and his army.

A faint, satisfied smile curved his lips as he glanced at the system interface.

His total experience had skyrocketed to two million points. He could level up Muri and Fairy Trixie multiple times with that.

“All that effort really paid off.” He exhaled softly.

“Master, did I do good?” the flying serpent asked.

Ray looked up and saw it staring at him like a dog begging to be praised.

“You did alright,” he said.

Actually, he was pretty satisfied with its performance as even he knew he wouldn’t have pulled off such a clean assassination if the Flying Serpent hadn’t played its part perfectly.

It was its first time acting, but it was surprisingly good at fooling others. It had deceived a master of the dark arts — one renowned for his cunning in this part of Veloria — straight to his death. Perhaps it was born to con others!

Upon being praised, it grinned. Grinning from ear to ear made it look sillier than before. But its happiness was justified.

’Master’s satisfied,’ it thought. ’My life wouldn’t come under threat anytime soon.’

This was exactly what it had hoped to achieve when it bravely used itself as bait to lure the Necromancer into a trap that ultimately cost him his life.

Its loyalty laid with no one. It just had a strong attachment to life, and since Ray was in complete control over its life, it did things for him that it wouldn’t even do for itself!

“It’s here.”

Ray’s eye glinted as the silhouette of a massive stone monument appeared before him.

Words flashed on it.

“Congratulations, Honourable Seeker! You have safeguarded the Great Wall from being destroyed by the Three Great Terrors of the Misty Swamp Region, foiling the plan of the Bloodsuckers. You have completed the fourth and final challenge of the fifth sector’s trial. You will now be rewarded.

♦️ You have gained +50,000 Enlightenment Points.

♦️ You cleared the fifth sector before your peers. You have gained an additional reward. It will be handed over to you when you return to the Main Hub.”

Another line of text flashed on the stone monument.

♦️ “You will now be warped back to the Main Hub.”

The space overhead shattered like glass. A tiny rift appeared, growing bigger and bigger until it was large enough for a man to go through. Then a light fell out of it. It was golden in color, its radiance blinding, like sunlight reflecting off a pile of gold bricks stacked into a pyramid.

The moment the light fell on Ray, he was lifted off the ground and pulled toward the rift in the clouds.

Ray immediately looked down. His gaze met the Flying Serpent.

“Get inside the palace! Hurry, or you’ll be left behind!” he willed, and an entrance to the Monster Palace appeared next to the Flying Serpent.

Be left behind? The mere thought sent shivers down its spine. After all, that might just lead to its death.

You see, it was in a pretty sticky situation. It had offended the Bloodsuckers to stay alive, and there was no place for it in the army of men and their allies.

It couldn’t seek refuge in the Alliance of the Three, and the Bloodsuckers were thirsty for its blood. It had no safe place left in Veloria.

The Flying Serpent wasn’t blind to the urgency of the situation.

The only hope of survival lay with Ray. It had to stick with him like a leech if it wanted to continue living. Not to mention, its entire tribe was with him. The safest place for it to be from now on was by his side.

It shot straight into the entrance that had appeared close to it, shouting, “Let me out as soon as you can! I have something important to tell you!”

The Flying Serpent vanished into the Monster Palace just before Ray was sucked into the rift and warped back to the Main Hub.

“Ray.” A well-dressed man in a tuxedo walked up to him as soon as he appeared in the Main Hub.

“Floor Manager,” Ray called out.

“You did better than I expected in the last challenge of the fifth sector.”

As Arthis spoke in a voice trembling with excitement, he placed a firm hand on Ray’s shoulder, the gesture carrying both approval and pride.

“I thought you would hunt down all three Great Terrors and be done with it. And that it would take you at least three days to do that. But you… You actually enslaved one of them to your will, using it to distract the trickiest one out of the three so you could assassinate him when his guard was down. And you took only a single day to take out all three Great Terrors. No other Bronze Ranker could have done that. I’m impressed!”

The manager of the Tower of Enlightenment’s first floor had nothing but praise for Ray, and rightfully so.

Ray’s achievements were unmatched by any expert below Silver Rank, making Arthis feel he hadn’t made a mistake by betting on him.

“I learned from the best,” Ray said with a faint smile.

When he first transmigrated into this world—confused, disoriented, and unaware of the grand scheme behind it all—Ray’s hatred for the demonic creatures had been unrestrained, all-consuming.

After all, they were the cause of everything he despised: ruin, death, and the corruption of all that was once pure.

Worth noting, his fury didn’t stop at them; it extended to anyone who dared to ally themselves with such monsters or behave like them.

A man who had seen his home overrun by murderous thieves would never think calmly. In that state of mind, all he could imagine were extreme measures—bloody and absolute ones—to erase his enemies from existence.

Ray’s situation wasn’t any different. In fact, his was even worse. He had lost everything and been thrust into a world that demanded strength above all else.

But time changed him.

The longer he stayed in this world, the wiser he got and clearer the bigger picture became.

He came to understand the power structures, the balance that existed between factions, and the fragile line separating survival and destruction.

Though his hatred never faded, his wisdom gave way to rationality. He realized that blind rage was a luxury he could no longer afford.

Instead of throwing away opportunities to keep his enmity as real as possible, he decided to seize them. He decided to use his enemies’ strength against themselves if that’s what it took to achieve his goals.

That was why he had chosen to enslave the Flying Serpent instead of killing it when he had the chance. Once, he would’ve smashed it to pulp simply for serving the demonic creatures. But when he remembered how the Tower itself used the captured Green Dragon for its own ends, the idea struck him: why destroy what you can control?

Arthis reached into his robe and spoke. “I believe this belongs to you.”

He drew out a small jade box from his bosom and opened it slowly. A soft, milky radiance spilled out, illuminating the space between them. Ray looked down. Inside lay a pristine ginseng root glowing with a gentle white light.

“Snow Ginseng,” Ray’s eyes lit up.

Snow Gingseng was a rank-8 Heaven and Earth Treasure, known for its ability to enhance the soul. If consumed by a Bronze Ranker, it could strengthen the soul by a level, granting a minor breakthrough and tripling one’s magic capacity and soul quality.

However, he had guessed wrong, and as the scent of the heaven and earth treasure reached him, Ray’s expression shifted.

He caught a faint whiff of its medicinal fragrance, and immediately, his body reacted. The fatigue weighing on him vanished, his mind cleared, and even the wound left from obliterating the Bronze Slayer knitted shut.

He blinked in disbelief. “No… this isn’t Snow Ginseng. Its fragrance is too potent for a rank-8 heaven and earth treasure.”

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