Chapter 209 - Clearing the Wight Ruins
The two female students clung to each other in fear. They were attending this class in their real bodies, which meant death here was permanent.
Han Wu watched them while rummaging through Li Chunming’s corpse, gathering every treasure he could find. Alongside the Nemesis Map and the Underworld Metallion recipe, he discovered a flute. It was a single-use item that could summon 100 Burnbull Guards to fight alongside him. It was a fairly useful treasure.
Han Wu was pleased by the quality of the treasures, though he felt mildly disappointed by their quantity. He turned to the two female students and ordered curtly, “Take me to your shelter.”
They nodded vigorously, barely able to contain their fear. Han Wu led a force of 1,000 Iron Skeletons, accompanied by some of the strongest among them, toward Li Chunming’s shelter. They trekked for a long while, slaughtering every wild beast that crossed their path. Each fallen creature was swiftly turned into another member of the growing skeleton army.
Witnessing this ruthless efficiency deepened the two female students’ terror. The rumors about the skeleton race’s terrifying power were clearly true.
Upon reaching the shelter, Han Wu ordered the skeletons to dismantle everything. They moved all materials into his storage and cleaned the site within an hour.
The two female students hugged each other as a notification warned them of their impending elimination. They looked to Han Wu with desperate hope. They felt no shame at the thought of becoming his slaves. After all, they had already served the weaker Li Chunming. Their only goal was to pass the class.
“Han Wu, please take us in as your subordinates...”
“Yes, we’ll belong to you. We’ll do anything you ask.”
Han Wu smiled wryly. “Do you think I’m some kind of recycling center?”
Their faces flushed bright red with anger, but neither dared to reply.
Han Wu pressed on, “If you want me to release you, contact Professor Saliya and tell her you’re withdrawing from this major class.”
While Han Wu showed no mercy to those who tried to kill him, he wasn’t a bloodthirsty maniac who slaughtered indiscriminately. The two female students had acted with ill intent, but they were still Li Chunming’s subordinates. Han Wu decided to spare them, reasoning that they were from the same class.
The two female students felt disappointed that their attempt at seduction had failed. Nevertheless, they used their partially sealed authority to contact Saliya and leave this place. Though they would earn nothing and fail the major class by withdrawing, they preferred to keep their lives.
Fifteen minutes later, Saliya opened a gate for the two students to return. Just as they stepped toward it, Han Wu called out to them. They froze, trembling with fear. They worried he would break his promise and kill them now.
Instead, Han Wu warned, “Tell the professor the complete truth if she asks for it. No one can save you if you say anything unnecessary or lie.”
The two students nodded nervously and hurried back to the Divine Civilization as soon as Han Wu permitted them. The latter then led his skeleton army toward the location Li Chunming had marked on the map: the site of the Wight Ruins.
They soon located the entrance to the Wight Ruins, but Han Wu hadn’t expected it to be buried in the heart of a swamp. Without hesitation, he ordered several skeletons to sacrifice themselves and form a bone bridge that would span the murky waters and connect the bank to the ruins.
Once the path was clear, they marched through the entrance and found themselves in a damp, bone-chilling space.
A sinister voice echoed inside his mind. “Welcome to the ruins of the wights. Become one of us. This ruin holds four levels. You will be rewarded for clearing each one. Clear all four, and you will claim the treasure the wights have guarded for generations. Pay 2,000 Gold Coins to begin the trial?”
“Yes.”
He placed the 2,000 Gold Coins on the ground. They sank into the earth, and moments later, 1,000 wights emerged. They moved slowly, shuffling toward him in a staggering line.
Han Wu quickly inspected their data.
[Vanguard wights. Elite life forms. Skills: Rotting Body, Mighty Swing. Every single wight was once a living being.]
After the first attack, Han Wu realized the wights were incredibly resilient. Rotting Body let them ignore most superficial wounds and blunt strikes. It also absorbed moisture from the air, accelerating their decay to regenerate damaged flesh.
Mighty Swing was a devastating attack that was laced with a special venom. If injured, the victims would find their wounds swelling with edema. A serious injury would instead cause their entire bodies to rot away.
Thankfully, the skeletons were immune to the wights’ venom. They surged forward, overwhelming the wights with superior numbers. As the wights fell, Han Wu ordered his skeletons to summon more Iron Skeletons from their corpses. By the end, he had gained 947 new Iron Skeletons.
He passed the first trial and faced three reward options.
[Reward 1: 4,000 Gold Coins.]
[Reward 2: Level 1 Vanguard Altar: Wights. It can summon 50 wights daily.]
[Reward 3: Skill Orb: Rotten Limbs. It grants units the ability to attack with rotten limbs.]
Though he had no Vanguard units yet, Han Wu rejected the second reward. The wights’ disgusting nature repelled him. The third reward was equally repulsive, so he chose the first, doubling his investment. Then he launched into the second trial.
The second trial proved far more difficult. He faced 500 Unique Rotten Wights, their noxious stench suffusing the entire area. Fortunately, the skeletons could not smell, and they used sheer numbers again to overpower the Rotten Wights.
He passed again and could claim one of three rewards: 8,000 Gold Coins, the Level 1 Vanguard Altar: Rotten Wights, or a Rotten Fruit.
[Rotten Fruit: It awakens the bloodline of the wights after consumption.]
Han Wu chose the 8,000 Gold Coins without hesitation and launched into the third trial. This time, the difficulty spiked dramatically. He had to face 1,000 Unique Giant Wights, towering monstrosities that stood between three and five meters tall, their bodies swollen with rotting pustules. Just looking at them made people recoil on instinct.
The Wights fought back with terrifying strength, swinging their rotted limbs and shattering the skeletons with brutal force. Even the half-dragons’ lightning attacks only scorched patches of their decayed skin without causing any real damage.
Han Wu had no choice but to play his trump card, the Osteomancer. It seized control of the shattered bone fragments and took shape on the battlefield as a ten-meter-tall bone bear. The monstrous construct toyed with the Giant Wights, each one barely half its size, and smashed them to pieces with terrifying ease.
Han Wu followed up by commanding his army to raise towering Skeleton Knights from the fallen wights. He watched his ranks swell with a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes, silently wishing for more enemies to slaughter. He passed the third trial, and his rewards doubled once again.
[Reward 1: 16,000 Gold Coins.]
[Reward 2: Level 1 Vanguard Altar: Giant Wights.]
[Reward 3: Skill Orb: Summon Wights.]
This time, Han Wu chose the Skill Orb and entrusted it to the Crystal Lich to master. He was confident that the combination of skeletons as Infantry and wights as Vanguard created a powerful synergy. Besides, once the wights fell, he could summon even more skeletons. The strategy skirted the edge of cheating.
He then started the fourth trial, the final challenge of the ruins. Ten Heroic Giant Wights awaited him. Each stood ten meters tall, emitting a foul stench that poisoned anything within its radius. Those who breathed too deeply would succumb to the venomous gas.
To most, the Heroic Giant Wights resembled walking poison gas canisters, nearly impossible to defeat thanks to their overwhelming defenses. They ranked among the most feared foes on any battlefield.
Han Wu had only one Osteomancer at his disposal, but refused to give up. Since he could create more now, he quickly merged the skeletons he had with him. He merged the Skeleton Knights he had obtained in the previous trial and turned them into new Osteomancers. Then, he ordered his skeletons to attack the Heroic Giant Wights.
As expected, the Giant Wights crushed the skeletons into bone fragments—perfect raw material for the Osteomancers. Han Wu sacrificed every skeleton as cannon fodder, raising four massive bone giant Osteomancers in return. Under the Crystal Lich’s command, these bone giants launched relentless attacks against a Giant Wight. They did not relent until it fell, even as they took damage in the process.
After the Giant Wight died, Han Wu commanded the Crystal Lich to summon a ten-meter-tall Skeleton Knight from its corpse. The battle shifted to six against nine, then seven against eight, and so on.
Han Wu relied on this grind-it-down tactic to wear the ten Giant Wights to death. He passed the fourth trial and cleared the entire Wight Ruins!