Chapter 50: 50

When Negary said ‘humans’, his tone sounded the same as when people would say ‘bread’, causing the soldiers of Royas to feel a chill run down their spines .

“Attack!” Smick gave the order as his body became blurry and disappeared from sight . Several other people drew their knight’s swords and advanced towards Negary in a formation .

On the Royas soldiers’ uniforms, they had a belt that had various vials around the size of the thumb that carried all sorts of liquid inside .

The Royas soldiers skillfully pulled the vial with a red flowing liquid, threw it to the air and accurately slashed it with their knight’s swords .

The red liquid inside the vial flowed out and soaked the blade of their swords, forming a layer of eerie blood-colored fire that also gave off an ominous feeling .

〖 This power…〗Negary squinted his eyes as he observed the red flames . According to the information he had collected through the years, there were only two main types of supernatural powers in the Royas Kingdom .

The first was the [Respiratory Art] that was held by the aristocrats, while the other was hailed as the country’s ultimate weapons, the Ancestral Spirit Armors . From historical records, there were only about a dozen of these armors in the entirety of the Royas Kingdom, they were mostly normal armors that could be worn, but the key lies in the ‘Ancestral Spirit’ part of the name .

These so-called Ancestral Spirits were the past heroes of the Royas Kingdom . As they become close to death of old age, they would perform a ritual, using their lives as the sacrifice to turn themselves into the existence called Ancestral Spirits .

The craftsmen of the Royas Kingdom would then attach these Ancestral Spirits into a piece of armor . From then on, as long as a person is recognized by the Ancestral Spirit, they would be able to don the armor and obtain reinforcement from the Ancestral Spirit inside .

Each warrior who donned an Ancestral Spirit Armor were powerhouses on the battlefield that could rival a hundred soldiers by themselves .

When he found out about the existence of Ancestral Spirits, Negary was extremely intrigued . As far as he knew currently, after a human died, the True Spirit that represented their Origin would leave this world and leave behind the derived product that is the soul .

The remaining souls would mostly scatter by themselves and become a cluster of Soul Essence that contained their emotions before death as well as a part of their memories . If the corpse was mostly intact and if the soul was strong enough, they might become a remnant soul instead .

Newborn remnant souls are completely mindless, they simply lingered by their corpses and absorbed the Life Essence from the body to maintain their form . When Life Essence ran out and there wasn’t any replenishment, the remnant soul would be exposed to the environment and be scattered into Soul Essence .

In his past life, Negary once heard a certain joke, someone had said that he wasn’t afraid of ghosts, because he would also become a ghost if he was killed by one, how awkward would that be?

But in truth, after Negary killed someone, over half of their Life Essence would be absorbed by him, and if the remaining soul can’t even absorb their own Life Essence, they can’t even become a ghost, let alone a remnant soul . Furthermore, even if they could, a new-born, mindless remnant soul that only just awoke a random power would be nothing but food for a remnant soul that already had time to grow .

Other than that, Negary had never seen a soul left behind by a dead lifeform take any other forms . He did try to keep a True Spirit behind after a life was extinguished, but unfortunately, he had no way to control or restrain a True Spirit .

Since the Royas Kingdom’s Ancestral Spirit ritual seemed to be able to affect the True Spirit, Negary had been interested in learning about it .

But what he was witnessing the Royas soldiers use was a completely new kind of power . The information Negary obtained did mention that after Eldridge united all the forces within his country, he gathered excellent craftsmen and witches to try and create something .

〖So this is the product of Eldridge’s creation?〗

Negary detached one of his finger bones, letting it float before flicking it away . The finger bone was turned into a streak of white light that directly struck one of the soldier’s swords . The sword was knocked away by the force of the finger bone, it then ricocheted off of it and directly hit the middle of the man’s forehead .

The soldier’s body collapsed directly on top of the path of bones . The wound on his forehead didn’t bleed, but rather started burning with that eerie red flame, the flame quickly spread until the entire body was engulfed in it . From the body, the flame rose again and again, apparently trying to manifest as something, but because of some reason, it couldn’t succeed .

The burning knight’s sword also fell on top of the bones, but strangely, the bones didn’t react to it at all, the flames only flickered briefly before it went completely out .

The others didn’t stop their advance just because of their comrade’s death, they all raised their swords burning with the strange fire as they quickly closed in on Negary and swung their swords at him from different directions .

〖 How foolishly courageous 〗Negary sat still on his throne of bones and didn’t bother to move much . He only swung his hand forward and countless bones on the ground immediately shot up like a barrage of projectiles towards the soldiers, forcing them to take evasive maneuvers .

One of the bones that were shot out was a spine, as it flew by one of the soldier’s heads, it acted like it suddenly came to life and coiled around the Royas soldier’s neck, squeezing tightly .

The man became flustered as he tried to pull the spine away with one hand while he held his sword with the other, but it was to no avail .

Negary continued to control the bones around him to shoot at the soldiers to force them away, while his finger coiled inward and pulled the soldier with the bone coiled around his neck towards Negary .

Several other spines emerged from the ground and coiled around his limbs, completely restraining him no matter how hard he struggled .

〖 It only looks like fire, but actually isn’t? 〗Negary mused and gestured with his hand, controlling this soldier through the spines to hold his own sword against himself .

As the burning red flames approached the soldier’s body, something could faintly be seen moving beneath his skin . When the flames directly touched him, the thing beneath his skin exploded outward .

They were his veins . The veins caught fire and burned with blood-red flames that broke through his skin, but instead of blood, he was bleeding the same kind of fire .

〖Flames that only burn blood? It seems even going into contact indirectly with this flame would cause it to be ignited〗

Negary continued to analyze the flames as he manipulated the man to touch another place on his body with his sword .

And another fire erupted, Negary was quite intrigued by this red flame, and from what these soldiers had shown, within the Royas Kingdom, the technology behind this power had grown to be quite developed .

〖 Eldridge would most likely be quite the delectable fruit 〗Negary had such a thought as he raised his hand upwards . A cutlass that abruptly appeared out of nowhere was caught on its downward swing .

〖 Did you think I couldn’t see you, human? 〗with a flick of his finger, Smick’s body was forcefully expelled from his camouflage and sent flying backwards .

〖 Do you still intend to resist? 〗Negary spoke with a light tone as he stood up from his throne, yet his voice carried an air that didn’t permit rejection: 〖 Kneel, gentlemen 〗