The Army of Undead

Arriving at the top of the city walls of The Northern Gate, the soldiers assigned there respectfully saluted Min Li who was accompanied by the manager of the City Council of Immortal City.

“You were right. The situation is more severe than I thought.”

Looking at the slowly incoming army of undead, Min Li’s calm voice caught everyone’s ears.

It was a matter of minutes until the legion of skeletons arrived in front of The Northern Gate’s entrance. The numbers of them were uncountable — they were filling The Savage Plains’ landscape. It was a frightening sight that sent to the people who looked at them a chill on their back.

“How many soldiers did we send to the battlefield?”

Seeing the long endless lined-up queues of soldiers leaving The Northern Gate’s large entrance, Min Li curiously asked. He had expected a considerable amount, but the sight in front of him has already exceeded his expectation.

“We have sent 80% of our total force, numbering to a total amount of 4’320’932 soldiers, including the commanders leading them. As for the remaining 20%, they are evacuating the citizens of Immortal City to the defensive fortress my lord has created. ”

Du Ming, the representative and manager of the City Council nonchalantly replied without noticing Min Li’s surprised expression. Even though Immortal City had more than twenty millions of inhabitants, to have 20% of the total populace as a fighting force was without a doubt amazing.

“You! Come here and tell me your name!” Calling out a soldier as he pointed his finger towards him, the soldier quickly came towards Min Li and respectfully saluted him as he hurriedly said, “My name is Jiahao, my lord.” with a worried expression on his face. He seemed to be visibly stressed just by standing in front of the city lord.

“Lead me to the army and introduce me to the strongest commander in the army.”

“But, my lord—”

“There’s no but. I’ve already made up my mind. As for you, you can join the other City Council officials to the defensive fortress.”

Hearing the city lord’s command, Du Ming couldn’t help but try to change Min Li’s mind. He knew that he was going to join the battlefield and he couldn’t allow his city lord to endanger himself. However, Min Li immediately interrupted him. Although he felt bad for Du Ming who was worried about him, it was an opportunity for him to farm experience points and there was no way he could miss it.

“City lord? Sir, what are you doing here?”

Seeing the city lord walking towards him accompanied by a soldier, the grand monarch, Kang Jian couldn’t help but ask with a surprised expression.

“Grand monarch Jian, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m the city lord of Immortal City, Zhao Li. I come here to join the battlefield.” After introducing himself with a faint smile, Min Li said.

“But…”

“This is my wish. Worry not, I’ll be careful.”

Kiang Jian wanted to retort but was Min Li immediately stopped him. Kiang Jian could only make a discouraged sigh after looking at his city lord’s pressing eyes. The city lord’s words couldn’t be denied; he was the authority within Immortal City. Even if he was to ask someone to die, then no one could oppose him.

Knowing that it was inevitable for Min Li to not join the battlefront, Kiang Jang suggested: “Then please allow this one to stay by your side.”

“Alright. This was selfish of me to ask for such a request, I can at least accept this condition.”

Min Li felt dejected to push them to accept his selfish request to join the confrontation between Immortal City and the army of undead, but he knew that it was because they were concerned about his safety.

But Min Li had to become stronger. He wanted to be strong enough to protect his loved ones. He didn’t want to make the same mistakes and see the people he loved dying in front of his eyes. It was something he couldn’t allow himself to repeat. And right now, he was too weak to protect them which was the reason why he absolutely needed to level up as quickly as possible.

The army of skeletons was approaching as they shrieked loudly when they saw the opposite army on their sight. It was the same for Immortal City’s army. The commanders of each squad were shouting their order and were encouraging their troops before the incoming battle.

Then both armies charged against each other — the clash has started. The battle had begun and the agonized screams of the soldiers could be heard as blood started to paint the ground.

“Aim at their head!”

One of the commanders yelled. And the soldiers followed the order. They aimed at the head of the skeletons. Both sides were having heavy casualties. But the Immortal City’s army was slowly retreating backward as they kept fighting them. The problem was the overwhelming amount the skeletons — they were ten folds larger than Immortal City’s army.

*swoosh* *swoosh* *swoosh*

Countless arrows were falling from the sky like a violent rain during a torrential wheater. It was the other reason as for why their retreat — they were following the plan they had prepared. Once the waves of arrows stopped, they started to advance once again.

Going forward, then backward; they keep repeating the process, killing countless skeletons using this strategy. But even with such maneuvering, it didn’t mean that the casualties they received didn’t decrease either. It was a long battle that was awaiting them.

Somewhere on the battlefield, a white-dressed young man was elegantly killing the enemies in front of him with his spear. With consecutive rapid strikes aiming at their head with his lance, dozens of skeletons were dying in an instant. And from time to time, his lance would glow a red light on its tip, sending a wave of flames, reducing them into ashes. There was a 2000-man army who was behind him, on the depth of the enemies’ army, but they desperately resisted against the surroundings skeletons.

The white-dressed young man was obviously Min Li. And behind him, was the grand monarch of Immortal City’s army, Kang Jian followed by his troops. Kang Jian’s troops had formed a defensive circle formation behind Min LI and Kang Jian, it was to allow both in the front line to retreat in case of an emergency which was the grand monarch’s idea.

Nonetheless, Min Li didn’t actually need this emergency as he kept advancing forward instead, sweeping through his enemies like a paladin punishing the evils with its light — He mercilessly killed as much as enemies as possible as he dodged most of the attacks of the undead. Such a sight stunned Kang Jian and his troops as they couldn’t help but frighten when looking at him.

Currently, Min Li was using an EXP potion and as the name said, was a potion which granted the one who drank it a boost of 200% of experience points and could remain for a whole day. But the downside of such a magical potion was that he couldn’t use any other potion as long as the EXP potion was still active. However, since Min Li didn’t intend to use any other potion anyway, the before-mentioned inconvenience didn’t matter much to him.

“The legend had said the city lord to have a mighty power which couldn’t be fathomed, I had thought that it was exaggerated, but…”

Kang Jian who was at Min Li’s side couldn’t help but mutter as he looked at him totally dumbfounded. He had to admit that he had truly underestimated him. In fact, he even felt embarrassed to have requested to escort him.

“Our city lord is trying his best to defend the city, and look at us, staying there like weaklings…aren’t we losing face?”

Along with the fact that they should be the one to protect him and not the other way, the grand monarch couldn’t help but encourage his troops to follow Min Li.

On the other hand, what these people weren’t aware was the original reason as for why Min Li’s could easily this kind of accomplishment, which was in truth, due to the game system, something called the level-scaling.

The level-scaling was a configuration on Soaring Sword to maintain an overall average level of difficulty. Per example, if a level 1 player was to fight a monster in an area where the monsters were level 20, the level-scaling of this area was going to automatically change these monsters to the level 1 to match to the player’s level. The same could be said on the opposite; if the player was level 250, then even if the area was normally for level 1 players, then it will automatically match the level of the player. Thus, since Min Li was only level 1, all of the skeletons in front of them matched his level.

At this moment, Min Li has reached level 5 despite the experience points reduced by 200%, still, the level-scaling didn’t change much due to the slight difference, allowing him to keep one-shooting the skeletons. Furthermore, leaving aside the level-scaling, the equipment and especially the weapon Min LI was wearing both strengthen him a lot as well.

The equipment and the spear Min Li actually have was, in addition to being Divine-Grade, were Unique equipment. Unique items weren’t as good as Mythical or Celestial items, but the only advantage that they had compared to them, was the no-restriction on top of the level-scaling configuration which meant that as long as he became stronger, then his gear was becoming stronger too.

Name: Bloody Vampire Lance

Rarety: Unique

Level Required: None

Weapon Level: 5

Type: Two-Handed Spear

Weapon Damage: 20-34 (+10)

Speed: 3,6 (15 damage per second)

+10 (+10) Strength

+5 (+10) Agility

+5% (+20%) Critical Strike

+5% (+10%) Haste

+100 (+100) Attack Power

Passive: Permanently increases Strength, Agility, and Attack Power by 1 point and per Weapon Level. In addition, permanently increases Critical Strike and Haste by 1 point per Weapon Level.

Passive: Bloody Vampire Lance absorbs the blood of the living being killed by the spear which gives the weapon 10 experience points and increases the Weapon Damage (+10), Strength (+10), Agility (+10), Critical Strike (+20%), Haste (+10%), and Attack Power (+100) every 100 living beings killed. The additional stats cannot exceed the following limit: (+100 Weapon Damage, +100 Strength, +100 Agility, +40% Critical Strike, +25% Haste).

Magic Scroll Enchant (Burning Wave) Passive: Landing a Critical Strike on your target has a 5% chance of activating Burning Wave in front of you dealing (+100% Attack Power) Fire damage, and burns them for 5 seconds, dealing (+25% Attack Power) Fire damage every second. Can only trigger once every twenty seconds.

After killing more than hundreds of skeletons killed by Min Li using the « Bloody Vampire Lance » as his weapon, the boost in stats he obtained from it was seriously not a joke. The equipment he was wearing were level-scaling as well:

Name: Magical Cultivator Item Set

Rarity: Unique

Level Required: None

Armor Level: 5

Type: Cloth

Location: Head, Shoulders, Chest, Hands, Wrists, Waist, Legs, Feet

Armor (All Equipment): 140

+40 (+40) Strength

+20 (+40) Agility

+5% (+20%) Haste

+5% (+10%) Critical Strike

Passive: Armor Level is automatically level-scaling to match your level. Each Armor Level permanently increases your Strength and Agility by 1 point. In the same way, each Armor Level also permanently increases your Haste (0.5%) and Critical Strike (0.25%).

(2) Set: Regenerates 2% of your qi every 5 seconds in combat.

(4) Set: Your basic attack has a 5% chance of stunning your target for 1 second.

(6) Set: After using a Martial Art Skill, increases your Attack Power and Critical Strike by 20%. Lasts 5 seconds. Can only trigger once every minute.

(8) Set: When your health is below 25%, increases your Dodge Chance by 100%. Lasts 2 seconds. Can only trigger once every 30 minutes.

Without any doubt, this full-gear Unique Divine-Grade equipment on top of the « Bloody Vampire Lance » has enhanced Min Li’s fighting ability to a tremendous extent. With his current additional stats from leveling to level 5, on top of the full-gear, and excluding the Attributes Points he had obtained but had yet to add, his Attack Power had already exceeded 1000, to be more accurate, it was at 1016 Attack Power.

At level 5, including the 125% increased damage and 50% Critical Strike bonus from his « Fang Yijun’s Art of the Spear » cultivation technique, his damage could deal more than 2000 points of damage without landing a critical strike, and more than 5000 points of damage which were more than insane. And of course, without mentioning the fact that he has a 90% chance of landing a critical strike.

However, for an unknown reason, maybe due to his level being too low, the maximum damage he had dealt on the skeletons until now didn’t break the 500 points of damage threshold. Likewise, he had also noticed that his critical strike only activated one every four hits, indicating him the limit of his current strength. But for the better, the skeletons’ health was only at 250 at level 5, so even though his stats were limited, it wasn’t hard for him to effortlessly kill them.

In any case, he wasn’t dejected by this limitation and nor was depressed on the contrary to his expectation, instead, It had encouraged and had induced him to get stronger — for the sake of his loved ones. It was an extremely simple reason, but this simple reason was like a never-ending burning flame overcoming a raging rainstorm.

Even if the limitation of his strength may be due to the game system as the reason, Min Lin had also believed in the depths of his heart, that he might not be worthy to grasp such power at the moment. ‘But this is a matter of time.’ he believed.

“He has finally shown up.”

Absorbed in his thought as he was slaughtering the undead in an automatic mode, a huge 3-meter skeleton equipped with a massive round shield and a frightening saber on his other hand appeared — he was the one leading the army of living bones; The Commander Skeleton Warrior has appeared on the battlefield. Yet, what truly shocked Min Li wasn't his horrific size nor the equipment he was wearing and neither the deadly aura he released, but it was his level — he was an elite boss level 20.