Chapter 62: Devouring Spirits

After coming out of the portal, both of them looked around vigilantly to find nothing except pin drop silence. However, the Ayaan and Rebecca didn't relax their guards because of this silence; evil spirits would always wait silently for their prey to appear.

Whoosh!

Just as he expected, before he could walk a few meters, an illusory shadow lunged at Rebecca, but she just looked at the spirit without any hint of fear, the green flames burned on her hand.

Screech!

A horrifying screech echoed throughout the foggy environment, which echoed for some time. The illusory figure that had attacked Rebecca turned to ashes. It wasn't her first time dealing with these evil spirits and knew very well how to kill them.

In just a few seconds, hundreds of spirits surrounded both of them. Ayaan looked at these spirits with disdain. They were the same as those brainless skeletons, he encountered for the first time he arrived in the undead world, without any intelligence.

The name of these creatures was devouring spirits. They weren't the life forms made of flesh and blood but instead, these were the corrupted souls, looking precisely the same as humans, but their bodies were illusory; eyes were shining with a red glow, releasing black fog continuously, producing the rotten smell of flesh.

This black fog was the only strength of these creatures, which they used to attack their targets.

At first, the fog would induce fear inside the person's heart; using that time of fear, these spirits would enter inside the consciousness of a person and would devour the soul.

However, this fog was only effective against the people or other creatures with weak will, it wasn't much effective against those people who had strong willpower. It wouldn't be able to induce fear inside the heart of a strong-willed person.

Furthermore, these spirits were made of cold energy, and were very fearful of the flames, because coming in contact would be equal to coming in touch with the Yama from hell.

After arriving a few times in this world of the undead with Ayaan, Rebecca's will-power improved quite a bit, she wouldn't feel fear from these low-level spirits; most of the middle-level great mages won't be able to compare with her in the matter of willpower. She used to be a great mage, after all.

That was the reason why Rebecca was able to kill the previous spirit with ease; moreover, her fire wasn't ordinary, it was spirit fire which was even more deadly for these spirits.

At this time, Ayaan looked at the group of these devouring spirits, curling his lips in disdain. Gradually, he chanted a spell, and his eyes turned dark black, releasing horrifying soul power.

Death eyes! 

Screech!

As he spoke those two words, the spirits which were in front of him started to screech and gradually faded away. Afterwards, he used a similar attack, devastating all the devouring spirits with his incredible soul power.

Screech!

Screech!

Bloodcurdling screams sounded for some time; only to become pin drop silence again.

The 'death eyes' was one of Ayaan's first spells he had purchased from the system. At the start, he couldn't take the toll on his soul power produced by the spell; therefore, he stopped using it and used another spell at its place - soul devour. 

However, both the spells had their pros and cons. The death eyes would shatter the soul of the opponent, and that's it. But the soul devourer would devour the soul of the enemy and assimilate it with Ayaan's soul, strengthening it!

Despite that, there was a major flaw in the soul devour. Ayaan had to touch his opponent to devour his soul. On the contrary, death eyes could be used from a few meters away.

These spirits were corrupted souls, so he didn't dare to use soul devour. Who knows if he would also turn into undead as well after finishing those corrupted souls?

After all the spirits vanished, Ayaan looked at Rebecca, and the duo went towards their destination.

The valley of the malice was at the border of two empires: the undead empire and the spirit empire. That was the reason why there were so many devouring spirits present. In the skeleton kingdom, all types of skeleton undead could reside; similarly, in the spirit empire, all sorts of corrupted spirits were living.

No matter if it was the skeleton of a dragon or dog, everyone could live in a skeleton kingdom. The same case was for the spirit empire, all types of corrupted souls lived there.

The skeleton dragon which was present in the valley of malice, was one of the skeleton generals of the skeleton kingdom, with the strength of the 6th level great mage. It was here to safeguard the border of the empire.

Furthermore, the name of this general of the skeleton empire was the 'Spirit Devourer Bryzod', which was bestowed upon it by the lich emperor himself.

Not many evil spirits could match the dragon skeleton in the entire spirit empire because it had the skill called spirit devouring. In just one breath, it could devourer thousands of evil spirits. It would eat them like a snack. That's where its name came from.

All this information was given to him by his skeleton soldiers.

As he remembered his undead soldier, he summoned one skeleton undead. A skeleton with golden bones appeared in front of him.

"Master." As it saw Ayaan, the skeleton fell on his knees.

"At ease," Ayaan commanded. Gradually, the skeleton stood up but didn't look directly into his face, its head was still lowered.

"You know the den of the general Bryzod, lead the way." Hearing the name of that cruel skeleton dragon, the skeleton soldier shivered but didn't utter anything.

This skeleton was similar in the magic realm to Ayaan, the 3rd level great mage. Furthermore, previously it was one of the undead commanders in the skeleton kingdom.

However, most of the skeletons had weak soul power; therefore, it was easy to control them. To dominate this skeleton, Ayaan didn't have to do much, it was a very swift catch.

Furthermore, after taming one undead skeleton at the level of the great mage, Ayaan tamed many more. At this moment, he flicked his hand and ten more skeletons with golden bones appeared beside him and Rebecca. All of them were skeleton commanders.

With such a force, Ayaan could destroy families like Ferlee with no effort at all; however, he wasn't stupid enough to use his undead soldiers, there were many forces on the eastern continent which could easily defeat his puny force.

He was sure that those two priests of the 'Life Temple' must have reported everything that happened in the Izhale, the capital of Caspian kingdom. If they knew that someone was still using a skeleton in the daylight, they would definitely able to connect two matters.

Although he had just killed the small disciples of the temple, they were still part of the temple. The temple would definitely hunt him down to regain their lost face.

However, the 'Life Temple' was still second to fear, the first one was the undead shrine. Even the people of the 'Life Temple' were afraid of it. If they were to hear some unknown person using death spells, they would be alert.

It won't take much time for them to realise that Ayaan wasn't the part of the undead shrine, and at that time he won't have any option other than escaping.

Though ordinary mages couldn't tell the value of his spells, the people of the undead shrine would easily see the worth of his spells. Who knows if they would even dissect his body to unravel his secrets? Ayaan shivered at the thought.

That's why he didn't use his skeletons in his previous battle — better safe than sorry. He was biding his time, and when he would reveal his secrets in front of the masses — that day would definitely become full of firecrackers.

However, this undead shrine was too mysterious, he had to collect intelligence about them, but the problem was that most people didn't even hear about the undead shrine. 

At first, he didn't even know about the undead shrine, but a few days ago, Isobel told him that there was someone from the undead shrine, who killed the disciples of the 'Life Temple', and how scared the priests of the 'Life Temple' were after hearing its name.

At first, Ayaan was little vexed, he didn't know how Isobel knew about those matters, but didn't press her to tell him the detail.

After hearing the word undead, Ayaan instantly was able to tell that they must be talking about him. At that time, he had almost lost his mind due to Rebecca's injuries and used his undead skill to kill their disciple, leaving small traces of undead energy on their bodies.

As Ayaan thought, he sighed. There were many hidden enemies, but he wasn't powerful enough to face them. If this goes on, he would die sooner or later. Looking at the vast mountain in front of him, his eyes shined with firm determination to become stronger.

"Is that mountain the place where the skeleton dragon lives?" Ayaan asked one of his skeletons.

Previously, he encountered the dragon a few kilometres away from this place, that's why he didn't know its whereabouts.

"Yes, milord. That is the place where the skeleton dragon lives." the skeleton replied with eyes full of respect and reverence.

For these skeletons, Ayaan was equal to the god, the controller of their life and death.

Looking towards the mountain, he summoned a shadow bat. Immediately, a small dark shadow appeared and started to circle around Ayaan.

"Go check out inside that mountain, and inform me about the location of the skeleton dragon—be careful of those devouring spirit."