Projection of the Heavens: I prove my immortality through slaughter.

The approaching pursuers from the Church of Light, like a sword hanging over his head, did not alarm Lin Xuan; rather, it was within his expectations. He needed some formidable opponents to hone his newly acquired power and verify his understanding of the Way of Life and Death. He had even begun to mentally rehearse how to use his newly mastered, strange necromancy to give those clergy who firmly believed in the Holy Light a "surprise."

However, just as his mind stirred slightly, and the power of death quietly gathered at his fingertips, preparing to take the initiative to attack—

"Thump—!"

A deep, majestic war drumbeat, seemingly originating from the deepest heart of the earth, exploded without warning! This sound did not travel through the air, but directly vibrated the very essence of the soul, carrying an irresistible summons and an absolute command, instantly sweeping across the entire realm of the dead!

"Thump! Thump! Thump!"

The drumbeats continued, one after another, as if striking the heartbeat of all things.

In an instant, the wind and clouds changed color! The entire gray wasteland, and indeed all areas within sight, seemed to have been thrown into boiling oil, causing it to boil completely! Countless low-level skeletons and zombies, which had been wandering aimlessly, froze instantly. Then, the faint soul fire in their empty eye sockets suddenly blazed brightly as if injected with a stimulant, and they all turned in the same direction—towards the east of the continent! There, the land where life gathered, where light still lingered!

Mid- to high-ranking undead, such as liches, horror knights, and wailing banshees, no longer remained silent. They unleashed excited, fanatical roars of souls, mixed with an endless desire for destruction. The sounds converged into an invisible wave that crashed against this desolate world.

A terrifying will, vast and incomparable, chilling to the bone, filled with absolute destruction and a desire for conquest, swept across every inch of land and every soul of the dead with unstoppable force, like an invisible storm! This was the summoning of the will of the ultimate ruler of the undead scourge!

Lin Xuan clearly felt that his body, which had already evolved into a high-level death knight, was also experiencing an instinctive tremor, restlessness, and a feeling of almost prostrating himself in submission under the influence of this vast will! It was as if a supreme monarch was standing on the throne of death, commanding all its subjects in an unquestionable tone to take up arms and rush to the final battlefield!

"The Lich King... the Scourge Horn..." Lin Xuan quickly pieced together the key information from the fragmented memories that had been devoured. This was Arthas, the Lich King and ultimate ruler of the Scourge, sounding the horn of war, summoning all his undead legions to launch a devastating all-out attack on the world of the living! This was a catastrophe destined to sweep across the entire continent and rewrite the course of history!

His original plan to cause trouble for the church was instantly interrupted by this sudden upheaval. As far as the eye could see, countless undead, like a gray tide awakening from slumber, surged forth from swamps, tombs, valleys, and every corner of death, roaring and howling, converging into a terrifying torrent that could destroy everything, surging towards the faintly visible barrier in the east, a symbol of life and light! His body, a high-ranking death knight, was nothing more than a slightly larger wave in this destructive torrent of millions of undead, and was instantly swept away.

"It's the inevitable trend... which saves me the trouble of traveling on my own." Lin Xuan quickly calmed down from the initial shock, his mind returning to a state of perfect tranquility. He went with the flow, no longer resisting the pull of the summons, and followed the torrent of undead. However, he did not completely relinquish his autonomy, but skillfully concealed most of his aura, blending in like a ghost among the many hideous high-ranking undead, completely inconspicuous. This was a perfect opportunity to witness firsthand the clash of the world's top powers, whether it was the terrifying deathly power of the undead or the light and hope upon which the living relied for their struggle.

The undead army, like a swarm of deathly locusts, withered and extinguished everything in its path. Verdant forests rapidly withered and charred under the corrosive influence of death; winding rivers, contaminated by corpse poison, turned into foul-smelling, dark green swamps; bustling towns were reduced to ruins, and living beings wailed and perished under the iron hooves of the undead. Then, their corpses, trembling and twisting under the corrosive power of death, rose again, their eyes blazing with eerie blue soul fire, turning back to join the ranks of the destroyers. This was a terrifying catastrophe that constantly multiplied, snowballing like a tidal wave; death itself was its best fuel and manpower.

Lin Xuan observed all of this with a cold eye, like a detached recorder. Destruction and death were displayed so nakedly, so thoroughly. He silently circulated his divine sense, absorbing the almost tangible death energy in the air like a sponge soaking up water. At the same time, he also spared a sliver of his mind to carefully analyze the will of the Lich King—a will that enveloped the entire army, cold and domineering, filled with extreme contempt for life and a desire for its end. This will itself was a powerful manifestation of a rule.

Several days later, the boundless gray vanguard of the Scourge finally arrived before a vast canyon radiating a soft yet resilient milky-white light and a boundless life force—the "Light's Wish" Canyon! The most important holy site of the Church of Light, and the last and most solid line of defense against the eastward advance of the undead!

At the canyon entrance, a formidable defense was already in place! Countless paladins clad in gleaming silver armor formed an iron wall; priests and clerics, wielding staffs inlaid with enormous crystals of light, chanted grand prayers; an allied force comprised of elite human warriors, elven archers, dwarven musketeers, and orcish roaring warriors—all united against a common foe—radiated a fierce yet resolute aura. A colossal, solidified barrier of holy light, like a translucent, sacred bowl inverted above the canyon, definitively shut out the surging, foul aura of death. The barrier's surface shimmered with iridescent light, emanating a comforting warmth.

"For the Holy Light! For our homeland!" "Purify these evil beings!" "Hold the line!"

A deafening roar, devout prayers, and resolute shouts erupted from the ranks of the living. The immense power of holy light, various battle auras, and magical radiance converged, like a flame of hope burning in the darkness, stubbornly illuminating this dim world shrouded in the curtain of death.

The only response they received was the silent yet even more chilling roar of the undead army! The gray tide of death, without the slightest pause, like a real tsunami, crashed into the indestructible holy light barrier with the force to crush everything!

"boom--!!!"

The heavens and earth trembled! The lowest-ranking undead at the forefront, skeletons and zombies, upon contact with the holy light barrier, were like moths drawn to a flame, instantly vaporizing into wisps of smoke before they could even scream! But the undead behind them showed no fear, no terror whatsoever. They charged forward relentlessly, using their endless skeletons and decaying bodies to frantically assault and consume the barrier's light! Lichs in the rear raised their bone staffs, chanting ancient and malevolent incantations, summoning a dense rain of pale bone spears that rained down upon the barrier's light; wailing banshees hovered in mid-air, emitting soul-rending shrieks, their invisible sound waves like sharp blades, disrupting the defenders' concentration and spellcasting; and massive catapults, pieced together from the bones of colossal beasts, hurled death boulders burning with ghostly green flames high into the air, crashing down on the crumbling defenses…

The war skipped the initial probing and went straight into its most brutal and intense phase! Every second, the dead turned to ashes, and every moment, the living fell screaming. Life and death were locked in the most primal and direct struggle for survival!

Lin Xuan, positioned in the center of the undead army, did not rush forward. He remained a composed observer, his divine sense acting like invisible tentacles, meticulously observing every detail of the battlefield. He watched how the living coordinated exquisitely, utilizing the holy purification of holy light, the ferocious strikes of battle aura, and the elemental power of magic for defense and counterattack; and how the undead, with their overwhelming numerical superiority and unpredictable death spells, relentlessly eroded and consumed the strength and will of the living like a never-ending tide.

He saw valiant paladins, their swords gleaming with scorching holy light, purifying hordes of undead with a single charge; he also saw priests in the rear, disregarding their own exhaustion, casting warm healing spells to pull their critically wounded comrades back from the brink of death; and he saw a powerful undead lord, tearing through the holy light, charging fearlessly into the enemy ranks, his bone claws whipping up a storm of blood and gore, until he was finally brought down by several powerful opponents of the same rank fighting desperately to intercept and besiege him.

Life and death, light and darkness, hope and despair—an epic, tragic, and breathtaking final collision takes place before this narrow canyon!

Just as the two sides were locked in a stalemate, with corpses piling up like mountains and casualties so heavy that even heaven and earth seemed to weep—

A terrifying pressure that caused the heavens and earth to lose their color and all things to freeze suddenly rose from the very rear of the undead army, from the core area where the aura of death was most concentrated!

The leaden-gray clouds in the sky swirled and converged wildly towards the center, forming a colossal, dark vortex that seemed to connect to the deepest hell. At the vortex's center, endless death energy surged forth like rivers flowing into the sea. A colossal figure shrouded in grotesque, black armor, wielding the runic sword Frostmourne—which exuded an aura of endless frost and sorrow—and wearing a grotesque crown symbolizing the authority of death, strode through the void, step by step, like the god of death himself, toward the battlefield!

Wherever it passed, space seemed to freeze in its extreme chill, and even the light of the Holy Light Barrier flickered and dimmed violently! It was none other than the ultimate ruler of the Scourge—the Lich King, Arthas!

"You ants, your futile struggle must end. Embrace your inevitable end!"

Cold, indifferent, and devoid of any emotion, it was as if it were merely stating a given fact, like the law of death itself, resounding directly into the deepest recesses of the souls of every living being and every dead!

Slowly, with a destructive beauty, it raised the demonic sword in its hand—Frostmourne—that had devoured countless souls.

In an instant, the death energy across the entire battlefield went berserk and boiled over! Countless corpses of those who had just fallen in battle, still warm, whether human, elf, dwarf, or orc in life, trembled and twisted violently under the erosion of that supreme death rule. Then, amidst a series of teeth-grinding sounds of bones grinding together, they rose again! A ghostly blue flame, the fire of the undead, ignited in their eye sockets. They turned their weapons, filled with endless resentment towards the living, and pounced on their comrades who had fought alongside them just moments before!

The ultimate secret of the Scourge, the embodiment of the Lich King's power—Death Slavery!

The defensive line, which the defenders had fought so hard to hold, crumbled from within in an instant! Terrified screams, desperate cries, and incredulous wails echoed throughout the entire Valley of Light's Wish! Hope, at this moment, flickered like a candle in the wind, teetering on the brink of collapse!

Even Lin Xuan, who was in the undead camp, could clearly feel a powerful, cold, and absolutely enslaving force of death rules, like an invisible shackle, trying to forcibly invade his body and control his dark blue and powerful soul fire!

"snort!"

In Lin Xuan's eyes, the ball of ghostly blue soul fire suddenly burst forth with an unprecedentedly brilliant light! His powerful divine sense, which had been devoured and tempered countless times and was far superior to undead of the same level, and even faintly touched a certain barrier, mixed with the pure and condensed death power in his body, and transformed into an indestructible invisible barrier, forcefully blocking the enslavement rules that tried to attach themselves to him, making it impossible for them to advance an inch!

His body trembled slightly, completely dispelling the discomfort and restoring absolute autonomy.

However, this subtle yet resolute "resistance" was as clear as a firefly in the night on this battlefield where almost all the undead had submitted to the Lich King's will.

The Lich King, who was walking on air and preparing to deliver the final fatal blow to the living, had a gaze as cold as ancient ice that seemed to pierce through the chaotic battlefield and the barrier of countless undead. Like two sharp swords containing the ultimate death and cold, it instantly and accurately landed on Lin Xuan.

A very subtle ripple, like the cracking of ice, emanated from the shadow beneath the crown.

"An...interesting...rebel."