Forests Don't Support Idle Goblins

Chapter 405 Death by Explosion

Charles had heard a saying that to motivate a researcher, you should let the person he looks down on achieve that success in the field he is most proud of but has not yet reached.

For example, now, regarding the problem of the plague that Cunningham has studied for half his life, tell him that these goblins who have learned magic are not affected by the plague.

This made the high-level curse mage very unhappy.

Sure enough, people can laugh when they are extremely angry, just like Cunningham now. He grinned maliciously, his eyes filled with intense passion, and charged towards Charles. He was so fast that Charles didn't even have time to tear open the magic scroll in his hand.

If Cunningham were to capture him, Ciel would certainly have many ways to escape, but unfortunately, after so many battles, Ciel is no longer the goblin who couldn't even outrun his own men.

"Magic Explosion".

With a "boom," Charles raised his palm directly. He abandoned the [Acceleration] scroll and instead cast the spell directly. At such close range, even if the scroll took effect, he would still have to cast the spell. By the time the spell took effect, Cunningham would have been able to control himself. But at such close range, and with Cunningham charging straight at him, the oncoming spell was practically unavoidable.

The burst of true magical energy rushed directly towards Cunningham, who, as arrogant as before, made no attempt to dodge.

He was completely unaware that his magical shield was already riddled with cracks, and the cursed faction was indeed a faction not skilled in combat.

With a "whoosh," a cracking sound rang out, and his shield shattered into hundreds of fragments that scattered in all directions. Cunningham didn't care at all; he simply stretched out his staff towards Charles, and another wave of magical energy rippled outwards.

"Another curse."

Charles let his arms fall limply. This time, a powerful curse of weakness was cast directly on him, making it hard for him to breathe.

However, the Arcane Blast did affect Cunningham's speed. He was hit directly, and his shield shattered, causing him to falter. At the same time, the fear effect of the Arcane Blast made him waver for a moment.

That moment of hesitation thwarted Cunningham's plans. With a loud "boom," a massive bone cage burst forth from the ground around his body, locking Cunningham inside.

Bone Prison is only a mid-level necromancy spell and cannot cause much damage to Cunningham. Its function is simply to immediately create a bone prison at the location the caster wants to cast it, thus saving the time of flight. Spencer's purpose in casting this spell was only to temporarily restrict Cunningham's movements.

Upon seeing the Bone Prison take effect, Charles immediately tore open the scroll of [Acceleration], and after a flash of green light, he took off running, heading towards the distance.

In less than half a second, part of the grass on the ground where he had been standing began to disappear instantly.

Judging from the effect, it's clearly a high-level annihilation curse.

"If you can't have it, just kill it?" Spencer sighed as he looked at the barren ground. "I just don't like you magicians. You handle things too extremely."

With a few crashes, the bone cage broke into several pieces. Cunningham walked out of the bone cage with a gloomy face. "If we can't catch him, then we'll have to kill him and then extract all the details by extracting his soul."

"That's typical of the Spellcasting Association. You're wanted, and those guys really didn't make a mistake?" Spencer shook his head slightly. He had always looked down on the Spellcasting Association's ways, and now that he's awakened, he despises them even more.

Cunningham chuckled coldly, glancing at the distance where the massive construct he had summoned was lying motionless on the ground, while the bone dragon stood on its back, glaring menacingly at them.

If I were to use my flying technique to escape through the air now, I probably wouldn't be able to escape from the Bone Dragon's claws. Even if its wings were broken by the construct, it could still sweep me down with a mere jump.

"You have one more option now: surrender." Spencer stood with his hands behind his back, looking straight at his opponent. Around him, bone spikes began to emerge from the ground. The Bone Forest spell was activated again, and even if Cunningham wanted to cast the Annihilation Curse, he could not harm him at this moment.

"I can still fight you. We can try and see if you have more bone powder or more magic." Cunningham said through gritted teeth, enunciating each word clearly.

But his only response was a chuckle from the lizardman lich, "I told you, you cursed mages have practically no combat experience. Did you really think a lich would choose to stay away from his bone vault when fighting you?"

When a mage casts a spell, he not only needs to resonate with the magic field, but also needs a medium. For the undead faction, the medium is bones. A large number of bones will be shaped into various forms according to the lich's spell model, thus playing a corresponding role. A qualified high-level undead archmage will definitely have a huge "bone warehouse" to provide him with casting materials.

This is also why necromancers are easy to find. They usually hide in sparsely populated areas and build their own bone vaults underground. If someone attacks, the necromancer can directly counterattack without worrying about whether he has enough casting materials.

Of course, "clever" people like Spencer, who directly raise a herd of elephants and then bury their own coffins in the elephants' home, are also rare.

“I have a huge bone bank, the number of bones in it even shocks me,” Spencer smiled smugly. “Of course, I don’t think you’d like to hear that, since all the bones there are goblin bones.”

Yes, after he arrived, he directly used the goblin fragments that had been mutilated by the Feathered Serpent God as his own bone bank. Originally, Charles was considering finding a place to bury those bone fragments, but now they have a better use.

As he spoke, Spencer stretched out his hand and waved it towards the ground. With a few "whoosh" sounds, several arms emerged from the ground, followed by a dozen small skeletons that crawled up from the ground.

Green will-o'-the-wisps flickered in the eye sockets of their heads as they all looked at the fully alert Cunningham, as if at Spencer's command, the goblin skeletons would charge at Cunningham at any moment.

"With this kind of material, I can summon thousands more," Spencer smiled. "But how long can your magic last?"

""

As he spoke, he glanced at the distant construct, seemingly casually. Summoning such a magic circle would require a considerable amount of magic power.

Of course, summoning the bone dragon would consume a lot of magic power, but there were more than just two high-level mages present. Diana and Sophia had been watching the battle closely, and even above Diana's head, four longswords had floated up.

"It seems that death is the only path for me today," Cunningham said coldly. Although the lizardman lich had offered another option—surrender to the master of this place—he, a proud high-ranking archmage, would never surrender to a goblin.

After he finished speaking, he suddenly fell silent, and then his originally white skin quickly turned red, a change that made Spencer's eyes widen.

"Get out of the way, it's a blood curse."

"7

Before he could finish speaking, with a "poof," Cunningham exploded into a cloud of blood mist, and his body, along with the drifting blood mist, turned into pieces scattered all over the ground.

"Stay away from the blood mist. If you get even a single drop on it, you'll be cursed for life. Your body will gradually weaken and eventually die."

Spencer yelled for Diana and Sophia to get away, while Charles was already watching the situation from a distance with binoculars.

With a "roar," Sophia, who was originally injured, once again revealed her dragon scales. In an instant, she once again used her dragon transformation spell and flew into the air despite the pain.

With a flap of her wings, the drifting blood mist was directly blown onto the ground, forming a pool of blood.

After several consecutive fanning motions, Sophia finally couldn't hold on any longer, broke the spell, and fell to the ground. Fortunately, the four longswords caught her, and she landed safely.

"Is it resolved?" Charles, holding a magic scroll, slowly walked over. His gaze fell on the somewhat weakened Sophia in the distance, and then on the bloodstains on the ground.

"It's not a big problem anymore," Spencer nodded. "Don't go near this area for now. We'll collect the bloodstains after the blood mist has completely dissipated."

"Collect them? Aren't they a dangerous curse?"

"Just be careful not to touch them. You know, these are pretty good magical materials," Spencer pointed to the large bloodstain on the ground, and then glanced at Charles. "And that pool of venom in the underground cave, just leave it there. It's good material too."

"I hadn't thought about that." Charles scratched his cheek. Once things settled down here, he would find a way to send the bloodstains and venom to old man Marshall. He wondered if Marshall would be happy to see these things.

"In between, there's one more important thing to do." Spencer grinned as he looked at the pool of blood. He stretched out his hand and grabbed at the air, "Soul Cage."

With a "whoosh," a bone claw burst forth from the ground and swung towards the air. In the blink of an eye, a green orb of light appeared between its closed fingers.

This orb of light was very familiar to Charles; he had seen the same one before, the green orb being called "Fragment of Cardinal Willid's Soul."

"Could this be a fragment of the soul of that archmage from the underworld faction?"

"Hmm?" Spencer looked at Charles with some surprise. "I didn't expect you to know even this. Even some archmages don't easily come across this kind of thing."

As he spoke, he put the ball of light into his hand and placed it in front of Charles's eyes. "This is not a fragment of a soul, but that guy's soul."

"A soul?" Charles raised an eyebrow. "Is this Cunningham's soul?"

"Yes," Spencer nodded, "Many magicians of the cursed school cast a kind of 'body curse' on themselves, the effect of which is that when their physical body dies, their soul can still remain in this world."

"However, this curse also has many side effects." As he spoke, the lizardman lich held Cunningham's Soul Orb in front of his eyes. "This Soul Orb requires us to find a target as soon as possible to possess, and then find a way to kill that guy's soul and take over his body. Only in this way can we be reborn."

"To take over the body?"

"Yes, of course, there are some guys who prepare spare bodies for themselves in advance, but such bodies are very troublesome to preserve. A body without a soul cannot even eat, drink, and excrete on its own, so not many mages are willing to preserve such a body."

"Any goal is acceptable?"

"No," Spencer shook his head. "The target must know magic, or at least be able to learn magic. If the target cannot learn magic, then these cursed magicians cannot make the new body gain the ability to learn magic out of thin air. In that case, their previous knowledge and magical skills will be completely wasted."

"What will happen if he doesn't find his target?" Charles asked curiously.

"If they haven't found their target within ten days, the magic on their Soul Spheres will gradually wear off, and cracks will appear in their Soul Shells. Without the protection of a physical body, their soul energy will dissipate into the air, and then—"

"And then, your soul will be scattered?" Charles examined the "Cunningham" in Spencer's hand. White sparks kept flashing in the green sphere of souls, as if to prove that it was a living being.

"Soul scattered to the winds—" Spencer clicked his tongue, as if savoring the phrase, "I must say, that phrase is indeed very apt."

"And what about him now?" Charles pointed to the Soul Orb.

"Now?" Spencer chuckled. "He also has little experience with death, yet he dared to use such a spell in front of a necromancer, completely forgetting that necromancers are the ones who deal with souls most often."

"As for him now," he said, examining the "Cunningham" in his hand, "the Soul Orb is actually quite fragile. Sometimes, if you squeeze it hard, the deepest pain in his soul can drive him mad."

"So, this guy is unusually weak right now?" Charles grinned.

"That's true." Spencer nodded, then, holding the green orb, slowly walked towards the construct in the distance. "I must say, this guy is also a very powerful mage. At least, I haven't seen many people complete such life experiments."

Whether the construct was already "dead" or its master Cunningham was too weak to control after his body exploded, it lay motionless on the ground, as if it were dead.

But this thing was, after all, a dead object that had been "molded" together; it was never originally alive.

"Such a massive structure, held in place by a soul in the center and used to receive commands—Cunningham's expertise in the undead is truly astounding."

As Spencer spoke, he beckoned to the bone dragon, Little Zha, who quickly scratched at the "mountain of flesh" in front of him with its giant claws, soon revealing a "phantom" in the middle of the construct.

The ghostly figure helplessly hugged its knees, squatted on the ground, and remained motionless, like a lost soul.

"I wonder where he learned these experimental methods. It's truly astonishing," Spencer remarked, looking at the lonely soul within the foul-smelling flesh.

Where did you learn that?

""

Sharmo stroked his chin, as if he had remembered something.

That was a book that always referred to itself as a "petty person".

Strange books.