Swords, magic, and martial arts

"And who are you?" the Night King asked the phantom.

"I am a sinner. I have failed the Lord's expectations and have not been able to complete the task He gave me," the phantom said.

"Then you should believe in me from now on. I am the great Lord of the Night, Adrian, the powerful God of Night. I like the scent you give off." The Night King began to dodge Rhodes's attacks again.

"What an arrogant little bat, not even worthy of being called a false god, yet he dares to utter such words. However, by releasing a life like yours that has survived from ancient times, the merciful Lord will surely forgive my transgression," the phantom said again.

"Why have I encountered so many braggarts today? A soul without a physical body actually spouting such nonsense in front of me," the Night King said while dealing with Rhodes's attacks.

"Why don't you dare to fight me head-on? Weren't you very powerful before?" Rhodes challenged the Night King, noticing that it seemed somewhat wary of the flames on his body.

"Of course it doesn't want to get close to you. Don't you know vampires are afraid of fire?" the phantom said from the side. "Little bat, who gave you the courage to call yourself a god and even want to recruit followers like a god? Don't forget that you are just a false god who stole the power of that self-proclaimed god of darkness. You are not even a false god yourself."

The Night King paused for a moment, but ignored the phantom. It teleported again, appearing in front of Hammer, who had just stood up. Just as it was about to deliver another blow, the phantom spoke again, "Stop, everyone."

The Night King sensed an unusual magic in his words, and upon hearing them, it stopped what it was doing. On the other side, the flames on Rhodes' body also went out completely.

"Little bat, you might as well just kill yourself, so I don't have to go through all that trouble to free you," the phantom said.

Rhodes was speechless. This death priest couldn't even beat him when he was alive, but now that he was dead, he dared to say such arrogant words to the Night King, who was so much stronger than him.

"Don't doubt what I say." The phantom looked at Rhodes. "I know what you're thinking. If it weren't for most of my power maintaining the operation of the divine object before, do you think you could have killed me? Moreover, now that I've merged with the divine object, I've become stronger than ever before. I only need to use some means to kill it."

"Then why didn't you withdraw your magic before you died?" Rhodes asked, standing still.

"How could I voluntarily withdraw the power to maintain this divine object? That would be disrespectful to the Lord," the phantom said. "Once I deal with this little bat, you'll realize how lucky you were back then."

"Then come on, you fool." The Night King teleported in front of the phantom, and the black mist around him surged up and enveloped the phantom.

The phantom stood motionless, the black mist melting away like snow meeting the sun before it even touched his body. He began chanting obscure incantations. Then, the black mist that had surged towards him dissipated, and stone pillars rose from the ground, forming a cage that imprisoned the King of Night.

The black mist surrounding the Night King in its cage dissipated, revealing its true form. It cried out in terror, "What have you done to me? Why have I lost all my power?"

"A dying man doesn't need to know too much." The phantom didn't even glance at the Night King. With a wave of its hand, several earth spikes appeared in the cage, piercing the Night King's legs and causing it to let out a painful howl.

"If I don't free you today, those other false gods will take your life in a few days and subject you to tortures countless times more cruel than this," the phantom said again.

Rhodes was stunned. He had thought that the priests of the Cult of Death would have to fight the Night King to defeat it, but he had easily subdued it with a few spells.

I don't know how many screws are in the brains of the leadership of the Radiant Knights. They sent three knights to Nord to chase down a large group of the Cult of Death. Luckily, they ran into us and were not wiped out, but one of them died and the other was seriously injured.

This time, they sent four knights and three priestesses to capture the Blackheart Knight, but they were almost completely wiped out. Now, only the most beautiful priestess is left alive.

Rhodes was a little confused. Wasn't the priest transformed into a Sinful Soul in the system shop after being killed? The Sinful Soul even upgraded the system while he was unconscious.

How come his soul is still attached to that dagger? But he dared not think too much about the system, fearing that the phantom could read his thoughts and expose the system.

If I had known, I wouldn't have used that hasty dagger to cut off his head. If I had used "The Wise Man's Calamity" to cut off his head, then even if he were to possess "The Wise Man's Calamity," he would still be an idiot.

"I will bring it back to the Lord's embrace, but before that, I want to play a little game with all of you," the phantom said to Rhodes.

"What game?" Rhodes asked, noticing that the phantom didn't seem as relaxed as it appeared; it had become slightly transparent after subduing the Night King.

"The game is simple. I thank you for killing my physical body, allowing me to return to the Lord's embrace ahead of time. Furthermore, something on you absorbed an unclean portion from the divine object. My Lord only needs pure death, but I inadvertently added negative emotions to some deaths. As gratitude, I now bestow honor upon one of you, allowing you to end your punishment early and return to the Lord's side with me. If anyone commits suicide with the dagger I possess, I guarantee I will bring him and that little bat back to the Lord's embrace, and I will not harm any of you, preventing you from continuing your punishment in this hell. Otherwise, I will bring you all back to the Lord." The phantom smiled.

"Thank you, but we all like this hell, so we don't need your mercy," Rod Qian laughed. It seemed that the system wasn't absorbing the souls of the Death God Cult, but rather the unclean aspect of the divine object he mentioned.

The phantom shook its head. "It seems you don't want to play this game anymore. Then I'll take you all away from hell."

Rhodes quickly waved his hands and said, "No, no, no, we'll play along, but you have to swear in the name of your lord that as long as one of us commits suicide with this dagger, you won't hurt anyone else."

"I swear in the name of my Lord," the phantom said, raising its hand in a vow.

While the phantom was swearing, Rhodes picked up the dagger and threw it at it. He had made the phantom swear only to distract it and launch an attack.

To Rhodes' surprise, the phantom with the raised hand swiftly lowered the arm, and the dagger flew back into Rhodes' hand.

"It's no use. All of you combined are no match for me." The phantom gave Rhodes a polite smile.

A purplish-black orb of light appeared in Rhodes' hand. He used the Mageball, concentrating his mind to tear the phantom into pieces with it.

He used all his mental power to control all the magic and pull at the phantom.

The phantom's expression changed upon sensing the invisible force. He forcefully waved his hand and shouted, "Power Deprivation Technique!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Rhodes felt as if he had lost all his strength. Now his whole body was limp and he could only barely stand up. All the magic in his body had disappeared.

However, there was still internal energy within him, an energy unlike any other power system in the world. The phantom did not notice the existence of such a wondrous power within Rhodes' body.

After using this spell, the phantom's body became more transparent than before.

Rhodes's mind raced as he considered how to turn the tide with his remaining internal energy.

First, we need to test whether the phantom can still read minds. If it can, then no amount of trickery will work.

He cursed the priest in his mind, using every advanced word and phrase he could think of. The phantom remained unresponsive, which meant that after using the power-stripping spell, the priest's own power was insufficient to read his thoughts.

Or could it be that this magic also stripped him of most of his power?

He slowly approached the illusory figure, step by step.

"Don't hesitate, just do it. I'd be happy to take you to see our great Lord." The phantom smiled at Rhodes.

If I take one more step, I'll be able to use sword energy. I hope the sword energy unleashed by this dagger will be enough to kill him outright.

Rhodes took the final step, raised his dagger, and swung it forward with a fierce motion.

A thick, transparent sword aura flew out rapidly, infused with all of Rhodes's internal energy.

Watching the unstoppable sword energy, Rhodes silently prayed, "I must succeed!"

A thick earthen wall suddenly appeared in front of the phantom.

boom!

The sword energy collided with the earthen wall, causing countless clods of earth to fall. The rising dust around the earthen wall blocked Rhodes's view, but he sensed that the sword energy broke through the earthen wall when it was almost exhausted, and crashed into the phantom behind the earthen wall.

Did you make it?

"Not bad power, but it can't hurt me at all. Now you can play the game in peace." A phantom voice suddenly came from behind the earthen wall.

As the smoke and dust cleared, Rhodes saw the phantom again through the hole in the earthen wall.

With a roar, Rhodes launched a final charge at the phantom, convinced that it was injured and was merely bluffing.

A clod of dirt suddenly appeared at Rhodes' feet, tripping him and causing him to fall heavily to the ground, dropping the dagger from his hand.

Rod slammed his fist into the ground in frustration, his chest heaving violently, his heart filled with resentment and hatred for why he was no match for this defeated opponent.

The dagger returned to Rhodes's hand.

"Now you can give up, one of you must return to the Lord's embrace," said the illusory figure not far away, his words containing an unusual magic.

Influenced by the words, Rod stood up with the dagger in his hand. This time, he did not try to resist. He looked at the dagger in his hand.

Meanwhile, Baron struggled to his feet some distance away and shouted, "Rhodes, don't do anything stupid! We'll fight him to the death!"

The words of the Death God Cult priests possessed a special magic; Baron and the others in the distance did not sense it, only Rhodes, who was nearby, was deeply captivated by it.

Rhodes stared at the dagger, hesitant, his heart pounding.

If I had to say who deserves to die, it would be me...

Baron and the others are all good people, but me… Rhodes recalled his past experiences. The constant killing after transmigrating gradually led him astray and corrupted him. From childhood, his parents taught him to be kind and to become an upright and righteous person, but now he is completely different from what they expected. He has let them down…

The idea of ​​wiping out the nearby bandits was also Baron and his group's; they did it to uphold justice and rescue innocent people, while I did it simply to complete the system's tasks.

The martial arts system assigned me those tasks of punishing evil and promoting good, hoping that I could become a true hero, but I'm just doing it to complete the tasks and draw prizes...

I never belonged to this world; I was a transmigrator. I killed this priest, and now I'm all alone with him. His so-called game was ultimately for revenge, to make me pay with my life…

Rhodes looked up at the smiling priest of the Cult of Death and made a decision.

Just as he raised his right hand holding the dagger, he felt his right hand being tugged. He tried to pull his right hand back, but it was pulled away forcefully, and the dagger in his hand seemed to have pierced something.

He turned his head and saw Webber holding his right hand with both hands, the dagger already embedded in Webber's left chest. Webber gave a bitter smile and said, "Kid, you're still young. I should be the one doing this kind of thing."

As he spoke, bright red blood continued to gushed from his chest.

Rod was so shocked he couldn't speak. He felt his eyes welling up with tears, his body trembling, and when he tried to speak, his voice choked with emotion, "You...how...how..."

He let go to help Webber up, allowing Webber to slowly sit on the ground. Rod tried to stop the bleeding by pressing his hand against the wound on Webber's hand, but he couldn't stop the bleeding at all.

"No need. If one of us has to die, it should be me. I'm the oldest, and you're all young. The chance to live should be yours," Weber said weakly.

He patted Rod on the shoulder, forcing a smile despite the pain, and said, "From now on, you must be a good person like you are now..."

Rhodes took out a high-grade anesthetic powder and, with trembling hands, gave it to Webber, attempting to reignite his dark green flames to heal Webber's injuries. However, he felt extremely weak and could not ignite the flames no matter what he did.

"Don't waste any more energy. I'm already very... very content to die without pain." Weber comforted Rhodes after taking the high-grade anesthetic, his voice growing weaker and weaker.

"My death has nothing to do with you... so don't blame yourself later..."

Rhodes became even more anxious. Weber was almost too weak to speak, and even if he managed to heal Weber's injuries by unleashing his flames, Weber would die from excessive blood loss.

A golden light flashed, and the priestess used a healing spell on Waver from a distance.

"It's no use. The magic bestowed upon you by the false god you worship can't heal his injuries," the phantom said disdainfully from the side.

Hammer and Baron limped up to Weber, who looked at the three of them intently, trying to remember what they looked like.

Hammer, who had the deepest bond with Webber, knelt on the ground and burst into tears as he looked at Webber leaning against Rhodes.

This was the first time Rod had ever seen this bear-like man cry; no matter how badly he was injured before, he had never shed a single tear.

Weber lay on the ground, opening his mouth as if to say something, and Hammer put his ear close to his mouth.

"Did I... die a heroic death?" Weber said weakly.

Hammer nodded vigorously, tears and snot falling to the ground. "Definitely. You traded your life for a god's life and saved us. I will make sure everyone knows the story of 'Godslayer' Waver."

Weber managed a weak smile as he listened to Hammer's words, revealing his teeth stained with blood.

His face was deathly pale, and his eyes were unfocused. He suddenly sat up, grabbed Hammer's shoulders, and said weakly, tears welling in his eyes, "After I die... after I die... you must... take me home. I want to go... home so much..."

……