After handling the matters of the castellan residence, Clyde disguised as Death Knight Baron Thomas with his follower Demon Princess Andrea’s help. He then proceeded to that ancient graveyard under his new guise. According to the coordinates he had obtained from the dark magic communication item, the hidden hand behind Antaur Town’s Undead calamity was hiding there.
Along the way, Clyde walked without attracting the Undead’s attention. Unlike their commander Baron Thomas who had still retained some of his consciousness, those over a thousand people under him hadn’t retained any after turning Undead. They couldn’t tell the difference between the current and past death knights. They could only vaguely feel that the death knight’s strength had sharply increased; they now had no way to calculate its strength.
Clyde rode a summoned hell warhorse. With a dark red body and hooves leaving a trail of hellfire, this horse had a horn on its head surrounded by a faint electric current like a fallen unicorn. The rank of Clyde’s death knight disguise had already reached the pinnacle of death knights, a Dark Knight King. He could easily summon a demonic dragon as a mount. However, he felt that that would be too flamboyant. In order to approach the behind-the-scenes manipulator without being prematurely discovered, he had rejected Andrea’s proposal. Instead of summoning a demonic dragon mount, he had only summoned a hell warhorse.
“Master, you… you are too bad! I guess that death paladin still hasn’t figured out what happened!”
“I don’t know how to summon a hell warhorse, so I could only compromise. In any case, that fellow will be able to find a new hell warhorse after returning.”
Demon Princess Andrea rode with Clyde. She sat in front of him, making the two look like a couple traveling by horse. Although they were separated by the death knight’s armor, Clyde could still vaguely feel her softness in his arms. Demon beauties had hotter figures than human beauties. In addition, because of their open natures, their every move intentionally tempted others to commit a crime. If not for it being the wrong time, Clyde would have already punished this little seductress.
The hell warhorse that Clyde and Andrea rode now had not been directly summoned. Clyde had summoned a death paladin before borrowing its mount. That death paladin was currently outside Antaur Town’s castellan residence, temporarily helping Clyde guarantee the safety of the war trophies before Steinbeck Fief took over the town. Now, the stupefied death paladin should still be wondering why a Dark Knight King, a higher level of existence than itself, had summoned it. It had not been summoned for battle but only to snatch its mount. This boss was extraordinary. He clearly had a demonic dragon, a much better mount, yet he had still snatched its mount, a hell warhorse. It honestly could not comprehend this.
Antaur Town’s ancient graveyard had a long history. This graveyard had existed even before the town had. When Clyde arrived, many graves were only excavated holes and loose soil. Shattered coffins littered the ground. Those unaware of the current circumstances would think that grave robbers had dug up all the graves. However, upon careful observation, those graves had clearly been broken from the inside out. Those graves hadn’t been robbed; their occupants had crawled out under the effect of a mysterious power.
“Andrea, do you recognize this? I have never seen such words.”
“Master, this… these are the Human Race’s words from more than 500 years ago. There is too much mixed blood among the Ximengsi Continent’s Human Race. Tracing back to their sources, many came from other continents with various scripts. As for these… this is the script of the Bradian people who existed more than 500 years ago.”
“Andrea, since you can recognize this, are you several hundred years old?”
“No, I’m not that old! Master, our Demon Race has studied the Human Race for thousands of years. All these are the research results of our predecessors. I am about the same age as that stupid Dragon Knight Verly. You… shouldn’t misunderstand!”
In the ancient graveyard of Antaur Town, the eroded words written on those tombstones had turned indistinct. Many ancient tombstones were cracked, so Princess Andrea could only roughly translate the words of the Bradian people according to the few remaining discernable tombstones.
The Bradian people had come from a foreign continent. Since Ximengsi Continent had always been a congregation of mixed-blood races, the other races were comparatively tolerant of foreigners. At that time, the Ximengsi Continent’s Human Race had formed their own unique, mixed-blood race civilization, collectively known as the Ximengsians. In fact, Ximengsians were a mixture of various races and cultures.
According to the Demon Race’s Human Race research over thousands of years, the Bradians had originated from Brad Forest on the Island of Darkness. Because the Bradians had believed in darkness, they had deified the gods of the Nether Realm, dissatisfying the Divine Realm. More than a thousand years ago, borrowing the power of divine punishment, the Divine Realm had used Divine Judgment to destroy the entire Island of Darkness. Most of the Bradians were reduced to ashes, with only a few escaping by luck. They then hid their identities and fled to other human continents.
As for the gods of the Nether Realm believed in by the Bradians, they had secretly negotiated with the Heavenly God Clan back then. They had treated the Bradians, these devout believers, as sacrificial offerings to the Heavenly God Clan. However, a few Bradians had escaped because of their connections to a third-party, the Demon Realm. A few Demon Kings had still had a certain level of morality at that time. They had independently notified those Bradians before the Descent of the Judgement Light to allow them to retreat in advance.
The Bradians were innately talented Undead Shamans. They innately had a very strong psychic physique. The Bradians who fled to Ximengsi Continent were later targeted by the Light Church. After hiding for over 500 years, they were encircled and annihilated by the Light Church in the Needham Plains. This ancient graveyard had been left behind by the Bradians before the Light Church had settled accounts.
Princess Andrea inferred from the graveyard’s topography that there had once been a large mausoleum here. Before the Light Church had encircled them, the Bradians must have sunk it into the ground to avoid it being destroyed. After the Light Church had exterminated the Bradians, it had covered up the massacre. Later, they encouraged refugees of the human nations to settle the Needham Plains to conceal this historical reality.
However, because the Bradians had managed the Needham Plains for over 500 years, this place had been tainted with a dark aura. 200 years ago, Miss Sigrid had opened a gate to the Nether Realm here and been able to easily summon gates to different words because of the Bradian’s previous foundation. Afterward, the Light Church had given up on settling the Needham Plains to avoid repeating a tragedy and instead deliberately trivialized this place.
“There is the mausoleum’s entrance. Just go in from there. Master, I will wait for you outside!”
“Andrea, don’t you want to go in and take a look?”
“No, Master, it’s enough if you do. There might be descendants of the Bradians inside. We of the Demon Race believe in the Demon Realm, and in those years, the demon kings didn’t notify all the Bradians. In any case, I feel somewhat sorry in my heart.”
After Demon Princess Andrea helped Clyde locate the ancient mausoleum, she didn’t enter. There were countless ties between the Demon Race and Demon Realm. As a princess of the Demon Race, she had qualms about not thoroughly helping the Bradians escape and felt ashamed to see their descendants. Clyde didn’t quibble with her and made her look after his hell warhorse outside the mausoleum’s entrance. He then descended the flight of steps alone.
The atmosphere and environment within this ancient mausoleum was not especially eerie or terrifying. The eternal lamps illuminating this place were white crystals that emitted a radiance similar to that of an incandescent lamp. Clyde could clearly see everything. Once a person could see everything, they would have nothing to fear. There were also no funerary objects. Strangely, they had built such a colossal, wondrous mausoleum without any funerary objects. This clearly met the specifications of an aristocrat’s tomb but didn’t have the reciprocal offerings.
Clyde explored the path while enjoying the murals on both sides like an archaeologist. Yet his behavior was more like a grave robber’s. Just a moment ago, Clyde had used secret magic to obtain some of Andrea’s knowledge to understand the basics of the Bradian’s language. He quickly translated the mural and identified this tomb’s owner.
The owner of this underground mausoleum was Princess Annie, the first princess of the Bradke Empire. It had been the most powerful empire of the Bradians over one thousand years ago. Princess Annie’s innate talent had been astonishing, and her professional rank far surpassed that of most Undead Shamans. Nevertheless, because she had believed in the Demon Realm when the Bradians had universally believed in the Nether Realm, a majority of people had viewed her as a heretic. On the eve of the Divine Realm’s attack, she had learned about the Nether Realm’s betrayal from the Demon Realm and tried to persuade her fellow Bradians to escape, but the others had viewed it as her spreading deceiving fallacies and confined her. Unlike the other Bradians had escaped after getting the Demon Realm’s information, she had used death to prove her words.
After she had committed suicide, the Bradians had feared that she would take revenge after resurrecting due to being a powerful Undead Shaman, so they had sealed her corpse in a special coffin and bound it with a golden chain. However, later events would prove her words true. The regretful Bradians had only barely escaped with Princess Annie’s coffin at that time. After their continent was destroyed by the God Race’s Judgement Light, they had lacked the energy to remove the seal and awaken this once powerful princess, so they had helplessly built a mausoleum in the Needham Plains to bury her with full honors. At that time, the Bradians hadn’t had enough riches to decorate it. Moreover, facing the Light Church’s attack, the Bradians had hidden it using a secret method to sink the ancient mausoleum underground.
The culprit behind Antaur Town’s undead calamity had finally been found. Clyde was certain it was this Princess Annie. Undead Shamans wouldn’t truly die unless killed by the God Race’s Judgement Light. Ancient Demon King Tinas who had summoned Undead here had unintentionally helped Princess Annie. The dark energy she had accidentally given Princess Annie had revived her.
