Be it the mages of Bracada, the necromancers of Heresh, the druids of Iroland, or the mages of Ashan, they had always believed in one truth — 'knowledge represents power'!
The strength of a mage was related to their magic power, but knowledge was also an important factor in determining the level of a mage's achievements.
Death Lord Arantir was a true wise man. In Heresh, he was the most knowledgeable. His every word and action was calm and magnanimous, and the burning light in his eyes was as vast as the sea of smoke. Everyone who came into contact with him would be subdued by his wisdom. Even his enemies had to admit that he was a respectable opponent despite hating him.
Of course, this was referring to Arantir in his normal state. If someone mentioned the Dragon of Order, Asha, in front of him, it would be another matter.
At this time, Arantir would let you see what a fanatical believer was like …
In Ashan, dragons were not just 'giant winged, fire-breathing reptiles' but also the main gods of Ashan and the incarnation of magic.
The mortals of Ashan knew of the existence of dragons and respected them, and sometimes even feared them. People swore in the name of dragons, and the existence of dragons permeated every aspect of people's daily lives.
In the poems sung by the world, the Dragon of Order, Asha, was the most unique existence. People firmly believed that she was the goddess of creation, the mother of space-time, and the weaver of fate!
She created this world and hatched six Elemental Dragons to dominate it. She controlled the fate of all mortal beings. She weaved out their fates when they were born, measured their fates when they grew up, and cut off their fates when they died. And these three functions were mythologized as the three sides of Asha.
Namely: Birth, Life, and Death!
Among the other good and orderly races of Ashan, they often believed in the first two sides of Asha. But in the undead kingdom of Heresh, although the necromancers here also chose Asha as their goddess, they believed in the last side of Asha — the dark side of death!
The necromancers' understanding of Asha's power and characteristics was distorted, and they even concretized their belief in Asha's dark side. They believed that the incarnation of Asha's dark side was a huge, pitch-black spider. This spider was the so-called 'Weaver of Fate', and they openly used it as the symbol of the necromancers.
The spider tattoo on Arantir's forehead came from this. He was a fanatical believer in the dark side of Asha. He had obtained great power through practicing necromancy, but he attributed this achievement to Asha's favor. He claimed that he was Asha's Chosen and that he had the destiny of being chosen by the spider goddess!
In his opinion, it was his destiny to fight against the goddess's younger brother, who was also her old enemy, the demon descendant of the Dragon of Chaos, Urgash, and restore the order of the world of Asha! Regardless of whether the title of the Chosen One was real or he had hypnotized himself, Arantir was indeed resolute in fulfilling his duties.
In the legends, Asha was absolutely neutral. She would not favor good or bad, dwarves, elves, or orcs. Everything was Asha's creation, but she showed the most direct opposition to the chaotic creed represented by her twin brother and his crazy progeny, demons. Precisely because of this, Arantir hated demons extremely in his life.
Now, the reason why Arantir had appeared in this Desert of Death was precisely because of the unspoken sixth lunar eclipse four years ago. During this lunar eclipse, the sudden appearance of the demon army shocked the entire world of Ashan. Demons invaded the kingdom of Erathia, the most powerful country on the continent, and its capital, Steadwick, was almost destroyed in this demon invasion.
With the help of their allies, the kingdom of Erathia finally protected its capital and temporarily repelled the demons. But in the short period of peace, Arantir smelled something unusual.
After the war, Empress Isabel of Erathia seemed to have changed drastically, and she repeatedly did many incomprehensible things. Although many people said that it might be because her husband, Nicolai, had been killed by a demon in the war, and she seemed a little irrational in her grief, Arantir felt that it was probably not that simple.
In addition, some intelligence and signs showed that after the demon invasion, there were also some fallen mages who worshiped demon power in Bracada who chose to follow demons. They secretly supported Eeofol and transported minerals and resources to the demons.
In the kingdom of Heresh, many necromancers had been forced into exile because of the persecution of the mages of Bracada, so Arantir did not have a good impression of the mages of Bracada. After these fallen mages showed signs, Arantir included them in the list of enemies to eliminate.
Walking out of Heresh this time, Arantir's goal was to investigate the chaos in Erathia and find a way to eliminate the demons of Eeofol. He believed that this was his duty as the Chosen.
But to achieve this goal, Arantir needed a powerful army …
In order to gather a large army, Arantir had been wandering all over Ashan for a long time. He found many rotten corpses in decaying tombs and turned them into zombies. In the Poison Fog Swamp, he recruited many liches (people in Ashan liked to call liches liches). Then he risked his life to dig up the bones of dragons in the dragon graveyard and created bone dragons. Now, he had come to the Desert of Death, hoping to find the remains of ancient warriors in the tombs of pharaohs from a thousand years ago and recruit them to join his undead army.
With his perception of the land of the dead, Arantir brought his army to this oasis. But when he arrived, he found that someone had alarmed the undead here, and a great battle had broken out. The entire oasis was now littered with bones. The land of the dead under this oasis, the undead that had been brewing for a thousand years, had been destroyed.
Arantir did not care much about it. The Desert of Death was so huge, and there were many similar lands of the dead and pharaohs' tombs. He could just look for others. However, the aura left in this oasis made Arantir very concerned.
"The smell of sulfur and flames. This is the aura of demons!" Arantir gently sniffed the information in the breeze and then carefully examined the footprints left on the ground. As he looked, he said, "There's also an enormous creature. I don't know what it is, but it looks like the footprints of some kind of dog. The footprints it left are the deepest … There's also the footprints of a human woman here, but it's hard to say whether she's human or not …"
What made Arantir the most nervous was the other footprint!
Arantir found several footprints on the ground, but these footprints were masses of black ice. To be precise, it was a small piece of frosted ground! The middle of the frosted ground was very solid, and the frozen traces spread in all directions. Arantir observed for a while but did not see any signs of the black ice melting. And on the black ice, there was a sunken footprint. From this footprint, Arantir restored the model of a strong claw.
Squatting down, Arantir tried to stretch out his hand to touch the ice footprint. Unexpectedly, when his hand touched it, there was a slight numbness. He could feel that there was a weak electric current on it!
At the same time, he could feel the magic power on his fingertips disappearing slightly …
"Asha controls everything!" Arantir blurted out his mantra in surprise. "What kind of demon left these footprints?"
Yes, from the footprints with sharp claws, Arantir could tell that these were the footprints of a demon. But in his impression, many demons left behind flame footprints, which were very easy to judge. But Arantir had never seen these black frost footprints that contained lightning and demon-devouring power!
Just as Arantir was bewildered, a vampire count wearing a cloak and holding a longsword behind him, revealing sharp canine teeth, walked forward and said to him, "Your Excellency, these footprints haven't been covered by the wind and sand, which means that the owner of the footprints hasn't left for long. Should we chase after them and take a look?"
"Yes, Count Giovanni. We have to chase after them and take a look!" Arantir turned around and looked expressionlessly at the vampire count named Giovanni. "This might be a powerful demon with unknown power. His appearance might not be a good thing for the world of Ashan. We have to find out his movements as soon as possible. You and your vampire troops have outstanding mobility. Perhaps you can be the vanguard army to catch up and take a look, but don't clash with the demon. Wait for my troops to arrive!"
"As you command, Your Excellency Arantir!" Giovanni grinned and bowed. "Asha controls everything!"
"Asha controls everything!" Arantir replied.
Then Giovanni's body suddenly turned into a giant bat and chased in the direction of the footprints. Behind him, a large number of vampire troops followed the count, turned into bats, and flew forward.
Looking at this scene, Arantir was still expressionless, but his right hand hidden in his wide sleeve suddenly lit up with a faint light.
A small Mage's Eye appeared in the air and silently followed behind Giovanni and the vampire troops …
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