Lowett had four reasons for placing the soldiers' corpses so conspicuously. Kuro had only guessed two of them.
Having already revealed his ability to control corpses, placing his battle "tools" right under the enemy's nose was undoubtedly an exceptionally sincere display of weakness.
Unfortunately, numbers were not everything.
The main undead force had long since climbed onto the island from the cliffs at the side and secretly approached the pirates' ambush point. Otherwise, they would not have waited so long for Lowett to appear.
Zombie Puppets lacked the consciousness they had possessed in life and moved slowly, but their opponents were hardly elite troops either.
When two lousy chess players faced off, an ambush came down to who could act better.
Silent Step!
Ignoring the chaos behind him, Kuro had been toyed with by the enemy and was desperate to personally wash away this humiliation.
He immediately used his signature technique!
Whoosh...!
In an instant, Kuro vanished from Lowett's sight.
His black skull-patterned coat floated in midair, billowing backward in the airflow, but Kuro himself had already disappeared. There was not even a trace of his movement to follow.
The intense sense of danger made Lowett's brow throb. He knew that the instant Kuro revealed himself, he might die!
Fortunately...
"A mage does not rely on his eyes to lock onto an opponent."
His body could not keep up with his thoughts. Lowett could only slowly turn his eyes to the left, where five refined steel cat claws suddenly appeared from empty space and viciously slashed down at him.
Rip...!!
The gale whipped his hair. A crisp sound of flesh tearing rang through the air, along with a strange tremor.
It was as crisp and pleasant as a snapped erhu string.
The wind swept past, and the sharp current severed a lock of black hair. The refined steel cat claws abruptly withdrew as Kuro bent forward and met Lowett's eyes before leaping far back.
Hiss...!
After steadying himself, a thin Blood Pillar sprayed from his wrist, scattering into bloody mist and staining the grass red.
Kuro's expression turned grave. He used his cat claws to tear off a strip of shirt, then gripped it in his teeth and bound the wound.
"This is... thread?"
Around Lowett, nearly imperceptible translucent strands filled the surrounding space like a spiderweb. Even direct sunlight failed to reveal them.
Kuro was immensely grateful that his attacks always put the weapon before his body. The moment he felt resistance through his claws, he had immediately pulled back. Otherwise, if he had fully leaned into it...
Whether Lowett would have died was uncertain, but Kuro himself would definitely have been dismembered on the spot!
"Not bad observation!"
Raising a hand, Lowett brushed aside the severed hair hanging over his eyelids. His eyes glimmered with an inhuman crimson light, and his lips trembled slightly.
"But these are not threads. They are blood!"
Half-Star Flesh Magic: Blood Coagulation Art!
Famous alongside Bone Magic: Bone Dissolution Art, it was a spell commonly used by Necromancers when processing materials. It was the equivalent of hemostatic clamps and bone drills on an operating table. Only Lowett's extensive knowledge had allowed such an ingenious application.
Gurgle...
At that moment, the ankle-deep pool of blood inside the small boat began bubbling. It burst again and again like hot spring water, an eerie sight.
Under Kuro's shocked gaze, thumb-sized blood spheres floated up one after another. As they rose, they gradually twisted into spindle shapes and hovered beside Lowett's shoulders.
Half-Star Flesh Magic: Blood Cone Art!
Since he had collected so many spellcasting materials, it would be a pity not to use them.
"Go!"
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
As soon as he spoke, the "bullets" shot out in a dense barrage.
Kuro drew a deep breath.
"What a relief!"
No matter how bizarre the scene was, they were ultimately only ordinary physical attacks. Even he felt tremendous psychological pressure when facing such strange necromantic magic.
It was not fear of Lowett, but the fear the living felt toward death.
The ability to control the dead sent chills down one's spine.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
His slender body twisted in place. Kuro's ten cat claws repeatedly swept, cut, and deflected. Amid the dense clashing of metal, he resembled a black cat dancing upon knife points, elegant and precise.
Bang... Bang bang!
The Blood Cones were repeatedly shattered, filling the area with a hazy red mist, yet they failed to harm him in the slightest.
Anyone with even a little strength in this world could not possibly be injured by antique Flintlock Pistols, let alone these blood-bullet projectiles, whose power and speed were inferior to firearms.
"If this is all you've got, then die!"
Seizing a gap in the barrage, Kuro rose onto his toes. His body lifted and dipped, and as he lowered himself, he vanished into the air once more.
Danger!
Lowett's gaze sharpened. His Mental Power rapidly drained away as streams of blood shot from the pool in the small boat and wrapped around him.
Hiss... Hiss... Hiss...!
Three cutting sounds rang out almost at once. Knowing full well that traps were spread around his opponent, Kuro did not act rashly. Instead, he slashed from a meter away.
Feeling the feedback transmitted through his weapon, Kuro smiled confidently.
"Got you!"
Then his feet crossed as he spun in place. His refined steel cat claws transformed into the saw blades of a meat grinder, carrying sharp gusts as they sliced through the blood strands and charged forward.
So long as he broke through the blood-strand defense, it was not arrogance for Kuro to say that his opponent was nothing to fear.
Lowett thought so as well.
Just as swordsmen had to find every possible way to close the distance in battle, mages had to find every possible way to control the distance.
Allowing an enemy to get close was a mage's disgrace.
Necromancers were especially troublesome in this regard, because besides guarding against their magical interference, one also had to watch out for that group of...
Undead creatures!
Crimson Fury!
Just as Kuro was about to reach him, Lowett finished chanting. Corpses atop the pile opened their eyes one after another, crimson light blazing within them.
Then... they shot forward.
Rip!
Kuro cut one down with a claw and silently frowned at the severed corpse.
"As expected..."
In an ordinary one-on-one fight, Kuro was confident he feared no one in the East Blue. Lowett knew that, so he could not possibly have ignored it.
He had always been wary of that pile of corpses, and the facts proved he had guessed correctly.
Those corpses had not been placed there merely to intimidate the enemy or feign weakness.
"Roar!"
They were also reanimated Zombie Puppets, but unlike the others, these zombies did not have vacant expressions or lifeless eyes. Instead, they were filled with brutality, as though they had gone berserk.
Unless low-level Zombie Puppets evolved into Ghouls or were modified into stitched abominations, their usefulness on the battlefield was truly limited.
But what if there were a spell that could rapidly give them considerable combat power without requiring tedious follow-up procedures?
Someone had tried it before: burning the soul.
Yet even an Official Mage's soul could only burn for five minutes at most, and that was for perishing together with the enemy.
The remnant souls of Zombie Puppets could not even last one second.
Thus, Lowett took a different approach and chose the path of external stimulation. It was also the birth, development, and spread of this magic that made him the brightest morning star beneath the heavens.
One-Star Flesh Magic: Scarlet Fury!
Like souls, vitality was a substance that could be observed and quantified in the world of mages.
By shattering blood, the most common vessel of vitality, dispersing it into Zombie Puppets' bodies, then using soul fire as the spark and blood as fuel, it ignited their hatred for the living and drove them berserk.
The bad news was that this process was irreversible. Once their vitality was exhausted, the zombies would not even leave behind a wisp of remnant soul. Unlike ordinary Zombie Puppets, which had virtually no time limit and could be used repeatedly.
But the good news was that in this state, "I can take on ten!" was no longer an exception, but the norm.
Having the courage to face the evil within one's heart, desecrate the corpses of the dead, toy with the souls of the departed, wring them dry, and make them offer their final loyalty—these were the qualities Necromancers valued most when accepting disciples.
Because only then would they not lose themselves in their fear of death.
Only then would they have the courage and qualifications to pursue the Necromancer's Ultimate Mystery.
What the hell... was death?!
Rip...!
A claw slashed down. Feeling the difficult resistance of muscle and bone from his opponent, Kuro frowned slightly.
"Troublesome!"
Crimson Fury strengthened the undead in every aspect, including muscle resilience and bone density.
No longer able to cut down enemies with ease, Kuro found himself in the situation he hated most as an agility-based fighter.
For example, his flashy rival, the Great Pirate Krieg, clad head to toe in golden armor, was utterly like a dog trying to bite a hedgehog.
And besides...
"Even cutting them apart is useless."
Before he knew it, Kuro had been forced to the edge of the forest by the frenzied assault of twenty berserk undead.
Not far away lay a corpse severed at the waist. It was the first one he had cut apart.
An ordinary person would have been dead beyond doubt, but this was an undead creature. Even torn apart like that, it dug its fingers into the soil and crawled forward, letting out a chilling roar at him through a filthy face smeared with blood and dirt.
"Capture the leader first!"
Kuro made up his mind. He prepared to use another ultimate technique to clear the surroundings and buy himself time for a decapitation strike.
But at that moment, footsteps sounded from within the forest.
It was Sam, one of the Nyaban Brothers.
Having barely shaken off the undead pursuing him, Sam immediately saw Kuro being chased all over by bloody zombies. He jumped in fright and shouted from afar.
"Captain, this is bad! Vice-Captain Zango took an escape boat and ran!"
"An escape boat?"
Kuro froze for a moment, narrowly dodging an undead bite before turning back with furious eyes. "Since when did I order something like that to be prepared?!"
"Wasn't it you who ordered us to prepare it...?"
Sam was not stupid. He immediately understood.
Zango had forged the captain's orders!
Clap! Clap! Clap!
Crisp applause rang out. In the distance, Lowett's lips curled with mockery as he said disdainfully.
"Wonderful! Just what one would expect from pirates!"
"If I'm not mistaken, he probably tampered with the ship you came here on, making it easier to trap you here."
"In other words... he wants you dead, Kuro!"
Before you continue