The Knight's Vow

The final blow fiercely struck the head of a Skeleton Crossbowman, sending its skull flying. Its Soul Flame extinguished, its body disintegrated, leaving only a pile of bones.

This Skeleton Crossbowman dropped its crossbow, a plain Soldier's Crossbow. Xiao Yang decided to keep it for himself. Before this, the Skeleton Archers he'd charged and beaten had also dropped quite a few bows.

However, he found them a bit difficult to use. Bows weren't that easy to get the hang of; compared to them, crossbows were much more practical.

But even crossbows couldn't compare to Xiao Yang charging forward and wildly swinging Justice's Condolence.

While furiously grinding Skeleton Warriors, Xiao Yang leveled up his Heavy Strike skill to level five. Level five was the limit for Heavy Strike. The skill no longer increased its damage multiplier, but the stamina Xiao Yang needed to use it had significantly decreased. Oh, and Stab too. Those Skeleton Spearmen also dropped Skill Scrolls for Stab.

However, these spear-wielding skeletons didn't make up a particularly large portion of this skeleton army. In the process of clearing out the entire skeleton force, Xiao Yang only managed to raise Stab to level three. Now, Stab could deal an additional five points of damage that bypassed defense.

The harvest wasn't over yet. Next came a pile of tattered leather armor and broken shields. All one could say was that with enough quantity, the drop rate for all sorts of equipment increased.

Xiao Yang had assembled his Adventurer's Five-Piece Set: Adventurer's Wide Hat, Adventurer's Armguard, Adventurer's Boots, Adventurer's Linen Trousers, and Adventurer's Breastplate. The Adventurer's Wide Hat, Breastplate, and Trousers were all obtained while grinding Skeleton Warriors.

A strange question arose: why would Skeleton Warriors drop Adventurer sets?

After a brief moment of thought, he arrived at a rather grim answer: Adventurers had died at the hands of these Skeleton Warriors, and those Adventurers had become these Skeleton Warriors.

Without equipping the Adventurer's Wide Hat, Xiao Yang put on the Adventurer's Breastplate and Adventurer's Linen Trousers. Finally, he shed his peculiar appearance and adopted a more capable adventurer's demeanor, except for his head, of course.

The Adventurer's Breastplate added two points of Defense and one point of Agility. The Adventurer's Linen Trousers added two points of Agility. It was a shame the Adventurer's Five-Piece Set didn't have a set bonus; otherwise, Xiao Yang would have definitely taken off his Wraith Helm to become a true Adventurer.

Xiao Yang's stats were now as follows:

[Level: 8
Health: 200 (200)
Strength: 13 (13)
Defense: 26 (15)
Agility: 27 (20)
Remaining Talent Points: 3]

He was still fifty experience points short of leveling up. Xiao Yang scoffed at the experience required for leveling. The experience decay in the God Game was too extreme, and the experience needed for each level increase was too high. To level up quickly, the God Game only offered one path: fighting enemies with significantly higher level and tier differences.

When Xiao Yang defeated the Dungeon Guardian, he had leveled up three times in a row.

But the problem was that normal Elite bosses were hard to deal with, and the chance of encountering a severely weakened Elite boss like the Dungeon Guardian was almost like hitting the jackpot.

It was troublesome.

Perhaps it was simply because Xiao Yang had been leveling up too fast. After all, it hadn't even been two full months since he became a player in the God Game.

After completely clearing out these Skeleton Warriors, Xiao Yang cleared out the small plaza. After a bout of exhilarating, fierce, and even life-threatening grinding, Xiao Yang finally had some energy to properly observe the small plaza that had recently been filled with Skeleton Warriors.

After clearing out these Skeleton Warriors, a rope bridge that looked rather unsafe appeared before Xiao Yang, behind where they had been guarding.

Fortunately, even the underground crevasse hadn't completely torn apart the rope bridge, only making it somewhat precarious.

"It's a little dangerous, isn't it?"

The rope bridge connecting the two sides was stretched taut. A large portion of the wooden planks had fallen off, spanning across the darkness, making one involuntarily swallow.

If possible, Xiao Yang wouldn't want to take this path, but there was no other choice. This was the only way to the other side. However, it wasn't time to enter the next area yet.

This small plaza wasn't entirely empty; on the contrary, quite a few things were piled up: bundles of arrows, numerous bottles and jars, iron plates for repairing armor, and even a heavy anvil. It seemed like an outpost?

Lost in thought, Xiao Yang searched the plaza with his torch. This action wasn't in vain; after a thorough search, Xiao Yang successfully found some useful items.

An iron treasure chest. Upon opening it, Xiao Yang obtained a bundle of Incendiary Grenades.

[Bundle of Flame Grenades
Quality: Fine
Effect: Can be split into three Incendiary Grenades.
Description: "Like I said, throw them out, and watch those guys scream in the flames!" an arsonist responded when asked about his words while being burned by fire.]

[Flame Grenade
Quality: Fine
Effect: Creates a field of flames, inflicting 10 points of continuous burning damage per second on creatures within the flame field.]

Xiao Yang could use this. He could give a few to those Corpse Mushrooms later. Besides this, there was also a map carved into the stone wall of the plaza and a somewhat faded inscription.

The crudely drawn, crooked map had a few names: Windmill Town, Blackwater River, Kingdom Post Station, and a name circled in large letters: Blackstone City.

Xiao Yang couldn't quite understand the map, but he recognized the names Windmill Town and Blackstone City. Windmill Town was the hometown that the Wandering Grudge longed for, and as for Blackstone City, Xiao Yang had three pieces of equipment related to Blackstone.

It was clear that the story unfolding in the hidden map was inextricably linked to the Skeleton Dungeon where Xiao Yang was currently located.

But what exactly had happened in the past?

There was still too little information to make any proper deductions. Perhaps he could find more information in the deeper parts of the dungeon and the upcoming hidden areas. Thinking this, Xiao Yang's gaze fell upon the faded inscription next to the map.

[I will stake everything I have to defend this place until your return! Knight: Harden]

Under the light of the Dark Dispelling Lantern, Xiao Yang took in the words. It seemed to be an oath. He appeared to know the name of that Undead Knight. Although he didn't know what exactly had happened here, the Knight Harden, who left this message, had indeed upheld his vow.

He had indeed remained here until his death.