However, when Moros summoned the undead army and Death Canopy covered the skies above the city, Mayor Yang realized they had gone too far.
Although Mayor Yang made a swift decision and immediately prepared to leave City Hall, he no longer had any chance of escape.
The moment he stepped out of the elevator on the first floor of City Hall, the elite undead squad Moros had dispatched broke through the defensive line of the private troops stationed outside.
Although the raid was repelled by the courageous private troops and prearranged high-tech traps, the ghosts and vampires lingering around City Hall made Mayor Yang realize that he had nowhere left to run.
Then, bad news came one after another, and pleas for help flooded into City Hall like snowflakes.
The defensive line on Outer Ring Avenue had been breached by the army of the dead, the traps on Second Avenue had been trampled flat by zombies using their bodies, and the barricades on Third Avenue had lost contact...
When the infantry fighting vehicle formation on Fifth Avenue was reduced to ashes beneath Death Cloud cast by corpse mages, Mayor Yang realized that this day would mark the end of his life.
As expected, faced with the overwhelming offensive of the undead army, the private troops that had previously repelled the elite undead squad were completely wiped out in less than ten minutes.
Not long afterward, the vampires burst through the doors of the mayor's office and entered his sight.
When a cold, sharp Steel Longsword was held against his throat, Mayor Yang trembled inwardly.
Though he had always navigated political struggles with ease, when faced with a crisis where he could lose his life at any moment, he realized that he was not as brave as he had imagined.
However, when he thought of the squad he had sent to the municipal orphanage, hope and courage rekindled within Mayor Yang.
As long as Number Zero completes the mission, my life will be spared!
Mayor Yang was not worried about whether the squad led by Number Zero could complete the task he had assigned.
They only had to go to the municipal orphanage and take away a little girl. For Number Zero's squad, completing such a simple task should have been effortless.
Therefore, even as he was being escorted to Moros, Mayor Yang remained calm and composed in the face of his unknown fate.
Half an hour later.
The first-floor lobby of a hotel on the outskirts of the city.
"We finally meet, Mayor Yang."
Moros stood amid a group of corpse mages, a cold curve at the corner of his lips as he watched the middle-aged man being escorted over by vampires.
"Moros, I underestimated you."
Mayor Yang met Moros's gaze, his heart filled with complicated emotions.
He had once believed that he controlled everything, yet in the end, he had been defeated by this little boy. He had been branded incompetent in the eyes of the councilors, and his political future was ruined.
"Mayor Yang, there is no need for any more pointless words. Now, tell me..."
Using an invisible hand of magic to seize Mayor Yang's tie, Moros dragged the bureaucrat who had once ruled this small city before him.
"What happened to my parents, Frakt and Emma?"
"Cough, cough..."
Mayor Yang looked at the little boy before him with a contemptuous smile, a trace of cruelty in his tone.
"Haven't you already guessed?"
"You mean..."
Moros swallowed and asked in a trembling voice.
"They already...?"
"That's right, they're already dead!"
Mayor Yang coldly interrupted Moros, mercilessly shattering his hope.
As he watched Moros's face twist in pain, a surge of pleasure rose in his heart.
"Hahaha, yes, that expression! That is exactly the expression I wanted to see on your face!"
"You damned bastard!"
Drawing the dagger hanging from the waist of a corpse mage beside him, the enraged Moros prepared to teach Mayor Yang a harsh lesson.
"Don't you want to see your little girlfriend again?"
Seeing that Moros was about to torture him, Mayor Yang finally wiped the smile off his face.
"Hmph!"
With a cold snort, Moros used magic to project an image between them.
The image showed Number Zero's squad, utterly destroyed. The warriors Mayor Yang had placed such high hopes upon had all become cold corpses.
Clearly, Mayor Yang's plan was finished.
"If this is where your confidence came from, then despair!"
"How is that possible? You..."
Before Mayor Yang could finish speaking, the dagger in Moros's hand stabbed into his left hand.
"Ah!"
When had the pampered mayor ever suffered such pain? He could not help but cry out loudly.
"You could think of Vill-V. Did you think I couldn't?"
As he spoke, Moros pulled the dagger from Mayor Yang's left hand and drove it viciously into his right hand.
"Ah!"
Listening to Mayor Yang's agonized screams, Moros continued explaining.
"From the moment the attack began, I had already sent an elite undead squad to the municipal orphanage."
Moros pulled out the dagger again and ruthlessly stabbed it into Mayor Yang's left arm.
"Ah!"
"The facts proved that my concerns were correct."
He pulled it out and stabbed it into his right arm.
"Ah!"
"You, you little bas..."
Mayor Yang, his eyes bloodshot from the tormenting pain, had just begun to speak when the two vampires behind him drew their Steel Longswords at Moros's signal.
The next moment, the two sharp blades pierced through his knees.
"Ah!"
The intense pain nearly made Mayor Yang faint. He raised his head and glared at Moros, his eyes full of resentment and unwillingness.
"Unwilling? Despairing? That's right!"
Ordering the vampires to continue Mayor Yang's punishment, Moros wore an expression of satisfaction.
"I will make you understand just how unforgivable your past crimes were!"
Moros's voice was cold and resolute, revealing his fixation on revenge.
As he listened to Mayor Yang's wails under the vampires' torture, Moros began considering his next step.
I can't stay on the Mu Continent any longer. For now, I can only return to the Demiplane and develop there for a while...
Moros silently pondered as he began planning for the future.
However, at that moment, his expression suddenly turned serious.
They're here so soon?
In his perception, the zombie horde stationed on the outskirts of the city as a warning line was being annihilated at an astonishing speed.
Clearly, the Mu Continent's regular army had reacted.
You're lucky!
Moros glared fiercely at the blood-drenched Mayor Yang and accepted the longsword handed over by a vampire.
A flash of sword light passed, and Mayor Yang's grimacing head fell to the ground.
Interrogating the Soul and Loss
Naturally, Moros would not grant Mayor Yang such an easy death.
After beheading the bureaucrat who had once controlled the fate of an entire city, Moros used necromancy to extract Mayor Yang's soul from his headless corpse.
This was something Moros could only accomplish after transforming from a player into a mage.
If he had still been the player from back then, who knew about necromancy without understanding its principles, he could never have employed such a method.
"Didn't I die?"
Mayor Yang's soul, freshly extracted from his body, was still lost and unable to understand the current situation.
In response, Moros generously used Soul Scourge to inform Mayor Yang what exactly was happening.
"Ah!"
With a miserable scream, Mayor Yang's soul trembled in pain.
"Tell me, where are Frakt and Emma's bodies?"
For a skilled spellcaster, death did not mean the end.
Through various mysterious magical methods, spellcasters could revive dead lives, or at the very least preserve their souls.
To say nothing else, Moros had found spells for resurrecting the dead in the spell tomes stored by the Mage Guild.
Level 5 Light Magic Reincarnation and Rebirth (Resurrection)!
Although Moros had not yet mastered this profound spell, he was full of confidence in himself.
He firmly believed that as long as he studied and practiced with persistence, one day he would master this miraculous spell.
When that time came, as long as he obtained Frakt and Emma's bodies, Moros could revive them.
"Keep dreaming! I won't tell you!"
Facing Mayor Yang's soul, which still refused to yield, Moros's eyes turned dangerous.
Now that the Mu Continent's regular army had begun clearing out the Undead Troops on the city's outskirts, Moros's forces were suffering losses with every passing second.
Therefore, he had no time to keep wasting on Mayor Yang's soul.
"You will tell me!"
After coldly leaving those words behind, Moros began chanting the incantation for the Level 2 Dark Magic spell—Suffering.
Moros believed that under the effects of this spell, unless someone possessed extraordinary willpower, they could not possibly endure for long.
Judging from Mayor Yang's earlier performance, he was not a person with firm will.
As expected, Mayor Yang's soul lasted less than ten seconds before wailing and begging Moros for forgiveness.
"Answer my question!"
Stopping the Dark Magic, Moros coldly pressed him.
"Th-their bodies have already been sent to the research base in the suburbs..."
Between painful gasps, Mayor Yang's soul told Moros everything he knew.
Mayor Yang's soul held one small hope: that Moros would perish together with the councilor who had forced him to remain at City Hall and led him into his current predicament.
Through Mayor Yang's account, Moros also learned the full sequence of events.
Eight years ago, Yang had just become deputy mayor when he pledged allegiance to the councilor.
With the latter's support, he not only advanced further in his career and became mayor, but also gained substantial benefits.
Naturally, the councilor's favors had not been given for free.
Following the councilor's instructions, Mayor Yang used the pretext of planning a new district to conceal the councilor's secret construction of an underground research base in the suburbs.
In the days that followed, the research base had been conducting research into some kind of mysterious energy.
Moros's father, Frakt, had been delivering supplies to the research base when he was inadvertently drawn into a dispute between the councilor and other councilors, ultimately being forced to take his own life.
"So the councilor was behind all of this?"
Thinking of the politician he had once seen on television, standing at the pinnacle of the Mu Continent's political world, flames of vengeance ignited in Moros's eyes.
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