Clear Out a Wave of Small Fry First

The Evil Spirit passed through the entrance sealed by the iron gate. There was no Magic Restriction on the gate, so he slipped through without resistance.

Inside, a shaft plunged about twenty meters straight down before turning horizontal. A little more than ten meters farther on, it opened into a domed chamber over fifty meters across.

This appeared to be a tomb. Directly beneath the dome stood an ancient Pyramid more than ten meters tall. Many burial offerings surrounded it, but after untold years, nearly all had rotted away.

A huge circular Magic Array, drawn in blue pigment, encircled the Pyramid.

But the gathering of the Tower of Yin Spirits' core members that Green had expected was nowhere to be seen. Beneath the Pyramid stood only a young man in his twenties with two girls whose features were still fairly pretty.

The young man wore an insufferably smug expression. He looked down at the two girls fawning over him as though his attention were the greatest honor they could ever receive. The girls' eyes were vacant and their minds clouded; it seemed nothing else in the world mattered to them anymore.

Green had no interest in watching the scene. He ordered Maxim straight into the Pyramid.

This structure, apparently an ancient tomb, had once been reinforced by magic. Merciless time had worn it all away, however. The Magic Array outside the Pyramid was ruined, and the Magic Runes carved into its surface were too faded to serve their original purpose.

Just then, Green frowned in his inn room. As Maxim drew closer to the Pyramid, Green felt his connection with the Evil Spirit weakening. He could barely maintain Visual Synchronization. Startled, Green hurriedly ordered Maxim back. He could not risk anything happening to his only level-three elite unit. After a brief hesitation, he left the inn as well and slipped into the Ceramic Factory, avoiding the townspeople as best he could.

Green followed the route to the office building with its doors and windows boarded shut. Maxim had already returned to his side.

Some Magic Circles still remained within the Underground Pyramid, blocking Green's remote control of his Undead creatures. Rather than probe inside any further, he decided to make his move and clear out a wave of small fry first.

Bang! The Hard-Skin Ghoul Green summoned ripped a thick board from an office window, opening a hole just large enough for one person to squeeze through.

Green was fairly agile. His body had received a noble upbringing from childhood, and before his Lineage had fallen into complete ruin, he had attended the Knights Academy for two years. His physique was quite good by ordinary human standards.

Maxim had scouted the place while invisible. This was the southeast corner of the abandoned office building, with no one nearby, and it lay in a blind spot. No one noticed Green entering.

Green squeezed through the hole. Only the Hard-Skin Ghoul stood before him, while Maxim floated overhead. He held off on summoning his other Undead creatures for now. Calling out his entire force of more than thirty Undead Troops at once would cause too much commotion and alert the enemy. He was not afraid of being surrounded; he was afraid the Transcendents of the Tower of Yin Spirits would realize something was wrong and scatter. Every one of them was Psychic Energy waiting to be his.

Green headed down the corridor. As he passed the restroom, he heard a commotion from the men's room, punctuated by curses of "bitch" and "whore."

Green raised an eyebrow and stopped. Following the sound, he ordered the Ghoul in. This straggler would make a fine first kill.

The Hard-Skin Ghoul gave a low growl and charged inside. Crash! It must have smashed through a stall door. A short scream followed.

When Green entered, one of the men's room stall doors lay in pieces. A lean man in his thirties lay in a pool of blood, three holes torn through his chest. He wore leather armor on his upper body and nothing below.

Green had seen corpses before and felt no discomfort. Looking into the stall, he saw a girl covered in wounds, staring blankly ahead like a doll and laughing foolishly. Green knew she was beyond saving, reduced to a walking corpse for others' amusement.

Green frowned. He had not intended to kill indiscriminately, but seeing this girl of sixteen or seventeen trapped in a life worse than death made him hesitate. At last, he sighed and ordered Maxim to give her a quick end.

At his command, the Evil Spirit became a streak of white and rushed at the girl, passing straight through her chest without leaving a wound. In that instant, her face went rigid. She seemed to regain her senses just before death, and a trace of relief appeared in her eyes.

That was how Evil Spirits attacked: they struck the soul with their spirit forms, leaving the body unharmed.

Green did not look at the girl again. His gaze returned to the dead man, and he pressed a hand against him. As expected, the Graveyard immediately notified him that it had detected Psychic Energy. Green absorbed it and gained forty Psychic Energy. Judging by the man's clothing, he had probably been a Junior Apprentice Knight.

After harvesting the Psychic Energy, Green searched the body. Unfortunately, the man carried no other magic items. Only an antique-style handgun caught his eye.

The moment Green picked it up, his eyes lit up. According to the Graveyard, this antique handgun also contained Psychic Energy—and a substantial amount at that, nearly eight hundred!

This time, Green did not rush to absorb the Psychic Energy. Instead, he examined the handgun closely. With anything else, he would not have hesitated, but this was a gun. A Magic Staff might be standard equipment for a mage, yet in this age of Firearms, a mage carrying a handgun was hardly strange. Besides, this was an enchanted firearm infused with Psychic Energy.

Delighted, Green gripped the handle to test how it felt, then swung out the cylinder to inspect the ammunition. All seven chambers were loaded and ready to fire. He was lucky the man had been too busy venting his urges to react quickly. With even a little vigilance, he could have drawn and fired in a fraction of a second. Even if he missed Green, the shot would have brought his companions running.

Green snapped the cylinder back into place, raised the gun, and aimed it, getting a feel for the shot.

In his previous life, Green had earned a perfect score in marksmanship during university military training and had joined the school shooting team. After his transmigration, this body's original owner, Green Wilson, had also trained with Firearms. He had a fair amount of confidence in his handgun shooting.