Pop.
A soft sound rang out.
Big Skeleton quietly appeared before him.
"Huh? What did you come out for?" Shen Ye asked in surprise.
"The time has come for us to part," Big Skeleton said with a complicated expression.
Shen Ye looked at his fully healed skeletal body and finally realized.
"Right, you can move around freely now," Shen Ye said.
"Yes. I must return to the Undead Race. I still have much unfinished business, and I absolutely cannot keep wasting my time like this," Big Skeleton said solemnly.
"All right, then. This is where we part ways." Shen Ye smiled and waved.
"Yes. Thank you very much for helping me recover my strength, kid. I see you don't even have a storage tool, so take this ring as a keepsake," Big Skeleton said.
He placed the ring in front of Shen Ye.
"You can open and close it with mental power. Give it a try and you'll see."
"All right, thanks. It's a shame I haven't prepared a farewell gift for you."
"There's no need. You healed my injuries."
"Well, goodbye."
"Goodbye."
Big Skeleton bowed slightly, then turned and raced into the depths of the woods, soon vanishing from sight.
Shen Ye slipped the ring onto his finger and murmured to himself with a touch of sentiment:
"I only raised him for a few days before releasing him into the wild. Who knows if he'll survive?"
His words had barely faded.
A flock of birds suddenly took flight from the woods ahead, followed immediately by a violent boom.
When Shen Ye raised his head, all he saw was a massive pale flame rising from the woods, with densely packed skulls of white bone appearing over its light.
A flash.
"No-"
Big Skeleton's furious voice had barely uttered a sound before it cut off, as though someone had seized his throat bones.
The shock wave became a gale, whipping up sand and stones as the ground trembled slightly.
The color drained from Shen Ye's face.
Even during his battle with Skinner, he had never seen a move this powerful.
A moment later.
The woods fell quiet again.
Shen Ye brushed the dust off his head and shook a few pebbles out of his collar, his heart uneasy.
What was going on?
With Big Skeleton's strength, had he failed to withstand even a single move?
Then...
Wouldn't I just be throwing my life away if I went over?
As the saying goes, avoiding a problem beats solving it. I'd better hurry and-
Suddenly.
Three lines of faintly glowing text appeared before Shen Ye:
"Key reminder triggered:" "You have been discovered." "If you retreat now, your evaluation will be affected, and you will be unable to obtain the third 'One of Us' trait."
...So I'd been discovered.
Actually, running wouldn't get me away in this situation anyway. After all, from the sound of it, Big Skeleton seemed to have had little power to resist.
As the saying goes, you have to lend a brother a hand when trouble strikes.
I'd better hurry over and see what's happening.
Shen Ye put all his attribute points into strength, bringing it to 8.3.
Strength indirectly represented constitution, which meant vitality.
As long as he wasn't killed in one hit, he had a chance!
Shen Ye simply abandoned both hiding and probing, roared, "Feren, what's wrong with ya?" and charged straight into the woods.
"Don't move, human."
A sinister voice rang out.
Shen Ye immediately stopped moving.
Several of the dead, their faces ashen and their muscles taut, held sharp bone spears pointed at him from every direction, as though they would pierce his body the instant he moved.
Shen Ye glanced over at Brother Feren.
Broken bones littered the ground.
A skull lay on the ground, surrounded by the dead.
You poor unlucky kid.
You'd have been better off letting me keep raising you.
"What have you done to my brother Feren?" Shen Ye shouted angrily.
"Your brother?" one of the masked dead sneered. "I never knew humans called the undead their brothers."
The other dead also looked curious.
Shen Ye glanced at Big Skeleton's big skull.
Dim flames rose in the skull's eye sockets, and he quickly sent a telepathic message:
"The Elf Village mission failed."
Shen Ye understood at once.
It seemed these undead were a squad sent to punish Big Skeleton after the previous mission to assassinate the elves had failed.
"Of course. My brother saved my life. I've already made up my mind to follow him and overthrow the wicked human empire," Shen Ye said.
The leader of the dead snorted and said with murderous intent:
"The two of you think you can kill the human king? Do you really take us for idiots? Kill them both!"
"Wait!" Shen Ye snapped. "If you attack, you'll definitely regret it!"
"Don't try your tricks on me. I'm not one of those easily fooled Beast Race members," the Undead Chief said.
Shen Ye tossed something straight over.
The Undead Chief took it and looked. It was a Human Race Medal of Valor.
The Undead Chief hesitated briefly, then ultimately decided to investigate.
He moved his fingers, reciting several layers of incantations over the medal.
A mass of holy light slowly emerged from the medal.
The light wavered in midair, arranging itself into a line of small text:
"This Medal of Valor is awarded to the last survivor of the Rhine Territory."
"When he holds the medal, he will receive the miracle manifestation effect."
The Undead Chief shoved the medal into Shen Ye's hand.
In an instant, threads of holy light emerged from the empty air around Shen Ye, gathering above his head into a line of text:
"Awarded to the Boy Who Survived-Prince Norton of the Holy Violet Empire."
Only the medal's recipient could glow!
That made it more scientific than the elves' medals, and harder to counterfeit.
"It's real..."
"Kid, where did you get this thing? Speak!"
The Undead Chief barked.
Shen Ye looked at him, taking an unobtrusive glance above his head along the way.
"Star of Doom"-
A trait like "Star of Doom" floated above this undead leader's head!
Having a trait really did make someone formidable.
When that move had struck just now, even though Shen Ye had been standing far away, he had still been covered in sand.
Not to mention that Big Skeleton hadn't withstood even a single move.
By now, he had seen three beings with traits.
The Elves High Priest, Xiao Mengyu, and the undead leader.
They were all strong.
But people without traits were strong too.
Xiao Mengyu couldn't beat Skinner.
-So what exactly did traits mean?
As Shen Ye pondered, he shouted:
"Hmph! Brother Feren and I agreed to infiltrate the human Imperial Capital together and find an opportunity to assassinate the king!"
If you repeated a lie over and over, people might not believe it, but they would think you were a fool.
Fools naturally told the truth.
-The fool genuinely believed he could assassinate the king.
"Idiot! The medal may be real, but do you think the two of you alone can assassinate the Human Race's king?" the leader sneered.
"We have a way into the upper echelons of human society," Shen Ye said.
He took out a letter.
Naturally, the letter immediately ended up in the leader's hands.
-A letter of recommendation for the Imperial Capital Military Academy.
"Prince Norton's recommendation letter... The handwriting and seal are both genuine. They can't be forged."
"Unbelievable. Just who are you?"
The Undead Chief spoke in bewildered suspicion.
"Let's first talk about why you're going after my brother Feren," Shen Ye said.
"There's nothing to hide about that. There's no harm in telling you-"
The Undead Chief said sternly, "During the mission to assassinate the chief of Elf Village, everyone else was captured. He alone abandoned the mission and escaped. Such behavior must be severely punished!"
"Hahahaha!" Shen Ye threw back his head and laughed.
The Undead Chief stepped forward, grabbed him by the neck, and demanded angrily, "What are you laughing at?"
"I'm laughing at how stupid you are. He was clearly the only one who saw through the elves' trap, which was how he escaped the assassination site and saved me too."
"-And now you actually want to kill him!"
Feren chimed in at the right moment, "The village's Female Chief was away. The one presiding there was the Grand Elves Priest. He was already prepared to kill every assassin posing as an elf."
"What proof do you have?" the Undead Chief asked.
"Aren't you all so capable? Go investigate yourselves! My story is circulating all over the Human Race's Military Camp. Everyone knows I appeared in Elf Village, and that the Elven High Priest was presiding over that village-which was precisely where Feren's mission took place!" Shen Ye said.
At these words, the dead exchanged glances.
Could it be true?
Had Feren really been the only one to detect the danger and retreat first?
If that was the case, then a mission that meant certain death could indeed be abandoned on the spot.
-After all, Elf Village's chief wasn't even there. A powerful figure of the Elven people was presiding there instead, making the mission impossible to complete.
"Everyone knows you appeared in Elf Village? Are you that famous?" the Undead Chief asked probingly.
"Of course. Even the prince wrote me a recommendation letter. What do you think?" Shen Ye met his gaze without fear.
"What... do they call you in the Human Race's Military Camp?" the Undead Chief asked.
"The Boy Who Survived."
Shen Ye held his head high and puffed out his chest, his voice ringing with strength.
The line of text above his head and his words reinforced each other, inspiring respect.