Killing and Framing

[If we're going to take action, what's the plan?] Su Ming asked.

"[Are you planning to make your move like this?]" Qiluo asked in surprise. "[Won't your identity as a necromancer be exposed?]"

[It's okay, I have a way to solve this.]

"[That's amazing?] "Qiluo was even more surprised. "[Since you can go all out, then just charge in. If we go first, we can easily crush these guys.]"

Before Su Ming could answer, she revealed her unicorn form on the spot, and the ropes binding her snapped. The kidnapped girl in the cellar cried out in alarm.

The warrior sleeping outside the cellar heard the noise and came in to investigate, but the unicorn broke down the door first, shoving its hooves onto his face.

[Hey, you didn't even warn me before you attacked.] Su Ming said, displeased. He lifted his magic-sealing cloak, jumped over the wall into the courtyard, and "Silent Vision" immediately activated. The flow of time slowed down, obstacles were penetrated, and all illusions and disguises lost their effectiveness under the spell.

Freed from the constraints of the cloak, Su Ming's senses became exceptionally sharp, and he could see everything in the room in minute detail. He observed the situation: the walls of Old Luo's house were half a meter thick, and the windows were double-glazed; the spaces between them were filled with a light-transmitting material Su Ming didn't recognize, making it appear quite warm. The thief on the first floor was on guard duty, fully equipped with leather armor and weapons; he heard movement at the cellar entrance and was heading towards the warriors.

It was enveloped in a faint glow that allowed it to become invisible.

[Your eye technique is quite interesting.] The unicorn's mental link switched in, and they entered slow time simultaneously.

"How's it going on your end?" Su Ming asked. "That warrior is so tough, it hurts my feet," the unicorn complained. "My nails are probably split."

Su Ming glanced at him; the warrior wasn't wearing armor, just carrying a warhammer. The unicorn had already struck him four or five times before the latter could barely muster his Dou Qi to defend himself, his face a mess.

The Low Rank mercenary, whom Qiluo called Little Karami, was sleeping in a spot at the back of the first floor. He was sitting up in bed, somewhat confused about the situation. Old Luo, the merchant, was sleeping in the next room, still unaware of the commotion.

The archer on the second floor was also fast asleep—one could only say that the merchant's house was made with lavish materials and the soundproofing between floors was excellent!

"Then I'll choose the archer!" Su Ming ended the Silent Vision and drew his Thorn Long Whip. The tip of the whip deftly pierced through the thick brickwork, wrapped around the archer's neck, and then Su Ming tightened his grip.

As expected of Intermediate Rank, Su Ming's ruthless sneak attack failed to break the whip. The archer was pulled against the wall by the whip, clutching his neck with both hands and kicking wildly. Dark energy flowed along the whip, eroding into the wound on his neck. The archer's eyes immediately rolled back, and his whole body writhed violently.

The thief discovered Su Ming's movements immediately. He abandoned his plan to rejoin the warriors, quickly smashed the window, and went outside. He then concealed himself in the darkness once more, intending to launch a sneak attack.

The thief's stealth was far inferior to Zijin's illusion. Su Ming activated his improved Psionic Vision and easily detected his presence.

Su Ming withdrew his whip and lashed it out at the thief in mid-air. The thief dodged the whip with a flash in the air.

Knowing that invisibility was useless, the thief switched to Shadow Jump and lunged at Su Ming from behind. But Su Ming was already very familiar with this technique. He placed his Dark Blade in the thief's path, waiting for the thief's neck to collide with his.

With a loud thud, the Dark Blade clashed with the thief's dagger, which the opponent deftly parried. The thief then swayed and circled behind Su Ming once more.

"So slippery!" Su Ming complained. Thieves truly lived up to their reputation as the most agile combat class. He also used Shadow Jump to pass by the thief and create distance.

After landing, the thief pushed off with both legs, turned 180 degrees in mid-air, and chased after Su Ming's back. His movements were fluid and seamless, and his speed was so fast that he arrived before Su Ming.

Su Ming, however, shook the dwarven musket off his back and fired two shots in quick succession at his back, releasing two thick, slow-moving bullets.

The thief dodged quickly, only to find that both bullets exploded in mid-air, scattering into two nets several meters square. Caught off guard, the thief...

He was caught red-handed. He tried to break free, but found the net's threads were very sticky. In his struggle, his hands and feet became entangled, and he fell to the ground.

This is the anti-aircraft netting configured for the Five Fangs. Su Ming took some and disassembled it to make large-caliber ammunition. The target refused to be obediently cut and kept fluttering around like a moth, so Su Ming had no choice but to start the item race.

He retracted his Thorn Long Whip, joined the joints together, and transformed it into a staff. Two Bone Spear formed on his left and right sides, then shot out swiftly.

The shield glowed, revealing the leather armor on the thief's body. The Bone Spear shattered and disintegrated, failing to harm the thief himself.

"Impressive protective gear," Su Ming scoffed. His Bone Spear was a penetrating, reinforced type; armor capable of independently blocking such attacks must be incredibly expensive. This fueled his anger even more. "Being a human trafficker is really lucrative!"

If two shots don't solve the problem, then four!

Four Bone Spear materialized beside him and shot out. The thief had just untied the net binding his hands when he was struck by the white light. The inscriptions on his leather armor shattered, and the thief was sent flying, crashing into the courtyard wall behind him, where he fell silent.

Su Ming then unleashed four more Bone Spear, striking the thief once more. This time, the shockwave shattered the entire wall. The thief was sent flying outside the courtyard, rolling into a snowdrift amidst the falling bricks, and fell silent.

The archer on the second floor had broken free from the dark corruption. He struggled to his feet, ignoring his bleeding neck as he reached for his bow and arrows.

Upon seeing this, Su Ming immediately sent a message to the unicorn. "[Attack the archers.]"

During the battle just now, the walls on the first floor had been almost completely destroyed by Qiluo and the warriors. Upon hearing this, she immediately broke free from the warriors, smashed through the first-floor ceiling, and jumped to the second floor.

The soldier also rushed out of the ruined wall. His eyebrow was badly swollen, and he had wounds on his body from being pierced by long horns, which were still bleeding.

He intended to chase the unicorn, but saw Su Ming outside conjure four more Bone Spear, aiming at him. He stepped back a few paces, using his foot to pick up the shield from the ground and grab it to receive the Bone Spear.

Su Ming merely sneered, waving his staff behind him, and four Bone Spear crushed the thief lying on the ground behind him.

The thief, who had been feigning death and hiding in the snow to secretly untangle the net despite his severe injuries, stared wide-eyed. He only had time to leave behind a single "#" before departing in resentment.

The soldier swallowed hard. This thief was the strongest in the squad. In particular, his leather armor was Master Rank, purchased at great expense, with extremely strong protective capabilities. The thief also managed to avoid being injured in vital areas thanks to his exceptional dodging skills.

This thief's survivability far surpasses that of the shield warrior. Many enemies are caught off guard by this blind spot, allowing him to ambush and kill them.

Unfortunately, I ran into an opponent today who was obsessed with last-hitting minions to an extreme degree!

****

The warrior hesitated between assisting the archers and attacking Su Ming, deciding to go for the latter. He held his shield up in front of him, preparing to unleash his charge skill.

Su Ming immediately sensed that the other party wanted to take advantage of the situation to escape. He instantly activated the powers of a necromancer, intending to summon nearby skeletons to form a bone shield. However, to his surprise, he sensed that the Central Court was filled with a large number of corpses, so densely packed that it was terrifying.

These vicious human traffickers!

Su Ming's eyes instantly turned extremely fierce. You've asked for your own deaths! He immediately switched his spell type and targeted the warriors.

"Resentment Armor Spell!"

Countless bone fragments emerged from beneath the warrior's feet, clinging to his body and tightly enveloping him. The warrior was momentarily stunned, for this was a protective spell, but he quickly realized his naiveté. The bone armor piled up more and more, rendering him immobile, and its weight forced him to his knees.

Until they can no longer breathe.

The warrior swiftly unleashed his Dou Qi, repelling all the bone armor covering his body. But more bone fragments persisted, stubbornly clinging to him. The warrior swung his weapon and shield like a spinning top, shattering and deflecting the bone fragments with a clanging sound.

On the second floor, the archer was hit twice by Qiluo, leaving two holes in his body. He gave up on getting the weapon, jumped out of the window, landed on the courtyard wall, tumbled to the ground, and then ran away as fast as he could.

A series of gunshots rang out, and blood spurted from his left side. Su Ming held a staff in one hand, channeling Bone Armor Spell to continuously suppress the warrior; with the other hand, he gripped a UTS-15 shotgun and fired at the archers.

Each shotgun shot requires manual ejection and reloading. Su Ming used his Mage Hand to wrap around the barrel, neatly cocking the gun after each shot. The ejected cartridge cases clattered as they hit the snow, creating wisps of white mist.

The archer finally collapsed, half of his body riddled with bullets.

The unicorn leaped out of the window, spreading its wings in the moonlight, and a halo of interwoven green and gold appeared on the battlefield.

"The Moon's Offering"!

The powerful amplification caused Su Ming's Magic Power to surge dramatically. The warrior, who had been barely maintaining a balance in the struggle, could no longer resist and was tightly bound by the bone fragments. As the bone fragments continued to accumulate, he was wrapped into a bone ball in agony.

Su Ming's eyes narrowed, and he clenched his right fist. The originally ring-shaped bone ball suddenly collapsed inward. A muffled scream rang out, followed by bright red blood seeping from the bone gaps.

Behind the half-collapsed house, the unknown Low Rank mercenary and the merchant Old Luo crawled out, covered in dust and dirt, trying to escape. Just as they reached the backyard wall and were about to climb, they found their feet firmly gripped. They hurriedly looked down and saw a swarm of skeletal claws reaching out from the snow, and couldn't help but scream in terror.

Su Ming completed the summoning spell, his eyes cold.

"Beautiful," Qiluo exclaimed sincerely. First, he used a bone shield to strangle the warriors, then summoned skeletons to devour the enemy. He let the remains of the victims take revenge themselves; Su Ming's methods pleased her greatly.

Su Ming snorted. The ground beneath the house was littered with White Bone, clearly the remains of victims accumulated over the years. He didn't bother to look at the two men's gruesome state, but walked over to the archer's corpse, took out his dwarven musket, loaded it with high-explosive rounds, and fired two more shots to obscure the bullet marks on the archer's body.

"You lowly scum!" Amidst the excruciating pain of being torn apart by the skeleton, the Low Rank mercenary suddenly pulled out something and shoved it into his mouth. In an instant, his eyes turned bloodshot, and a strange power surged through his body.

"A follower of an evil god?" Su Ming glanced at him sideways, loading his shotgun as he prepared to step forward. "The little Karami you mentioned isn't small."

"No need," Qiluo waved her hand to stop Su Ming. "Those who lack strength and try to find 'shortcuts' are easy to deal with."

In the mercenary's vision, he saw his muscles bulge and burst through his clothes. As the power of the "evil god" descended, his figure continued to grow taller, and he couldn't help but let out a cackling laugh.

But in Su Ming and Qiluo's eyes, his clothes had long been torn off by the skeleton, revealing his thin ribs. He stood naked, looking up at the sky, raising his hands in a strange pose, completely unaware of the minus twenty or thirty degrees Celsius.

"I think I understand now. It was a combination of self-hypnosis and medication that made him fearless of pain afterward?"

"Not only that." Qiluo, who was about to take action, stopped and gestured for Su Ming to see for himself.

As the mercenary's entire body turned red, the skeletons became impenetrable to his defenses and were indeed crushed under his foot, emerging from within.

This power has indeed reached the Intermediate Rank.

"He firmly believes that his belief in becoming stronger will indeed materialize into power, making him a formidable opponent in a head-on confrontation," Qiluo said. "However," she suddenly whistled, casting Clarity Spell on the mercenary and forcibly pulling his mind back to reality.

"Hey, Greyhound," Qiluo pointed to the mercenary's groin, "Your thing is still so small, it hasn't gotten any bigger."

The mercenary looked down in disbelief, his hypnotically reinforced belief collapsing instantly. He coughed up a mouthful of blood and collapsed into the snow.

"How can someone who can't even persevere with normal cultivation have a strong will?" the unicorn said leisurely. "See? I told you it was simple."

"You're being too cruel," Su Ming said.

****

Su Ming took out several magic crystals and began to set up a magic circle around the archer's corpse.

"What are you going to do?" Qiluo asked.

"Contaminate this corpse with necromancy and make him take the blame," Su Ming replied. "Otherwise, how do you explain the necromancy that appeared at the scene?"

The unicorn realized they were trying to frame the archer, pinning the identity of a necromancer on him. As for Su Ming —he was just a chivalrous adventurer passing by!

Qiluo gave Su Ming a thumbs up. Old Luo was being relentlessly attacked and bitten all over by the skull, but Qiluo wasn't in a hurry. It wasn't until she heard someone running over in the distance that she stopped being impatient and finally finished him off.

She then unleashed Prayer Aura, saying, "I will interrogate the souls of these people and then guide them to the afterlife."

The purpose of performing a ritual to release souls is to prevent anyone from discovering the truth of the battle through an investigation of the souls afterward. Many medium spells, besides those of the undead, can achieve this, so it's essential to completely erase them.

Su Ming was already angry when he saw the corpses scattered all over the ground. After the unicorn finished asking its questions, he pulled all five souls to his side and then roughly used his magic to crush them.

These heinous souls exuded a mournful and tragic aura, rippling outwards in waves.

The unicorn showed a hint of pain and took a few steps back. "My mental perception is very sensitive. This kind of Psionic Power shriek will make me feel uncomfortable. You should let me know in advance next time," she told Su Ming.

"Ah, sorry, I understand," Su Ming said apologetically.