Chapter 199: Indestructible

"Counter Magic!"

Yelena’s chant carried a special Magic Power. The Dispel Magic the Death Knight had cast on the Defense Array instantly vanished into thin air. Immediately after, the combined assault from Sera, Aive, and Victoria completely broke his rhythm, forcing him to take up his greatsword and fight once more. In his haste, he had no opportunity to cast another spell.

"This thing can cast Magic like that?!" Ron was shocked.

"He was a Paladin when he was alive, of course he has the ability to cast Magic!" Yelena said bitterly. "Good thing he probably just woke up from a deep sleep and his mind is still fuzzy, otherwise we’d be in deep trouble!"

"It’s not too late for him to wake up now!" Silvia’s voice came from within the Dark Magic. The Vampire Descendant had used nearly all the available Magic in her Walking Stick, but the effects had been negligible. "Be careful, he’s coming for us!"

Perhaps annoyed by the harassment, or perhaps having finally realized that he couldn’t completely defeat the others without taking down the Casters, the Death Knight forced Sera back with several slashes of his sword, then charged with great strides toward Ron and the others!

"Mirror Image Magic!"

Ron had only just managed to cast the Magic when the whistling greatsword, trailing a furious gale, slammed down, grazing his body. The two Mirror Images shattered into a cloud of fragments the moment they appeared.

"Floating!" Ron’s body flew up. He had barely managed to dodge into the air before the deadly blade could target his real body. However, the Death Knight showed no sign of stopping and charged straight for the Shadow Spirit.

His targets were everyone present; the order didn’t matter at all!

"Force Field Wall!"

BANG! Before the fully plate-armored body could strike Yelena, it slammed hard into an invisible Force Field Wall. The Death Knight tried to change direction, but to no avail; the Force Field repelled him back to the center.

The sturdiness of the seemingly thin, invisible wall was dumbfounding. It formed a sphere with a three-meter radius, enveloping and imprisoning the Death Knight before he could react. No matter how the giant tin can struggled, it was utterly unable to break free.

"Mazarino!" Ron landed beside the approaching Traveling Mage. "You actually had strength left?"

"You should have acted sooner!" The Shadow Spirit’s already pale face was now completely devoid of color. "Are any of you Traveling Mages reliable?!"

"First you said you cleared out the powerful Undead Creatures here, and then you said you were out of Magic—can you speak a single word of truth?!"

"I didn’t expect this Death Knight to suddenly awaken from its slumber either..." the old man said, awkwardly scratching his hair. "This was my oversight, my oversight."

He then gave a wry smile. "As for Magic... Miss, do you see this bare, aging body of mine?"

At that moment, the Traveling Mage looked even more wretched than the others who had just escaped the Ghost Gate: his already tattered Magic Robe had been torn to shreds and was folded in his hands. He wore nothing underneath but a pair of shorts, and his bare body shivered in the wind on the clearing, which was ravaged by negative energy.

However, Mazarino wasn’t quite as pathetic as he made himself out to be. Although the old man’s muscles were a bit loose, one could still see the extent to which he had trained his body. Even at his age, he still maintained a decent physique.

"When this old fella was young, he could have definitely given the Shaman in my tribe a run for his money," said Sera, who had returned to her original form. She looked at the Traveling Mage and coughed up a large mouthful of dark blood.

She had been doing her utmost to suppress her injuries during the fight just now. With the crisis temporarily averted, her mind relaxed, and the backlash hit her.

"You should stop talking," Victoria said, helping Sera sit down. "Rest for a bit. I’ll tend to your wounds after I finish healing Constance."

"Go on, I’m fine, COUGH." Sera’s spirit was drained, and she sat exhausted, cross-legged, in front of the Force Field Wall imprisoning the Death Knight. "You should also check on Aive. Our good girl has her tin can for cover, but her injuries are definitely no lighter than mine, and probably worse."

"It’s not that serious, I’m fine." As Aive undid the cloth strips and ropes binding her wrist to the handle, the tower shield in her hand fell to the ground with a CLANG. "It’s just the web of my hand that split open. No big deal."

"I’m a Priest, not your boyfriend." Victoria shot her a look and, without another word, began removing her armor. Just as she’d expected, Aive’s forearm was unnaturally twisted into five sections. No wonder she’d had to tie the shield to her hand—she probably couldn’t grip it anymore after being knocked away.

"Go take care of Constance first," Ron said, taking some medical supplies from his pack. "I’ll give Aive some basic treatment."

"OW, OW, OW—" As Ron started to work on her, Aive immediately shrieked in pain. "Ron, I’m begging you, be gentle! I can’t take it anymore—"

"Can’t you just use a Healing Potion?!"

"What a silly thing to say..." Ron and Victoria said in unison. "Alchemy Potions aren’t a cure-all. Especially in your condition, even Healing Magic would require setting the bone first."

"Unless you want to end up looking like one of those Evil Demons or Undead Creatures covered in fleshy growths."

A Priest’s Divine Magic can at least control the direction of the healing to some extent. A Potion, on the other hand, doesn’t care what the injured person was supposed to look like; as long as it’s "healed," its job is done.

"I say, old man, can’t you just finish it off nice and clean?" Silvia called Gelan and the other person over, bringing a thick woolen blanket to drape over Mazarino. "The level of this Magic of yours isn’t low, but you can’t keep it trapped like this forever, can you?"

"An hour? Two hours?"

"Ten minutes," Mazarino sighed. "Force Field Wall is a fifth-circle spell. Don’t get your hopes up."

"Besides, don’t you know? A Death Knight can’t be destroyed by conventional means. Unless its sins are atoned for or it finds redemption, no matter how many times you kill it, it will reappear after being destroyed."

"Then what do we do?!" Silvia was stunned. "Don’t tell me we have to fight another round with it after we’ve healed up?!"

"Er, actually, I was going to say you should retreat as soon as you can move," Mazarino sighed. "Even I can’t destroy it under normal circumstances, let alone now."

"Sir, I’m afraid we can only ask you to think of something else," Ron said, standing up. "We’re not asking to destroy it now, we just need to keep it trapped for long enough."

"Our main purpose for coming here was to retrieve a piece of a corpse—er, a fragment. The other Undead Creatures don’t seem to be coming up to surround us. As long as you can stall it for a little while longer, that should be enough."

"This..." Mazarino gritted his teeth. "Alright! It’s my fault the situation turned out this way, and you all saved this old man’s life. By all rights, I should contribute a little more."

"How about this: there are still five minutes left. Help me find my Magic Staff, and I’ll be able to cast my original Arcane Memory Recall two more times. That will buy you another twenty minutes!"