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The undead creatures, which were slowly floating, circled the barrier twice. Taking advantage of the speed difference caused by the different flight spells they were carrying, the undead creatures were pulled into three separate groups. They endured the seemingly unremarkable spells and slipped through the gaps back to the vicinity of the mage tower. After regaining their speed, they rushed towards the mage tower.
Casalos exhaled a burst of fiery breath that split open a hole in the mage tower's magical barrier, then folded his wings and swooped in, crashing headfirst into the pristine white mage tower.
The high-speed steel body collided with the fragile stone building. In Casaloz's excellent dynamic vision, the stone wall rippled like waves spreading in a ring on the water before cracking radially and then scattering into scattered fragments of stone... The towering mage tower collapsed with a roar.
"You little dragon brat, you're asking for death!"
The demigod lich's shrill roar followed, then a mind shriek that distorted reality, and two instantaneous projectile spells.
Casalos dared not touch even a trace of the magic thrown by the demigod lich. He dodged it with a barrel roll, pulled himself up high, and replenished his speed at the maximum height allowed by the barrier before diving down and unleashing a long-range spherical breath at the demigod lich that flew up to meet him in battle.
What it spewed from its mouth was an invisible, transparent sphere, moving at a speed as fast as sound—it was indeed a sound wave. Through its super breath attack, it converted all the energy of a fully charged breath into a high-frequency sound wave, which it then sprayed onto the body of the demigod lich.
The sound waves ignored the magical barrier triggered by the demigod lich and reached it. Its magnificent yet tattered robes shattered instantly, and its remaining upper half and head began to vibrate rapidly, with fine cracks winding across them. A spell it was preparing was interrupted, and even its constant flight spell was affected, causing it to plummet dozens of meters before recovering.
“Interesting.” The demigod lich hovered in place, his withered head's two hollow eyes flashing with spiritual light: “At any other time, I would be happy to play with you, but now you are getting in the way of my plans, so die.”
As he spoke, he switched the twisted wooden staff to his left hand and raised his free right hand, pointing it at Casalos, who had already begun to maneuver and evade.
A red beam of light, as sharp as lightning, shot from the demigod lich's finger, instantly piercing through hundreds of meters and "connecting" to Casalos's body. Nothing—no rolling barrels, no high-altitude spells—was effective against this light-speed, directed-energy-like spell. There was no way to avoid it, no way to escape.
The magic resistance was easily breached by the demigod lich's high spellcasting level. The rune-carved scales and dragon skin also failed to stop the red light's erosion. Only the flickering flames slightly disturbed the trajectory of the red lightning, and that was all.
There was no burning sensation, no freezing or poisonous feeling like lightning, and no mechanical trauma. Not even a hint of pain; Casalos's consciousness simply plunged into complete darkness in an instant.
When it opened its eyes again, it saw its own dragon body, which had lost its life form but remained intact, being propelled by the inertia of fire elements and crashing into Elena's barrier.
Casalos couldn't help but think of the unreasonable instant-death effect. Even a powerful Silver Dragon Paladin like Hevilan would have been killed by Samaster in the original timeline.
"Hmm? A substitution spell, or a clone?"
The demigod lich also noticed "another" Casaloz that had reappeared in the square in perfect condition, and asked with a mixture of doubt, excitement, and curiosity.
Casalos still didn't answer, but simply donned the water elemental and took off, accelerating halfway at the fastest speed he could currently achieve, then decelerating for the other half, crashing into the lich's melee circle at near zero airspeed, swirling and dancing around the half-dead, decaying body.
Beneath the rippling water, beams of holy light, emanating from the dragon's wings, claws, and tail, flowed into the demigod lich's body through the disruption of defensive spells caused by the disintegration technique, illuminating the tiny cracks created by the sonic breath.
The damage dealt by the Evil Breaker to the demigod lich is very small, but the high frequency of attacks prevents it from casting powerful spells.
175. The more undead there are, the fewer undead there are.
Unlike bosses like Grommash Hellscream that completely overwhelmed Casalorus, the demigod lich's melee combat ability was practically nonexistent compared to the Ancient Dragon. Aside from being unable to effectively damage the demigod lich, Casalorus faced little challenge in melee combat with its aerial attacks, even holding onto its elemental transformation trump card tightly.
It even had the leisure to recall the young mage it had encountered in Ximen City. Despite being a pure mage, he wielded a dagger and a scythe with unparalleled skill, as if they were a mage, assassin, and warrior working in perfect harmony, suppressing even the high-level assassin of the Dark Mask. In comparison, the demigod lich was purely academic. Although possessing legendary magic that even ancient dragons would look up to, its practical combat experience was far inferior. Once its most proficient magic...
Chapter 238
If one's skills cannot be effectively utilized, one becomes stretched thin and inadequate.
If this guy had half the combat skills of the little mage from Westgate City… Casalos shook his head, banishing the terrifying thought from his mind, and focused on dealing with the formidable enemy before him, keeping a close eye on it and not missing a single, subtle movement.
The demigod lich was eager to kill Casaroz in one fell swoop with a powerful spell, but such a spell inevitably required more preparation. Even though it possessed the skill of instant casting, casting a spell still required the coordination of gestures or movements. Just like the previous Death Finger, which had been upgraded to an unknown level, at the very least, it required the action of pointing an empty finger at the target. However, caught in Casaroz's storm combo carrying Radiant damage and the turbulent water elementals, the demigod lich couldn't perform even half a valid action.
Those spells that can be cast instantly without needing to use super magic have no effective effect on Casaroz, who is a fully-fledged master of all elements and has also advanced Bloodscale Frenzy to level 7 in the battle against the Tyrannosaurus Rex. If it were an ordinary lich, even if the spellcasting level was higher, Casaroz would have already turned it to ashes.
Unfortunately, demigod liches are quite peculiar. Despite their broken bodies, they are immune to physical attacks from non-legendary weapons and possess a multitude of immunity abilities. Casalos, despite his brute strength and melee skills, is rendered useless. Aside from his sonic breath and the fiery flames waiting for the right moment, only the radiant damage from Bahamut's Holy Warden can harm him.
The battle thus reached a stalemate, but the demigod lich was in no hurry. This was its home turf, and as long as the slow-moving undead army surrounded it, the young iron dragon would have nowhere to escape. Otherwise, it would have already used a teleportation spell to create distance. Staying here like a wooden stake was the quickest and most efficient way to end the battle. The arrival of the summoned dragon horde was crucial to its plan; it couldn't afford to linger with this strange young dragon for too long and jeopardize its plans—it didn't know it might never see the dragon horde appear.
Coincidentally, Casalos was also waiting for the undead army to surround him.
The effect of the Blazing Flame without stacked layers is too weak. Even though Casaloz stacked it for a long time on the battlefield of Damara with the army of the supernatural, he was limited by the enemy's effective countermeasures and could not stack it much. To deal sufficient damage, he had to rely on the undead residents in Elena City.
With both sides harboring their own agendas, the more than 50,000 inhabitants of Nakalzas within Elena City finally completed their encirclement, densely covering the battle area like a sphere. Hidden within were dozens of liches and a very high proportion of undead spellcasters, who, under the control of the demigod liches, systematically unleashed spells, weaving a terrifying magical firepower network that the material world would never again witness, annihilating Casalos almost instantly.
What magic resistance, energy resistance, and immunity? Under the baptism of tens of thousands of targeted spells, from the lowest level three to the highest unknown, they are all just bubbles.
A contemptuous smile appeared on the demigod lich's withered face, but he froze the next moment. Another identical young iron dragon appeared in the square not far away, still in the same spring-like takeoff posture, still with the same rumbling, muffled flight sound. He wondered if he was hallucinating.
"Hmph, so what if you can be resurrected multiple times? This time, I'm going to extract your soul and imprison it in your corpse... I'm quite interested in such magic." The stiffness didn't last long; the demigod lich quickly responded, manipulating the undead army that had formed a sphere around him to meet the approaching enemy.
However... it probably doesn't understand the fish swarm algorithm. The clumsy undead under its control were all facing the center of the sphere one moment, and the next moment they received the order to turn around and attack. The only result was that they collided together in chaos due to the difference in their flight abilities, and forcibly piled up a fleshy wall of undead bones in the sky, comparable to the Skull Offering Skull Seat.
Chaos erupted and quickly spread throughout the densely packed undead horde. In a short time, they were unable to regroup and launch an attack, and even their defensive spells were rendered useless due to mutual interference. The demigod lich's spell channels were completely blocked.
"Step aside!"
The backlash from a failed spell stretched across the floating, piled-up undead wall, the demigod lich's psychic screams further disrupting the chaos. Casalos, already clad in high-level fire elemental armor, approached the floating undead wall.
It withstood the haphazard magical barrier released by the outermost layer of undead, smashed through the sparse undead individuals flying towards it, climbed to the top, then folded its wings and swooped down vertically close to the undead, spinning its body and continuously spewing out fan-shaped bursts of sparks, like a spiral of flames blooming in the air, igniting every undead it touched.
This time, the breath contained not only disintegration but also intense flames.
At the same time, patches of burning fire clouds spread out beyond the spiraling trail of flames.
The flames, belonging to magic and dragon breath, quickly died down, but the strange bursts of light that erupted from where the flames had eroded grew brighter and brighter, gradually connecting and spreading into the thick wall of undead, until they piled up and bloomed into a stream of light resembling the explosion of a Mythrion nuclear blast...
No, compared to the destructive light stream of the Miser nuclear explosion, the blazing light is ultimately dim. Even if it illuminates the entire Elena, it won't sting the eyes; it's just gentle and radiant, so beautiful that even the demigod lich, who doesn't need to breathe, feels suffocated.
As the fireworks faded amidst the falling debris and embers, Irena returned to darkness. Apart from the thousand or so undead who had narrowly escaped the chain reaction of the flames, only the demigod lich, flickering with flames like a fairy wand, and Casalos, who had risen again and was charging toward the demigod lich, remained in the sky.
"What kind of wicked witchcraft is this? You wretched dragon, I will tear your soul out and inflict upon you endless torment!"
The demigod lich shrieked and raised his hand to unleash another Death Finger.
176. Triumph
Despite its best efforts to accelerate, Casalos was still some distance from becoming a demigod lich. Even with elemental flight, it couldn't interrupt its spellcasting. The massive piles of high-level magic scrolls prepared by the kobold warlocks couldn't be brought into the Dragon Treasury. Due to the continuous and intense breath attacks and the frenzied release of high-frequency, high-cost spells, the dragon magic flowing in its veins had almost calmed down and was unlikely to surge again in a short time.
As the demigod lich's fingertips pointed at him once more, the shadow of death once again shrouded Casalos's dragon soul.
The demiplane isn't the Dragon's Treasury dungeon; the "monsters" don't respawn. If it dies again, all the Blazing Flame layers it just stacked will be wiped out, and it won't have a chance to stack them again. It's basically a defeat... Does it really have no way to deal with instant-death spells with extremely high casting levels?
Not really.
Casalos's mind stirred, and fluorite-like light appeared, forming an eggshell shape that completely enveloped its body. A red lightning bolt struck the eggshell in an instant, and the "rule" contained within it annihilated the eggshell, leaving only a powerful storm of negative energy after the ring's ascent, which swept across the dragon's body. While it brought a series of inexplicable random negative status effects, it was far from possessing the power to kill it.
"Oh, you can even defend against barriers? I'm becoming more and more interested in you..."
Before the demigod lich could finish speaking, Casalos, having gained a little time thanks to the anti-death barrier, had closed to the elemental flight distance that its current magic power could support. It transformed into a gust of wind, braving the local sonic barrier, and swept across the last two hundred meters before reappearing in physical form to engage the demigod lich in hand-to-hand combat—it dared not directly collide with the lich's body, as that would do little damage, only sending the lich's remains flying, and it might even have its soul captured by some strange, permanent spell.
Sticking close to the demigod lich, he used wave after wave of attacks to interrupt the lich's prepared spells, slowly injecting the heavily layered flames into the mangled body—his only hope for victory.
This time, the demigod lich didn't have an army of 50,000 undead to form a crossfire network, so it also lacked the patience to be a sitting duck.
Chapter 239
Cursing, he triggered a displacement spell, and his mangled body instantly appeared dozens of meters away, escaping Casalos's whirlwind combo that burned even his soul.
However, it was only a few dozen meters; how could Casalos, who could turn into the wind, possibly not catch up?
It tried to escape, it chased, it couldn't escape even with wings—no, only Casalos had wings, not the demigod lich. Layer upon layer of already formidable flames were injected into the lich's remains with high-frequency combos, piling up with the secondary flames from the chain explosion of 50,000 undead, destroying the physical foundation of the demigod lich's existence from a level even deeper than magic.
"You...you...you...wait...to live..."
The demigod lich's remains gradually disintegrated amidst the sparks and flames. The curses that echoed in his mind could no longer form coherent sentences, and various instant-cast spells began to malfunction frequently.
Casalos found the fight increasingly easy, his calmed dragon magic surging again. Gradually, he could no longer sense any force to retaliate. His indigo eyes darted around, and he transformed into lightning elemental form, the most mana-consuming yet fastest form. He flew hundreds of meters away, trailing bolts of lightning, completely exhausting his dragon magic before returning to his physical form. Without looking back, he swooped down, accelerating further away.
The next moment, ripples of negative energy erupted from the demigod lich's almost completely destroyed body, sweeping away everything in their path. Unfortunately, Casalos was already far away, and by the time the negative energy ripples caught up with it, they had weakened to an extremely low level, no longer even capable of penetrating its spell resistance.
"I've seen plenty of things like this that self-destruct when they're about to die..." Casalos muttered under his breath, his iron beak clicking. He didn't seem inclined to go back and check, but instead flew off into the distance until he reached the edge of Elena's barrier. Then he turned and began circling the city, still muttering, "I've seen things that explode twice too."
Sure enough, about ten minutes later, the demigod lich, whose remains had been completely burned away by the flames, let out another psychic scream accompanied by a curse: "I curse you, Iron Dragon, I curse you to be hunted down forever by the people of Netheril, I curse you and your offspring to be forever tormented by madness, to tear apart every one of your closest loved ones with your own hands... unless the sun never rises again!"
The negative energy of the psychic scream couldn't reach Casalos, who was watching from afar, but an invisible curse, conforming to some mysterious rule and agreement, fell upon Casalos as expected.
At first, it saw a black dragon about to burst into flames of rage before it, but then it sneered: "Although the curse has taken effect, upon closer examination of its terms, it seems that not a single one of them has any real effect on the dragon."
Leaving aside those self-aggrandizing figures like Aruhar, how many true citizens of Netheril are still alive? The crucial point is that every surviving Netheril is a thoroughly evil villain to Faerûn right now. If Casalos were to encounter them, wouldn't he be an enemy as well? And being eternally tormented by madness… isn't that the eternal curse that every Faerûn dragon is born with? What's there to fear from the lich adding to it? Besides, do dragons have the "hands" to tear apart their own kind?
These kinds of mysterious curses, which are neither magical nor negative, are probably related to the Hell of Bathor. They are all agreements with illegible words, and the demigod lich used the wrong words!
Taking it a step further, the demigod lich ultimately stipulated the condition for lifting this agreement according to the rules: "the sun will not rise the next day"... Casalos silently calculated the time; at most, it would last a year before the curse would expire, so there was nothing to worry about.
Casalos didn't truly kill the demigod lich. Liches can still survive thanks to their life caskets, and the demigod lich was a bizarre entity that had transferred its essence to the outer realms; how to kill it required further study. Essentially, Casalos only destroyed the demigod lich's projection and vessel. However, this demigod lich was originally a copy of the information retrieved from the Dragon Treasury; its essence was probably currently having a heart-to-heart talk with a certain unfortunate soul who was forced to distribute his divine office, divine power, and divine authority to three fools, so Casalos didn't need to worry about it.
Now is the time to reap the rewards.
Even though a few dozen liches survived through the phylactery, the remaining undead in Elena City posed no threat to Casalos. After spending some time leveling all the buildings in Elena City and burying these living corpses that should have been buried long ago, Casalos tallied his spoils.
One Miser Core, a one-time teleportation array capable of connecting to the Karthusian Divine Kingdom plane, a set of scrolls recording the arcane heritage of Karthus, tens of tons of various books and magical items from the Netheril era, and hundreds of tons of artworks, jewelry, and gold.
The most important and unexpected gain for Casalos was fifteen scrolls made entirely of gold.
177. Nether Scroll
"Kalthas still has this thing... Wasn't it stolen on the way to Elena?"
"If it wasn't 'stolen,' then it was probably either melted down like the 24 scrolls in Éollum's possession, or it was completely lost." The archbishop's attitude was very strange, and the aura surging beneath his cloak was a mixture of amazement and regret.
"Okay, you're right."
The fifteen golden scrolls have a very ordinary name: the Nether Scrolls… Of course, people in this day and age prefer to add a touch of mystery to the name, generally calling it the Nether Mysterious Scrolls, but it doesn't actually sound much more impressive. Contrary to its ordinary name, the Nether Scrolls are the most mysterious and powerful artifact in the history of Faerûn, bar none.
Its power is not manifested in direct killing or destruction. The Nether Scroll is not as difficult to destroy as other magical artifacts. As the dragon's eye can see, the material used to make the Nether Scroll is the most ordinary gold. The golden light stings the dragon's eye, but it is extremely fragile. A breath of dragon's breath... no, even a slightly stronger flame can destroy it.
The power of the Nether Scrolls lies in the magical knowledge recorded on them. Nether's glory originated from one hundred Nether Scrolls of unknown origin. All the arcane achievements of the Nether era were the insights of the Archmages who read the Nether Scrolls, including Karthus's Ascension!
Around five thousand years ago, the Netherians discovered one hundred golden scrolls in the ruins of Erevanda. They quickly abandoned the magic taught by the elves and began to learn the magic in the Nether scrolls, thus beginning the Netherian era.
Four thousand years ago, the elves of Koman'thal stole half of the Nether Scrolls. The high elf mages hid them deep within the Windsong Tower. These Nether Scrolls created Mysdrano, the city of song, and disappeared with the fall of Mysdrano.
The Nether Empire and Mysdrano, two great kingdoms founded by humans and elves respectively, both originated from the Nether Scrolls, which speaks volumes about the importance of the knowledge they record.
In fact, Faerûn's existing magic system is entirely derived from the Nether Scrolls.
Could the Nether Scroll be a creation of Mysriel, the first goddess of magic?
This is the speculation of most people about the Nether Scroll, but Casaloz's God's-eye view tells it that the truth is not so. Even the first goddess of magic, Mysriel, did not know what was recorded in the Nether Scroll, and the second goddess of magic, who inherited Mysriel's part, knew even less.
The one hundred Nether Scrolls contain entirely different knowledge, but each reader can find the arcane knowledge they most urgently need in any one of them, thus entering a deeper realm of arcane magic. The great arcanists who have had the privilege of reading many of the scrolls believe that whoever can read all the knowledge recorded in all one hundred scrolls could become the new god of magic.
Interestingly, the Goddess of Magic thought so too. At some point in the future, after the third Goddess of Magic, Midnight, obtained a portion of the Nether Scrolls, she was astonished by the detailed information they contained about rebuilding the Celestial Magic Network. She even discovered that the Nether Scrolls might contain a backup of the first Goddess of Magic—meaning that the Archmage's guess was correct: whoever could completely read and understand all one hundred Nether Scrolls could indeed become the new Goddess of Magic.
Not to replace the current goddess of magic, but to become the original one.
Chapter 240
She is a magical goddess possessing a unique level 20 divine status, unmatched in the entire realm, and is suspected to be the successor to the highest god. Whether she truly becomes the first magical goddess or is replaced by a backup of the first magical goddess is debatable.
Unfortunately, this is an impossible task. No one can read the complete set of the Nether Scrolls, not even the three generations of magic goddesses!
The knowledge recorded in the Nether Scrolls is too vast for even the gods of the realm to fully comprehend. Even the chosen ones of Midnight and the Goddess of Magic can only seek out the knowledge they urgently need within the Nether Scrolls, rather than attempting to fully read and understand them. Mortals, on the other hand, would gradually descend into irreversible madness while reading. Even the most accomplished arcane scholars only maintained a degree of clarity and rationality up to the eighth volume of the Nether Scrolls.
This thing might be a joke played by the supreme god AO, the creator of the Realms, on the beings of Faerûn, or perhaps an insignificant note accidentally left behind in the Realms by the creator of the multiverse. But whatever the case, what is certain is that the Nether Scroll contains knowledge and mysteries that transcend the level of the Realms.
This is a truly divine artifact.
Demiplanes, floating cities, and Miser cores, not to mention those vulgar jewels and gold, were no longer on Casalos's mind at this moment. All its attention was completely drawn to the Nether Scroll.
It stared blankly at the pile of golden scrolls, then walked forward and carefully took out one of them. It slowly opened it, and its indigo eyes reflected the stream of light flowing through the scroll. Mysterious symbols with unclear meanings and lines of beautifully structured formulas flowed into its brain through unknown channels and were injected into its dragon soul.
In that instant, Casalos seemed to see nothing, yet it also seemed to see everything. Even the arcane foundations of the demiplane and the floating city were revealed, but unfortunately, it was far from understanding the prerequisite knowledge of these structures.
When it came to its senses, the opened Nether Scroll concealed the flowing information and turned into ordinary gold.
Casalozs's mage level, which had been limited by certain mechanisms and had not been able to improve for many years, was thus increased by 1 level. More importantly, his arcane potential, which was supposed to be locked by a mysterious mechanism and could only be unlocked in adolescence, was also unlocked, and his innate spellcasting level of 1 was also increased to level 1.
The arcane transformation brought about by the Dragon's Treasury's divine talent tree is beginning to truly reveal its power.
Like Isis, Casalos's eyes can now see the warp and weft of the magic network, and if conditions permit, he can even glimpse how the magic power contained in all things is distributed and how it moves...
With just these eyes, it doesn't need to dissect or use any other skills; theoretically, it can find the flaws in any magical structure, thereby countering, destroying, dispelling, or even altering the magic, just like Silinxi's spell transfer.
Of course, theory is just theory. With Casalos's current arcane skill level, the limit for him in the short term is being able to counter the spells supported by his own casting level. To achieve the same effect as Sylvanas's spell transfer, he would at least need to raise himself to the level of mastering spells above the ninth ring.
"This is not something I should be looking at right now!"
Despite his burning passion, Casalos used unwavering willpower to suppress the urge to continue reading the Nether Scrolls, instead sealing them away completely.
178. Trapped
The significance of the Nether Scrolls goes beyond individual advancement. Putting aside the distant future, if a passage between the demiplane and the prime material plane were opened, and the loyal minions were allowed to read a volume or two, a number of legendary spellcasters would inevitably emerge in Dragon Territory.
Whether it was due to Casalos himself or the innate talent of the kobolds, over the years, few true legendary spellcasters have emerged from the vast number of half-dragon warlocks in Dragon Territory with spellcasting levels above 20... The fifteen scrolls of Netherworld have solved this problem, enough to completely change Dragon Territory's predicament in high-end combat power.
Whether Dragonlords can become the new Netheril or the new Mysdranos is not something we can consider now.
The race that created the original Nether Scrolls was almost wiped out. The Netheril era, established by the discovery of Nether Scrolls modified by unknown beings, came to an abrupt end. Mysdrono was reduced to ruins by the armies of the Dark Three. Whether the glory built upon the Nether Scrolls was merely a fleeting illusion, or whether it was an experiment conducted by some being, remains unknown to Casalos.
The level involved behind it may even be far above the gods of the realms and heavens. Casalos is currently powerless to contend with even the gods of the realms, so why should he worry about those more distant battles?