Chapter 279 The Sword Wreathed in Radiant Flame

Xia Nan had, of course, noticed the desiccated corpse of the cleric kneeling in devout prayer beneath the divine statue.

To be honest, though, his attention—just like that of the Adventurer Squad—had been entirely captivated by the staff on the altar. He hadn't examined the corpse closely, and there had been nothing particularly noteworthy about its back.

It wasn't until the human ranger shot the corpse with a single arrow and the Adventurer Squad broke into infighting that he dropped all attention toward the body.

But to think...

"Hum."

An iron-gray blade flashed through the air as the Decapitating Longsword was instantly sheathed.

A scorching wave of heat parted the surrounding fog, the abrupt temperature difference causing a fine mist to condense around his body.

Crimson firelight carved an arc like the setting sun before him. The wooden sword [Azure Pine] was now securely in his grasp.

A sudden surge of danger flared in his chest, prompting Xia Nan to step back subconsciously and put distance between himself and the corpse.

From the corner of his eye, he caught a dazzling, explosive flare of light on the wooden sword—a blazing current of flame so dense it seemed almost tangible, far more intense than ever before.

A wave of confusion washed over him.

Judging by its appearance alone, this state could no longer be explained by a simple "15% Sunfire damage" modifier.

"What exactly is that thing?"

His dark eyes, reflecting the firelight, locked onto the corpse lying quietly beneath the altar.

His body went taut, and his breathing slowed.

He was ready for a fight.

"Hrrk..."

It was that same dry, rattling groan squeezed from the depths of a ruined throat.

Dark purple fingertips, brittle as dead wood, twitched against the floor. The filthy, moth-eaten cleric robes began to shift and wrinkle.

Swaying unsteadily, the emaciated figure slowly climbed to its feet. It moved with the weak, strained, and slightly twisted posture of a patient who had been bedridden for years.

It didn't even glance back at Xia Nan standing in the distance, maintaining the exact same posture it had held before the arrow pierced it.

Yet Xia Nan didn't dare drop his guard.

No matter how harmless the creature appeared at this moment, the wooden sword in his hand—now so searing hot he could barely hold it—proved this was no ordinary corpse. Its threat level far surpassed even the corpulent knight from before.

Perhaps [Azure Pine]'s reaction was simply too intense; the crimson glare, illuminating nearly half the Church, finally caught the sluggish corpse's attention.

Shuffling its feet, it slowly turned around.

That was when Xia Nan finally caught a glimpse of what was causing his wooden sword to burn hot enough to ignite the very air.

It wasn't just its nature as an undead creature. Layered over its flesh, gleaming with a slick, dark green luster in the firelight, were—

Snake scales!

They didn't cover the body evenly. Instead, like some kind of living fungal moss, the scales grew in thick, embedded clusters across the corpse's shriveled skin.

They were jagged and erratic in size, their edges jutting out sharply, especially around the joints.

It looked like armor, yet the deep purple, cracked skin bulging through the gaps between the scales gave the creature an intensely sickening, mottled appearance.

Beneath it all, the corpse's basic anatomy wasn't much different from the others Xia Nan had encountered.

The only exceptions were two massive, hideous lacerations—one just below the neck, the other on its left shoulder. They hadn't healed. The wounds were frozen in time, the purplish-red rotten flesh peeled back and hardened.

The dark green scales seemed to sprout directly from these two gashes. The scaling was dense and tightly packed near the wounds, turning sparse and deformed further away. It truly looked as though the corpse had been infected with some grotesque disease that caused scales to blossom outward like a fungal colony.

'No wonder...' Xia Nan thought.

No wonder [Azure Pine] was reacting so violently. The dried corpse was no longer just a standard undead creature. The murky scales plating its body and the cloudy, lifeless vertical pupils staring from its hollow sockets proved it carried the bloodline of a serpentine beast.

Which meant...

"+15% Damage to Undead (Sunfire)" and "+20% Damage to Serpentine and Scorpion Creatures (Sunfire)".

Both damage modifiers were stacking at the exact same time!

If not for its unique origins from a secret realm, and its baseline Rare-grade blue quality...

...Xia Nan suspected the searing currents of flame wreathing the blade would have completely incinerated the wooden sword by now.

Honestly, at this point, [Azure Pine] was virtually on fire anyway.

Scalding flames surged down from the hilt, entirely engulfing the blade. Even the flexible, pitch-black wood was beginning to glow with a scorched, brownish-red hue.

'Looks like I made a miscalculation after all.'

Feeling the searing heat against his palm, Xia Nan muttered internally as he kept his gaze locked on the scaled corpse.

If he had noticed something off about this body earlier, he would have let Marcus stick around a little longer. He shouldn't have revealed himself so soon; he could have used Marcus as a meat shield to test the waters.

He reviewed the tactical error in his head, but his face remained devoid of regret. What was done was done; regretting it now was entirely pointless.

Right now, Xia Nan only had two options.

Fight, or run.

If he ran, he could probably escape Ash Valley safely with all the loot he had gathered so far.

But that would also mean missing out on the most precious treasure of all—he would be leaving the staff behind.

Xia Nan didn't consider himself a greed-driven man, but with a treasure like that sitting right in front of him, walking away without even trying was simply out of the question.

At the very least... he had to test the creature's strength. If, even with the double-stacked damage modifiers of a fully unleashed [Azure Pine], he still proved to be no match for the enemy...

...then he wouldn't stubbornly throw his life away. He would make the smart choice and retreat.

All these thoughts flashed through his mind in a split second.

Having turned completely around to face Xia Nan, the cleric corpse's unfocused, frozen serpentine eyes didn't actually look at the uninvited guest standing before it. Instead, they stared blankly at the floor.

It was an incredibly deceptive stance, making it look as though it hadn't even noticed the intruder's presence.

But if you let that fool you, in the very next second, its hand—which looked as fragile as a dead twig but was actually harder than steel—would plunge into your chest and crush your heart.

"Boom!"

Cracks instantly shattered the thick layer of dust coating the Church's marble floor.

A howling gust of wind churned the fog, and the shriveled figure vanished from where it stood.

Having kept his guard up the entire time, Xia Nan's razor-sharp Perception flared with a warning the exact moment the creature shifted its footing to launch itself.

"Arooo—"

An eerie wolf's howl echoed out. Amidst swaying, pitch-black mane, the massive, distorted phantom of a black wolf executed a nimble, lightning-fast hop to the side.

"Crash!"

The ground splintered, sending crushed stone flying in all directions.

The tattered cleric robes whipped violently in the churning air as the emaciated figure materialized exactly where Xia Nan had been standing a second ago.

It swayed unsteadily, looking just as sluggish as before. But beneath its feet, the Church floor had collapsed into a pulverized crater.

Hanging in mid-air from his evasive leap, empowered by his max-level [Fang Hunt], Xia Nan's eyes swept over the massive crater. He couldn't hide his shock.

This creature was vastly stronger than anything he had faced in Ash Valley so far. It possessed an absurd level of combat prowess that completely eclipsed any ordinary Class Holder.

He was nervous, perhaps, and definitely far more cautious, but in that split second, he felt absolutely no fear.

He simply surrendered to the combat instincts forged by the fusion of this body with his soul and memories.

Wreathed in radiant flame, the wooden sword slashed downward from the air. Accompanied by the fiery fangs of the phantom black wolf, the blow crashed down with explosive ferocity!

"Vmm—"

[Fang Hunt] chained directly into [Spinning Slash]. The two Level 5 combat techniques stacked and merged into one, while the [Slashing Expert] Feat activated silently in the background, providing its fundamental, all-purpose damage boost.

Strength, Agility, Constitution... Every single attribute was pushed to its absolute limit. Pinpoint muscle control channeled every ounce of his bodily power into a single focal point, pouring it all entirely into the blade's edge.

"Squelch!"

Accompanied by the sizzle of flames roasting flesh, the heavy, resistant tear of muscle being cleaved apart echoed through the Church.

Unfortunately, the charred mass spinning through the air wasn't the creature's scale-plated head, as Xia Nan had hoped. It was just an ordinary chunk of flesh from its chest—a superficial wound that wouldn't hinder its movements in the slightest.

In the face of Xia Nan's slash, the cleric corpse had once again demonstrated the utterly inhuman physical capabilities of its body.

Xia Nan had timed his strike perfectly. He had capitalized on the exact window of stiffness where an ordinary combatant's old force was spent and new force had yet to rise.

Yet the shriveled corpse entirely defied the biomechanics of a human body. It managed to generate a second burst of momentum mid-action, violently twisting its torso out of the way. What should have been a clean decapitation from the flaming sword was instantly reduced to a minor flesh wound that didn't impede its combat strength at all.

Xia Nan's mind raced.

Before the echoes of the first wolf howl could fade from the walls, a second howl erupted.

The phantom black wolf lunged, executing a backward leap that carried Xia Nan's body safely away.

[Tidal Stabilization] triggered silently, allowing his thick leather boots to plant firmly onto the ground.

"Splat."

The charred chunk of flesh hit the floor.

The wooden sword in his hand still blazed with intense heat, but Xia Nan's gaze turned grim as he stared at the corpse.

Even after just a single exchange, he realized the creature's combat prowess was lightyears beyond what he had anticipated.

It wasn't using any profound combat techniques. Its raw physical specs alone were enough to make it a nightmare to deal with.

More importantly, [Night Mother's Gaze]—which had never once failed to strike fear and paralysis into its targets alongside the wolf's howl—had zero effect on the corpse. It was as if the creature was completely immune to all psychological or mental attacks.

Fortunately, the [Azure Pine] wooden sword possessed a unique Sunfire damage bonus. Given what he had witnessed during the Adventurer Squad's battle against the other corpses, Xia Nan suspected this creature possessed extraordinary physical defenses as well.

How was he supposed to fight this? Where did his own advantages lie?

Using the brief lull in the fight, Xia Nan's mind raced, instinctively analyzing the battlefield.

First, the enemy's physical specs were overwhelmingly strong, completely neutralizing the sheer physical superiority Xia Nan normally enjoyed over Class Holders of the same level.

Second, it was immune to crowd control. The effectiveness of [Fang Hunt] had plummeted, forcing him to use it purely as a mobility combat technique.

It looked like a hopeless stalemate, but the reality was far more optimistic.

The mere presence of [Azure Pine] meant that as long as he could strike a vital spot, he would still be able to sever the creature's head.

Plus, he still held several unplayed trump cards.

Even setting aside the [Fate Coin]—which only had one use left—the [Tears of Spring Breath]'s restorative skill, "Spring Pulse Cleansing Heal," was currently off cooldown. The Deflection Field on the [Deathline] ring was also primed and ready to be used.

'I can win this!'

A flash of determination crossed Xia Nan's eyes.

His high-damage, low-defense fighting style focused purely on mobility and kiting. All he needed was one opening.

One single chance to sink his blade into the creature's neck.

If he got that, he could tip the scales of victory permanently in his favor.

And even if he couldn't beat it, he still had ways to heal and escape.

"Boom—"

The sound of tearing air erupted once again.

The corpse—having just endured his fiery slash and taken minor damage—didn't pause for even a fraction of a second to recover. It immediately launched another offensive against Xia Nan.

Heavy fog churned as dust erupted from the floor.

Xia Nan's vision blurred for a split second. By the time it cleared, a withered, bony finger was already inches from his face.

He could see every single wrinkle on the finger's surface, perfectly catching the slick, greasy sheen reflecting off the few snake scales dotting its skin.

"Hoo..."

His chest heaved as he exhaled.

His eyes narrowed slightly, then snapped wide open.

Instantly, a translucent, ochre-red barrier of light materialized from the void, enveloping his body.

"Bang!"

The overwhelming kinetic force—capable of crushing solid steel—slammed into the glowing shield, yet it was absorbed like a dragonfly skimming the surface of a pond, leaving behind nothing but gentle ripples.

The force was entirely swallowed by the chaotic, condensed energy of the force field, diffusing evenly across every inch of the elliptical barrier.

"Crack—"

The shield shattered into pieces.

It had only managed to block a single attack.

But that was all Xia Nan needed. It bought him a precious, unhindered window to swing his sword without fear of retaliation.

The ochre barrier dissolved into scattered motes of light. Before they even touched the ground, they were caught in the blistering heatwaves trailing the wooden sword, melting away into nothingness.

Xia Nan had played his first trump card. He traded the [Deathline] ring's Deflection Field for one flawless opportunity to strike.

The longsword swept straight toward the enemy's neck.

Naturally, the corpse wasn't going to wait helplessly for death. Even without any clear sign of sentience, its pure combat instincts recognized the danger of the incoming attack and prompted it to dodge.

Just like before, it defied human anatomy with a bizarre, secondary burst of momentum, attempting to throw itself backward to evade the swing.

But in that exact moment, for some inexplicable reason, its shriveled frame suddenly froze.

An invisible, pulling force had gripped it from the empty air ahead.

It was as if an invisible hand had wrapped around its body, locking it firmly in place.

The bizarre paralysis was so jarring that even its dead, serpentine pupils flickered with a hint of genuine confusion.

Its evasion had failed.

The flaming wooden sword cleaved right into the gaping wound on its neck.

It sliced through like a hot knife through butter.

There was no blood, nor were there any flying chunks of gore.

Leaving behind only a heavily charred stump, the shriveled head flew high into the air before thudding uselessly against the ground.

Xia Nan stood panting for a moment. He cast a wary glance at the decapitated corpse to confirm it was truly dead before finally turning his steps toward the altar.

"Hiss..."

But right at that moment, an incredibly faint sound echoed from behind him.

His nerves instantly went taut. He spun around, sword raised.

The headless corpse was twitching violently on the floor, its limbs jerking in a grotesque, unnatural rhythm.

The hissing was coming from deep inside the bloody stump of its neck.

"Schlick."

It was the wet, tearing sound of flesh giving way—like a cicada bursting from its shell.

Outlined by the firelight roaring back to life along the wooden blade, a long, deformed shadow slowly rose into the air, casting itself entirely over Xia Nan.

"You have got to be kidding me. Nobody said anything about a Stage 2!?"