Chapter 44: The Knight's Oath

With a final, brutal smash, the heavy club connected squarely with a skeleton crossbowman’s skull, sending the cranium flying off its shoulders. The soul fire within was instantly extinguished, and the skeletal frame collapsed, scattering a heap of bones across the ground.

The skeleton crossbowman had dropped its weapon—a remarkably unremarkable soldier’s crossbow. Xiao Yang decided to keep it. Previously, the skeleton archers he had rushed and beaten to death at close range had dropped plenty of bows and arrows. However, he struggled to use them effectively; bows were simply not that easy to master. By comparison, crossbows were much more user-friendly.

Even so, neither option compared to the sheer satisfaction of Xiao Yang rushing forward to frantically bludgeon enemies with his trusty weapon, the "Sorrow of Justice."

During the relentless grinding of skeleton warriors, Xiao Yang had managed to advance his "Heavy Strike" skill to level five. Level five was the absolute limit for the Heavy Strike skill. While it no longer increased the damage multiplier, the stamina cost required to execute the skill was now drastically lower than when he first started. Oh, and there was also "Thrust." Those skeleton spearmen had possessed skill scrolls for thrusting as well.

However, the proportion of these spear-wielding skeletons within the undead army was not particularly high. By the time Xiao Yang finished clearing out the entire force, he had only managed to raise "Thrust" to level three. Now, the skill could deal five points of defense-ignoring damage.

The harvest did not end there. Next came a large pile of rotten leather armor and shattered shields. It seemed that with a sufficiently massive quantity of enemies, the drop rates for all kinds of equipment naturally increased.

Xiao Yang had finally completed his five-piece Adventurer's Set: the Adventurer's Broad-Brimmed Hat, Adventurer's Bracers, Adventurer's Boots, Adventurer's Linen Trousers, and the Adventurer's Cuirass. The broad-brimmed hat, cuirass, and trousers had all been acquired during the arduous process of farming the skeleton warriors.

An odd question suddenly popped into his mind: Why on earth did these skeleton warriors drop adventurer gear?

After a brief moment of contemplation, he arrived at a rather grim conclusion: Adventurers had perished at the hands of these skeleton warriors, and eventually, the adventurers themselves became the skeleton warriors.

Opting not to wear the Adventurer's Broad-Brimmed Hat, Xiao Yang instead equipped the Adventurer's Cuirass and the Adventurer's Linen Trousers. Finally, he managed to shed his bizarre appearance, adopting a somewhat more capable and seasoned adventurer's demeanor—headwear excluded, of course.

The Adventurer's Cuirass added two points of defense and one point of agility, while the Adventurer's Linen Trousers granted two points of agility. The only pity was that the five-piece Adventurer's Set lacked a set bonus effect. Otherwise, Xiao Yang definitely would have removed the Grievous Helmet he was wearing on his head to look like an authentic, traditional adventurer.

Currently, Xiao Yang's status attributes stood as follows:

[Level: 8]
[HP: 200 (200)]
[Strength: 13 (13)]
[Defense: 26 (15)]
[Agility: 27 (20)]
[Remaining Talent Points: 3]

He was still fifty experience points short of leveling up. Sneering at the slow progress, Xiao Yang curled his lip; the experience decay mechanism in this Divine Game was utterly ridiculous, and the amount of experience required for each level up was simply astronomical. If one wanted to level up quickly, the Divine Game only offered one viable path: fighting enemies that far exceeded one's own level and tier.

When Xiao Yang had defeated the Dungeon Guardian, he had jumped three levels all at once.

However, normal elite bosses were hardly pushovers, and opportunities to encounter a severely worn-out, poorly conditioned elite boss like the Dungeon Guardian did not present themselves every day.

Perhaps it was simply because Xiao Yang was leveling up way too fast. After all, counting from the day he became a player of the Divine Game, it hadn't even been a full two months.

Having completely eradicated the skeleton warriors, Xiao Yang cleared out the small plaza. Following a fiercely intense, exhilarating, and borderline lethal grinding session, he could finally spare some energy to properly observe the small plaza that had until recently been crammed with skeleton warriors.

With the skeletons cleared away, a rope bridge—one that looked rather unsafe—revealed itself, having been guarded fiercely behind them.

Fortunately, even the yawning subterranean fissure had failed to completely sever the rope bridge, leaving it merely perilous—well, just *a little* perilous, right?

The rope bridge connecting both sides was pulled taut, though a vast majority of the wooden floorboards had fallen away, leaving them suspended over the yawning abyss of darkness and causing anyone to involuntarily swallow hard at the sight.

If he had a choice, Xiao Yang would rather not take this route, but it seemed he had run out of options. This was the only remaining path leading to the other side, though he hadn't quite reached the threshold of the next area yet.

The small plaza was not entirely barren. On the contrary, it was piled high with a considerable amount of supplies: bundles of arrows, numerous jars and bottles, iron scraps for repairing armor, and even a heavy anvil. It looked suspiciously like an outpost.

Pondering this, Xiao Yang hoisted his torch and began searching the plaza. His efforts were not in vain; after a meticulous sweep, he successfully turned up a few useful items.

An iron treasure chest. Upon opening it, Xiao Yang was rewarded with a set of incendiary grenades.

[A Set of Flame Grenades]
[Quality: Excellent]
[Effect: Can be split into three individual incendiary grenades.]
[Description: "Just like I said, toss it out, and watch those bastards scream in the fire!" — A pyromaniac's retrospective thought as he himself was being consumed by flames.]

[Flame Grenade]
[Quality: Excellent]
[Effect: Creates a fiery domain, inflicting ten points of continuous burning damage per second on any creatures within the area.]

This was something Xiao Yang could definitely make use of. He could toss a few of these at that corpse-mushroom later. Aside from this, he also found a map carved into the stone wall of the plaza, accompanied by a faded, blurry inscription.

The crude, scribbled map featured several locations: Windmill Town, Blackwater River, the Kingdom's Waystation, and a heavily circled name scrawled across it: Blackstone City.

Xiao Yang couldn't quite make heads or tails of the map, but he did recognize Windmill Town and Blackstone City. Windmill Town was the hometown that the lingering resentful spirit had constantly yearned for, while in Blackstone City, three pieces of equipment in Xiao Yang's possession had ties to the place.

Clearly, the events that had transpired within this hidden map were inextricably linked to the Skeleton Dungeon where Xiao Yang currently stood. But what on earth had happened here in the past?

There was simply too little information to form a proper conclusion. Perhaps deeper within the dungeon and in the subsequent hidden areas, he would be able to uncover more clues. With this thought in mind, Xiao Yang cast his gaze toward the blurred inscription carved beside the map.

[I shall wager everything I have to defend this place until your return!]
[Knight: Harden]

In the illumination of the darkness-repelling lantern, Xiao Yang took in the words. It read like a solemn vow. He seemed to have learned the name of the undead knight, and although he still didn't know what had happened here, Knight Harden, who left behind these words, had truly lived up to the oath he had sworn.

He had indeed stood guard here until the very moment of his death.