Lord of Rot

Leech’s contingent of corpses made a major discovery during their exploration.

Frost!

Frost had actually appeared inside the promontory’s caverns.

A hopping, blue-skinned gabalin was screeching strangely—GAK GAK GAK. In its hand, it held a wooden staff, a weapon no other gabalin possessed. By tracking it, they discovered it was the source of the frost.

’A Mage for the blue-skinned monsters?’

In other words, among that group of blue-skinned monsters was a fellow who could create chilling frost.

The small squad of blue-skins on the other side also noticed their strange-acting kin approaching.

”GAK GAK GAK!”

They tried to communicate with strange screeches.

But their ”kin,” marching in uncanny unison, came to a synchronized halt, reached for their spears, and showed no intention of communicating.

”GAK GAK GAK GAK?”

Only the gabalin Mage shrieked. It sensed something was wrong. It raised its wooden staff high with both hands, thrusting it toward the cavern ceiling and waving it around.

The blue-skinned monsters around it also chaotically raised their weapons, but compared to the perfect uniformity of Leech’s controlled corpses, they looked like a complete mess.

It wasn’t that Leech was deliberately making them move in unison. Rather, when dividing his attention to control them all, uniform actions were simply much easier and less taxing than carefully orchestrating different movements for each one.

Amidst a cry of ”GAK GAK GAK GAK GAK GAK BA,” white frost enveloped the wooden staff. The cold was so intense that even the Caster itself couldn’t help but shiver.

But on the other side, Leech, having no sense of honor, launched the first strike. Spears were already hurtling through the air!

One spear pierced through the mouth of a club-wielding gabalin, exited the back of its neck, and pinned the creature to the ground.

SWOOSH SWOOSH SWOOSH SWOOSH!

The rest of the spears followed, and gabalins fell one after another!

In that single attack, more than half of the gabalins were felled.

”GAK GAK GAK GAK!!” The remaining gabalins, now understanding who was friend and who was foe, howled in rage and charged forward without any discipline.

Unfortunately for them, the second volley had already arrived!

The dense hail of spears easily tore through their wall of flesh. Blue blood splattered across the cavern. In the end, only three gabalins managed to charge through.

But for three of them to face sixteen opponents, their fate was already sealed!

With a thrust of the spears, the three ”gabalins” were skewered and hoisted up. They wailed and struggled while impaled, but had stopped breathing by the time they were thrown to the ground.

Now, only the blue-skinned Mage monster with the wooden staff remained.

It cowered, not daring to attack on its own.

Leech had his corpses quickly surround it.

The gabalin holding the wooden staff cried out, ”GAK GAK GAK GAK BA.” It seemed to be trying to negotiate, its posture subservient. Unfortunately, the ones standing before it were not its kin, and Leech couldn’t understand a word it was saying.

’All I want is the corpse, anyway.’

But before that, he controlled one corpse to step forward in an attack stance, wanting to test the power of the frost staff.

The gabalin Mage didn’t hold back. As Leech’s corpse approached, it shrieked, ”GAK GAK GAK BA,” and slammed its staff down. The body of the struck corpse stiffened as its blood and flesh froze over. However, since blood doesn’t flow in a corpse anyway, the effect wasn’t major, aside from hindering its movement.

Through the eyes of his other corpses, Leech could see the surface of that corpse instantly become coated in a layer of white frost.

He controlled the corpse to struggle forcefully. It finally managed to move, but very slowly.

’If it were a living creature, the effect would likely be much greater.’

’A frost enchantment that applies a slowing debuff?’

’I want this skill!’

The corpses swarmed forward, pinned down the gabalin Mage, and killed it with minimal damage to the body.

「Half a day later.」

The blue-skinned Mage climbed out of its coffin, and Leech had obtained the memory of the frost enchantment, just as he’d hoped.

It was a magical structure, different from how Eagle Eye was cast. It was more like an instinct granted by a bloodline. As long as this magical structure existed in the mind, the Caster could instantly use the Magic just by channeling energy into it.

The only unfortunate thing was that this blue-skinned Mage only knew the frost enchantment.

The good news was that this blue-skinned Mage seemed to possess a faint consciousness. It wasn’t on par with the Red-haired Earthlings, but it wasn’t a completely mindless corpse either.

When a scholar or Mage becomes a corpse, there is an extremely high probability they will become a Corpse Ghost.

This was a huge discovery!

Leech tried to control the gabalin Mage to cast the enchantment. He felt a distinct drain on his Spiritual Power, and then discovered he had lost control of one of his corpses.

Among the group of corpses, one of them simply fell to the ground.

He decided to ignore that for now. The magical structure in his mind was filled, and he grabbed a spear, trying to channel his power into it. The next moment, the spear was covered in white frost.

Leech experimented on a severely damaged corpse.

Light pokes, heavy chops, swings, smashes, throws, casual tosses, and so on.

He eventually came to a relatively comprehensive conclusion.

Attacking with a frost-enchanted spear could freeze a person’s body, forcibly applying a ”slowed” status. There was a difference in effect between a light poke and a heavy strike. The duration was about three minutes, and one could break free by moving around a lot.

The Caster themselves would also be affected if injured by the enchanted weapon; it treated everyone equally.

The frost enchantment also put the weapon itself in a ”frozen” state. If used on a living being, it might freeze the creature to death first, so the feasibility of turning a living thing into a human-shaped ice sculpture was zero. Besides, the accompanying ”slow” effect was deadly enough, turning the target into a sitting duck.

If the weapon touched another weapon, the cold would transfer to the opposing weapon, but it would not enchant it as well.

It was simply the ice melting and absorbing heat from the object it touched, causing the weapon to become cool and then cold. Therefore, a brief touch followed by pulling away would result in no effect.

However, if someone whose weapon was touched by the frost-enchanted weapon didn’t let go, and there was prolonged contact, their weapon would cool down rapidly. Even if not hit directly, they could get frostbite from their own weapon.

Moreover, Leech discovered that a frost-enchanted weapon could remain below 0°C for a fixed three-minute duration. No matter how much heat it absorbed, its temperature wouldn’t be affected. Magic, after all, was just that unreasonable!

’Which means... a frost-enchanted weapon can absorb heat infinitely. But considering the small contact and influence area of the enchanted weapon, the possibility of directly creating frost and snow with this Magic is very low. Still, I definitely won’t be short on ice cubes in the summer.’

In terms of consumption, it required 1 unit of Spiritual Power. The ”unit” here referred to the same unit Leech used for controlling corpses.

He could currently control 16 units of corpses simultaneously for offense and defense.

After using the frost enchantment, the number of units he could control with his spirit would decrease by 1. Using it again would decrease it by another 1. This was how he calculated the energy cost. It wasn’t perfectly accurate, but it was the only way he could conceptualize it.

Additionally, not every corpse could use the frost enchantment. It seemed to be related to ”talent” and ”bloodline.” Currently, only the blue-skinned Mage could do it.

Fortunately, when Leech opened his eyes and tested it himself, he found that he could use the frost enchantment with ease.

This was the third Magic he had mastered, after corpse control and Eagle Eye.

The successive experiments had cost him several units of Spiritual Power, so his advance into the Promontory Caverns would have to be put on hold for the day.

”With the frost enchantment, I can take on a few lizardmen. Progressing through the caverns will definitely be faster.”

He hadn’t tried to capture lizardmen before because their hides were tough, their flesh was thick, and their movements were agile. Every time he managed to kill one, its body would be covered in wounds, and it was too wasteful to use gold to repair it. But with the frost enchantment, killing lizardmen with only minor injuries didn’t seem so difficult anymore.