Chapter 1063 To become stronger? After the chaos of the battle settled down and the guild members settled their affairs, the entire zone finally calmed down. However, this was only the case in the red pillar that had popped up right next to the Crimson Abyss base. In other areas, the undead were still pushing on and charging ahead. Leaving the golems to stand defense and other lower leveled members of the guild to deal with the non-threatening undead, the elite team and the other teams quickly mobilized to other zones across the world to aid in the battle. Though this was to help others, in reality, the undead horde was a treasure trove of experience points and Alex gave the order, not wanting to miss out on the chance to use this opportunity to the best that they could. Meanwhile, Liam retreated back to the villa to recuperate his condition. Perhaps because his soul was injured, repeatedly casting with his mana core was more draining than usual. "I need to take care of this soul injury soon. Else everything is going to go downhill." It was evident that if part of the machine were not working well, then soon everything else would follow suit. Liam contemplated his options. There was also the issue of the red pillars. Now more than ever he was confident that this set of invasions were not random opportune efforts of war. Instead, they were all being coordinated by the divine temple high priestess. She was systematically destroying him even without knowing his current weakness. However, when it came to these red pillars, what was the end goal? Liam could not understand what was happening. If an invasion was the end goal, then why were hordes of lower level undead being sacrificed for no reason? Was it a distraction? If so, it was only making them stronger! Since the threat of the isons were averted, the person orchestrating should know that a Level 150 elite was not enough to seal his fate. That means that this was not the end and something much stronger was about to step out soon? After resting for a couple of hours and meditating to refill his mana core, Liam set out to deal with the other red pillars. Just like the isons, perhaps he would be able to get some clues by taking down more undead, especially the higher leveled ones. If not more clues, at least his currently stagnating level would increase. Coincidentally, the draconian princess was also missing at this critical moment. What was she doing at this crucial time? Liam clenched his fist and stepped out to the magic shop to teleport to the nearest red pillar. Dealing with the draconian princess can wait. It was not like he did not expect this from her. He never planned on trusting that woman completely. Everybody had an agenda of their own. It would be naive and foolish to think otherwise. Liam started with territory 6, the area where their zone was located and began systematically targeting all the red pillars. There were several red pillars in each territory but only about five to ten actually had commander death knights standing guard next to them. The levels of these death knights also ranged between 140 and 160. If the red pillars of light were portals of some kind, which seemed to be the most plausible explanation as undead were constantly emerging from within it, it almost seemed as if this was the current limit of the portal. Perhaps the reason why someone stronger hadn't emerged was because the portals were just not ready to let someone powerful through. "I need to find a way to close these portals before that happens?" Liam pondered. But before that, he wanted to invest in a skill. He was now level 100. It would be a shame not to have this skill. He made the quick purchase, learned the skill then and there, and used the portals to arrive at the next magic shop. Walking out of there, he looked up and then closed his eyes, recollecting the skill that was now etched in his soul. The next second a surge of energy enveloped him, and his feet left the ground. Liam effortlessly hovered above the ground in the air. The feeling was fantastic. He had no regrets in paying to learn the skill. Once upon a time, back in the tutorial world, when he was blissfully ignorant about the apocalypse, he had wanted to fly badly. Back then, it was all about enjoying the fantasy world as the real world was dry and boring. However, now... Liam chuckled. In reality, the skill wasn't too difficult, but since he hadn't put any effort into wind magic, his wind elemental proficiency was not that great. But now that he had learned the skill, it felt so easy to execute it. This, combined with his already superior mana manipulation technique, he was able to fly at a breakneck speed easily. This was good because he had asked Luna to assist his guild members today. Every single one of them was capable of handling themselves, but in case there were any unexpected surprises, he wanted them to have the little fox as the backup. With her help, they should definitely be able to defeat anyone except for the death knights. In the worst case, they would be able to escape without suffering too much damage. "They should be working hard right now. I should also do the same." Enjoying the sense of flying, Liam quickly lifted off and proceeded towards the pillar in the distance. Unlike the hive hills, these were not too difficult to locate. They were not hidden or small, the red pillars shot to the sky as if they were a godsend warning of the impending apocalypse. Within minutes, Liam arrived at the spot, and just as he expected, the same events were unfolding in this zone as well. Thankfully this pillar was not in any guild's backyard, so it looked like the undead were yet to mobilize. The nearby guilds were still fighting, only the low-leveled undead that were near their base. Once again, Liam was confused by the approach. In order to achieve the maximum impact, the undead should have swarmed everyone by now, taking an aggressive approach just like the isons, but what was happening here was entirely different. It was as if they were purposefully feeding kills to all the human beings. Forcing him to accept nether, become stronger, and creating an imbalance in his body was one thing, but why were the undead hellbent on making everyone else strong as well? Did he underestimate the divine temple high priestess? All this time, he had thought that the woman was settling scores with him personally, but what if he was wrong? Was she once again plotting to swallow their world wholly? What was happening here? With each passing day, Liam only had more questions and no answers. But for now, all he could do was focus on the task at hand. If she was feeding him the good stuff, then he was going to take it and become stronger! It was not necessary that he had to use nether. He was fully capable of handling this much without worsening his current state. Liam sucked in a big breath of air as he inhaled the mana in the air and filled himself with abundant energy before starting the fight with the three death knights in the zone. He focussed on the main three and released his soul army to handle the rest. Slowly and steadily, his army was also becoming stronger and stronger. First, it was the isons, and now it was the undead army. Unfortunately, like the isons, the undead army did not give him any mana cores or something like the nether cores. But they still gave plenty of experience points. This only further confirmed Liam's doubts. Nether assimilation was completely different from mana assimilation. Perhaps there wasn't a nether core like the mana core. Pondering over the nuances of nether cultivation, Liam massacred the undead army near the red pillar before proceeding to move toward the next. He spent the rest of the day doing the same thing and grinding as many kills as possible. At the end of the day, he had managed even to level up twice. Surprisingly, the death knights gave more experience points when compared to the isons he had killed at the same level. It looked like the system differentiated between different types of opponents when handing out the experience points. Things continued smoothly in this manner. Liam meditated, attacked, cleared the undead horde, and then rinsed and repeated. One more day as well passed by in this fashion. However, soon enough, Liam stopped as he started noticing something strange. The density of nether in the air was slowly and steadily increasing. Others might not have noticed it just yet, but his perceptivity when it came to nether was second to none. He was able to sense even the smallest of changes, and this change was not that small.