Starting from Zero

"We are, but….!" A white beam of light shot over and interrupted the head of the Phantom Knight\'s words. After being under the white light, the head of the Phantom Knight no longer said anything, but it looked like he was resisting the power of the light.

We were already out of the City\'s limits, but the pursuers were unwilling to let us go and continued to unleash beams of light on us. The Phantom Knights\' mounts were only slightly faster than the white horses, and no matter how far we ran, we were unable to throw them off.

I decided to grab onto the Head of the Phantom Knight\'s left hand and shouted: "STOP!"

All of the Phantom Knights formed a straight row with their heads lowered against the enemy.

"Prepare and take aim with your spears, and get ready to run! Shoot!"

Although they were afraid of the white light, an order was an order, the Phantom Knights completed my order successfully as a row of spears flew out into the air. The pursuers that had caught up never thought that we would suddenly turn and fight back, resulting in the first 10 people to be stabbed and pinned into the ground as they turned into white light to be revived back in town.

"Turn and disperse!" I gave the next order, the Phantom Knights immediately turned and sprinted down the road. The front row of pursuers had fallen and with the spears that were in the ground had obstructed the road, causing the pursuers behind who caught up to all fall to the ground, and by the time they got up their mounts, we had already disappeared into the edge of the jungle.

It was my first time being chased so miserably by other Players, those damned Holy Angel Guild actually had anti-Dark attributes! The Phantom Knights were not even able to unleash half of their ordinary strength. Fortunately, the Phantom Knights were high level enough, each of their spears was enough to get rid of the vanguard and miraculously even blocked the ones behind! It was considered a huge win for us!

"Do you guys know what monsters are unafraid of them?" I asked the Phantom Knights.

The one who replied was still the head. "Actually, aside from Dark-type monsters, they are afraid of everything else! Darkness suppresses all other types of attributes aside from light, Light specially suppresses Darkness, and all of the other attributes suppresses Light, so we can\'t do anything!"

"You mean to say that I\'ll never be free to roam in the light? Just because I drank the Spring Water from the Spring of Evil*, my attributes turn all of my Companions into dark types, even if I can find an Angel, the Angel would only become a Fallen Angel, doesn\'t that mean I will forever be beaten by them?"

"No, Lucky, Epidemic and Crystal can deal with them!" The head of the Phantom Knights spoke with certainty: " Dragons are naturally highly resistant to all Magic, so no element of Magic or monsters can suppress the Dragon Race, of course, the Dragon Race can\'t dominate the other attributes as well. But generally, the grade of Dragons are extremely high, as long as you get Lucky, Epidemic and Crystal to a high level, it\'ll be sufficient. Furthermore, it is not as if we were truly afraid of them!"

"Then why the hell did you run?"

"We hate the Holy Light! The [Encompassing Divine Eyes\' light will render us blind, and after that, we will turn into bat forms. But as long as we do not look into the Holy Light, it would not be a problem, but if we can\'t see, we can\'t attack, therefore we ran!"

"So you guys were just afraid of looking into the light!" If only I had sunglasses, that would definitely allow the Phantom Knights to fight freely in the light!

The Head of the Phantom Knights added: "In fact, Darkness is not truly afraid of Light, although, at the initial stages, Light dominantly suppresses Darkness, in the later stages, the suppression will gradually lose its effectiveness. Just like the spell cast just now, it deals devastating damage towards low-level skeletons and zombies, but to us, it can only banish us!"

"You mean to say, the Apollyon Knights of Mythal Legion are not afraid of Light Magic?"

"They are afraid of it as well, but not as much as us, they have a chance of avoiding the damage from Light Magic! In fact, Darkness by itself is the bane of Light, in any infected or evil regions, Light Magic will usually receive nerfs and become extremely terrible! But that Holy City from before had its surrounding areas baptized with Holy Blessing, our strength weakness in such areas, much less resist Light Magic!"

"Master, they are catching up with us again!" One of the Phantom Knight suddenly reported.

"Have we left their area of Blessing?"

"No, this place has been blessed as well!" The head of the Phantom Knights inspected the ground and replied: "I believe there is a large scale Shrine of Light inside the Holy City, that is why the power of the blessing can spread throughout the surrounding areas! In these areas, the Battle Priest will gain an increase in power!"

"Forget it!" I jumped down the horse. "Phantom Knights, pay attention! Close all of your eyes and listen to my voice, we will do battle!"

Since the Phantom Knights were not that afraid of the [Encompassing Divine Eyes], we could fight, so long as they did not look into the light!

The Phantom Knights obeyed my order and lowered their heads with their ultra long spears held parallel to the ground with the tip faced at the front. A large group of Light Knights and Battle Priests rushed out from the small path with their Leader maintaining the [Encompassing Divine Eyes] with his Magic Staff.

"Charge!" I suddenly screamed out loud!

The Phantom Knights suddenly rushed forward, the Holy Angel Guild members that were chasing after us never thought that we would suddenly rush at them, in truth, even if they did, it would not have mattered, the charge of the Phantom Knights was of a completely different level from them. The rushing Light Knights and Battle Priests were instantly dispersed by the Phantom Knights upon collision. That was how powerful the Phantom Knights were, their humongous warhorses were able to dismount their enemies in that brief exchange.

I continued to shout at the Phantom Knights: "LOWER YOUR HEADS! CHARGE!"

The formation launched its second attack, before the Holy Angel Guild members who were knocked off their horses could even crawl back up, they were faced with the second wave of attacks. The result was them being flung out over 10 meters into all the surrounding trees.

"Alright, open your eyes!"

The Phantom Knights opened their eyes and ran over to me. I quickly jumped up one of the horse and we ventured deeper into the forest.

After breaking away from those damnable people, we continued to move through the jungle where there were no paths, the surrounding verdant and lush trees that did not resemble any plants that grew locally made it look as though we were not in China. All of the trees were extremely large with their average trunks having diameters of 3 meters and above, the dense canopy formed from the dense branches and thick leaves had blocked out the entire sky. Because of this, the forest started to get darker with the occasional light that had forced its way through the canopies.

I moved according to the map that revealed a path ahead. Constantly moving through the forest was in fact really troublesome. After walking for a distance, we realized that something was wrong as the green forest started to transform. Initially, the leaves on the trees were green while the floor was covered with yellow or red dried leaves and the trunks were bright brown. But after a distance, the scene turned strange. The green leaves were slowly replaced by silverish grey leaves which became more apparent the further we walked until all the green leaves were replaced. The yellow and red dried leaves on the ground all disappeared and the soil became grey, as though a layer of dust had covered the ground. The surrounding tree trunks were no longer brown as they had all turned black! What struck me as the most bizarre was that the frequent small animals that we saw all disappeared, but more and more spider webs had appeared. Strangely, we did not notice that a faint mist had appeared in our surroundings. Although it was not dense, it made the dark forest became all the more terrifying.

After walking in silence for too long, the atmosphere scared me, which compelled me to engage in a conversation with the Phantom Knights. Firstly, I spoke to the Head of the Phantom Knights.

"Hey, after following me for such a long time, I haven\'t seemed to have caught your name? Do you have one?"

"Master, originally, I had already forgotten my name. But after turning into a Phantom Knight, My name is Scott."

"Scott? That\'s a good name." I extended my head towards the two Phantom Knights nearby. "What are your names? And take down your Helmets, all of your equipment is the same, I can\'t make out who is who!"

The Phantom Knights obeyed and took down their helmets and reported their names. To my left were 4 male Phantom Knights with the names Aragon, Cistern, Rayner** and Fullergor.

Aragon looked extremely young and I guessed that he was not older than me; Cistern looked rather cold, and felt like a cool elder brother; Cistern was buff, with a rather stout stature. Just his head alone made him look like a Warrior from the Dwarf Race; Fullergor looked exactly like a Doctor and made me imagine him as a Mage, who would have known that such a sophisticated man would actually be a Knight.

To my right were 5 female Phantom Knights: Meridar, Anna, Celine, Nina, and Vala. The five young ladies looked extremely young, the oldest Meridar was definitely not older than 30, and the youngest, Celine, looked as though she had not even reached the age of 18!

"Master, it seems that we have walked into an illusion!" Scott (Head of the Phantom Knights) suddenly warned me.

"Illusion?" I quickly opened up the map and took a look. "You\'re saying we took a wrong path?"

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"No!" Scott pointed to a location on the map. "We started from here, and according to our pace, we should had seen the road long ago, but we have not seen it yet! Additionally, the map states that there is a river here, but we have already passed through this location, yet there are no signs of any water bodies. So I think we have entered an illusion, the map is useless now. It will not pinpoint our location, and following it will deviate us even further!"

"You\'re saying this is a forest of Illusion just like the one outside Lost City?" I still believed that only Lost City, the evil and haunted place, would have an illusion to protect themselves!

"I think that this illusion is of an even higher level than the one outside Lost City! Us Phantom Knights have eyes that have many capabilities. Our eyes are specially called Spirit Eyes and have a degree of resistance towards illusions, for our Spirit Eyes to actually be unable to see through this illusion means that it is at a higher level!"

"Then what do we do now? Are we supposed to just stand stationary?"

"We definitely can\'t stand stationary, but we shouldn\'t advance further, why not we try to return to where we came from!"

"I have another idea!" I took out the Dragon Tendon Wires from my Bracelet and shot an arrow out with the Wire attached to it. The arrow shot forward and struck into a large tree far away with the Wire along.

"Alright, we\'ll walk this way!" We followed the wire and walked ahead and when we reached the tree, we continued to advance the same direction with the wire shot out in a straight line again. Each time the wire was insufficient in length or we reached the end of a tree, I would stop casting the Wire and recast it into a straight line again and again. Although this method was not too accurate, at least we were walking in a straight line.

As we advanced further, another transformation took place. Firstly, the number of trees started to fall, but the diameter of the trees increased. The trees got bigger and bigger with some having diameters of over 10 meters. These tree trunks maintained its strength and straightness 10 meters above the ground before suddenly spreading out with countless of branches. But this type of growth led the forest floor to be empty, practically the entire forest was empty except for the few large trees around with their exaggerated canopy that blocked out all the sunlight!

The thick fog had unknowingly disappeared and because of the sparseness of the forest, our visibility became better. Of course, it was because of our night vision capabilities that allowed us to view our surroundings, otherwise, it was so dark that even with our hands extended in front of us, we could not see a thing.

"Seems like we are leaving the boundaries of the illusion!" Scott announced after looking around.

"You mean to say we are out of the illusion?"

"I\'m saying we walked further into it!" Scott\'s voice had turned slightly anxious. "The illusion is meant to protect this region, we have cut right through the illusion and entered its inner region!"

"Oh! That\'s even worse now! But since we\'re already in here, it\'ll be a pity if we don\'t take a look around, let us continue ahead!"

Under my orders, we continued to advance forward, but the mist that had disappeared came out once again, furthermore, it had turned green. Scott instantly placed my visor down. "Everyone put on your helmets, we are entering a poisonous miasma zone! Dismount and unsummon the war mounts, this miasma might be able to destroy our Death Warhorses!"

We were compelled to walk, the green miasma pervaded throughout the forest, and the further we walked, the denser the miasma. It turned to a point where our fingers could be no longer visible, thus we stuck close together to prevent anyone from getting lost. To summon the Phantom Knights again consumed a large amount of MP that was at that moment too much for me to handle, thus I could not take any risks.

Although the miasma was thicker than the mist, the area of it was not as wide, and we quickly passed through it. The world kept within the miasma shocked us, it was the same tall and large trees, but they no longer had any leaves. We could see the sky, which was sadly filled with dark clouds. The clouds were low and thick, which blocked out most of the sun, the bit that passed through were weak and dusky.

"I sense something! Some force! It is a very powerful force!" Scott suddenly took a deep breath and spoke out which scared me.

"Are you alright?"

"It\'s nothing! I\'ve never felt so good before! This sinister power, there\'s even a hint of corruption and blood stench in the air! I can feel a powerful evil aura! It feels too good! It is to the point that even if the Battle priests are here now, I can swear that we will no longer be afraid!"

The other Phantom Knights suddenly knelt down and then started to lay down on the floor. "What a powerful force! This is an unholy land! Master, we are standing on a Cursed Land"!

"Cursed Land! Is it like the place outside Lost City?"

"It is not! The outskirts of Lost City is considered a land of eternal rest which belongs to a low-grade Cursed Land. But this place is an extremely high-grade Cursed Land, in terms of power, it is many times stronger than Lost City!"

"Why can\'t I feel it!" I knelt down and touched the ground, but yet I could not feel the power that they were talking about! But I encountered something hard, which was different from the other parts of the ground around it. I dug at it for a bit, which revealed something white. It looked like a bone of something, but the majority of it was underground, thus I did not know the specifics!

I continued to dig at the grey soil surface layer revealing the black soil beneath that was extremely damp with a heavy blood stench! As the soil was damp, it was easy to dig, and under two or three more scoops, I dug the bone out. It was a human bone, most likely the femur. I continued to dig along the bone, and as I had expected, there were even more bones which formed a perfect human skeleton.

"Master, what are you doing?" The Phantom Knights were still immersing and enjoying themselves inside the evil aura.

"I want to see what\'s inside!"

Scott pointed at the skeleton. With a wave of his hand, the skeleton actually climbed out of the hole itself. I retreated a few steps back in surprise, not because I feared the skeleton but because of the coolness of the skeleton, and retreated because of surprise.

"Scott, the Phantom Knights can summon skeletons? Why didn\'t you tell me earlier, if I had known you could do that, we would have summoned skeletons back in Japan to fight!"

Scott explained it to me slowly. "This is a Cursed Land, and only in such places can all evil or dark type monsters summon skeletons! It is like how Elves can instant revive in Life Forests. But we can only do it here, out of Cursed Lands, we don\'t have the spell!"

"That\'s some good news to hear at the very least!" I turned back and looked at where the skeleton came out from. "There should be more skeletons, right? How many skeletons can all of you summon at one time?"

"There are plenty of skeletons here, but we can only summon one each, after all, we are not Necromancers!"

"That\'s true!" It was a pity, if they could summon more, it would have been good for us, to be able to fight with a skeleton army sounded awesome! "Alright, we will continue heading in this direction, who knows there would be more evil aura for all of you to indulge in!"

"What\'s that?" One of the Phantom Knights pointed further into the forest.

I turned to look, there was indeed something moving closer. As there was still some lingering mist, we were not able to clarify what it was due to the distance. But it looked like a human silhouette, but in a place where encountering any others was not probable, most likely it was a zombie. Zombies and skeletons were common occurrences in Cursed Lands.

The thing gradually got closer to us, and its target became clear to us, it was indeed a zombie, even more so one that I had never seen before. The human exterior that it maintained had no signs of corruption and looked like a person sleepwalking. It was my first time seeing such a clean zombie. More and more of these zombies appeared, all equipped in armor. They were obviously soldiers. Their numbers were most likely due to them being in a unit, thus they still enjoyed staying together after turning into zombies.

Scott suddenly pointed at one of the zombies: "They\'re the troops from God City! He\'s wearing the Armor of God City!"

Celine pointed to another zombie: "Those are troops from Sky City! Even the emblem of Sky City is still engraved on his sword!

"Those are from Goddess City!" Another zombie was recognized.

"F*ck! The Game\'s Three Great Main Cities are joining forces here! For their forces to actually be here! How are we going to pass with them converging there! If I challenge one of them, will they gang up on me? Oh right, Scott, summon a skeleton and try and engage one of them!"

So long as one of my units were to engage in either man or monster, my [Star Gaze] could read the other party\'s stats, using the skeleton was the safest choice because if the zombies were to start attacking, we had the time to run!

The skeleton nimbly rushed forward without any weapon and bit down on the zombie. The data of the zombie immediately appeared, named Un-decayable Zombie, no wonder it looked so clean, it could never decay. It was Level 400 which was rather high, its damage rather average compared to other level 400 monsters, but its defense was extraordinarily high! Zombies already have an immense amount of HP, all of them were even equipped with armor, it was no wonder they had perverse defense! I looked at their speed, which luckily was comparable to ordinary zombies, they were extremely slow and practically any living thing could be faster than them!

The skeleton which I sent out was destroyed in two hits, but although the other zombies had helped to attack the skeleton, they did not come towards us, it looked like they were unable to leave their areas!

Although their stats were not overly exaggerated, their numbers were astronomical! Furthermore, all of them were practically standing in formation with their shoulders aligned with each other, it was impossible to cut through them. There were so many zombies and they were slow, it was the perfect match for my need to level. I summoned all of my Companions and got them to stand by the side since the zombies were unable to leave their positions, I could use ranged attacks to test it out. If they were still unable to move, it would definitely be the best!

I aimed an arrow at one of the zombies and shot. The arrow accurately shot the Zombie by its chest, but the zombie immediately opened its mouth towards me with a flash of red flickering in its eyes. I instantly felt something at my ankle, and I was suddenly being dragged towards the Zombie Horde.

"HELP!"

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(*) Spring of Evil from Quest of the Cave (part 3)

(**) Slightly cut short Rayner\'s name. The original Chinese Name sounds like Rayner Jin.