Starforce Warriors-Chapter 983: Ancient Scroll

Li Xiaofei didn’t move. A faint silver, curved light shield appeared instantly before him. The Heart of Guardianship had long since been refined to a masterful level and now reacted automatically the moment its master came under attack.

Boom.

The fireball slammed into the curved light shield. It shattered and exploded on impact. Li Xiaofei focused his senses. The power behind that fireball was equivalent to a full-strength strike from a level nine Reaper.

In the very next moment, a dozen more emerald fireballs surged forth like a chain of blazing comets, shooting toward him with lightning speed.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Flames burst in all directions. But as expected, every one of them was blocked by the shield formed by the Heart of Guardianship.

Li Xiaofei peered into the interior of the grand hall. He could make out a hunched, slender figure standing in the dim lighting. It was a Reaper with a rodent-like head, no taller than a meter.

A rat-headed figure was a mainstream appearance among the Wisdom Faction of Reapers. This was a common form especially within the ancient branches of the Reaper race. Yet this particular rat-headed Reaper was dressed in a strange fashion.

It wore a vibrantly colored robe and held a crimson beast-ear staff in its hand, while its mouth emitted raspy, unintelligible sounds. It waved the staff continuously, summoning chains of emerald ghostfire that rained down upon Li Xiaofei.

A mage? There are mages among the Reapers? Li Xiaofei blinked in mild surprise.

This was the first time he had ever encountered one. Moreover, the way this rat-headed mage fought didn’t resemble the usual divine abilities of Reapers at all. Li Xiaofei flickered and instantly appeared beside the rat-headed mage.

Boom.

A gust of finger wind condensed into sword light and struck the rat-headed mage squarely in the chest. A hollow thud echoed from its body, like a blow landing on aged leather.

It was sent flying backward and crashed onto the ground. But it quickly crawled to its feet again, letting out more of those raspy snarls and raising its staff to attack once more.

"Something’s not right... this thing isn’t alive." Li Xiaofei narrowed his eyes in shock.

Upon closer inspection, he realized that the rat-headed mage had long since died. Its body was completely desiccated. Its head beneath the ornate crown it wore looked more like a taxidermied specimen than a living creature. Only the eyes seemed oddly intact, not yet shriveled.

The guttural noises it made were like those of a wild beast. There was no trace of consciousness. It was like a walking corpse. Yet somehow, this dead thing was still capable of casting fireballs.

Truly strange and bizarre. Li Xiaofei attempted several times to subdue it, hoping to extract some kind of information but he soon discovered that it had no signs of life at all. It was nothing more than a puppet, a corpse being manipulated by some unknown force.

Whoosh.

A blade of sword light flashed through the air. The rat-headed mage’s head tumbled to the ground, rolling across the stone floor. Yet even as it fell, it continued to emit those rasping snarls. Its body, still clutching the staff, collapsed shortly after.

Just like the monsters Li Xiaofei had encountered in the black wasteland before, the rat-headed mage's corpse quickly dissolved into a pool of blood and seeped into the stone floor. Eventually, not even a trace remained.

It seems the Temple of Wisdom belonging to the Reapers is actually less safe than the lower-ranked Temple of Endurance. The monsters have already infiltrated it.

Or more accurately, Li Xiaofei corrected himself in thought, it’s not that the monsters infiltrated... but that the strange, destructive force of the black wasteland itself has seeped in.

By this point, Li Xiaofei was fairly certain that the bizarre monsters he had encountered across the wasteland, including this rat-headed mage, were all manifestations of the wasteland’s destructive laws.

They weren’t true living beings. That was why their corpses rapidly decayed and returned to the earth after death. As these thoughts ran through his mind, Li Xiaofei continued deeper into the temple.

Before long, the sound of heavy, hurried footsteps echoed around him. Giant creatures with the heads of bulls and the bodies of apes—the same kind he had fought before—appeared once more.

In the past ten days alone, Li Xiaofei had slain more than ten million of these wasteland beasts. But the ones before him now were clearly different. They had gained control over frost and lightning. As they roared and charged forward, pale blue frost spread across the floor, surging toward Li Xiaofei. At the same time, bolts of lightning began to fall from the void above.

Somehow, these monsters had acquired the ability to wield elemental powers. Li Xiaofei did not hesitate. He unleashed his full strength.

Corpses piled up like mountains within the vast hall of the temple. Blood flowed in rivers across the ground. But amidst the chaos, Li Xiaofei soon noticed something deeply strange.

This time, the corpses of the fallen monsters didn’t immediately melt into pools of blood and seep into the ground. Instead, as a bolt of lightning streaked across the air, the bodies suddenly rose once more and charged at him with renewed frenzy.

They revived endlessly. Yet Li Xiaofei wasn’t particularly shocked. He watched carefully, and before long, he noticed something unusual.

Four rat-headed mages stood at the far end of the grand hall. They were waving their staffs, continuously unleashing arcs of lightning. Each time the lightning struck the corpses of the ape-beasts, the bodies were instantly reanimated and thrown back into battle.

“What sort of lightning ability do these rat-headed mages possess, that they’re able to resurrect the ape-beasts?”

Li Xiaofei was intrigued.

What is the principle behind this resurrection?

His interest piqued, he studied the scene closely. After a brief moment, a faint look of disappointment crossed his face.

So it’s not some profound law after all.

The reason the ape-beasts could be revived was simply because the lightning stimulated their corpses. Since they weren’t truly living creatures to begin with, the electrical surge triggered some internal ‘mechanism’ that reactivated them. Clearly, this seemingly miraculous resurrection ‘technique’ wouldn’t work on intelligent lifeforms.

In that case...

Sword light flashed. The four rat-headed mages, who were no longer worth observing, were instantly cut down. Without their resurrection ability, the remaining ape-beasts were swiftly slaughtered by Li Xiaofei. Just as expected, their corpses melted quickly afterward, seeping into the ground.

“Hm? What’s this?” Li Xiaofei suddenly noticed something unusual where one of the rat-headed mages had perished. A faint brown cylindrical object lay on the ground, something that hadn’t been there before. It appeared to be some kind of storage device.

With a single thought, Li Xiaofei summoned the faint brown cylinder to float before him. It appeared to be made of some type of bamboo, with a delicate rose pattern etched faintly onto its surface. The craftsmanship was simple, not ornate.

The bamboo tube was about twenty centimeters long and less than five centimeters in diameter. It gave off no detectable energy fluctuations.

He removed the lid. Sure enough, there was something inside. Peering in, he found a pale white beast-hide scroll. Unrolling it, he saw that it was densely filled with text. They were written in the ancient script of the Reapers.

Li Xiaofei focused intently, deciphering the contents line by line, The breath of the temple grounds has begun to turn unstable... The temperature of the Flame River is rising. Aka has reported sightings of strange beasts near Endurance Altar No. 1, five hundred kilometers away. Though they appear to be ordinary rodents, their numbers are increasing rapidly.

Something is very wrong. The nemesis of evolution is emerging. They are coming. Father has fled.

The ancient Reaper script was difficult for Li Xiaofei to read but he did his best to translate and interpret the meaning. It seemed to be a personal account left behind by a powerful member of the Reaper's Wisdom Faction, something akin to a diary.

The content was full of anxiety. There was fear about the arrival of some impending catastrophe. The writer described how their tribe was facing danger, how the Evolution Temple had become unstable, and how the power of evolution itself was fading. A terrifying enemy, an enemy of evolution, was appearing in greater and greater numbers.

Many had begun fleeing from what had once been the refuge of evolution. Li Xiaofei stared at the pale beast-hide scroll, sinking into deep thought.

Could this so-called Temple of Wisdom actually be the legendary Evolution Temple spoken of in myths?

Something about that doesn’t quite add up.