This Lich Requests More Remuneration
Chapter 658 - 578: The Hearts of the Undead Are So Dirty

Chapter 658: Chapter 578: The Hearts of the Undead Are So Dirty

Amberser wasn’t joking with these two; to address the issue of Withered Rose, he had been researching how to resolve the negative impacts of the undead.

Withered Rose was of the most orthodox type of Lich, transformed by resentment and obsession, binding the Soul to the Life Casket.

Despite making whining noises in the Connected Dream Realm, once out of the dream, she would still be subjected to the erosion of her humanity by the undead body.

Both Hasting and Hales underwent Amberser’s modifications, and although their Souls were experimentally crammed with many things by him, they were essentially still the undead.

Over time, as their humanity faded and their cognitive abilities declined, they were destined to become creatures that could only drool.

Unless Amberser found them some "obsession."

But such an act was pointless because Amberser wanted to solve the problem from its root, not just to buy time.

The key to everything was still the Soul; the Souls of the undead were fundamentally different from those of the living.

After entering Hell, Amberser had encountered countless Souls and collected extensive information from various places in Hell. By reverse-engineering the Hell Engine’s technology, his understanding of Souls deepened, and he identified a problem.

His Pseudo-Souls, to some extent, were not considered undead.

It was merely out of convenience for inserting Souls into undead bodies that he had habitually created the undead. But essentially, Pseudo-Souls were different from the undead, like Melina, who didn’t show any signs of a will being eroded.

On the contrary, Melina had been an innate undead since birth, living in the form of the undead, and her Soul perfectly adapted to this body.

For Melina, the feelings of a living person were nothing more than mythical, not something she could truly experience.

It was like creatures that lived their entire lives Underground; most of them were blind and wouldn’t feel anything particular about the loss of light, nor would this sensory deprivation affect their thinking.

It could be said that Amberser had created a special Race, which could be referred to as "Innate Undead" without any issue.

Innate Undead had never experienced the state of having senses, so without having them, there was no sense of loss, and this process wouldn’t continuously erode their Souls.

Now, Amberser wanted to attempt to transform the old version of the undead to closely resemble the state of Innate Undead; perhaps this could completely resolve the problem of Withered Rose.

Certainly, Withered Rose couldn’t be used for the experiment. A large number of High-order Undead with self-will were necessary.

But they were hard to find.

Under Amberser’s command, only the brothers Hasting and Hales barely passed the mark, and it was unlikely that a second one could be found within the territories controlled by Withered Rose.

It wasn’t that there were no High-order Undead; it was that Withered Rose’s previous methods of operation involved erasing their individual wills for control, and these undead had long lost most of their selves, rendering them meaningless for experimentation.

Speaking of which, Laine had slain so many undead over the years, yet how come Amberser hardly encountered any? The Elegy Poetry Society were all friends; he couldn’t just use them for experiments, and the only one he was willing to deal with was Hake Stone, but he was a Vampire.

Amberser looked at the two brothers; with only two test subjects, he had to be careful not to waste them casually.

As for Husky’s suggestion to first experiment on Big Black, Amberser was willing to indulge his deep brotherly sentiment.

He reached out toward Hasting’s body, and dozens of Mage Hands flew out, grabbing the Mecha, beginning the disassembly.

Piece by piece, the parts fell to the ground, and in moments, Amberser had dismantled it into pieces, leaving only the head and the core power furnace.

The head was where the Soul was placed, and the power furnace was connected tightly to the head, which could be plucked out together and then inserted into another Mecha.

Amberser held Hasting’s head in his hands and directly extracted his Soul.

The luminous orb was clenched in his hand, countless threads flew from Amberser’s fingers and entered Hasting’s Soul.

The next second, the Adventurer who had seen many life and death situations let out a scream like that of a pig being slaughtered.

It was the screech of the Soul, perceptible to any living being with a Soul.

Husky shrank into a ball in an instant, the quivering mercury unsure whether it should find a crevice to hide in.

Amberser was also startled by Hasting’s shriek and hurriedly stopped what he was doing.

Amberser asked, "Does it hurt that much? I haven’t even started the transformation yet!"

Hasting’s soul weakly responded, "I’m dying, I really can’t stand a second of this, it’s not just pain, it’s the most cruel torture in the world!"

Although the guy was exaggerating a bit, Amberser could sense there was something wrong with his transformation plan.

His original idea was the operation method of "Theseus’s Ship," which was to first cut off a part of the soul, and then use a Pseudo-Soul to complete it. Wait until Hasting had adapted to it for a while, fully integrating this part of the soul, and then repeat the cutting and replacing operation.

When the Pseudo-Soul account for a large part, maybe it would be possible for Hasting to break free from the shackles of the Undead, and there would be no more cases of will being worn away.

Who would have thought the experiment couldn’t proceed right from the start.

Amberser could feel that Hasting’s soul was on the verge of shattering at that very moment, a bit more force, and he might have completely collapsed.

A completely shattered soul would be meaningless for experimentation, so Amberser had no choice but to pause.

Amberser disdainfully said, "You always brag about being an experienced Adventurer, but you can’t even handle this pain."

Hasting weakly explained, "Even the most experienced Adventurer hasn’t gone through a soul shattering, those who have experienced it are probably dead already."

Amberser said with contempt, "I have."

Hasting chose to shut up; the Lich Lord was again using his "personal experience" to cover up his own unreasonableness.

Amberser took out a large amount of Soul Currency for Hasting, "If transformation doesn’t work, just eat this, swallow all these for me, digest them as quickly as possible, eat until you can’t hold anymore, and then come and ask me for more."

If the "Theseus’s Ship" mode didn’t work, then let’s try the dilution with water method, see if consuming a bit more of other souls could have some effect.

These Soul Currencies were all Fake Coins Amberser had conjured, theoretically the same as Pseudo-Souls.

All Undead have the instinct to devour souls, some strong, some weak. Seeing that he no longer had to endure torture, Hasting decisively went for this second method and swallowed all the Soul Currency in one gulp.

He swallowed alright, but it would take some time to digest.

Amberser then stuffed Hasting back into the Mecha and turned his head to look at the Mercury that had merged into a ball.

Without waiting for Husky to speak, Amberser pulled out his soul, followed by another piercing shriek of the soul.

But this time, Amberser didn’t stop because he found that Husky’s soul was much more resilient than Big Black’s. Even after a small piece was cut off by Amberser, it didn’t collapse. Amberser immediately used a Pseudo-Soul to fill in the defect and then shoved Husky’s soul back into the Mercury.

Then he saw the Mercury ball ripple continuously, which was the tremble brought about by the excruciating pain of the soul being torn.

"If you want to maintain sanity as Undead, you’ll certainly have to pay a price, both of you keep me posted at all times."

After dealing with the experiments for the two brothers, Amberser disappeared into the Magic Mirror.

Hasting was chewing those Soul Currencies when he walked over to his still-trembling brother, consoling, "It’s okay, just grit your teeth and it’ll pass."

Hales’s weak voice came through, ashamedly saying, "Big brother, aren’t you angry I pushed you out there?"

Hasting said softly, "What are you talking about, we’re real brothers, how do you feel now?"

"It hurts, but I can hang in there. Big brother, I’m sorry." Hales felt extremely ashamed.

However, the very next second, he heard Hasting say loudly to the Magic Mirror, "Master, he’s fine! You can cut off another piece!"

Hales: "Huh?"

Are all Undead this cold-hearted?! Big brother, you’ve lost your humanity!