This Spiritual Energy is Lethal!
Chapter 264: The Cost of Rebirth

Chapter 264: Chapter 264: The Cost of Rebirth

Three Silver Knights rushed from the direction of the palace to the streets below the city walls, their silvery armor gleaming like Shura demons in the firelight.

Their silver longswords looked as if they had been soaked in a red dye vat, and even the armguards of the sword-holding hands were stained with a vivid red color.

Just now, three bolts of lightning had destroyed four siege trebuchets, but this time the opposition used all their power; after a brief lull, they rebuilt new trebuchets on the spot and continued to hurl burning barrels into the city.

Moreover, the gates had been battered open, and the area around the city gate inevitably plunged into a bloody and brutal close-quarters battle.

As high-ranking armed forces of Fan Hede, the Silver Knights were all stationed in the castle, while most of the fighting in the city districts was carried out by Fan Hede’s sword control team and a few priests of the Black Ring Sect.

"Burn these heretics!"

The roar of the swordsmen came from around the corner; the three Silver Knights turned their heads, only to see several Fan Hede sword wielders retreating to the street from around the corner of a building.

"Silver Knights! It’s the Silver Knights! We can’t hold on any longer..." one swordsman, seeing the three Silver Knights a hundred steps behind him, shouted toward them as if he had seen hope.

The next second, a long spear entered his brain from the left temple and exited through the right temple, nailing him to the ground.

The remaining few swordsmen barely lasted a few exchanges before they were overwhelmingly defeated and cruelly beheaded.

The three Silver Knights remained unmoved, just holding their shields before their chests, standing guard in place.

The opposition numbered twelve in total, all equipped with round shields emblazoned with the sun badge, wearing bucket helmets, dressed in chainmail, and draped in white church robes.

While watching the Silver Knights, they grabbed the bodies on the ground, cut off the heads with daggers, and then tossed them into the nearby fire.

"Servants of darkness, burn them all!" the bucket-helmeted swordsmen roared.

Words were superfluous; a great battle ensued.

Although the other side had a clear numerical advantage, the Silver Knights’ equipment and swordsmanship were far superior to that of the Fan Hede sword control team. In just over ten seconds, all those bucket-helmeted knights became corpses.

The leading Silver Knight shook the blood off his sword and, unintentionally, noticed a charred body at the base of a nearby wall.

The body lay on the warm, wet ground face up, with its clothing burnt to black patches stuck to the charred flesh; yet, it was still somewhat recognizable as the robe of the Church.

"A priest? Dead here? Aren’t they supposed to be in the cathedral?" the Silver Knight muttered.

"Look at that rapier... it’s all charred... this guy’s an assassin from the Black Ring Sect," another Silver Knight said.

"Hmm... never mind him, let’s hurry and find the princess," the Silver Knight replied.

The three soon put sighting the priest’s body out of mind and vanished around the next street corner.

A few more minutes passed.

Suddenly, the charred body’s fingers twitched, and the burnt flesh and clothing began to crumble away from the torso like fragments.

The body abruptly sat up, its eyes snapping open to a blood-red hue, while a faint red glow radiated from its figure.

Seconds later, the eyes returned to those of a normal human, the burnt skin peeled away revealing Chen Ke’s tattered suit and human body; he took a deep breath, feeling as though he had just had a sleep.

Although for Chen Ke, the transition from death to resurrection was but a fleeting moment, he still noticed that each time he returned to life, it took longer and longer.

The first time he was killed in the woods by an assassin, Chen Ke had resurrected on the spot almost instantly. The second time, in Pankia’s little house, he was shot in the head by a sniper; by the time he woke up, Sleery and Pankia had already run outside.

And this time...

Chen Ke looked around and noticed an additional pile of bodies on the ground, aside from Faralis and the swordsman he had killed...

A battle had taken place here...

Chen Ke didn’t know how much time had passed since his death, but he was certain that it would be very difficult to find Faralis again.

Resurrection wasn’t too costly in terms of lifespan, consuming only 30% of the current maximum lifespan for an on-the-spot revival sounded almost like cheating.

But only Chen Ke himself felt the dread.

Besides the increasing length of each resurrection cycle, he also felt a distinctly unpleasant sensation upon awakening each time. What was that feeling?

He stood up and surveyed his legendary suit. Given its current tattered state, the Transcendent effect had long since vanished.

The great fire had turned the carefully assembled Transcendent outfit into black ash; now he could only explore this time and space in his ragged clothes.

The only Holy Relics he could wear were those of some lady’s SM set...

Chen Ke hesitated for a few seconds but couldn’t bring himself to wear them. No way would he wear that set, even if it meant going nude!

Out with the old, in with the new... Chen Ke turned his gaze to the corpses on the ground. On his first arrival in Fan Hede, he had tried to strip the armor off a living dead knight, but the Great Void had proven that this was not possible.

Unless the item was left unattended or abandoned there, or it dropped in the form of a Holy Relic after killing its owner, it was unmovable and unusable.

Resigned, he tried again to no avail. The armors seemed fused to the corpses, impossible to remove, and the weapons on the ground turned into mere shadows upon his touch and eventually vanished.

How could he find a set of clothes in a short time?

Chen Ke grew worried; the city was currently in the midst of battle, the sound of swords and halberds clashing growing closer, signifying that the attackers had breached the city.

There was no choice for Chen Ke but to see if he could find some ordinary abandoned clothes in the residential homes to change into.

With this in mind, he reached out to summon Faralis’ Unyielding Fury, but no matter what, he couldn’t summon it.

"What’s going on...? Has the Holy Diamond lost its power?" Chen Ke, startled, took out a wallet from his chest pocket to check.

Suddenly, he remembered what had happened earlier with Faralis.

He recalled planting Faralis’ Unyielding Fury into the ground... and also that he had died burned by a flaming barrel that fell from the sky...

A wave of panic surged through his chest; Chen Ke finally understood what that feeling was after each resurrection...

It was memory loss...

Temporary amnesia... as if he had had a very long dream and upon waking couldn’t remember it at all.

This power of resurrection... it’s better not to rely on it as a trump card after all... Chen Ke became apprehensive. If he relied on his power to never die in battle, in adventuring, would there come a day when, upon waking up, he would have forgotten everything, opened his eyes, and the world had changed beyond recognition...?

No wonder the cost of this ability was so low! The price wasn’t on this end at all!

Chen Ke steadied his emotions and put the Holy Diamond away, then started thinking about Faralis and this time and space.

"I hope it was her who took it..." Chen Ke murmured to himself. If Faralis herself had taken it, that would be preferable. If someone else had taken it, that would be more problematic.

He didn’t attempt to summon the other Holy Relics because in the Great Void, Holy Relics couldn’t revert to diamonds upon summoning, so he simply pulled out his gun.

In this world, all martial arts are worthless, pulling the trigger is the real deal, even in a world like Fan Hede where Transcendents abound.