Chapter 126: Hell Dive Undeads

The day started a bit differently within the Starlight Royal Academy.

It's not like this day was 'special' in particular or anything like that. In fact, the majority of people here started their day just like any other. However, even those who are slightly sensitive to their environment could discern that there was tension in the air that came out of nowhere.

"Another day...another Hell Dive. Man, when will it end?"

"You know, you'd think that after doing it for so long we'd get used to it by now, but no, I just can't seem to get used to it, for some reason."

"Me either, but what can we do? This is how the world works. Us normal folks could only do our best to stay alive."

From the hushed discussions of the crowd, it was obvious that the reason behind the tension all over them was because of the Hell Dives.

It's the start of the month, and that generally means that humans should prepare for their Hell Dives this early so that they can free up the rest of their month. And the majority of them often take their Hell Dives on the first week of the month, only a fraction of the population delays theirs for whatever reason.

Even for the Instructors, Staff, and students of the Starlight Royal Academy, this rings true. Granted, most of them are confident about their chances. However, there's always going to be a handful of people who still feel nervous about this.

It's the start of the weekend today. Cedric keeps his schedule open during these days to rest and relax. While he does have Saturday classes, they're not that hard so he could afford to enjoy his time.

Usually, Cedric likes taking his Hell Dives in the last week of the month. He wants to make sure that his progress is going well to increase his confidence in clearing his monthly mandatory service. However, starting this month, he'll be changing that.

He doesn't have a big reason or whatever. He just noticed that this seemed to be what everybody around him was doing so he was inclined to do the same, that's all.

So, with that said, Cedric woke up early today to descend to the Purgatory to clear his task.

**

[Mandatory Task:]

: Hell Dive - Survive the Endless Undead Horde for 5 hours twice.

: Rewards - 100% Demon Soul gain, Clearance Streak +1

: Punishment for Failure - Failure Streak +1.

: Record: Clear Streak - 13, Failure Streak - 0

**

Cedric narrowed his eyes. He saw a unique type of undead that didn't look like a zombie or a ghoul.

It took on a humanoid shape. It has rotting bits of flesh attached to its body while the rest were reduced to mere bones. It has a ghastly green hue on its eye-sockets and somehow, was wearing a dirty robe and holding a rotting book which emanated with the same ghastly aura.

It released a fluctuation that resulted in several more undead clawing their way out of the ground, eventually joining the growing horde.

"Corpse-raisers, huh? So the task has reached this level of difficulty, I see."

The Corpse-raisers are also known as Lesser Necromancers. Their abilities are tied to what they're called, obviously. However, unlike Necromancers, this is all they could do.

Necromancers learned spells that could empower their summons or weaken their enemy. Corpse-raisers can't do that. Their only ability is to raise the Undead for their grave. They don't even have the ability to make their summons completely loyal to them. Their only task is just that, to raise them.

Although Cedric already realized this during the time he saw a Ghoul appearing in his Hell Dive, it only fully sunk into him now that this is indeed, an 'Undead' horde, not just a Zombie horde.

And since the Corpse-raisers already started appearing, it's almost certain that he'd be seeing a true Necromancer someday, if not today.

'Zombies, Ghouls, Corpse-raisers, Skeletons, Necromancers, Headless Knights, Banshees, Mummies, Lich, Arch-Lich, Wraiths...'

'It's so easy to overlook the true extent of what the 'Undead' could be with how inclusive the Demon Race is.' Cedric pursed his lips as he realized this.

It's still a mystery to him how Demons could take on many forms but that's irrelevant to his current situation really. With him knowing the sheer number of forms he could expect to see in his future battles in the Purgatory, his focus should be on how he could prepare against them.

'Fire is effective against them.' Cedric mused inwardly, proven by how his enemies reacted to his attacks just now. 'Sunfire is even more effective due to its latent properties.'

'However, Sunfire could only be used by Derrek - my alter ego. And if I want to keep up with the ruse, which I should be since I could still feel eyes on me, this means that I'm only limited to ordinary fire.'

'That's not too bad I suppose.' He added, 'I mean, I could work my way around it. But the stronger the Undead are, the more resilient they are against Fire.'

'Higher forms of the Undead could harness the power of 'Death' and/or Curses and Hexes. They could use those spells to weaken me severely and cause me to fail my task.'

Drawing his sword from its scabbard, Cedric released his Sword Intent and prepared to face the undead head-on, on top of this, flames billowed on his sword too, further increasing its killing potential.

Cedric grew rather bored of just hurling fireballs so he decided to use his sword and Sword Intent in conjunction with his flames to increase his killing speed.

By now, he's already facing Tier 2 of both Regular and Mutated Zombies, Ghouls, and Corpse-raisers. Their numbers will constantly increase from this point onwards. After every hour, he'll also have to face a Boss.

'I should start learning spells that could counter Dark Magic after I'm done with this. It's better to start early rather than late after all.' Cedric concluded as he finally focused on the task ahead.