Though Perry was already over two hundred years old, as an eighth-level warrior his body was still strong and sturdy. But after
Lin Lei watched the scene intently.
"Soul Search." This was Lin Lei's first time witnessing such an extraordinary technique. As one of the three most powerful schools of magic, necromancy was truly awe-inspiring.
After roughly two minutes, Cesar's originally emerald-green eyes returned to their normal color.
Cesar glanced at Perry, whose face was now the color of death, and let out two cold laughs before withdrawing his right hand. The two golden-haired, green-eyed zombies beside him released Perry as well. With his skull pierced and his soul annihilated, Perry was beyond dead. His entire body crumpled to the ground like a heap of lifeless mud, utterly motionless.
"Well?" Cesar looked at Lin Lei with an expression of smug pride.
A master of Cesar's caliber could no longer be satisfied by the awe and admiration of ordinary people. Ever since he had begun associating with Lin Lei, he had never truly impressed the boy. Now, having displayed such a remarkable feat, Cesar eagerly anticipated seeing the look of astonishment in Lin Lei's eyes.
Only the astonishment of a fellow expert could truly satisfy his vanity.
"Truly remarkable," Lin Lei said with genuine admiration.
The soul was an incredibly mysterious thing. As the most essential core of a person's being, humanity understood remarkably little about it. To extract a person's memories from their soul—at the very least, Lin Lei could not even fathom how that was possible.
"Heh heh." Cesar laughed smugly, then the two golden-haired, green-eyed zombies beside him vanished into thin air, returning to their homeland in the world of the undead.
"Let's go."
Lin Lei urged.
In the blink of an eye, Baron Perry's manor returned to an oppressive silence. The vast majority of the people within had fallen unconscious, while the corpses of the few fighters who had died lay scattered haphazardly across the ground.
The private courtyard of the inn.
The parlor doors had been shut. Rebecca and Lina, the two girls, obediently lit the candles, while Lin Lei discussed matters with Cesar.
"What did you find in Perry's memories?" Lin Lei asked calmly and directly.
Cesar looked at Lin Lei with a smile. "Lin Lei, I knew far too little about you in the past. I never imagined—I never imagined you were this remarkable."
"Big Brother Lei, what happened?" Rebecca asked curiously, her big, adorable eyes wide with wonder.
Cesar's white eyebrows lifted with amusement. "Rebecca, Lina, your Big Brother Lei is quite famous in the
"A stone sculpture?"
Rebecca and Lina exchanged glances.
In their eyes, stone sculptures were incredibly difficult to carve. Achieving a likeness that looked 'realistic' was hard enough, let alone capturing the spirit and essence of the subject.
"How many gold coins?" Rebecca and Lina asked eagerly.
"Twelve million gold coins!" Cesar pronounced the number.
In truth, all of this information came from Baron Perry's mind. Perry had received the Church of Light's kill order regarding Lin Lei, so naturally the details about Lin Lei were described with great thoroughness.
"Twelve million gold coins? Just for one stone sculpture?" Rebecca and Lina's jaws dropped open.
"It's not just the sculpture. Your Big Brother Lei's magical talent was second in all of history back then, and now he's likely the greatest this whole Yulan Continent has ever seen. As for his warrior talent—you already know about that too." Cesar genuinely admired Lin Lei from the bottom of his heart.
A genius.
No one could possibly doubt it. Lin Lei's performance spoke for itself.
Rebecca and Lina immediately turned to look at Lin Lei, their eyes filled with barely concealed surprise and adoration.
"All right, Cesar," Lin Lei said, shaking his head with a laugh. "Enough about the past. Tell me what you found in Perry's memories."
Cesar sobered up as well.
"According to the information I extracted from Perry's memories, the Church of Light's influence within the
Lin Lei nodded slightly.
"From Perry's memory, I've learned the identities of every leader of the Church of Light's underground network across the entire Northwest Province. We can completely dismantle this network," Cesar said with a cold smile.
Building was difficult; destroying was easy.
To establish a hidden contingent of people in a region without arousing suspicion was an enormously challenging task. But to destroy it? That only required killing them.
"What about the other provinces?" Lin Lei pressed.
In his view, tearing down the network of a single province was far from enough. Destroying every one of the Church of Light's bases across the entire O'Brien Empire—that would be truly satisfying.
"If we kill all the chief overseers and key leaders across the seven major provinces, they'll be like a dragon without a head. Moreover, the Church of Light operates on a single-line chain of command. Once the overseers and chief overseers are eliminated, the entire intelligence network will be completely paralyzed."
The greater the blow dealt to the Church of Light, the more satisfied Lin Lei would be.
Cesar shook his head. "The problem is, the overseers of each county city only communicated with Perry, and Perry only communicated with the chief overseer of the O'Brien Empire—or directly with the Church of Light's headquarters."
"The chief overseer of the O'Brien Empire?" Lin Lei's eyes lit up.
So there was someone of even higher rank within the O'Brien Empire. If he could capture that chief overseer and subject him to a Soul Search, the amount of intelligence gathered would be far greater.
"Unfortunately, Perry didn't know this person's identity either," Cesar said, shaking his head. "Perry only knew to send messages to a specific location."
Lin Lei nodded.
Cesar suddenly broke into a grin. "However, I did come across a very interesting piece of information in Perry's memories."
"Tell me," Lin Lei said, looking at Cesar.