Lynch fought back the nausea of taking a second Awakening Potion in such a short time. He raised his eerie Magic Staff again and chanted a short, obscure Spell.
A spectral light flashed at the tip of the Magic Staff. A pale orb of energy materialized, roughly the size of a human head and trailing a curved tail like a tiny Ghost. With a flick of his staff, it shot forward in absolute silence.
[Weakness Curse: Level 1 (0034/3000)].
This was another signature foundation Magic of a Necromancer. It turned a target's body utterly limp and their legs to jelly, making them feel as if they had spent three uninterrupted days and nights partying inside the Oak Boggart House.
Since this Skill was relatively easy to practice and highly effective, Lynch had leveled it up to Tier One early on.
The cursed orb moved much faster than the Skeleton Soldier, striking first despite being launched later. The illicit couple, still fumbling with their clothes, jumped in terror once again.
However, Leon Hosley was a seasoned bully. Boasting excellent physical conditioning and lightning-fast reflexes, he immediately rolled to the side to dodge the Weakness Curse.
But the tiny Ghost-like orb acted like a homing missile. It banked sharply mid-air, tracking his movement, and plunged straight into Leon Hollis's body.
The power of the Curse erupted inside him instantly. Leon Hollis felt a sudden numbness seep into his bones. His legs buckled, nearly sending him sprawling to the dirt, and half his strength evaporated, leaving him utterly drained.
At that very moment, Bone Jade charged right up to his face, wildly hacking away with its Bone Knife.
Leon Hollis scrambled to dodge, but the blade slashed his half-fastened robes to ribbons. He wanted desperately to counterattack with a Holy Light Bomb, but his weakened body refused to cooperate.
Furthermore, the future Bone Jade Skeleton King was a formidable combatant and gave him zero openings. The relentless, close-quarters barrage pushed the Holy Knight apprentice to the absolute brink, leaving him flailing wildly for his life.
"Purify! Use your Purification Skill, now!" Leon Hollis roared in panic and rage at the dazed nun beside him.
Jolted awake from her stupor, the nun frantically formed hand signs and chanted a Sacred Spell, attempting to cast the Holy Light Purification Skill. But she was too young and far too panicked, failing the cast twice in a row.
That catastrophic failure snuffed out Leon Hollis's last sliver of hope to escape in the chaos.
In reality, Lynch had already calculated that even a successful Holy Light Purification Skill from the nun would be useless. Given her pitiful mastery, purging Bone Jade was a tall order. The Skeleton was powerful enough to withstand a direct purification strike from an Angel Sentinel.
Right in the thick of the desperate melee, two fully armored female Holy Light guards stepped through the breach in the wall. They flanked an elderly nun draped in a plain white habit, her face etched with stern authority.
The elderly nun swept her gaze across the scene, instantly locking onto the half-naked couple brawling with a Skeleton Soldier. One of them was Sister Yibela, a protégé she had meticulously groomed and highly valued.
With a lifetime of worldly experience, the elder nun furrowed her brow, already piecing together exactly what had transpired.
She let out a cold scoff and casually tossed out a Holy Light Purification Skill, blasting it straight into Bone Jade.
CLATTER.
Bone Jade instantly collapsed into a scattered pile of bones, as if its very soul had been sucked dry.
"Mother..." Sister Yibela whispered, her eyes brimming with pure terror and absolute despair.
Meanwhile, Leon Hollis stubbornly attempted to talk his way out of it. "Mother, we are just here to purge evil."
The elder nun gave him a frigid glare. Her eyes dropped to the unsightly appendage dangling freely in the breeze beneath his shredded black robes. Her voice turned to ice. "Take them away. Inspect their bodies thoroughly."
"Yes, ma'am."
The two female Holy Light guards stepped up, hoisted the paralyzed, despairing adulterous couple by their arms, and dragged them back into the Monastery.
The elder nun scanned the scattered bones on the ground, muttering to herself with a slight frown, "A Tier One Netherworld Skeleton, a Tier One Weakness Curse... It seems we are dealing with a Tier One Necromancer."
Just then, another guard approached and bowed deeply. "Lady Bertie, the Angel Sentinel ward was triggered multiple times tonight. We exhausted a total of one and a half Bright Magic Stones."
The elderly nun, Bertie, frowned even deeper at the report. A Necromancer sneaking up to the Monastery in the dead of night just to repeatedly trigger the Angel Sentinel? What kind of bizarre probing tactic was this? Was there a deeper conspiracy lurking in the shadows?
"Search the perimeter. Repair the wall as quickly as possible tomorrow, and keep the Monastery on maximum alert for the foreseeable future."
"Understood."
A squad of guards promptly poured out of the breach, spreading out to hunt down the elusive Necromancer.
Lynch, however, had booked it the moment Bone Jade engaged the cheating pair. Relying on his robust physique, he sprinted into the distance in the blink of an eye.
From far away, he glanced back over his shoulder. The broken wall of the Holy Maiden Convent was now blazing with torches. He knew Leon Hollis was completely ruined this time. Even if he survived, he would be flayed alive.
"Oh, great unspeakable entity, I just helped you catch a cheater," he murmured. "But there is no need to thank me."
With that, his silhouette melted perfectly into the night.
As the old saying went: complete the deed and depart in silence, seeking neither fame nor glory.
***
Time slipped away. By the time Lynch stepped out of the Raven Inn, cloaked in black robes with a hood obscuring most of his face, the sky was already turning a pale, hazy grey.
A crisp morning mist drifted lazily through the streets like a veil of sheer silk, carrying a sharp morning chill.
He pulled his robes tighter around himself and weighed the heavy coin pouch in his hand, a deeply satisfied smile creeping onto his face.
The pouch contained a staggering one hundred and twenty Gold Coins—his payout for selling the juicy intel to the Eye of Secrets.
The Eye of Secrets was a massive, nationwide intelligence syndicate with unfathomably deep and tangled roots.
Simultaneously, the syndicate ran a highly lucrative side hustle: publishing Rumors and Truth, a weekly magazine that sold like wildfire across every region. They raked in cash by printing trivial leftover intel and explosive tabloid gossip directly for the public.
They had quite the head for business.
As for what Lynch had sold them? Naturally, it was the scandalous scoop of the century: the second son of Baron Horsley, Holy Light Knight apprentice Leon Hollis, caught red-handed engaging in a midnight tryst with a nun from the Holy Maiden Convent.
Indeed, Leon Hollis was a child of nobility. Otherwise, this piece of gossip would never have fetched a hundred and twenty Gold Coins.
Knowing that the hypocrites of the Holy Light System excelled at sweeping things under the rug and burying their filthy scandals, Lynch had decided to light a fire under them. Earning a fat stack of cash to pay off his debts was just a pleasant bonus.
"I did this all for the good of your Holy Light Church. No need to thank me."
Of course, to protect its sterling reputation, the Eye of Secrets demanded absolute authenticity. When purchasing intel, they mandated rigorous Lie Detection Magic appraisals and maintained a zero-tolerance policy for fabricated reports.
This meticulous and responsible attitude was exactly why Rumors and Truth boasted stellar sales across all regions. Exceptionally explosive news was even distributed nationwide via raven.
"Thank you, nature, for your generous gifts," Lynch muttered under his breath. He shoved the coin pouch into his shirt, pulled his hood low, and walked briskly toward the Hurst Royal Extraordinary Academy.