When facing an enemy stronger than yourself, the first thing you must do is weaken them.
If you can't break their defense—
Then soften that defense until it becomes breakable.
The defining trait of a Death Priest isn't merely using dead souls to cast spells.
There is another defining trait as well.
And that is—
Sacrifice.
[Death Priest Specialty — Sacrifice][Sacrifice Dead Souls: Increase skill proficiency, enhance skill power, restore personal injuries, call upon power…]
The strength of a sacrifice depended on two factors:
The number of souls.And their spirituality.
The stronger the spirituality of the dead soul…
The greater the effect of the sacrifice.
And it wasn't limited to sacrifices alone.
Any skill that consumed dead souls had its strength determined by the soul's spirituality.
[God-Tier · Exalted Soul]
[All souls used for sacrifice by the user are treated as supreme Exalted Souls, possessing the highest spirituality and capable of satisfying the maximum requirement for any soul-based effect.]
Heh…
What a monstrous class.
Lu Cang—no, Kanzaki Rei—knew a bit about spirituality.
Among all beings, intelligent races such as humans possessed far greater spirituality than monsters.
And even among humans, the younger the child, the stronger their spirituality.
Of course, high-level professionals often possessed far stronger spirituality than ordinary people.
As for monsters…
They barely had any spirituality at all, even if their rank was high.
Most monsters were dim-witted creatures driven far more by instinct than thought.
No wonder the Death Priest was classified as a forbidden profession.
It wasn't hard to imagine.
Anyone who changed into this class would slaughter countless people for sacrifices.
They might even kill infants… children.
Fortunately, Rei didn't need to do that.
With [God-Tier · Exalted Soul], even the souls of monsters could achieve the highest level of spiritual effectiveness.
"Sacrifice — 1000 Souls."
"Enhance — Deep Curse Arrow."
Rei's Corpse Substitute Technique appeared at the farthest distance.
Fifteen pitch-black curse arrows materialized before him.
Each arrow seemed filled with the wailing of a thousand dead souls.
Right now, he possessed nearly every dead soul on the battlefield.
Total: 321,352.
All of them were monster souls.
According to the principles of a Death Priest, these monster souls would probably be considered useless scrap.
But for Rei…
These souls were no different from the soul of a newborn infant.
Perhaps even more effective.
As for how much stronger—
Without comparison, there was no way to know.
Thud!
In the blink of an eye—
Naya suddenly appeared directly in front of Rei.
But Rei himself had already vanished again.
[Deep Curse Arrow (LV:201) (1000 Souls)] ×3
Only the curse arrows remained—
Like droplets of water dissolving into its body.
"Sacrifice — 1 Soul.""Increase — Corpse Explosion Proficiency."
[Corpse Explosion — Proficiency EXP +100,000,000]
Oh?
One soul sacrificed for proficiency was equivalent to practicing the skill ten thousand times.
With a training method like this—
Who would ever choose to train through hard practice?
Killing people would be enough.
And Death Priest spells didn't just consume dead souls when sacrificed.
Simply casting them also required dead souls.
And those souls had to be personally killed by the caster.
Almost the instant the sacrifice was completed—
Rei's Corpse Explosion had already risen to LV:100.
Corpse Explosion Evolution.
Evolution direction — Power.
[Corpse Explosion Evolution — Corpse Soul Shockburst]
"Sacrifice — 100 Souls."
"Increase — Corpse Soul Shockburst Proficiency."
…
[Corpse Soul Shockburst — Proficiency EXP +10,000,000,000]
[Corpse Soul Shockburst (LV:200)]
Two consecutive sacrifices.
The originally LV:1 Corpse Explosion was instantly raised to LV:200.
"Evolve. Power."
[Corpse Soul Shockburst Evolution — Spirit Detonation]
Meanwhile, the monster in front of him had already been struck by Deep Curse Arrow.
Its movements grew even slower.
Enhancing a single skill with one thousand Exalted Souls…
Very few people in the world could afford such extravagance.
Even for the most evil Death Priests, such an act would be considered a monstrous sin.
Not to mention a thousand supreme souls—
Even killing a thousand monsters would take considerable time.
After all, beast tides didn't invade this world every day.
From Naya's perspective—
Its eyes were filled with disbelief.
This brat.
His magic… actually affected it?
And not just slightly.
The effect was astonishingly obvious.
In an instant, a large portion of its strength vanished.
Its wounds began worsening rapidly.
The real problem, however—
Was the injuries already on its body.
Those wounds left behind by the Level-5 adventurers, who had fought desperately to damage it, were already extremely difficult to heal.
Now the Deep Curse Arrows were further aggravating them.
"Corpse Explosion."
But before it could stabilize itself—
A dark light suddenly flickered around it.
[Spirit Detonation (LV:201)]
[Sacrificed Souls: 1000]
BZZZ—
No…
Impossible.
How could this child possess power capable of threatening it?!
BOOM!
Rei watched coldly as the soul cloud rising before him dispersed.
It dodged quickly.
The ground now displayed a massive crater.
That single attack had blasted out a circular pit with a 200-meter radius.
And yet—
It still managed to dodge.
Its speed was truly terrifying.
Even under the gravitational suppression of this place.
Even after being weakened by Deep Curse Arrow.
It still managed to avoid the strike.
"Sacrifice — 1 Soul.""Increase — Corpse Substitute Technique Proficiency."
"Sacrifice — 1 Soul.""Increase — Soul Extraction Proficiency."
"Sacrifice — 1 Soul.""Increase — Devour Soul Curse Proficiency."
…
Rei continued sacrificing souls one after another to raise proficiency.
Having [God-Tier · Proficiency Evolution] really was convenient.
Sacrificing one soul was equivalent to sacrificing ten thousand souls.
Otherwise, raising so many skill levels—
Even if all the souls from the entire battlefield were gathered…
It still might not have been enough.
Now he only needed to sacrifice 101 souls to reliably raise a skill to LV:200 proficiency.
"Extreme Frost Lake" → Evolution: Freezing Effect
"Ice Blade Technique" → Evolution: Power
"Dark Curse Bind" → Evolution: Weakening
"Flame Wave Technique" → Evolution: Range
"Corpse Substitute Technique" → Evolution: Substitute
…
SWOOSH—
BOOM!
[Death Substitute (LV:201)]— Pre-designated substitute, trigger medium, additional trigger methods, wider detection range, extended activation range, corpse usable three times, controllable corpse position after swap, usable even with long-dead corpses
Just an instant before Rei would have been struck—
Death Substitute activated.
SWOOSH!
Rei instantly transferred to the corpse he had pre-selected earlier.
"Very convenient."
His survival capability had improved dramatically.
As expected, relying solely on a mage's spells made survival far too fragile.
But now—
As long as an attack was about to hit him, even if he failed to react—
He would immediately swap positions with a corpse he had already marked.
Unless the monster destroyed every corpse here…
No.
Even that wouldn't matter.
Even if the corpses were chopped into minced flesh—
Rei could still use them.
Meanwhile—
The monster had already fallen into a trap the moment it attempted to ambush Rei.
[Everfrozen Deep Lake (Tier-2) (LV:201) (Sacrifice: 1000 Souls)]
The moment Rei vanished—
A lake of extreme frost erupted across the ground.
SZZZT—
The instant one of its feet stepped into the water—
The deep cold surged upward!
BOOM!
At the same time—
Massive walls erupted upward!
Within the frozen lake's water, dark curses crawled up from the monster's frozen leg and spread across its body.
[Malicious Binding Curse (Tier-2) (LV:201)]
Poisonous vines from every direction shot forward instantly, wrapping around its body!
Everything happened in a single moment.
Using Everfrozen Deep Lake as the foundation—
All spells detonated simultaneously.
[Wailing Soul Death Curse (LV:201)]
[Carves a curse of death upon the target. Before the countdown ends, the target's soul receives equal total damage.]
Above its head—
Three streaks of soul light gathered.
Triple casting—
Spirit Detonation.
"Sacrifice Souls — 10,000!"
"You think something like this can trap me?!"
"How could I possibly die at the hands of a mere Level-2 mage?!"
"You—are courting death!"
Rei didn't respond.
He simply sacrificed souls at the fastest possible rate.
Every skill—
Exploded simultaneously.
With Multi-Cast, he wasn't just releasing mage spells.
He was also unleashing the death magic of a Death Priest.
And just the same—
It was triple cast as well.