Chapter 34: 26. Perception Obstruction
Translator: 549690339
“Hansen, you stay here to protect Jarvis. The rest of you, follow me.”
Sergeant Mars cast an encouraging glance at Noland Lee, and along with his team, stepped into the corridor.
The sergeant who stayed behind to protect Noland Lee had the typical face of an Imperial Man.
Standing approximately four meters away from Noland, he held a gun in one hand, and a Lightning Spore in the other, vigilantly watching the exterior and interior of the Stone Tomb.
Noland Lee had mastered the translation of The Grudge Teachings.
He could basically understand the Undead Runes on the Stone Tomb.
If he goes all out and works at full speed, modifying all the Undead Runes would be only a matter of time.
Despite his reluctance, Noland had to admit he owed a debt of gratitude to the spy from the Death Herald Guild.
The spy’s action of modifying the Undead Runes and activating the Fanatic Command provided Noland with a classic case for modifying the Undead Runes.
How to properly modify the Undead Runes without triggering the Death Storm?
Follow the spy’s approach.
The spy had replaced “silence and patience” in the original text with “passion and fervor”.
Similarly, Noland could replace words like “loneliness”, “pain”, and “forbearance” in the original text with “reunion”, “comfort”, and “consolation”, among others.
To be cautious, Noland chose phrases unrelated to Fanatic Command and Death Pulse when he wrote new Undead Runes, to avoid activating the Stone Tomb’s skills.
Before the battle began, the Stone Tomb had 61 points of Death Energy.
After casting Fanatic Command, the Stone Tomb’s Death Energy dropped to 11 points, enough for two casts of Death Pulse.
Noland did not want to accidentally activate Death Pulse due to a mistimed operation, leading to his unexpected demise.
5 minutes later.
After modifying over a dozen of Undead Runes, Noland received a system message.
[You have limitedly destructed the structure of the runes of the Soul-binding Stone Tomb. There are changes in the information on the panel of this building.]
For things that have been fully deconstructed, Noland can deploy the Deconstruction technique without consuming Energy Points and will get an updated panel.
Noland summoned the panel for the Soul-binding Stone Tomb and looked over it.
The skill “Capture Soul” dropped temporarily from Level 1 to Level o. At present, the Stone Tomb couldn’t absorb souls to create new Soul Bindings.
In addition, the word “Instability” appeared in the introduction of the “Death Pulse” skill. The System explained that there is a high chance of failure when the Stone Tomb attempts to release this skill.
Besides these two changes, there were no other alterations to the Stone Tomb’s panel.
Noland turned back to gaze at the passage they had come through.
The number of Undead Runes at the entrance was relatively limited,
He had modified all he could.
Next, he must delve deeper into the Tomb to modify the Undead Runes within.
Noland and Sergeant Hansen discussed, and the two choose the path the team under the command of Sergeant Mars had taken.
After stepping into the narrow, dark passageway, the poisonous fog in the air became even thicker.
As they walked, the air displacement created by Noland formed rippling waves in the poisonous fog.
At the same time, their field of vision was extremely limited.
Noland walked haltingly, staying close to the wall, his eyes wide open, observing the Undead Runes on it, and from time to time, tapped the wall lightly with his Rune Staff.
After maintaining this status for a while, he suddenly realized something was wrong.
Too quiet.
There was absolutely no sound around.
The atmosphere was oppressively silent, as though he was in a hushed coffin.
Noland couldn’t see Sergeant Hansen’s figure, all he could see was poison fog.
Looking ahead, his vision was obstructed by the fog, making it impossible to see the end of the corridor.
Firing a gun in a narrow space is dangerous, as the sound waves will echo inside and cause significant damage to the hearing as they cannot escape and dissipate.
However, this also meant that if someone fired a gun in this spot, Noland would undoubtedly hear it.
But since Sergeant Mars led the team into the corridor, no sound had come out, which was very unusual.
The Stone Tomb was too quiet.
As if Sergeant Mars and his crew had vanished into thin air.
Now, Sergeant Hansen also mystifyingly disappeared.
Noland’s heart rate increased slightly.
He summoned his Personal Panel, his eyes narrowing slightly. At some point, a new entry had appeared on his personal panel:
“Unknown negative effect.”
Noland Lee selected this entry, activating the Deconstruction ability.
Without hesitation, Noland confirmed the deconstruction. The system quickly provided the complete deconstruction details.
[Name] Perception Obstruction
[Level] 3 [Type] Psychic Spell
[Effect]
Your field of vision is reduced to 3 meters and your hearing range is reduced to 10 meters.
[Origin]
A magical item that you haven’t discovered yet is casting this spell on you.
Noland browsed through the system messages, frowning involuntarily.
About eight minutes ago, the system had issued a warning, reminding him that he was under the effect of “Perception Obstruction”.
It was his fault for being too focused, so engrossed in modifying the undead runes that he had not checked the system message in time, only realising now that he had been affected.
Noland shook his head helplessly and pondered on a countermeasure.
There was supposedly a magic item hidden within the stone tomb that could even cast psychic spells.
This could pose some trouble.
It would be better to head back as soon as possible, otherwise he might end up losing his life here.
Noland kept close to the wall, intending to return to the main entrance of the stone tomb, only to find his way blocked by a solid wall that had abruptly appeared in the corridor he had just traversed.
Noland blinked in surprise at the wall.
He noticed that there were no undead runes on the wall, and its hue was different from that of the stone tomb.
The walls of the stone tomb were composed of aged, worn square stone bricks.
However, this wall blocking the corridor had a fully intact surface, devoid of any stone brick gaps, and appeared more vibrant, unlike the worn condition of the stone tomb’s walls.
Therefore, this wall was not naturally part of the stone tomb and was deliberately placed—or perhaps created—by someone’s spell.
As Noland was thinking this, the stench of decay wafted into his breathing mask.
Subconsciously covering his mouth and nose, he gazed towards the other end of the corridor.
Under his gaze, a humanoid creature swathed in grimy bandages was shambling slowly and unsteadily towards him.
Noland raised an eyebrow, recognizing what this thing was.
It had been referred to by many names in fantasy and sci-fi works: zombies, the walking dead, and so on.
All these names referred to the same kind of undead creatures.
They possessed rotting bodies and filthy blood, potentially carrying toxins. Though their movements were slow, they were incredibly resilient and could only be defeated by directly damaging their central nervous system or brain.
Instead of raising his rune staff in defense, Noland let his arms hang by his sides and silently watched the approaching undead.
Facing this incoming enemy, he felt a hint of nervousness, but just a hint.
He had the “Mark of Resentment”.
As long as this undead creature belonged to the Resentment faction of the Undead Cult. he should not have to worrv about being attacked.
Of course, this was provided that he did not show any signs of hostility, and his biochemical bait did not act up.
Sure enough, this particular undead stopped at a distance of three meters and looked at Noland with its faintly glowing green eyes, tilting its head slightly…
If one ignored the rotting flesh and blood on it, this action would almost seem cute and silly, much like Amumu from League of Legends.
The undead seemed to be pondering in confusion.
It seemed unable to comprehend why the human in front of it seemed to be one of their own, but also exuded a delicious scent…
Seeing that the undead did not attack, Noland heaved a sigh of relief.
He slowly moved along the wall, attempting to walk past the undead. The undead creature’s head slowly followed Noland’s figure….
