RoleplayNovel Chapter 9 Wolf Skull
Chapter 9 Wolf Skull
Benjamin glanced at Chen Mo but said nothing. The old man silently added a few more branches to the campfire, and the flames blazed brightly again, casting an orange glow on their faces.
In the distance, the river continued to flow gurgling. The owl began to hoot again.
Chen Mo sat down by the campfire and warmed his hands by the fire. The blood had dried, forming dark red flakes between his fingers.
Benjamin opened the spellbook, found the page he had just used, and gently smoothed the folded corner with his finger.
"Go to sleep," he said. "I'll keep watch."
Chen Mo did not refuse.
He leaned against his backpack and closed his eyes.
The smell of blood still lingered in his nostrils. His hands were still trembling slightly. But in the warmth of the campfire, in the wilderness of this strange world, he slowly drifted off to sleep.
The two-day journey was more physically demanding than Chen Mo had anticipated. After the wolf attack on the first night, they became even more cautious—Benjamin walked ahead, his spellbook always open to the page on perception spells, stopping every now and then to close his eyes and concentrate, checking for any danger in their surroundings. Chen Mo, on the other hand, was responsible for observing the terrain, occasionally climbing to higher ground to confirm their direction.
Fortunately, the rest of the journey was relatively peaceful. Around noon the next day, they passed an abandoned hunter's hut, where they found some dry firewood and half a jar of moldy jam. Benjamin disliked the moldy jam, but the firewood came in handy.
"At least I won't have to search for firewood in the dark tonight," the old man said, tossing the half-jar of jam far into the bushes.
On the evening of the second day, they finally arrived at the wolf skull cave.
The closer you get to the wolf skull cave, the more gloomy the environment becomes.
The pine trees thinned out, replaced by large patches of dead shrubs and grayish-white moss. The river's flow slowed, a layer of dark green foam floating on the surface, emitting a faint stench of decay. The indescribable stench in the air grew stronger, forcing Chen Mo to pull his scarf up to his nose to barely bear it.
"The aura of the undead." Benjamin closed his spellbook, his brow furrowed deeply. "This smell isn't from rotting corpses—it's from necromancy corrupting the environment. The concentration is so high, it means the spell was cast on a large scale."
Chen Mo nodded without saying a word.
The sky darkened quickly in the evening. As the sun sank below the ridgeline and the sky turned deep purple, Benjamin suddenly stopped and raised his hand to signal Chen Mo to stop.
"We're here," he said in a low voice.
Chen Mo looked over his shoulder.
The entrance to the wolf skull cave was about four hundred paces ahead—a gaping opening shaped like a wolf's mouth. In the twilight, the opening looked even more menacing than during the day. Inside the cave, it was pitch black; nothing could be seen. But outside…
On the slope outside the cave entrance, something could be vaguely seen moving.
Chen Mo squinted, struggling to make out the blurry outlines in the dim light. Grayish-white, slowly moving shadows. Not animals—animals wouldn't move with that stiff, mechanical motion.
Skull.
Three skeletons paced back and forth near the cave entrance, like patrolling sentries. Their skeletons appeared a dull grayish-white in the twilight, their eye sockets devoid of pupils, only two faint blue specks flickering within. They wore tattered clothing, some clutching rusty swords, others carrying wooden sticks, their movements slow but rhythmic.
Chen Mo's heart sank.
In the game, skeletons are the weakest enemies in the starting village, easily defeated with a single strike, and never require serious attention. But now, when those things actually appear before you, "looking" this way with their empty eye sockets—the feeling is completely different.
That wasn't alive. It had never been alive. It was just a skeleton driven by some force, without fear, without pain, without retreat, without hesitation.
He gripped the hilt of the sword at his waist tightly.
"Don't rush," Benjamin's voice rang in his ear, low and steady. "Let's take another look."
The old man opened his spellbook, his finger lingering on a particular page for a moment, his lips moving silently. His brow furrowed deeper and deeper, the wrinkles on his face appearing as if etched by a knife in the twilight.
"There is indeed an aura of ritual." He closed the book, looked at Chen Mo, and his gray-blue eyes held a solemnity that Chen Mo had never seen before. "Little guy, you're right. Even if it's not Queen Potema—there is someone here preparing to revive a powerful being."
His fingers tapped lightly on the book cover: "The magical aura is strong. It doesn't seem like the haphazard necromancy experiments of an apprentice—it's an organized, purposeful ritual. And..."
He paused.
"And the atmosphere of the ceremony is very strong. It seems like it's about to begin. Maybe in the next few days, or even sooner."
Chen Mo's breath caught in his throat for a moment.
He closed his eyes, recalling the map of the wolf skull cave in his mind. He had been here countless times in the game—from the entrance, there was a downward slope, and after passing through a fork in the road, he arrived at a spacious hall with two towers inside.
Necromancers usually set up an altar atop the tower in the center of the hall, surrounded by several skeleton guards, with one or two necromancers patrolling occasionally.
If they rushed in now, the necromancers would spot them immediately, and the skeletons would swarm them. In the narrow cave, there was no room to hide, no way to retreat.
He was a barely passable warrior, and together with a foul-mouthed old mage, they faced a group of undead mages and their army of skeletons—
The risk is slightly high.
"Benjamin," he said in a low voice, "were you able to sense it when the ceremony began?"
In the game, the Dragonborn arrive at the Wolf Skull Cave while the necromancers are performing a ritual. The necromancer who is presiding over the ritual is so focused on casting a spell that he has no time to spare.
"sure!"
Benjamin glanced at Chen Mo, a slight smile playing on his lips.
“A brilliant idea,” he said. “Yes. Large-scale necromancy rituals require the caster to continuously output magic and guide the flow of energy. During this process, the caster’s consciousness is mostly immersed in the ritual, and their perception of the outside world is minimized. The skeletons also enter a standby state—they are driven by the caster’s will, and when the caster is fully focused on the ritual, the skeletons’ range of perception is greatly reduced.”
He paused, then added, "But that means we have to wait. Maybe a day, maybe two. And once we're inside, we have to kill the spellcaster before the ritual is complete—and who knows what kind of rage the Wolfheart Queen will unleash once it's finished."
Chen Mo nodded.
"Wait," he said.
Benjamin did not object.
They found a secluded hollow near the cave, about five or six hundred paces from the entrance, on the back of a small hill. The location was excellent—allowing them to observe the cave entrance without being easily spotted. Several dead pine trees stood above the hollow, their intertwined branches offering a meager obscure view.