Next, Hel turned her attention to another new experiment.
This time, she wanted to see whether five Shadow Warriors combined with five Death Knights could be fused into a single, higher-tier Shadow Knight.
Of course, since it was an experiment, she only used first-tier undead as materials.
But when the fusion was complete, the result was not what Hel had expected.
"If the dominant side is the Shadow Warrior, the outcome is a Shadow Knight… but if it's the Death Knight, the result is still just another Death Knight?"
Hel quietly noted down the observation.
Through further fusions, she finally understood the real factor that influenced the results.
Just like when she fused Haji the Berserker and Haji the Spearman, the final product depended on the skills they possessed.
Likewise, when fusing different kinds of undead, the talent traits each carried would also shape the outcome.
"Maybe… I can use this method to create undead that aren't quite normal," Hel mused, rubbing her chin thoughtfully.
The combination of Shadow and Death elements was a special case — they could merge into a dual-element crystal. Other elements, however, couldn't blend so easily.
If it were anyone else, they'd have to give up on this idea. But Hel wasn't just anyone — she was a cheat-wielding loli.
As long as she arranged the talent entries properly and used a corpse with a different elemental attribute, the dominant undead's talent could override the body's base element.
Even if the corpse contained a Death-element crystal, she could still create a unique hybrid undead.
She had already tested this concept on those Beastmen bodies earlier.
This meant that, in the future, whenever she found rare elemental corpses, she could preserve their innate properties through controlled fusion.
For now, though, she decided to convert all these bodies into Shadow Knights.
With that in mind, Hel began fusing the remaining corpses.
In the end, thirty-six Silver Wolf cavalrymen stood before her — their bodies wreathed in shadow.
Counting their spectral mounts, there were seventy-two sixth-tier beings in total.
"Their strength is still a little low. They probably couldn't even beat Haji the Berserker," Hel said, frowning slightly as she rubbed her chin.
Perhaps she could push them even further. But the next fusion couldn't be done inside the Undead Space — she needed somewhere safer.
So Hel left the space, controlled Morrigan, and teleported to a mountain forest in the Free Nation.
This was where Little Archmage No. 3 had buried itself.
After failing to catch Queen Fury back then, Hel had told it to dig itself into the ground and stay hidden.
Even after the Free Nation's reconstruction and several sweeps by the Ymir Empire's iron cavalry, they'd never managed to find it.
Now, at last, it could serve one final purpose.
As soon as Hel emerged from the necromantic summoning circle with Morrigan, she chose a cliffside, used magic to hollow out a cave, and stepped inside.
The moment she entered, several dark figures began emerging from her shadow — the Shadow Knights she planned to fuse next.
"Technically, I shouldn't be able to create a Saint-tier undead… but I want to try anyway."
With that thought, she activated the freshly extracted [Undead Fusion] entry and began merging ten Shadow Knights.
To her surprise, the process didn't fail or produce an error message as it sometimes did.
A brilliant white light enveloped the ten knights.
One by one, the other nine dissolved into the radiance, until only a single, larger, and more imposing Shadow Knight remained.
However, when Hel checked the system feedback, she couldn't help feeling a twinge of disappointment.
"Peak sixth-tier… or rather, half-step Saint-tier, huh? Just one step away from truly advancing."
Hel knew exactly what that missing "step" was — the key to reaching Saint rank: the Heart-World.
But expecting a fused undead to comprehend a Heart-World on its own was almost impossible.
After all, they were mindless creatures, fighting purely by instinct. Training or self-realization was far beyond their capacity.
Understanding that, Hel decided not to let Morrigan linger outside. She had the Little Archmage pack Morrigan back into the spatial ring.
Then she began the final round of fusions for her Shadow Knights.
"Three half-step seventh-tiers, and six sixth-tiers," Hel murmured, smiling in satisfaction at the results.
Now it was time to assign their entries.
From the Beastmen, she had gained only two types of combat skill entries — Blade Techniques and Archery.
Unfortunately, none of the Beastmen had been mages, so she'd only received martial and knight-related traits.
"One red-grade Blade Technique or Archery entry per knight, plus a red-grade Talent entry," she said, affixing the glowing entries to each Shadow Knight.
Then her eyes fell on another entry she'd acquired — and she hesitated.
It was a bloodline entry, inherited from the Beastmen.
Originally, it had been a common white-grade trait — [Wolf Beastmen] — but after some synthesis, it had evolved into several red-grade [Silver Wolf Beastmen] entries.
The problem was, her Shadow Knights no longer resembled Beastmen in any way.
If she forcibly applied this bloodline, it might alter their forms or cause unpredictable mutations.
"I should've kept one first-tier undead around for testing…" Hel sighed helplessly.
Still, she decided to take the risk and applied a single [Silver Wolf Beastmen] bloodline entry to one of the sixth-tier Shadow Knights.
After waiting for quite some time and seeing no visible change, she relaxed and distributed the remaining entries to the others as well.
She didn't forget about their mounts, either — though the wolves only received Bloodline and Talent entries.
After all the enhancements, Hel could feel the immense power radiating from her undead army.
She even suspected that, with these nine Shadow Knights, she might be able to take on a Saint-tier opponent head-on.
Still, after a moment of thought, she decided to play it safe. Better to test their strength first.
"Niv," Hel called as she returned to her little villa.
"Come with me. It's time we raid that goblin ruin."