Before long, Queen Euryale's corpse was placed back into the stone coffin.
Riezel stood before it, gazing down at the body within, preparing himself.
As for Lizbeth, she just stood there, looking utterly dumbfounded.
It couldn't be helped.
At this moment, her mind kept echoing with the words Riezel had just spoken.
"I'll give it a try, see if I can bring this queen back to life."
Yes, Riezel was preparing to resurrect Queen Euryale.
From that moment on, Lizbeth had been in a daze, unable to muster a proper response at all.
It was simply because what Riezel said was far too outrageous, making even this little princess, who had never doubted him, couldn't help but feel skeptical this time.
"C-Can that really be done?"
Resurrecting the dead—such a thing had never happened on the Akasha Continent, so what Riezel had said was already far beyond Lizbeth's understanding, leaving her shaken and unresponsive for quite some time.
In truth, even Riezel himself did not know whether resurrection magic would actually work on Queen Euryale.
After all, it was not as if a mere corpse guaranteed the possibility of resurrection.
In YGGDRASIL, low-tier resurrection magic not only caused a tremendous loss of the dead person's exp, making their level drop, but it also required a corpse and items such as gold as mediums to activate.
High-tier resurrection magic, however, had no such limitations, for the exp consumed was greatly reduced, and if necessary, the corpse could even be dispensed with, allowing the deceased to be resurrected without a physical body.
From this, it already proved one thing: the true target of resurrection magic was not the body, but the soul.
Not only did resurrection magic work this way—healing magic did as well.
In the original records of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, an experiment had once been conducted.
They severed the limbs of living subjects, then healed them with healing magic, and the results showed that when the subjects regrew their severed limbs, the previously cut-off arms and legs vanished on the spot.
Unless those severed limbs had been altered in form or shape—such as being crafted into other objects and consumed as materials for item-making—they would inevitably disappear the moment healing magic was used to regrow them on their original owner's body.
Hence, it was obvious that healing magic did not act upon the body itself, but upon the soul.
If even healing magic worked this way, then how much more so for resurrection magic?
For this reason, casting resurrection magic on a corpse did not necessarily guarantee revival. If the soul no longer resided within the body, then even using resurrection magic on it would likely not bring it back to life.
It should be noted that Queen Euryale had been dead for at least eleven thousand years.
After such a long time, could her soul still remain within her body?
Naturally, it was impossible.
Because of this, the likelihood of Riezel's attempt to resurrect her was nearly zero.
Even if he used an extraordinary Super-Tier Magic like Wish Upon a Star to make a wish for her resurrection, without her soul as the medium, it would likely be useless.
However, this did not mean Riezel was without options.
'If it doesn't work without a soul, then what if I summon the soul back?'
Riezel intended to try just that.
And so, he finally activated the Super-Tier Magic he had learned but never had much chance to use—Wish Upon a Star.
*Buzz—*
With the tremor of magical energy, a massive dome-shaped, three-dimensional magic circle unfolded around Riezel's body.
It expanded at a speed visible to the naked eye, not only covering Riezel entirely within its dimensional structure, but also spreading outward to envelop a radius of dozens of meters around him.
"Wh-What a huge magic circle!"
Lizbeth was jolted awake at once.
Staring at the vast and intricate magic circle, feeling the immense magical energy surging from Riezel's body, Lizbeth's delicate features were filled with shock.
In that moment, as the dome-shaped magic circle bloomed, Riezel himself also felt something strange.
It was as though his mind was being flooded by some foreign power, stirring a near-instinctive sense of rejection and discomfort, yet at the same time, he felt an overwhelming happiness, as though he were connected to some vast and mysterious unknown, making him feel as if he had become omnipotent.
In that instant, Riezel understood.
He could make a wish.
He could realize it.
He could turn his thoughts into reality, rewriting anything he was dissatisfied with.
As long as he consumed enough excelia, he could make the impossible possible.
At this very moment, Riezel even had the premonition that if he were willing to pay the price, he could sink the entire Akasha Continent beneath the sea.
However, once he made such a wish, he would lose as many as five levels, dropping from his lofty Level 7 to a mere Level 2—barely out of the rookie ranks.
Moreover, since this was a permanent downgrade, unless Riezel trained anew, accumulating enough excelia and high-rank excelia to level up again, he would never return to Level 7.
'What a terrifying magic...'
Riezel forced himself to shake off that intoxicating feeling of omnipotence.
If he let himself be consumed by it, he might end up abusing Wish Upon a Star, sacrificing his excelia again and again in a spiral of endless wish-making.
Should that happen, it would defeat the purpose entirely.
Riezel sternly reminded himself, regained calm, and began to make his wish.
"I want to summon back the soul of Queen Euryale Reinnail."
As soon as this wish was spoken, the dome-shaped magic circle unfurled like a world-blossoming flower.
*Buzz—*
Immense magical energy transformed into streams of particles, rushing into the sky, rewriting reality itself to fulfill the caster's desire.
Riezel could feel that, as the Super-Tier Magic activated, something within him was being drained away.
What thing?
It was none other than his excelia, which served as the cost of casting the magic.
Every time he fought and defeated an enemy, excelia, which served as nourishment for his growth when he updated his status—promoting his development abilities and raising his basic abilities—accumulated within his body.
Now, however, he was consuming it as the price for Wish Upon a Star before even updating his status.
As a result, if he were to update his status now, he would discover that no growth had occurred at all.
Of course, this much price was still acceptable, as the worst part was that if his excelia was insufficient to pay the cost, his level might even decrease. Fortunately, since he was only wishing to call back a single soul, the request did not seem demanding enough to require lowering his level.
And so, when nearly all of his accumulated excelia had been consumed, his wish was finally realized.
*Buzz—*
Particles of light drifted from the void, flowing into Queen Euryale's body.
Seeing this, Riezel's spirits lifted, and without hesitation, he unleashed his highest-tier resurrection magic.
"True Resurrection."
Now that the soul had been restored, resurrection magic could finally take effect and be cast upon Queen Euryale.
Yet as he finished casting the resurrection magic, Riezel's brow furrowed deeply.
"Master? W-What's wrong?" Lizbeth immediately noticed this change and asked nervously.
"It's nothing..." Riezel replied, loosening his frown. "My magic just didn't work, that's all..."
Indeed, his resurrection magic had failed, but this was not surprising.
Resurrection magic was, after all, not omnipotent, so in certain special circumstances, it would fail.
One of those special circumstances was when the target had been killed by a particular kind of power—resurrection magic would be rendered useless.
For example, within the 9th-Tier Magic, there was a magic spell called True Death, an instant-death magic where once it killed an enemy, that enemy could not be revived by lower-tier resurrection magic.
In the same way, if someone was slain by a power with special properties—something that could hinder resurrection—then resurrection magic would not work.
Another was when the one to be revived refused resurrection, which meant resurrection magic couldn't affect someone who had willingly accepted death.
If a person could rest peacefully, leaving behind no regrets, resurrection magic would not take effect. Similarly, if one had suffered unbearable torment in life, viewing death as a release and life as agony, resurrection magic would also fail.
For that reason, unless the deceased had regrets and their soul did not reject resurrection, even the most advanced resurrection techniques would be useless.
'Could it be that this queen had no regrets in life?' Riezel pondered, then shook his head. 'No. If that were the case, her soul would not have responded to the call of Wish Upon a Star.'
Since Queen Euryale's soul had answered, it proved she did not reject resurrection.
In that case, the reason for the failure could only be one thing.
'She must have been killed by a power with special properties.'
Perhaps a curse that even gods feared.
Perhaps a power capable of slaying souls themselves.
In short, a certain cause of death had rendered resurrection magic ineffective on this queen.
"Troublesome..." Riezel muttered helplessly under his breath.
Seeing her master like this, Lizbeth tugged lightly on his sleeve.
"If it won't work, then just let it go, Master..." Lizbeth whispered softly.
Hearing this, Riezel thought for a moment, then finally decided to try another approach.
"I still have one more magic."
Facing the queen within the stone coffin, Riezel invoked a magic spell of a different nature.
"Over Magic - Create Undead."
===
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