Vivian, standing behind Nolan, felt her curiosity piqued by his words.
‘A Ghoul?’
‘I want to see what’s going on.’
She twisted her slender waist and squeezed past him, her hip bumping Nolan aside. Following his lead, she poked her head out from behind the bushes and peered ahead with a searching gaze.
The Ghoul, which had been hunched over devouring flesh, seemed to sense something. It snapped its head around, revealing a bloody, gaping maw. The muscles around its mouth had long since rotted away, leaving its yellow-black fangs exposed to the air. Its cloudy, white eyes stared straight at Vivian, who had just popped her head out.
‘Good grief!’
‘This thing is terrifying…’
‘Was this really something that could be out and about during the day?’
Vivian shrank back in fear, retreating several steps.
“Not good, it’s going to run!” Nolan shouted in a low voice, suddenly looking up as he noticed the Ghoul’s unusual behavior.
Most low-level Ghouls were naturally cowardly. Once they sensed danger, they would flee without looking back.
As soon as he spoke, the Ghoul grabbed the half-eaten severed arm in its mouth. It dropped to all fours and transformed into a dark blur, sprinting into the depths of the jungle.
“Follow it!”
Nolan unsheathed the sword at his waist without waiting for the others to react. He set off at a run, trailing the Ghoul’s silhouette until he disappeared into the thicket. Vivian and Blake followed closely behind.
The three of them pursued the fleeing Ghoul, which led them far off the main path. The surrounding environment gradually became thick and damp. The dense foliage on either side blocked out the sun’s radiance, causing their vision to dim. Even the air they inhaled grew increasingly murky and foul-smelling.
*Whoosh!*
A brilliant golden dragon of light swept through the dark jungle, leaving behind tiny particles of light in the air. The Ghoul, which had been fleeing frantically, crashed to the ground. The momentum of its corpse carved a shallow trench into the earth.
A longsword, vibrating slightly and glowing with a faint golden holy light, was embedded in its hunched, black back. A wisp of steam rose slowly, accompanied by the *sizzle* of burning flesh. Dark, foul-smelling pus oozed from the Ghoul’s wound, soaking and polluting the ground beneath it.
Not far behind it, Nolan stood with his body leaning forward, frozen in a pose like a shot-putter. Just a few seconds ago, he decided the Ghoul had finished its role as a guide and threw his sword without hesitation, cleanly ending its second life.
“This thing stinks worse than the sewers of Black Rat Street!” Blake said, his voice heavy as he pinched his nose. He fanned the air with his hand and walked toward the Ghoul’s corpse.
Seeing this, Nolan raised his hand and quickly chanted a prayer. Moments later, a golden dome appeared around Blake, shielding him from the external filth. This was one of the most basic divine arts of the Church of Glimmer. It provided a certain level of protection against evil and impurities, including purifying the air.
“Thank you,” Blake said softly.
Nolan turned toward Vivian, about to speak, but saw her shaking her head.
“I don’t need to breathe.”
Vivian was an undead creature through and through. It was impossible to know how many years her body had been dead. She relied on consuming blood and converting it into mana to sustain her movements. To her, breathing was an optional activity.
“The mist here… it feels a bit eerie, almost green,” Vivian said, looking up at the thick fog that had condensed into a literal green screen before them.
“Not only that, I can’t sense the aura of the Demon we’re looking for. Instead, there’s a lingering energy of death,” Nolan said as he stepped forward, pulling his sword from the Ghoul and shaking off the stains. He picked up where Vivian left off and shared his own observations.
Just then, a heavy, dragging sound echoed from within the thick mist.
*Scrape, scrape.*
It sounded as if a mortician was slowly dragging a heavy corpse across the ground.
*Scrape, scrape.*
A dark figure emerged from the fog. His entire body was covered in skin charred black by fire, and the left side of his torso was crushed to pieces, with several strips of flesh dangling behind him. He limped on one leg, slowly approaching the three of them.
Vivian jumped, startled by the monster’s sudden appearance. Nervously, she pressed her lips into a thin, wavy line and nudged Nolan with her elbow.
“What… what kind of monster is this now?” she stammered.
“A Living Corpse,” Nolan explained in a low voice. “A body raised by death energy. Like the Ghoul, it’s a low-level undead.”
“It seems there’s likely a Necromancer ahead of us…”
Whether it was Ghouls or Living Corpses, they were both low-level undead that Necromancers favored as minions. If they had encountered one or two undead by chance in the wild, it could be explained as a natural gathering of deathly aura. But they had run into two in a row, coupled with this obviously abnormal mist — Nolan was now certain that a Necromancer was causing trouble ahead.
“Then… what do we do?” Vivian’s lips trembled slightly.
Ghostly monsters were what she feared most in life. Even though Vivian was technically one of them now, she had completely lost the energetic fighting spirit she had when she woke up this morning. She was already starting to have second thoughts.
“Maybe we shouldn’t take this commission…” Vivian’s voice couldn’t help but take on a slight tremble.
‘If the bread is a little more expensive, so be it… I can just take another job and earn more money. If I slack off less, I should still be able to afford it…’
“I… I recognize him!”
Blake, who had been silent, suddenly spoke up.
“Recognize who?” Nolan turned quickly toward him.
“This Living Corpse…” Blake said hesitantly. “He’s Gareth, a buyer for the Blue Whale Chamber of Commerce.”
“He came to my bakery before to order a massive Queen Cake for his wife’s birthday. The pickup was supposed to be three days ago, but he never showed up. I thought he…”
Blake suddenly fell silent because the Living Corpse, Gareth, had already reached them, dragging his lame leg. However, he ignored the three people in front of him and walked straight to the Ghoul’s corpse. He reached out with a highly decomposed arm, grabbed the Ghoul by the leg, and dragged the body into the mist.
“Another guide. Let’s follow him. We shouldn’t let his kindness go to waste.”
Nolan tried to lighten the heavy atmosphere with a joke, but the other two remained silent, making the scene even more awkward. Nolan shook his head inwardly. Seeing no other choice, he took the lead and followed behind the Living Corpse.
Thus, the three of them once again followed an undead deeper into the jungle. After a while, the Living Corpse stopped its shuffling steps. Within the mist, which had turned almost dark green, a mountain of corpses gradually revealed itself — a pile made of highly decomposed and mangled bodies.
*Thud.*
The Living Corpse tossed the Ghoul’s body onto the pile, where it became an insignificant part of the mass.
“Heh heh heh, my Kingdom of the Dead has some unexpected guests.”
A sinister, evil snicker echoed through the mist, sending a chill through their hearts. A figure shrouded in a black robe stepped out of the fog. He held an eerie staff, and a grimoire with a bone-bound cover hung at his waist.
“Oh? There’s even a Paladin…”
His raspy voice turned mocking at the end, making no effort to hide his disdain.
“And who might this be…”
The black-robed man’s gaze shifted from Nolan to Vivian.
“Huh?”
His neck suddenly craned forward, and his sinister gaze narrowed. Then, his body twisted as he spun around abruptly, as if he had seen his natural enemy. Before he could even finish his sentence, he sprinted back into the mist, leaving two clear footprints in the ground.
“Hmph, trying to run!”
Nolan scoffed. He pointed a finger toward the retreating back of the black-robed man.
“Vivian, attack!”
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