The army of ghouls was in groups, like an ocean that was covered in white lotuses.
Under the pale yellow sky, at the very front of the army that stretched as far as the eye could see were countless translucent Remnant Souls. From a distance, it looked like a faint mist.
The owners of the remaining souls were mostly civilians who had been killed miserably in the natural disaster.
Their resentment before their death was so strong that they lingered after their death. Also, they were not enlightened in time like Master Bitter Cicada. After being instigated by Mother White Lotus, they were condensed into forms and driven by their resentment and hatred as the vanguard and cannon fodder in the army of ghouls.
Their colors were different. Those whose soul waves were the weakest were like steam popping up from a boiling kettle. They were so thin that it was barely possible to see their human shape.
Those whose colors were slightly darker and more condensed could vaguely be seen when they were alive. Most of them were disaster victims with emaciated faces. Many of them had been soaked in the flood for too long. Their intestines and stomachs were all rotten, their bodies stank, and their faces were hideous. These characteristics were also clearly reflected on the remnant souls.
Many of the remaining souls were in a daze and had lost a lot of memories. They did not know what had happened yet.
Some of the remaining souls thought that they were not dead yet. They looked at East Peace City with great expectation.
There was no telling whether they were attacking East Peace City because they hated the Cultivators in the city or because they wanted to take shelter in East Peace City because they were bewildered by their survival instincts.
The remaining souls of ordinary people were very unstable and vulnerable to all kinds of interference. If they were wandering ghosts, they would be obliterated after one moment of carelessness.
Therefore, it was recorded in many unofficial historical notes that the honorable men in ancient times were not scared of wandering ghosts at all. As long as they were filled with righteousness, they would be able to disperse the remaining souls stealthily.
However, when the tiny remaining souls were condensed into an overwhelming army and supported each other, they would naturally generate a protective cover that looked like a defense shield outside. It was a whole different story.
It was like a small block of ice that was exposed to the air and would be melted very soon, while an entire warehouse of ice was pressed together without any gaps. It would not be melted even if it was left there for half a month.
It was needless to say that Li Yao also saw altars piled up with bones every certain distance in the middle of the army of ghouls. Intense white smoke popped up from the altars and blossomed into blossoming lotuses in midair, enshrouding all the remaining souls in the brilliance of the white lotuses.
The white lotuses should be some sort of magical equipment to stabilize the magnetic field and protect the army of ghouls.
They must have originated from a certain piece of military magical equipment that the Pangu civilization used to protect the souls.
The souls of thousands of ordinary people, under the protection of the magnetic field of the white lotuses, were already suffocating pressure.
It was needless to say that behind the 'new army', there were the seasoned ghosts whose colors were even more intense and almost looked like living people.
The seasoned ghosts were not large in number, but they were the main force of the army of ghouls. They were either the refugees who hated each other the most, those whose souls had been cleansed and polished by spiritual energy after they swallowed a lot of Jade Crystal Pellets before they died, or the lucky ones among the ordinary remaining souls who did not perish in the battles but swallowed the soul pieces left by other people when they perished and gradually grew stronger.
Some of the seasoned ghosts were even transformed from Cultivators after they died. They were out-and-out 'spectral Cultivators'.
In the world of ancient Cultivators, there was no government or law to coordinate and restrain them. The world of Cultivators was certainly not an iron board.
The conflicts among Cultivators were much more serious than those between Cultivators and ordinary people. Too many Cultivators had been killed miserably in their fights. Some of their entire sects had even been annihilated by evil forces such as the 'Black Devil Cult'.
The souls of those Cultivators lingered after their death, but the world of Cultivators could not tolerate them. Besides, they did not know the arts of spectral Cultivators at all and did not know how to preserve and strengthen themselves.
What choice did they have other than changing sides and joining Mother White Lotus' side?
It was also one of the most important reasons why the White Lotus Cult had never been annihilated in the past decades.
The appearance of the old ghosts was much more imposing than the "new affiliated army". Their souls were highly condensed. At first glance, other than being pale and lifeless, they were not much different from living people. Only after careful observation could one see that there were wisps of black gas slowly drifting out from their bodies.
Most of the seasoned ghosts had grasped the techniques of remote manipulation. They were wearing robes and armors.
The robes and armors had, of course, been carved with rune arrays to maintain the stability of the magnetic field through Mother White Lotus' magic so that their souls would be more stable and would not collapse easily.
The newly-deceased souls were the vanguard and cannon fodder, and the seasoned ghosts were the center of the army. On the two flanks of the battle formation, there were dense skeleton soldiers.
Other than the bizarre-shaped human skeletons, there were also a lot of skeletons of pigs, dogs, cows, and sheep. When the bones of all kinds were condensed into super skeleton monsters more than ten meters tall that were emitting vague silver brilliance, they should be the large siege weapons that the army of ghouls had prepared for the battle.
Sealing the souls into the skeletons and refining them into skeleton soldiers was sort of a 'possession'. It had both advantages and disadvantages.
The advantages were that the souls would be protected by the skeletons and would not collapse easily. Also, it was more convenient for the skeletons to hold certain heavy weapons and attack the enemy's body of flesh and blood directly. If the souls were powerful enough, they could also condense dozens of skeletons or even mix them with the enormous bones of ferocious beasts and produce unique super skeleton soldiers, which would be even more powerful.
In the ancient times when there were no 'artificial bodies' made of super alloys, the natural and unpolluted skeletons were probably the most primitive 'artificial bodies'.
But their disadvantages were obvious, too.
Without the control of muscles, veins, and nerves, the skeleton soldiers' movements were too sluggish and rigid. One moment of carelessness, and their joints would slip, break, and break. They would collapse to the ground, unable to move at all.
Except for the few elite soldiers who could carve rune arrays on the skeletons that could improve their agility and attack ability, most of the skeleton soldiers were disposable consumables.
More importantly, the skeletons could not fly. They could only crawl on the ground, which would deprive them of the agility that was most important for the souls.
The skeletons were both like a suit of armor and a shell. Their advantages and disadvantages were obvious. Therefore, it was impossible to stuff all the soldiers of the army of ghouls into the skeletons. They could only be regarded as a relatively important troop class.
Wu!
In the depths of the army of ghouls, twisted, infuriating trumpets echoed.
Huala! Huala! Huala!
The thousands of coffins at the back of the army suddenly broke apart at the same time. Thousands of zombies with gloomy faces and tiny features on their skin jumped out of the coffins.
Most of the zombies were emitting bronze colors, but some of them were silver, and a few of them were emitting dazzling gold colors, like the high and mighty nobles in the army of ghouls.
Zombies were a very interesting thing. They were very rare in the modern cultivation civilization, but were very common in the ancient cultivation world.
The existence of zombies was truly illogical. Since the heartbeat and breathing of a human being would stop, and the mitochondria inside the cells would stop working after they died, making it impossible for them to swallow and release energy, why were zombies so immortal and strong after death?
It was not until Li Yao observed the Ancient Sages Sector in person and compared some of the ways to raise and refine zombies with the theories of the modern Cultivation world that he gradually understood the mysteries.
By Li Yao's estimation, the so-called 'zombies' should be the special microbes or parasites that crawled into the bodies of the Cultivators who were as tough as iron after their training.
The special microbes regarded the bodies as their home and performed a series of mysterious modifications on the bodies, resulting in all kinds of unbelievable features.
Stories often talked about 'green-haired zombies' and 'white-haired zombies'. The growth of green hair and white hair was a very common phenomenon when microbes and bacteria were cultured.
Therefore, 'raising and refining zombies' was in fact the ingenious utilization of special microbes by the ancient people. It was essentially no different from making yogurt with bacteria.
When a body was successfully refined, the ghosts would infiltrate it and control it, turning it into a zombie that could move freely and exchange spiritual energy with the outside world. Its attack ability, agility, and defense would be a hundred times higher than that of common skeleton soldiers.
As for the microbes inside the zombies, they were not intelligent after all. There was no need to worry that the ghosts would have conflicts with them.
The remaining souls of the newly-deceased, the seasoned ghosts, the elite skeleton soldiers, and the zombie commanders all had clear banners and strict military discipline. The creepy aura of ghosts was condensed and soared into the sky, covering the entire sky with dark clouds that made it look like a dark ocean. There was not the slightest sunlight.
In the middle and rear of the army of ghouls, there was also an enormous chariot made of countless bones, which looked like a moving palace of bones. Coldness as sharp as the edge of a blade was vaguely emitting boundless gray air. It should be the vehicle of 'Mother White Lotus Wan Mingzhu.
Even if they knew that 'Mother White Lotus Wan Mingzhu' was there, it was impossible for Li Yao, Yan Liren, Qi Zhongdao, Ba Xiaoyu, and Master Bitter Cicada to rush over and chop off her head when she was surrounded by an army of ghouls.
Besides, the enemy did not have a head for them to chop off at all. Should anything go wrong, she could turn into smoke and run away immediately.
Therefore, the 'Mother White Lotus Hunting Team', headed by Qi Zhongdao, could only wait on the flying boat in silence and wait for a better opportunity.
Standing on the railing of the boat, Li Yao moved his eyes from the army of ghouls and glanced at East Peace County, the largest city in the southeast below his feet.
This bustling city, which was known as the City That Never Sleeps, was currently immersed in an atmosphere of fear, uneasiness, and death.
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