"Please, take a look at this." The young First Secretary respectfully handed a slate over to Baiyi. Baiyi took it, and when he did, he realized that the slate contained a recording technique he had invented years ago. He said half-jokingly, "You've infringed my patent, haven't you?"
Baiyi activated the spell on the slate and studied the image on it. After a few minutes, he put the slate down and asked, "Why do I feel like you should talk to the Church about this?"
There were two scenes recorded on the slate. One was a place that looked like a remote mountain village. It had been destroyed, and the murderer was a large group of skeleton soldiers. Among them were some people who had just died and had turned into zombies and a few ghosts. In the distance, the figures of undead knights with black horses and black armor could be seen.
The second section was much more spectacular. It was a flat wilderness with all kinds of densely packed undead creatures marching slowly in a neat and huge phalanx. Groups of skeletal dragons could be seen flying across the sky. The scale of this undead army seemed to be similar to that of the Demigod-lich's undead army in the past.
From the two images, Baiyi learned that another Demigod Lich had ascended to the level of a Demigod, and he was planning to make a big splash by using a remote village as a sacrificial pawn. This was why Baiyi said that the First Secretary should talk to the Church. As a leading figure in the world of academia and education, Baiyi knew that he would not meddle in such trivial matters.
"Perhaps you should take a look at this." The First Secretary did not comment on Baiyi's suggestion. Instead, he handed a black emblem to Baiyi. Baiyi picked it up and saw a familiar yet unfamiliar black flame. It was the emblem of an old friend he had not seen for many years — the Godsfall cult.
After the Battle of Mars, the Godsfall cult had lost the support of the Fairy Empire and the Lord of the Deep Abyss, just as the Second High Reverend, the Wise Mad King, had predicted, the cult had fallen into a state of decline. In the past, the organization had been able to stand up to the Church, but in the blink of an eye, it had become a lowly cult. Factions from all over the world had started to take advantage of the situation to wipe out the remnants of the Godsfall cult. This included the Northern factions that had once been affiliated with the Godsfall cult, and even the Underground.
Faced with such a situation, Baiyi slowly began to forget about his former nemesis. He had a lot of things to focus on, and an organization that was destined to perish was not worth his time.
Ten years later, they were slapped in the face. It seemed that Godsfall had made a comeback. And he even managed to win over a powerful Lich? But how much of a threat could a mere Lich pose? In the past, even the powerful Demigod-level Lich had been chased around by humans. Do you really think that you can rely on these undead creatures to fight against the humans? That was not realistic.
In that case, what was the other party's purpose in showing him this video? Why did they want to use this to start the subsequent negotiations?
He seemed to have guessed the crux of the matter and asked, "What's going on with these dead spirits? This doesn't seem like a problem that a single Lich can cause. Furthermore, I haven't heard of any large-scale undead appearances recently, so … These dirty things can't be products of other planes, right? "
From the Lich's memories in the Void, Baiyi knew that Liches were not the kind of creatures that would band together. They were distrustful of anything that was not under their control. A group of Liches working together against a common enemy was something that would only happen in a cold joke.
If a Lich wanted to create an army of undead, it would not just be a matter of chanting a spell or writing a few numbers. The Lich would have to cause trouble everywhere in order to obtain a large number of corpses. This was not something that could be done in a short period of time. Baiyi recalled all the information he had received in the past ten years, and he could not find a single Lich that was wreaking havoc in the world. This meant that the source of the undead army in the video was very suspicious.
The only explanation was that this video came from another plane.
When the secretary heard Baiyi's question, he laughed and exclaimed in admiration, "As expected of Sir Principal Baiyi. You were able to deduce the gist of the matter with just a few vague clues. Just as you said, the second recording came from a recently discovered large realm, which we call Duga, and these things are the masters of that realm."
As mentioned earlier, there were as many realms of various sizes in this world as there were stars in the sky. It was impossible for humans to explore every single one of them. So far, most of the realms had yet to be discovered by humans. At the end of the day, the main sphere of influence of humans was still limited to the realm of Isythre.
The discovery of a large realm that could give birth to a civilization was not a big deal. After all, this was how Gouve and Mars had been discovered. What puzzled Baiyi was the secretary's last sentence.
"Is this a realm ruled by a Lich?" Baiyi asked.
"No. These undead are not enslaved by anything. They exist on their own," the secretary replied. "Every skeleton soldier in this realm has a certain degree of self-awareness. Even though their intelligence is lower than that of animals, they are not mindless tools. Their organizational structure is more similar to that of the demons of the abyss, where the strong drive the weak, unlike normal undead that are completely controlled by a necromancer."
"A realm that is completely controlled by wild undead?" Baiyi came to a shocking conclusion. He asked the Lich in the Void, "Is this even possible?"
Necromantic sorcery was a taboo in the world, and the Demigod Lich's infamy was still lingering. That was why the Lich Walker was not a professor at Da Xue, and Baiyi was not in a hurry to summon him.
"It's not entirely impossible," the Lich replied. The Lich replied. It was also surprised by the discovery. "In Isythre, wild dead spirits do exist, but they are very rare. They are usually caused by some accidental accidents, such as a natural Undead Conversion Circle, or a Lich making a mistake … However, wild dead spirits of such a large scale, and each of them maintaining a certain degree of self-awareness, are unheard of! Now, I'm very curious about this place called Duga. "
"Beware. These undead are not the same as what we normally think of," the Lich added. "What we normally think of as undead, such as skeleton soldiers, is that their souls have completely vanished, leaving only their corpses, which are used by necromancy to make use of. They are merely moving tools. To create a self-aware undead, you need a fragment of a living person's consciousness. As you know, this is a very complicated process. Such a large number of self-aware undead is obviously not the work of humans, so I'm very curious about how they came to be …"
Baiyi nodded slightly in the real world. He turned to the secretary and asked, "So, Godsfall is in cahoots with these undead? Using the power of the dead to cause trouble? "
"We can't say for sure yet," the secretary replied solemnly. "We found this black flame emblem in the village that was attacked. It could have been left behind by the cultists, or it could have been left behind after the attack. We can't even be sure of the connection between the two. Maybe the attack on the village was the work of a local Lich? But no matter what we think, Godsfall is connected to the undead. That much is certain. "
"So, you want me to investigate this matter?" Baiyi asked, following the conversation.
"That's right, Dean. You are an expert in solving these kinds of problems. At the same time, you are also the biggest enemy of Godsfall. We can't think of a better candidate than you. To show our sincerity, we are willing to add your name to the next round of arms bidding," the secretary said calmly. It sounded good, but in reality, it was a shameless offer.
Why was Baiyi the best candidate? It was not because Baiyi was good at solving cases, but because he was not under the Empire's control. Therefore, no matter what happened, the Empire could minimize the impact on the Empire. In other words, the Empire was hiring a mercenary they did not like to take on dangerous missions.
All they had to pay was a spot in the arms auctions? That was ridiculous. Although the supply of armaments was controlled by a few wealthy families, they still had to put on an act of putting up an open auction every year. The only difference was that everyone knew the results of the auctions; it was just a show for the common folk.
Baiyi felt like his intelligence had been insulted when he saw the Southern Duke trying to trick him. He stood up and walked away without another word. The Southern Duke, who had been silent all this while, stood up and stopped him. "My friend, you should at least trust me. This isn't what you think it is."
After saying that, she dragged Baiyi back to his seat and told him the story behind the incident in detail.
It turned out that one of the wealthy families that controlled the armaments had met with misfortune. The young heirs of the family had gone on an excursion to the Io Mountains, and unfortunately, they had run into the legendary Alpine Barbarians. Due to the misunderstandings between the two parties, the heirs, along with their guards, had been wiped out by the barbarians in one fell swoop.
Naturally, such a blood feud could not be resolved so easily. The patriarch of the family immediately requested the Emperor to send an army to deal with the despicable barbarians. The Emperor, on account of the patriarch's sentiments, allocated 2000 elite soldiers and 20 sorcerers to the patriarch, thinking, 'This is just an uncivilized barbarian tribe. Won't they just type GG?'
Then, the patriarch typed GG, and several members of the family lost their lives as well. In just a year, the entire family fell from the top of the world to the bottom.
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
