《Travels along the Astral Road》Undead II
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The graveyard was not big and so they reached what should be the center of it in just a quarter of an hour. During all this time Wu Guang had been scanning the area around them, but he could not find or sense anything. And what was even more strange, he could not sense anything from the elder as well. The latter was extremely strange, as an inner elder should be at most a beginner Soul realm cultivator, and so even if he was hiding his presence, he would still generate fluctuations in the qi. Techniques to hide oneself did exist and covered this, but they were only effective if the user was not seen directly, while in this case, Wu Guang was right behind the elder.
Such strangeness was disturbing and so Wu Guang's mind had been actively trying to find an answer to it. And so, he had observed the elder closely for the last five minutes. Leading him to the discovery that the elder not only had absolutely no qi fluctuation around but even more had no visible life signs such as the movement from breathing.
And when the elder stopped, something occurred in Wu Guang's mind and he managed to see the elder's visage. He did not know why and how the latter had, but until now Wu Guang and most probably the other three as well had not paid attention to the body and face of the elder. And indeed there was what to see, after all, everything was absolutely stiff. As if the elder was a construct.
"Surprised? Don't be alarmed, I am communicating through qi transmission. I have indeed hidden a bit of my body, but my reasons should be easy to understand. I was said to not hide before you, so let me introduce myself. Head Treasurer of the sect, 'Living Corpse', Deng Zian. Now that you know, let's get back to the task" The voice that was transmitted to Wu Guang's head was absolutely different from the elder's one, and not only that, how he spoke was normal, if not even lively. In any case, Wu Guang understood that the elder did not want to alarm them and so had obscured his visage, albeit the fact that he was the head treasurer most probably meant he was around Elder Chen level, an advanced Soul realm cultivator. Still the question of why he came to such mission and who was the one who told him to not hide before Wu Guang arouse, but as there was no manner of asking, Wu Guang could only leave them for later while for now assume a normal expression as to not alarm the rest.
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"There is something buried here. Probably a temple amulet to help the souls obtain peace. Such amulets can be corrupted and lead to undead rising. I will confirm it, stand guard around. And be prepared for the company after I start" This was said in the monotonous but audible voice so everyone heard it.
Wu Guang quickly examined the area around the spot where the elder sat down and found that they were at a small empty patch surrounded by graves. There was enough space between the graves for a person to pass, so they would need to guard in a circle.
After explaining this to the rest, they quickly formulated a plan. Wei and Yuan Taotu said that they had a manner to see, albeit barely, in the dark and so they would occupy opposite spots on the edge of the area. And Kuang Jing would remain near the path leading to the entrance as Wu Guang would remain and guard near the elder.
If they spotted any approaching creature, then the spotter would activate his luminous stone as a signal. Kuang Jing was the one with the least chance to do so and so Wu Guang made him activate a luminous stone and hide it below his foot, letting only a slight amount of light out. It would remain unseen but still would at least slightly help discern the surroundings. Plus if needed by simply raising his foot, he would signal the rest.
With the preparations done, everyone assumed their positions as the last light of the sun disappeared.
The elder that introduced himself as the head treasurer was sitting in a lotus pose and Wu Guang could feel that the surrounding qi, including the one below the ground, was gathering around him. "He is examining the qi traces. Does he knows how are undead generated?" He intended to follow this though but was interrupted by a sound. This sound seemingly came from all directions, but after infusing some qi into his ears Wu Guang found out that there were three main locations. And all of them were in the respective directions of his team.
The sound was similar to earth rumbling and seemingly wasn't noticed or brought any danger with it, as all three locations were still dark. "Can it be that bodies are rising? Or it's a natural phenomenon?" His thoughts shifted to the matter at hand and so Wu Guang concentrated on understanding the low rumble he heard. He was sure that the sound came from ground level and so should be related to it, but before he could identify it correctly, it stopped.
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Wu Guang tensed and prepared himself to react if needed, but surprisingly for the next five minutes or so nothing could be heard or sensed by other means. Still, he did not relax and so was the first to notice that something was nearing their position. Although he could not say what was it, the direction was pretty clear and so Wu Guang made sure of the distance, direction and seizing the exact moment, shouted
"Wei to the left from you!"
The following reaction from Wei was obvious as he turned. Somehow he had missed the approach of a creature, and as his skill in seeing through the dark was actually very low, acted on instinct, activating his luminous stone. The light appeared instantly and blinded him for a moment, but after his eyes accustomed themselves, he saw that indeed, something was nearing him.
This something could only be described as a corpse and an extremely old one as well. Bones were visible all along the body and only a few strands of flesh and cloth made him call it a corpse and not a skeleton.
Wu Guang was far better prepared for the situation and so right after the light-activated, he protected his eyes with qi and zoomed on the now confirmed undead. He had expected something along the lines of this after hearing of the date when the graveyard was made, but in truth, his interest laid more on the capabilities of such a non-qi undead than anything else.
Here one could say that Wu Guang was meant to be disappointed. The undead did not change its conduct at all even after being noticed or illuminated and continued slowly walking towards the nearest living being, in this case, Wei. And if asked about combat capabilities, they were too low as after Wei grew accustomed to the light and acted, the corpse fell on the first strike from the former's mace.
"Is it eliminated?" Wu Guang asked and after receiving a confirmation from Wei who approached and checked, noted to himself that such undead was absolute trash.
Trash was the right term for this case. The undead he knew about not only used qi to fight, sustain themselves and even sense their prey or attackers, but also had an extremely high lifeforce, or using the correct term 'fake life force'. This force was so high that they could continue to move and act even after being slashed in half or had most of their bodies destroyed, only stopping or if such could be called dying after their qi gathering spot or core was found and retrieved, destroyed, or simply ran out of qi. They could also be eliminated if the body itself was destroyed, but this was simply because the core being destroyed alongside the flesh and bones.
In the current case it seemed that the undead had only enough force to sustain them until being heavily hit, and judging from the lack of reaction to the light and the attack, they were absolutely unconscious.
Still, Wu Guang had no time to continue the comparison as the lights around Kuang Jing and Yuan Taotu appeared almost at the same time. Thankfully there was only one such undead near each of them and so it was quickly dispatched by them, although Kuang Jing had to slash thrice to do so. The latter being just because his sword did not really cut the bones and only left flesh wounds, which seemingly were far less effective in snuffing this fake life out of the corpses.
"Don't turn off the lights, seems that they don't react to them at all but follow your smell or essence. Be alert and signal if you see more than a pair" Wu Guang instructed by using the gained information. Along with this, he thought "It's good that everyone has a decent state of mind, as if it was the contrary, fighting corpses would make them lose concentration or even lead to panic".
"Wu Guang! I saw several shadows move to the right of me" Kuang Jing called and Wu Guang corrected his last thought to "Thankfully we only have one possible candidate for panicking".
Still, he had to check on this and so concentrated on the mentioned side, albeit he did not found anything and said so.
"I am sure I saw something..." Kuang Jing seemingly wasn't convinced, but still did not make any further commentary.
For the next hour, nothing happened except a pair of false alarms by Kiang Jing, but Wu Guang dutifuly checked everything each time before saying that there was nothing. Even commending the former on his caution. The latter was unneeded and could lead to more false alarms, but Wu Guang's thoughts were that between ten false alarms one would be real, and so in place of shutting the alarmer off, it was better to simply spend a moment checking if he could.
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