The Village Was Gone
"Gurgle~~"
The short man's Adam's apple visibly moved.
Having lived in this land of the dead for so many years, my heart still pounds every time night falls. Even when I'm not in the Ancient Capital, but in other cities, that unease and panic still arises at night.
"Eat the Gray Garlic quickly!" the short man urged everyone.
From the moment the short man swallowed, the woman in black stockings and his two attendants knew something was amiss. After hearing the short man's instructions, they barely hesitated before swallowing the unpalatable Gray Garlic in one gulp.
Tang Miao hesitated for a moment, but ultimately ate one anyway. Although it tasted terrible, in this kind of place, saving some magic energy was always good. After all, who could be sure they'd only encountered servants and General Level undead...?
Seeing that everyone else had eaten, Mo Fan still seemed reluctant to eat.
Just then, he heard a "uh... ow..." sound behind him. Mo Fan turned around and was shocked to see a head crawling with maggots, its eyes drooping and its chin drooping...
"You think you can hurt your Grandpa Mo with something like that?" Mo Fan didn't hold back and kicked the undead in the head. The head was probably separated from the neck, and the kick sent the head flying in an arc before slamming it hard into a bare rock, splattering scum everywhere.
At the same time, a loud "ooh" sound echoed all around, followed by a large patch of earth cracking open. Looking back, Mo Fan saw a huge tomb exposed less than ten meters away from him.
The tomb must have been quite old; the stone bricks were rotten beyond recognition. Lying haphazardly inside were more than twenty half-corpses and half-skeletons. As if they had heard the call from the fallen head, they suddenly crawled out of the tomb with bloodshot eyes!
The group initially thought that twenty or so skeletons would be a lot, but little did they know that there was another tomb beneath the main tomb, from which skeletons kept emerging, each one covered in blood and looking incredibly ferocious!
Just as Mo Fan was about to make his move, he suddenly noticed that tombs were appearing one after another around him... scattered across this small patch of muddy land, less than a few hundred square kilometers in radius...
Hordes of skeletons gathered like soldiers, their gazes fixed on Mo Fan, the only one breathing, like stars in the sky. The sheer terror of the sight froze Mo Fan in place.
"Actually, this stuff isn't bad if you chew it carefully." Mo Fan immediately cowered, picked up the Gray Garlic, and took a big bite, his expression as ugly as could be.
But, it's better to taste bad than to die... Of course, it's just that he doesn't have Tang Miao's explosive magical power! Otherwise, he would have already wreaked havoc on everyone.
That's how he comforted himself...
The short man scoffed, glancing at the hordes of skeletons around him. He said, "We'd better get out of here quickly. This must be the tomb of some Qing Dynasty official. The number of funerary people and craftsmen is comparable to a royal burial... These skeletons are manageable; we can handle them if a fight breaks out. The real problem is if some of these old officials were powerful sorcerers in life, and have become Undead General after death. That would be disastrous."
The effects of Gray Garlic are immediate; the breath you exhale can sometimes make even the undead think you haven't brushed your teeth, and those with obsessive-compulsive disorder will give way to you.
"Is it always like this here?" the woman in black stockings asked.
After passing through hordes of the dead, the woman in black silk spoke, a rare occurrence. Her voice was as beautiful as a clear, ethereal melody drifting down from the sky. If her words had carried a touch of emotion, it would have been even better. But perhaps it was precisely this otherworldly quality that stirred such a tantalizing desire within people.
The short man was flattered by the question and hurriedly replied, "It wasn't like that before. Ever since the riots in the Sand Forget River, this place has become filled with deathly energy. People in the industry say that a new era of the undead is coming. Perhaps. If the supreme ruler of this Undead Kingdom changes, this situation could very well occur."
Tang Miao looked at the short man with disgust and muttered, "Simps deserve to die a horrible death!"
The short man didn't care at all about Tang Miao's contempt; instead, he was telling Asha Ruiya about the great emperors of Huaxia.
Tang Miao, on the other hand, was curious as to whether King Ying Zheng of King Qin was the progenitor of the Undead Element.
If any emperor was powerful, just how powerful was Qin Shi Huang? And why was he reduced to only one garment?
The doubts in his heart were clearly not explained to him by anyone.
Thanks to the garlic, the group encountered many undead along the way, but were not attacked.
"Yangyang Village isn't far ahead. The night is still long, let's rest there for a while," the short man said, pointing to the foot of a small hill ahead after walking for a while.
"The village has rules, and you'd better follow them if you want to go in," the burly man reminded everyone.
Everyone nodded and said there was no problem.
They reached the hillside without incident and headed down, eager to see how a human village could survive unscathed in the Land of the Dead. However, below the hillside, between the mountain streams, and beneath the Qinling Mountains, all they saw was a pile of abandoned and messy logs—no village at all!
Looking in another direction, all that could be seen was a patch of black mud, with nothing but a few pitted burrows!
"Are you playing us?" The bearded man, Asha Ruiya's henchman, said angrily.
"I... I don't know what happened either." The short man's face changed, and he turned his gaze to the muscular man.
The burly man's eyes were filled with astonishment, as if he couldn't believe it at all.
Then he started running, frantically running down the slope.
Judging from the burly man's distraught appearance, it was clear that the place was indeed Yangyang Village.
But this place was reduced to ruins overnight.
After everyone came down, they looked around. Then the short man comforted the strong man, saying, "Let's go, let's go. You won't find anything here. They might have migrated. Don't be so pessimistic."
The strong man remained rational. Finding no signs of mass deaths, he began to lead the way to the next village Hua Village.
Of course, the short man also said that the amount of Gray Garlic he had wasn't enough to maintain this distance. After all, he had originally planned to stay in this village.
However, the current situation is rather strange...
He suggested going back to get some Gray Garlic, but the burly man said it would take several months to get any.
Upon hearing this, the group decided to force their way in!
The short man was reluctant, after all, he only dared to step into this land of the dead at night because of the Gray Garlic.
But since the money has already been received, there's no way to refuse...