Willow Creek Town.
The Jiangnan water town, where cooking smoke had once curled gently into the sky, now lay as silent as a ghostly realm.
The hundred-year-old willow tree at the town entrance had withered completely. Its gray-black branches twisted toward the sky like ghostly claws.
The air was thick with a foul stench that seemed impossible to disperse, a mixture of fishy water, rot, and sinister baleful energy. Just breathing it in made one's chest tighten, as if they might vomit, while dizziness swam through their head.
Lu Chen led ten pale-faced strongmen, pushing several handcarts loaded with Fire Oil, Sulfur, and firewood. They slowly came to a stop before the stone bridge at the town entrance.
The stream beneath the bridge was no longer clear. Instead, its waters had turned a strange, unsettling muddy green, and a greasy layer of unidentifiable filth floated on the surface.
"B-Brother Lu... Th-this place is creepy as hell!" A young strongman's teeth chattered as he stared at the silent town, terror filling his eyes. "Are w-we really going in?"
"Cut the crap! You want to disobey the Captain's orders?" Another strongman, more experienced than him, was also frightened, but forced himself to bark the words.
Lu Chen said nothing. He took a Calming Talisman from his breast and pressed it to his chest, then pulled out several strips of cloth soaked in medicinal liquid and handed them around.
"Cover your mouths and noses. If the baleful energy gets into your body, even the gods won't be able to save you." His voice was hoarse yet calm, as though the sight before him had not frightened him at all.
Everyone hurried to obey. The pungent medicinal smell finally steadied their unsettled minds a little.
Lu Chen led the way, holding a lit torch as he stepped onto the stone bridge.
He had strapped the Hundred Refinements Saber to his back, wrapped in thick oilcloth. He didn't want to reveal this weapon too soon.
The moment they entered the town, the terrifying silence grew even more oppressive.
The doors of the houses lining the streets stood wide open. Every household remained just as it had before disaster struck. Some tables still held half-eaten meals, now covered in green mold.
On the ground, by the river, inside the houses... corpses were everywhere.
Every one of them was frozen in a bizarre pose.
It was as if some invisible force had snatched away all their lives in an instant. Bewilderment and shock still lingered on their faces.
Their skin was swollen and purplish, bloated from soaking in water. Slippery green patterns, like waterweed, could just be made out across their bodies.
"Gulp..."
A strongman stared at a corpse lying facedown beside a water vat and swallowed with difficulty.
Suddenly, the corpse's finger twitched ever so slightly!
"It-it moved! It moved!" The strongman let out a terrified scream, pointing at the corpse as he stumbled backward. That finger...
Like a stone dropped into a dead pool, it sent a storm surging through the hearts of every strongman!
"Ah—!"
The strongman was so terrified that his soul nearly fled his body. He scrambled backward, fell hard on his backside, and pointed at the corpse, his teeth clacking as he struggled to form a single coherent word.
Panic spread through the group like a plague.
"All of you, shut the hell up!"
Lu Chen stepped forward, holding the burning torch across his chest.
The orange-red firelight illuminated his face, twisted slightly by fear, but his deep, unfathomable eyes remained cold and steady.
"If you don't want to die, get over here! Bring the Fire Oil and Sulfur!"
His shout carried just the right touch of alarm and bravado. Rather than expose his strength, it made him seem like an ordinary man cornered with no way out, making a last stand like a trapped beast.
That appearance actually gave the helpless strongmen someone to rally around.
In a panic, they arranged the handcarts into a crude semicircular barricade, then shakily unloaded barrel after barrel of Fire Oil and bag after bag of Sulfur.
Just as they finished setting everything up—
"Crack... creak..."
The grating sound of bones grinding came from the corpse beside the water vat.
Its stiff neck twisted a full one hundred and eighty degrees, at an angle that defied the laws of nature.
What a horrifying face it was!
Its skin was swollen and purplish, the distinctive color of a drowned corpse. Where its eyes should have been were only two hollow black sockets, with something slippery seeming to writhe inside them.
Its mouth snapped open, and a murky, dark-green jet of water shot out like poison, carrying a thick surge of Corpse Sha Qi!
"Watch out!"
Lu Chen's pupils contracted. He shoved aside the strongman closest to him.
The jet of water struck the wall behind them with a hiss, corroding the hard green bricks and eating a small, sizzling hole into them!
"Roar!"
Its attack missed. The corpse—
or rather, the Water Sha—dropped to all fours like a beast stalking its prey, then leaped up from the ground and hurtled toward the crowd like a green arrow loosed from a bow!
It was far faster than anyone could have imagined!
"Fire! Use fire!" Lu Chen shouted hoarsely again. He grabbed a bag of Sulfur and hurled it at the charging Water Sha without even looking!
One of the strongmen, jolted into action by his shout, reflexively hurled the torch in his hand as well.
Boom!
The Sulfur powder met the flames in midair and burst into a deadly blaze!
The Water Sha was swallowed in flames. It let out a shrill cry that sounded nothing like a human voice, then crashed to the ground. Green corpse-fire engulfed it as it writhed and thrashed wildly, until at last it crumbled into a charred skeleton.
"Haah... haah..."
Seeing the Water Sha destroyed, all the strongmen breathed a sigh of relief and slumped to the ground, drenched in cold sweat.
But Lu Chen's heart sank to the bottom.
That one had been the weakest.
And there were more than three hundred "powder kegs" like it in this town!
[Slain Water Sha (Unranked), gained 1 year of Demon Devil Lifespan.]
The system's notification rang in his mind, making Lu Chen's eyes narrow slightly.
One year!
Even the lowest-grade trash was worth a year of lifespan!
More than three hundred corpses...
What a terrifying fortune that would be!
At the thought, the last trace of worry vanished from Lu Chen's heart.
"Get the hell up!" Lu Chen kicked the nearest strongman in the backside, his voice brimming with the fury of someone who had just escaped death. "If you want to live, do as I say!"
He pointed to the largest and most conspicuous building at the center of town—the Liu Clan Ancestral Hall.
"That place is the highest and most open! Get every corpse over there! We'll burn them all to ash!"
"What?!" one strongman cried out. "Brother Chen, m-move the corpses? What if they—"
"What if?"
Lu Chen's gaze suddenly turned icy. He grabbed the strongman by the collar and hauled him up in front of him, then lowered his voice and snarled each word. "Do you still have a choice, you bastard? Do you want to be trapped here and torn apart alive by more than three hundred monsters, or do you want to take a chance and fight for a way out?"
The strongman shuddered at the wild, ruthless look in his eyes and hurriedly shook his head.
"I-I'll do it! I'll do it!"
Lu Chen released him and swept his gaze over the others, his voice cold.
"Pair up. One person holds the torch and Sulfur for defense; the other moves the bodies! Remember, only move the corpses on the main roads. Don't touch the ones inside the houses for now! Move fast. We have to finish before nightfall!"
"Yes!"
Under the threat of death, these strongmen, usually pampered and coddled, showed a level of discipline they had never displayed before.
Working in pairs, they began the most horrifying job of their lives, moving with extreme caution.
Lu Chen went alone, torch in hand, pacing at the front of the group to serve as scout and lookout.
He showed no sign that anything was amiss, relying only on his far-better-than-average luck.
Time and again, just before a Water Sha was about to awaken, he happened to spot something wrong and direct the strongmen to smother it in Sulfur and flames before it could stir.
"Third house on the left! The corpse by the door! Something's wrong! Burn it!"
"Under the bridge! There's something under the bridge! Pour the Fire Oil!"
Once, twice...
By the tenth time Lu Chen had predicted danger with pinpoint accuracy, the strongmen's suspicion had turned into near-blind trust and admiration.
In their eyes, Brother Chen was practically a lucky star descended from heaven, always able to see danger before it struck!
How could they know that Lu Chen's Ten Thousand Year Black Tortoise Art had reached great mastery, long since allowing him to blend his presence with his surroundings?
In this silent town, every unusual ripple of baleful energy stood out to his keen, web-like senses as clearly as a lantern in the dark!
The System Panel was even more like a radar, clearly marking the lifespan value contained in every corpse.
Those with violent fluctuations of baleful energy and blood-red lifespan values were high-risk targets on the verge of Corpse Transformation.
The work continued in a strange yet efficient atmosphere.
One swollen, stiff corpse after another was dragged by the strongmen, gritting their teeth, and piled up like cargo in the vast square before the Liu Clan Ancestral Hall.
The mountain of corpses grew higher by the moment.
As the corpses gathered, the Corpse Sha Qi in the air grew thicker and more viscous, almost condensing into something tangible.