Chương 132: Blighted Spread

Joe sat listening intently as Sarah laid out the details of the recent reports she had received.

"The undead have emerged from the tornado, which vanished about a week ago," she said, tapping the map for emphasis.

"They are currently moving slowly north, toward the nearest Volduran pillar. Based on their current pace, our scouts estimate it will take almost two months for them to reach the city." Joe leaned forward, studying the markings on the map. The distance was significant, but not nearly enough to put him at ease.

"Do we know how many undead there are?" he asked.

"Are the horsemen also on the move?"

"We have only rough estimates so far," Sarah replied.

"Additional scout teams have been dispatched to monitor and assess the army, but the numbers are already staggering. Current estimates put them at over five million undead, with more joining every day." Joe straightened sharply.

"Five million? How is that even possible? Do we know where they are coming from?" Sarah shook her head.

"Even our best scouts can't get too close to the palace that you…" she said carefully.

"So we are unsure of the true source. Our best guess is that at least part of the army is coming from off-world. What we do know for certain is that a large portion of their growth comes from local Beasts they kill as they advance." Joe nodded and rose to his feet, beginning to pace as he processed the information. After a moment, he closed his eyes before asking the question he had been dreading.

"Any sign of Malcolm?" Sarah nodded once.

"We have multiple reliable sightings placing him at the head of the army, actively leading the march," she said. Then, after a brief pause, she added, "It has also been reported that he is now… undead."

"Fuck," Joe said as he sat back down. Alice and Felicia were not going to like hearing that.

"Is it possible to keep that last part hidden? How many people know about him?" Sarah sighed softly.

"Only two people know, outside of us. I will do everything I can to keep this from spreading, but the closer they get to inhabited areas, the harder it will be to hide his presence. He is… very noticeable." Joe nodded slowly.

"I just need to make sure a couple of people don't learn about this by accident. I'll deal with it quickly." Sarah inclined her head. She knew Alice and Felicia, former party members of the Divine Sword, were staying with him.

"I'm sorry I called you out here with such bad news," Sarah said, resting a hand briefly on his shoulder. Joe gave her a tired smile.

"Don't worry about it. I always knew this might become an issue sooner or later."

"There is some good news, at least," Sarah added, straightening slightly.

"The Voldura have noticed the approaching army. They've opened communication and are far more receptive to my proposals now."

"That's good," Joe said.

"You can let them know I will be there to help if that army reaches the city. I might be able to delay it, or even stop it somehow. Though five million…" He exhaled.

"That is a lot, even for me." He decided he needed a drink, though not alcohol this time, and prepared a pair of herbal teas before handing one to Sarah.

"You mentioned ideas," he said as he sat back down.

"Do you have a plan to help the city they're heading toward?" Sarah nodded and unrolled a parchment covered in dense notes and diagrams that Joe couldn't make sense of at a glance.

"The undead themselves aren't the true problem," she explained.

"The real danger is the blight they leave behind. They kill the soil as they march, turning the land into a dead zone filled with pestilence and disease. If the army splits and spreads across the continent, it would be catastrophic for all life outside the pillars." She tapped the parchment.

"My plan is to relocate the city pillars to a single location, so we can fortify and protect a large portion of the continent at once. If we can contain the undead advance, we can prevent the blight from spreading and destroying everything."

"You have a way to move the pillar cities?" Joe asked, genuinely surprised.

"Yes," Sarah replied.

"We just reached level fifty-two days ago, and Heliopolis was promoted to a global capital pillar. If we can convince the other pillars to acknowledge Heliopolis as this world's capital, we can bind them to us and form a single super city."

"That's… incredible," Joe said. It also sparked a dangerous line of thought. He had assumed he would only be able to secure one pillar teleportation array, which meant choosing a single city to send to Eludia. But if all the pillars were connected… could they all be moved together? After a moment, he decided to share the idea.

"What if I told you I'm planning to set up an array that could move one of our cities directly into the Multiverse," Joe said carefully.

"To Eludia. The god there has already permitted us to settle under their banner, with protection and a way out of this integration." Sarah leaned back, rubbing her forehead as she stared at him in silence. Then she started to laugh.

"Here I was thinking my plan was ambitious," she said.

"Meanwhile, you're planning to move our city off-world, across realities, into a universe full of gods and elves?"

"Vries Mortifi," Joe corrected mildly.

"But yes." Sarah laughed again, shaking her head.

"Okay. What's the worst that could happen?" Joe smiled.

"I knew I could count on you, Sarah. But there's one thing. I need you to keep this from Corel for now." Sarah tilted her head, giving him a flat look.

"Why are you keeping secrets from your bond?" Joe winced.

"I just need to get her in the right frame of mind before I explain everything," he said.

"Trust me." Sarah looked unconvinced, but after a moment she nodded.

"Fine. For now."

"Thank you," Joe said.

"But everything depends on my getting that array. Until then, let's move forward with your plan to combine the pillars and prepare for the undead. I'll ask Corel to help mediate." Sarah smiled faintly.

"I already sent her a message. She's coming tomorrow. She wanted to speak with you first." Joe blinked, then chuckled.

"Well. That works." With Sarah clearly in control of the situation, Joe wished her luck and told her to contact him the moment things started to turn sour. After that, he returned to Landradad. He spent one final day with Corel before she left to assist Sarah with the pillar negotiations, leaving him alone once more. Joe threw himself back into training, trying to break through the bottleneck, but after a couple of frustrating weeks, he gave up, irritation simmering beneath the surface.

He needed a change of scenery. After reinforcing Landradad's defences with additional scarecrows and layered vines, Joe set out alone, heading toward the path of the undead army to take a closer look for himself. After a couple of hours of travel, Joe's skyboat sped toward the ominous black tide of moving death that slowly shambled northward. From this distance, he couldn't make out individual figures, only a massive, smoky cloud that billowed outward like a colossal, crawling centipede.

The closer he drew, the more the hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and a cold chill slid down his spine as he felt an unseen gaze settle on him. He didn't need anyone to tell him whose gaze it was, so he brought the skyboat down, stored it in its ring, and continued the rest of the way on foot. He soon reached the edge of the roiling, cloudy mass, now close enough to see individual forms moving within.

Countless skeletal and zombie-like figures groaned and creaked their way across the countryside, with the warped remains of undead Beasts scattered throughout their ranks. The ground beneath his feet was blackened and lifeless, exuding a rotten, acrid stench that forced him to retreat a step and wrap a scarf around his face as his eyes and nose began to sting.

Uriel's light flared within him as faint traces of blight and pestilence tried to take hold, making it clear that even the air and soil were poisonous at this distance. The undead already knew he was there, so there was no point in delaying. Joe drew a shallow breath of what little clean air remained and ran straight into the cloud to see for himself what lurked within. The inner depths of the cloud of death, as he began to think of it, were vile enough to make breathing nearly impossible.

Without Uriel's light burning brightly inside him, he would have been forced to retreat almost at once, and for a brief moment, he even questioned his own sanity for entering at all. Skeletons and zombies swarmed him the instant he crossed the threshold, but they were weak, more irritating than dangerous. Their weapons were rusted and coated in a slick green residue he assumed was blight, and system notifications began to appear in rapid succession. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road.

If you see it on Amazon, please report it. You have been afflicted with Blight. Uriel's Light has purified your affliction of Blight. You have been afflicted with Pestilence. Uriel's Light has purified your affliction of Pestilence. He had to open his status and mute the constant stream of notifications, as they were becoming more distracting than helpful. At least it confirmed that he couldn't deactivate Uriel's Light while remaining inside the cloud, which meant this discomfort was entirely on him.

He swept aside a tide of undead with his quarterstaff and pushed deeper into the roiling mass. Ideally, he hoped to encounter one of the skeletal horsemen, the few undead he knew that retained the ability to speak, or perhaps even the Divine Sword himself. Even a brief glimpse of either would confirm his growing fears. But no matter where he went or how long he searched, he found nothing capable of speech. There were only groans, guttural growls, and lunging forms that clawed toward him in endless waves.

He began Space-Jumping rapidly through the cloud, searching for any hidden figures observing him from afar, yet he found nothing. Still, that unseen gaze never left him, and he started to suspect it was deliberately avoiding him.

"Hello!!" he shouted into the swarm.

"Anyone here?" The only response was the mindless press of the dead. Searching blindly was getting him nowhere, so he burst back out of the cloud and sprinted along its edge, angling toward the front of the crawling centipede of death. He moved several hundred meters ahead of the army before stopping, far enough to work without interference, and then began planting seeds with abandon.

Hundreds of purple vines erupted from the ground, surging upward and outward until they formed a massive barrier nearly a mile long, blocking the army's advance. The roiling cloud of death crashed into it, and the night filled with the sound of rusted blades and axes hacking at living vines. The forward momentum didn't cease immediately, but it slowed as the undead at the front were forced to spread sideways or be trampled by those behind them.

Eventually, the army ground to a halt, with the foremost ranks focusing entirely on carving a path through the barrier while the countless dead behind them waited in eerie stillness. Joe watched from a distance, half-expecting one of the horsemen to emerge and tear the vines apart personally. None did. Night fell, and the steady rhythm of hacking metal echoed through the darkness. Deciding he had seen enough, Joe prepared to return home, but not before leaving behind a small parting gift.

Unable to plant seeds within the army itself, his usual methods of widespread destruction were limited, though far from useless. Drawing on his self-taught mana manipulation, he shaped his Mana Stream into a massive, concentrated cone and poured power into it until it strained at the limits, emptying his entire mana bar in one decisive act. His cone filled the air around him with an almost cosmic hum, and the ground beneath his feet vibrated as his attack lit the night sky with blinding luminescence.

Just as the mana reached its point of saturation, Joe unleashed a colossal blast of pure, unaspected mana toward the massive, tail-like spread of undead before him. He hoped the strike would deal enough damage to force the army to reconsider its relentless march across Thropia. Just before the blast connected, a figure burst from its hiding place within the cloud of blight and hauled a massive shield from its back.

A skill flared, and an enormous ethereal shield of pitch-black light manifested in the air between the army and Joe's attack. It pulsed with a bleak, searing darkness that clashed violently with the brilliance of Joe's mana. The two forces collided in a cataclysmic explosion that seemed to swallow the world. Joe shielded his face as the shockwave and debris crashed over him, but he remained standing, braced and unyielding, as the light slowly faded.

To his disbelief, the black shield had completely negated his attack. The army beyond it was largely untouched, disturbed only slightly by the aftermath. He narrowed his eyes as the shield bearer turned and vanished back into the cloud, which closed around the army like a living shell.

"Fuck," Joe muttered. During that brief moment, his eyes had met with the shield bearer, and the emptiness behind that dead gaze sent a chill through him. Joe turned and left, a little shaken from what he had seen. Joe returned to Ladradad in grim silence. At the very least, he had confirmed the reports were true. Malcolm was now part of the undead host. What troubled him more was the memory of the thick, dark threads of mana he had seen linking Malcolm to the cloud itself.

Was that connection the source of such an overwhelming defensive skill? Even Joe doubted he could have blocked his own attack so completely. The thought that it had been negated so effortlessly left him questioning whether he could truly stop that army at all, or its inevitable march of death. Perhaps with enough time to plant and fortify the land ahead of them, he might stand a chance. He shook the thought away. For now, his focus shifted. He wanted to separate Malcolm from the army, if it was even possible.

He had never liked the man, but this fate was still wrong. To be turned into a warden of death was an abomination, and it sat poorly with him. If nothing else, he wanted to free Malcolm's body and put his remains to rest. That, at least, felt right. But he knew he couldn't do it alone. He needed help, someone skilled at tracking and locating a specific target within chaos. Only one person came to mind. Joe's lips curved into a faint, almost sardonic smile as a devious plan began to form.

__ Esha Bakshi stood overlooking the training grounds, where Gao and Alice were drilling Joe's young wards through footwork exercises and stamina training. When she and Gao had decided to move to Landradad, the choice had been made for purely selfish reasons. She hated the pressure placed upon her shoulders, the endless expectations, and the constant, irritating demands.

Everything had finally come to a head when Gao relinquished her ownership of Kunlun's pillar and asked Esha to come with her to escape the madness of politics and responsibility. Esha had agreed without hesitation and had suggested that there was only one place in this new world that could offer them the peace they desired, while still allowing them to train and improve without restraint or obligation. Landradad. The fact that it was close to the Farmer had absolutely nothing to do with her decision.

It was purely a coincidence. So they had arrived and made the place their home. They had not even needed to ask Joe if they were welcome; both he and Corel had received them with open arms, and they had lived here ever since. Occasionally, they were still called upon to attend meetings in an advisory role; they could not completely escape all responsibility.

But being at the Farmer's side came with the added benefit of redirecting most major decisions toward him, allowing them to participate only when they felt like it. On top of that, the Farmer was an incredible cook, which meant they were always well fed and content. Still, if she were honest, as perfect as Landradad was, it had one small drawback. The hairs on her arms rose as an ominous sense of dread washed over her.

It felt as though a Beast of unfathomable power had locked onto her and was rapidly closing the distance. Esha needed no further warning. She burst into motion, sprinting toward the teleportation array with all the speed she could muster. Gao looked after her in shock as she vanished into the distance, but Esha had no time to explain. She had to leave now, before he arrived. Her fingers flew across the teleportation controls as she set the destination to Kunlun, where she could hide, where she could avoid him.

The array needed only three seconds to power up and establish the connection. Three agonizingly long seconds. One. Two. Three. Esha leapt onto the teleportation pad just as the beam of light activated, but it was a fraction of a second too slow. To her horror, he arrived in that instant, slamming into her and wrapping massive brown arms around her as the teleport triggered. They vanished together in a blinding flash of light.

__ Li Hua looked up as a connection was established between Kunlun's teleportation array and that of Landradad. Landradad had been granted top-priority access, allowing it to connect without requiring authorization from Kunlun's current pillar mayor, a privilege extended out of respect for all that Gao YuanYuan had done for her people. Because of this, Li Hua was not surprised and rose calmly to greet the two incoming presences flashing on her screen.

Just as the light signalling their arrival triggered, Li Hua gave a deep bow… only to be sent flying as the entire building detonated. Two forms burst from the teleportation light like a nuclear blast, smashing straight through one wall as the structure groaned and began to collapse around her. She could only blink in stunned confusion as she was thrown from her feet and one of her shielding charms activated, coating her in a blue barrier that protected her from the falling ceiling.

As she was rapidly buried beneath the remains of the building, she could only pray that whatever calamity was about to befall Kunlun would not somehow be blamed on her. __ Joe grimaced as he and Esha slammed through thick stone walls, the sound of a collapsing building echoing behind them. Maybe he had been a bit too zealous in his dash to catch Esha before she escaped his grasp… then again, probably not.

He felt the small woman, clutched tightly against him like a jar of jelly, shift and bite down on his shoulder as she tried to claw at his face. He laughed loudly as they crashed through another building in their uncontrolled flight, though he quickly realized he should probably end their path of destruction before unsuspecting civilians were caught in the chaos. Shifting his weight, mid-motion, he released controlled waves of mana to shield anyone nearby from falling debris.

He planted his feet and brought their wild momentum to an abrupt halt, skidding to a stop across shattered stone. Esha bit down even harder, a sharp elbow slamming into his stomach and forcing a grunt from his throat as he tried to shake her loose.

"Esha! Okay! Let go!" he exclaimed, still failing to pry the small woman's teeth from his shoulder.

"Furus, yousus, Farrrmeer," Esha mumbled into his shoulder as she redoubled her efforts to draw blood. Joe then resorted to an almost unthinkable act of violence that he rarely used, sliding a hand deftly along Esha's side and up to her armpits before tickling her mercilessly. Her eyes widened in horror as she was forced to release her bite, laughter bursting free despite her furious indignation.

"Stopp!! That's… haha… not… fair…" Esha stammered between fits of laughter as she failed to halt the onslaught. Joe then pinned her beneath him and, for the next five minutes, tortured her with tickles until tears streamed down her face. Only when she managed to squirm enough to plant a foot squarely into his face did he finally release her and apologize.

"Sorry. But that was kinda fun," Joe said, only to be abruptly punched in the face. He laughed heartily as Esha jumped on him and spanked him soundly in retaliation. Once they had both calmed down, and Joe rubbed at his now-tender backside, they sat laughing at each other on the shattered stone. Joe took note of the trail of destruction they had left behind and was relieved to see numerous Kunlun officials already on site, exasperatedly repairing the damage.

"Sorry," Joe offered with a casual wave, though no one approached them to complain, and if anything, they looked relieved to leave the pair alone and get to work.

"So are you going to tell me exactly what you want this time?" Esha asked, fixing him with a glare.

"You do know you can just ask me for a favour, and you don't have to destroy half a city in the process." Joe smiled.

"Where is the fun in that?"