598 Undead
I couldn't begin to fathom the sheer size of knowledge that was hidden in plain sight. Right behind that inconspicuous looking shelve was a whole other world with an incredible amount of knowledge that I never knew about.
The library behind me was vast and grand, but it wasn't comparable to a drop in the bucket if you pit it against this sea of information.
From the right were books and manuals about cultivation methods, some that were surprisingly familiar and similar to ones I've seen in the Vast Expanse, and some that were incredibly mysterious and mystical.
Then alchemy books, explaining and details sets and assets of the Beyond, herbs and plants and heavenly treasures that I've never seen before or even knew existed. New poisons, new antidots, new formulas and new alchemy methods.
Then on the far end were manuals about law and inscription, and manuals about the territory of the beyond, its beasts and monsters, the humans that lived in it. The mortal life, the cultivation life, and even the life of the mundane and the mythic from the smallest of worms, to the mightiest of phoenixes and dragons.
There was so much knowledge packed here that I felt at a complete loss at first unable to even start.
I shook my head and laughed and decided that I didn't need to be greedy. I began looking for the section that had the maps of the beyond, and I found it rather easily. The whole of the beyond was mapped in here as there were hundreds upon hundreds of scrolls and books that detailed maps of the entire beyond.
And among all the regions, the portion which had the Demon Sea was categorized under, "Forbidden Region."
At first I didn't understand what forbidden region meant, but from seeing that there were other regions under the same category and after a quick skim through the content, I realized what it means.
A forbidden region is a region that is fraught with danger and hadn't been fully explored.
Though it surprised me that something as old as the Beyond hasn't been fully explored especially when they have people like the eight Suns who are the peak lifeform of the beyond, if they themselves didn't dare and explore this region then there must be a valid reason for it.
And I came to realize it rather fast.
In one of the maps, the one that detailed more about the Sea of Demons especially was one of the reasons why this area isn't fully explored.
After all, we're in a city at the peripheries of the Sea of Demons, this city we're in is just one of many that are sprinkled around the edge of the Sea of Demons as not even a tenth of it had been explored. And the reason is the following.
Whoever recorded this, made detailed records of the inner region of the Sea of Demons. Which is frankly strange, as if they had done so, shouldn't the exploration rate of the forbidden Region be far higher than it is?
But reading up ahead I noticed that whoever recorded this was mentioning ancient text and the origin of the Sea of Demons, they didn't actually fully explore but rather noted down rumors and myths from old.
And from these rumors there is apparently has a hole in the centermost area of the Sea of Demons. And it seems that the hole leads somewhere but no one had ever returned from exploring it.
'Interesting, this is Something to note then…'
And one of the reasons why the people don't go on exploring the deeper region of the Sea of Demons has nothing to do with the incredible number of Walkers moving through it. Nor the demonic beasts that currently live in it. No, it's much worse than that. Because the further one goes into the Sea of Demons the less Qi they encounter, and it becomes scarcer and scarcer the more one gets to its core. At one-point cultivator become as useless as mortals and once they deplete their inner Qi they are bound to die. After all a mortal can't deal with a Walker. But that wasn't all, there are rumors of something other than Walkers in the Sea of Demons as it seems that the Walkers which are making a headache for the four generals of this city are nothing but the bottom feeders of this ecosystem. They're the prey…
The Sea of Demons hold many secrets, interesting ones too. I've seen the corpses of sea monsters that were the size of mountains laying at the edge of this sea. So, I wonder what the center of the region holds. Maybe finding a kraken won't be that impossible.
However, that wasn't something for me to care about for now. From the general's words, we'll be delving just a bit into the Sea of Demons, not enough for us to start suffering from the Qi depletion, not that I personally care but just at the start of it.
I took note of more of what the scholars had written about the Sea of Demons and made note of anything worthy, like the ecosystem and the creatures that have been spotted although not confirmed.
I then went and began reading more and more about the plants and herbs that exist within the Beyond before the Automaton notified me.
"Sir, you have spent close to a week here, the night had fallen outside. And the general is requesting your presence, the man with you is stalling them until you come out."
"Oh, time sure does fly," I said as I left the Lord of Lords pagoda.
Once I was outside Old Fu was pacing back and forward, "Oh, you're back, I was almost out of excuses. The general wants us to go out and see 'the night' of the Sea of Demons."
I nodded to old Fu and followed after him, and indeed, like he said, the entire area outside the palace was darker than black. The Sun which lit the entirety of the beyond was barely visible it was like a small candle light that was trying to penetrate a thick dark fog and that sunlight was so weak that it looked like a small moon trying its best to light the dark but failing miserably.
Dwei was waiting for us outside the palace gate. He was with the company of a couple soldiers that had the banner of the general of the west and they were our escorts. We moved up through the streets and noticed that
The city in its entirety was as empty as a ghost town. No one wandered its streets, and the homes were closed and locked. No cultivator moved about, and no marketplace was open. Not even the brothels and red light district was functioning at night.
"It's rather dreary," I muttered to Dwei.
"Ah, yes, once the night falls, martial law is in order. No one is to move about the city or outside their homes.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because of the Walkers, we've had many incidents where walkers were found roaming the city. And thus, to reduce the risk of infection and death we ordered martial law during the night. Only the soldiers of the generals are allowed to survey and patrol during the night. Anyone who is found wandering out will be immediately arrested," Dwei said.
I shrugged they were overly cautious but it's clear that if they found walkers with walls this thick and high, it's obvious that they've gotten smuggled in. One of the generals was probably in on it, but I wasn't about to accuse one of the generals of treason, after all it's just an assumption.
Soon we arrived to the western wall, and it was there that I saw the general standing up high on top of the wall.
Dwei then flew up and gestured to us to follow.
All of us stood atop the bone wall and only then was I able to witness what the general was talking about.
Across the entirety of this dimly lit, gray looking and dreary sand desert were sprinkles of people.
Or as close to people as one might think, no. They had skin as plae as ash, and their skin was tightly sticking to their bones. Their ribs the parts that weren't exposed from being eroded and corroded were visible under their skin. Their faces had no eyes and they had no lips or hair. Their teeth were not that of humans but more like those of a shark. Nothing but razor sharp looking fangs decorated their mouths.
Some of them were huge in size, almost ten feet tall, and some were not even the size of a man's arm.
They wandered the desert, without any target or goal in sight. They just moved about, bumping in each other and moving about rather erratically.
Every once in a while, you could hear one of them groan and that would alert the closest batch of walkers to it. But none of the walkers acted up on it or tried to explore the source of this sound after hearing it the first time.
"What do you think?" asked the general.
"Classic Zombie case," I said.
"What is that?" he asked, curious of the word I used.
"A corpse… made with reviving the body of a dead man. It has no mind of its own but that of the one controlling and commanding, it follows orders and is loyal to boot. It knows no fear for death hunger or exhaustion. That's an Undead." I said.
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