Chapter Ninety-Two: Calamity

The two of them returned to the surface by way of the stairway beneath the earth, and Skybound Seal closed the underground gate once more.

Once back in the open air, Ville could not help drawing a deep breath. It was not only because the stench below had been so vile and suffocating that he had nearly blacked out from lack of air, but more because of the shock still surging in his heart.

He had actually seen the legendary undead creatures of the Demon Realm.

Even in the previous age, such undead beings had been exceedingly rare. One must know that they were not creatures native to the Magical Continent at all, but beings from another plane entirely: the Demon Realm.

Though he knew those disgusting things could not possibly escape from underground, the cautious old fellow still inspected the activation mechanism carefully. Only after confirming that nothing was amiss did he raise his head and look at Ville.

“I think now we can have a proper talk. But before that, let me introduce myself. My name is Skybound Seal, high priest of the beastfolk.”

“Solitary Willow Ville.”

Ville glanced at Skybound Seal and said:

“How much do you know about those things?”

Skybound Seal nodded and led Ville toward another room. Though it remained very dark there, the space was at least far more open than this one.

“Not much,” Ville said.

He was not lying. In truth, he knew very little about such things. His knowledge of those undead beings, and even of the Demon Realm itself, mostly came from folk legends, pastoral tales, and stories passed down through the ages. Of course, there were also a few ancient books that mentioned the Demon Realm in only the briefest of fragments, pitifully few records.

“They come from a place called the Demon Realm. It does not belong anywhere on the Magical Continent. It is a world of its own, and you could also think of it as a world of another plane.”

As Ville spoke, he watched Skybound Seal’s reaction. Yet on hearing this, the old fellow did not reveal any surprise or astonishment at all. Clearly, he had known these things long ago.

“The creatures of the Demon Realm are collectively known as undead beings. No one knows exactly how vast the Demon Realm is, nor how many of those undead creatures there are. No one knows how they came to the Magical Continent either. And those Decayed Vilethings are one of the undead beings from the Demon Realm. Their strength is comparable to low-tier magical beasts on the Magical Continent. There is only one thing: these creatures seem to possess a recovery ability. So long as the injury is not fatal, they can restore themselves to their original state in a very short time.”

When Ville spoke the word “recovery,” Skybound Seal, who had shown no reaction up to that point, suddenly twitched at the corner of his mouth twice. After taking a couple of deep breaths, he gave Ville a bitter smile.

“What you said is indeed right. Their strength is no different from that of low-tier magical beasts. The troublesome part is that their vitality is so absurdly tenacious it makes one want to curse. Add to that recovery ability... Oh, right, that recovery ability. I think I can tell you exactly what it is.”

“Oh?”

Hearing Skybound Seal say that, Ville immediately grew interested and asked hurriedly, “Tell me, what is going on?”

“In truth, that is exactly why I caught those disgusting things in the first place... I conducted a little experiment on them.”

Skybound Seal pointed toward the room leading underground and let out a sly laugh. “I discovered that these things are somewhat similar to your magic in certain respects. Heh heh, do you know? The reason they can recover injuries in a short time is because they rely on a special kind of power. It is much like how your mages exhaust their mana and then draw replenishment from the magical elements in the surrounding environment. Fortunately, that special power does not exist everywhere as magical elements do. It exists only in one place, and once those disgusting things leave that place, they can no longer recover the injuries they have suffered.”

“You mean you know where that place with the special power is, and you captured some Decayed Vilethings there?!”

A thought flashed through Ville’s mind. He immediately shouted at Skybound Seal, “How many of those things are there? No—where exactly are they?”

Seeing Ville’s somewhat agitated expression, Skybound Seal said nothing. He merely chuckled under his breath, his eyes carrying a strange light. Seeing him like that, Ville paused slightly, then tentatively asked, “Old man, you’re not going to tell me that place is the Mist Zone, are you?”

Across the entire Magical Continent, if one set aside the most dangerous regions, then the strangest place of all had to be the Mist Zone of the Savage Forest.

That utterly unbelievable and bizarre power could suppress all outside forces completely. Even figures of the level of Great Soul Mages and Grand Magicians would find their own power suppressed to the greatest extent upon entering the Mist Zone. Once this suppression began, there was no hope of forcibly stopping it. If one wished to break free of that power, the only way was to leave the Mist Zone as quickly as possible. Otherwise, the longer one remained there, the stronger the suppression would become.

Aside from the Mist Zone, Ville truly could not think of any other place that would fit the kind of special power Skybound Seal had described.

“That is indeed the place!”

Skybound Seal nodded. He lifted his head to glance at Ville, then suddenly said in an extremely peculiar tone, “That is the source of our beastfolk’s calamity!”

“The source of calamity?”

Hearing Skybound Seal’s words, Ville first froze, and then a startling thought suddenly flashed through his mind.

“What do you mean? Say it plainly!”

Ville asked Skybound Seal.

“What do I mean?”

Skybound Seal gave a strange laugh, then suddenly asked Ville, “Boy, what do you think of the combat strength of our beastfolk warriors?”

“Very strong. One beastfolk warrior is worth three human soldiers!”

Ville dimly sensed what Skybound Seal wanted to say, but for the moment he could not grasp it.

Skybound Seal nodded with satisfaction, then asked again, “Very good. Then let me tell you something. Beastfolk, whether men, women, old, or young, are all warriors. In both combat power and mobility, they far surpass humans. Although the beastfolk tribes are disordered and scattered, if the Great Chieftain truly wished to gather all the beastfolk warriors, then within half a day he could easily assemble a beastfolk army of two hundred thousand! Tell me, compared with the so-called elite of a human empire, putting aside strategy and considering only force, which would be stronger?”

“The beastfolk army should be stronger...”

Though unwilling to admit it, if the beastfolk truly could assemble an army of that size, then in terms of fighting strength alone they would indeed be unmatched.

“In that case, since the beastfolk are so close to human empires and yet have never once fought a war with them, boy, don’t you think that is strange, given our beastkin’s greedy nature?”

One sentence from Skybound Seal suddenly made Ville see the whole matter clearly. The source of his earlier confusion had finally been found.

Why was it that the savage races were so close to the Veria Empire, with no military buffer at all between them, yet there had never been any war between the savage races and humanity? Humans might well know nothing of the beastfolk’s true condition, but the beastfolk certainly might know the true state of the human empires. Just as Skybound Seal had said, for the beastkin to willingly remain in a barren place like the Savage Wastes for hundreds of years truly was perplexing.

Could this have something to do with those undead creatures?

Ville’s heart trembled, and he hurriedly asked Skybound Seal. This time the old fellow let out a long, weary sigh, and in a rather desolate voice said, “This is not merely the beastfolk’s disaster, but the calamity of every race in the entire Savage Forest. This is a crisis. If it cannot be stopped, then it will ultimately spread. The first to suffer will be the beastfolk, then the other races of the Savage Forest, and in the end... heh heh, it will be the humans.”