Chapter 36: Running Straight To Their Lair
Moments later, the door opened, and a group of people wearing black cloaks filed out one after another.
But strangely, there was no shadow figure on the main street; under the fog, only a line of shallow footprints extended toward outside the village.
Outside the village, the soil was soft, making the footprints even clearer, but the fog was thick, obscuring everything.
Rustle, rustle…
“Captain, did you hear any sound?” A voice of surprise came from under the cloak.
“Stop!” The middle-aged captain gave a light shout, and the team immediately halted.
Rustle…
The middle-aged captain’s hair stood on end. He suddenly turned around and looked around, but those faint sounds abruptly disappeared.
The unease in his heart grew stronger.
The fog had somehow thickened, a gray haze where nothing was visible.
“Isn’t that the sound of bamboo shoots breaking through the soil? It just rained.” A team member speculated.
This sentence exploded like thunder in the middle-aged captain’s mind, his pupils contracting as he urgently shouted:
“They’re underground, move fast!”
Before the words finished, he pushed off with both legs, his body shooting forward, the invisibility effect mostly dissipating to reveal a blurry figure.
After running just a few meters, his movement abruptly stopped, and he stared blankly ahead, his face ashen.
“Captain, you…”
The thin black ranger followed closely behind, but as his gaze swept over the night, he was instantly speechless.
Around them, thick fog enveloped everything, with things constantly breaking through the soil and crawling out, swaying as they surrounded them, shadow figures looming, countless in number.
White bones gleamed eerily, the stench of corpses assaulted the nose, as if they had instantly fallen into the Shadowfell, despair spreading like the fog.
The middle-aged captain felt ice-cold through his body and murmured: “Undead…”
The thin black ranger roared in despair: “Where are the vigilance people? Why didn’t they report…”
This question was stupid; the scouting team members had long vanished into the fog.
But only venting could make him feel like his body still belonged to him, rather than being dominated by despair.
He turned to look at the captain, his heart full of regret. The captain’s feeling was right; something was truly wrong here.
The other team members had empty gazes, subconsciously drawing their weapons and staring blankly at their surroundings.
“Aren’t those the corpses we buried?” The black dragonborn trembled as he pointed ahead.
The middle-aged captain looked in the direction he pointed, where a group of zombies covered in bloodstains were swaying as they closed in, wearing tattered refugee clothes with no signs of decay.
By their appearance, they were the refugee corpses they had disposed of in the past few days.
“We’ve been living in their nest all along.” The black dragonborn murmured.
“Calm down!” The middle-aged captain shouted angrily, “Do you still want to live?!”
He kicked them one by one, forcibly rousing the team’s fighting spirit: “Get it together, take up weapons, charge formation…”
Hearing the command, everyone subconsciously obeyed, a thread of hope rising in their hearts.
The middle-aged captain drew his longsword with a clang and pointed ahead: “Everyone, follow my command. Break through toward that camp, charge—”
“Kill—”
Just a dozen or so people, yet they pierced into the undead horde like a sharp sword, advancing unstoppable and quickly pushing over a hundred meters.
But the undead that had just crawled out soon reacted, quickly gathering toward the humans and surrounding them completely.
The squad was like trapped in a quagmire, unable to advance or retreat.
——
In his sleep, a strong sense of unease surged into his heart.
Anse jolted awake, the tent pitch black inside, and outside quiet as well, everything as usual.
Click, the pocket watch popped open, its faintly glowing face showing the hour hand just past two.
‘This unease…’
He quietly got up, put on his shoes, picked up his staff, and as soon as he pulled open the tent, a damp fog hit his face, carrying a faint stench.
‘Where’s this stench coming from?’
He secured the tent and stood up to scan the area.
Light snoring came from Brat’s tent; on a nearby tree stump squatted a large bird, with a shadow figure sitting beside it.
Nolnos was leaning against the tent sleeping standing up. Hearing the noise, he trotted over, rubbing his big head against Anse’s chest, nearly knocking him over.
Finn approached carrying a lamp and was stunned to see Anse’s grave expression: “What’s wrong?”
“Something’s off!” Anse felt very uncomfortable but couldn’t pinpoint it. “When did this fog get so thick?”
“Around… dawn.” Finn wasn’t very sure.
“Send Greyhawk up to check immediately.” Anse patted his arm.
After receiving Finn’s command, Greyhawk gave a dissatisfied cry but still spread its wings and flew into the sky, circling low overhead several times.
“Nothing.” Finn shook his head at Anse.
“No, no, no…” Anse murmured.
That uncomfortable feeling came again, his heart oppressed and hard to bear, yet he couldn’t identify the source.
He inadvertently glanced at the staff in his hand, his heart jolting as a word slipped out: “Mana!”
The mana environment here was problematic, very subtle; 「Mana Control」 detected the anomaly, but couldn’t pinpoint the problem.
“Go pack your things.”
With those words, Anse mounted Nolnos and galloped toward the grassy slope on the east side.
The hoofbeats shattered the night’s silence, waking many people.
As Anse crested the grassy slope, the holy symbol in his cloak suddenly grew scorching hot, light shining through the gaps in the cloak, illuminating his face brightly.
But ahead was all gray fog, nothing visible.
He turned around and left without hesitation.
Nolnos charged straight back into the camp, startling the night watchmen speechless.
“Wake everyone, leave immediately, hurry—”
Emon rushed out of his tent, shirtless: “What happened?”
Anse said nothing, lifting the chain around his neck to reveal the holy symbol attached to the diamond necklace outside the cloak, its radiant light dazzling everyone.
“Holy symbol!” Emon was stunned for a moment, then reacted, “Hurry, hurry, wake everyone.”
He didn’t know what happened, but he recognized the God of Justice’s holy symbol!
“Leave the tents, leave the things, put on shoes, grab weapons, run…”
Emon ran through the camp axe in hand, slapping anyone dawdling, his expression increasingly anxious.
Anse returned to the camp, where Finn and Brat had already packed everything except the tents into the backpack.
“Head west.”
With that, he tied the backpacks together, slung them over the horse’s back, mounted up, and left without waiting for Emon and the others.
Finn jogged after him; Brat’s eyes showed struggle, hesitating for seconds, but he still chose to follow Anse.
“What’s wrong?”
“Don’t know.”
“Huh?”
People from the stonemason guild camp also straggled out in small groups, faces full of resentment, trailing far behind.
Emon and Alva took several minutes to catch up, running while looking back, but behind there was only fog, not even a bug chirp or bird call.
At that moment, a strong light suddenly flashed from the rear, drawing everyone’s gaze.
In the churning fog, a searing glow burst forth, tearing through the fog and night sky, spreading dozens of meters.
Wherever it passed, black shadows fell to the ground, the fog dispersed, and even the moonlight grew clearer.
The remaining thin fog couldn’t hide the scene below; shadowy figures numbering in the hundreds were revealed, their pupils glowing faint blue, sickly green, or grayish white, forming a sea of light like the underworld descending, making hair stand on end.
“Undead!” Emon squeezed the word through his teeth.
In the undead horde just a few hundred meters from the camp, a line of blurry figures darted left and right but couldn’t escape the encirclement, falling one by one.
Without the fog’s cover, the outer undead sensed the living’s presence, paused, and began chasing this way in twos and threes.
Everyone froze for a moment, then turned and ran, using every ounce of strength, all resentment gone.
“This has nothing to do with me, right? They would have faced this even if I hadn’t come.”
Anse had a mount and wasn’t too panicked.
