Horse hooves trod on an uneven main road, producing a sound that wasn’t quite crisp.
As the wheels rolled, they attracted countless gazes.
Numbness, bewilderment, envy, jealousy, hatred…
Why was this happening?
Ileya wasn’t entirely sure either.
They were simply walking along normally, and just after getting onto the main road, people inexplicably started to crowd around them.
Most of these people didn’t have carriages… Almost everyone carried bundles, and almost everyone appeared travel-worn, looking more like refugees fleeing disaster than traveling merchants or porters carrying goods.
“Miss, I’ve found out~” The carriage door suddenly opened, and the next second, Holly’s figure lightly leaped onto the still-moving carriage.
“These people got word that the northeastern rainforest city of Loluste was breached by foreign races. From what they say… many foreign races have invaded the Kingdom.”
“Then… are all these people fleeing from Loluste?” Veil blinked her large, obsidian-like eyes and asked in bewilderment.
“Of course not~ Loluste is a northeastern border city, far from here… They are civilians from the surrounding towns and villages who, upon hearing this news, are preparing to migrate to walled cities.”
Holly explained quite patiently.
“Loluste was breached… Did you ask what kind of foreign race broke through Loluste?” Ileya raised an eyebrow.
Attacking humans at a time like this—without a doubt, these so-called foreign races were likely the Divine Kin of the Crystal Giant Tree…
What purpose did these creatures have in attacking a human city?
The stone tablet obtained in the Rat-Man Ancestral Hall only recorded the Saint Witch entering the Giant Tree.
The only conflict with humans should have been the disaster caused to the citizens of Rand City when the nature of the Supreme Being was revealed.
Although the descendants of the former citizens of Rand who turned into ratmen strictly followed their ancestors’ rules and had never harmed humans in all these years…
Just because the ratmen wouldn’t do it…
Didn’t mean the other Divine Kin of the Crystal Giant Tree wouldn’t.
Besides the friendly ratmen and the Cave-Dwellers Ileya had previously subdued, there were at least two more types of Divine Kin who worshiped the Crystal Giant Tree.
Those were the crowfolk and the serpentfolk who appeared in the tablet, bowing to the Giant Tree.
Hearing the young lady’s question, Holly scratched her head in confusion.
“That… I didn’t find out much useful information. I only know those foreign races are very powerful. Loluste was completely taken with almost no resistance.”
“The border troops certainly aren’t all useless—” Amisa, who was driving the carriage up front, interjected.
“If I had to guess, these creatures either have the ability to become invisible or pass through walls, or they can fly.”
She herself was a skilled infiltrator and assassin, so she naturally had her own opinions on how to breach solid walls.
Ileya nodded slightly in agreement with this speculation from the Head Maid.
But if they really were a flying Divine Kin, then invading from the northeastern border gateway into East County might not be particularly difficult. She would indeed need to be cautious.
Just as Ileya was thinking this, she suddenly froze.
Because faintly, she seemed to hear some kind of sound… as if someone was whispering softly in her ear.
“Hmm?” Raising an eyebrow slightly, Ileya slowly closed her eyes, and her consciousness gradually sank into the [Underworld].
Only when she transformed into the ruler of the Underworld standing beneath the pitch-black sky did the voice truly become clear before her…
It was a sentence…
‘Death is the starting point of all things; the Underworld is the cold homeland…’ And accompanying this sentence was a trace of peculiar power.
The moment this power sensed Ileya’s arrival, it directly turned into a stream of light and merged into her consciousness.
At that moment, Ileya felt her soul instantly become somewhat warm, like a blanket dried in the spring sun—dry, soft, comfortable…
Slightly sensing the changes within her body, Ileya followed that trace of power and gradually traced it to its source…
It was a human figure sitting before a dining table, hands clasped together in constant prayer…
Although a bit blurry, Ileya could still recognize who it was.
“I remember he was called… Fukadi, right?”
It seemed he had taken her words very seriously and had been devoutly carrying them out.
This allowed a faint “Faith Power” to coalesce and gather into the Underworld.
That was exactly what the young lady wanted to do, and also the agreement reached with the Church.
To continuously strengthen her own “Underworld,” relying solely on her going around picking up corpses was absolutely insufficient.
Not to mention gathering the death power of the world—just gathering the death power within the human kingdom was something one person, or even the entire Marquis Castle, could not accomplish.
But if the Church of the One God helped, that was different.
Religion was always linked with death.
No matter in what form… but the religions of this world did not seem to have such services. The backyards of churches did not have orderly cemeteries either.
So Ileya thought of a method that could benefit both herself and the Church.
Premised on the idea that her death ability and the [Underworld] were blessings given by the [One God], the Church of the One God would preach the doctrine of “death” and receive the dead and burial services.
And just as believers recited the Holy Scripture before meals, the believers of the “Death” branch would also pray before meals—only praising death, praising the Underworld, and indirectly praising the “One God” (actually Ileya herself).
That way, combined with targeted incantations and her own reception, she might be able to collect the souls of the dead, turning them into her allies in the Underworld and strengthening this barren world.
The Church would gain broader faith, and believers so devout that they could, like Fukadi now, communicate with the Underworld.
Ileya and Cardinal Kauls called such believers who could communicate with the Underworld “Revival Priests.”
As the name suggested, they were priests who could drive the Reanimated.
And these “Faith Powers” that seemed to arise from sincere and devout emotions were merely a byproduct of Ileya’s plan.
‘Since I can hear his prayer…’
Standing in the black sky of the Underworld, Ileya subconsciously raised her hand and gently touched that strand of Faith Power.
And she attempted to transmit the method of summoning ordinary skeletons through her mind.
Whoosh!
At that moment, the eyes of Fukadi, who was praying at the dining table as the young lady had instructed, suddenly lost focus!
In that instant, he felt his soul abruptly pulled out! And it uncontrollably drifted upward!
During this process, he passed through his body to see himself sitting at the table like a corpse, passed through the rooftop to see the towering city walls, passed through the clouds to see the kingdom below…
Further up, there seemed to be many strange and dazzling spheres of light. In the distance, there appeared to be a ruined castle, a floating ocean, shattered meteors…
And within those bizarre scenes, it seemed… gazes swept back and forth over his soul…
That feeling was enough to drive one mad!
Perhaps… thousands of years passed, or perhaps… only a single instant. Finally, Fukadi passed through those chilling, chaotic zones…
And no longer floated upward.
He looked around, somewhat dazed…
This was a dim space. He could see something moving aimlessly below, but it was blurry and indistinct.
At that very moment, an unknown voice seemed to ring out from the air…
Fukadi snapped awake and looked up…
There, in the pitch-black heavens, behind the black clouds… a pair of gigantic scarlet eyes, like a god looking down upon a sand-table world, curiously gazed at his soul…
No… even upon this land.
“Ahhh!!!”
The next second, Fukadi’s scream nearly pierced through the entire Border Barracks!
“Deputy Commander?! What happened?!” The guard at the door rushed in frantically.
But aside from Fukadi, who sat at the table with a dazed expression and vacant eyes, his clothes soaked in cold sweat, there was no other abnormality.
“I… you… huff… huff…” Fukadi seemed to have momentarily forgotten how to speak.
His ears were filled with the whispers passed down from the great existence in the black sky…
Was that a… a Supreme… Being??
His… His whispers seemed to be some kind of incantation?
“Transcendent…” Fukadi muttered involuntarily, and the expression on his face gradually shifted from terror to excitement…
The young lady hadn’t lied to me… This really was a path to becoming a Transcendent!!
“Deputy Commander?” The guard looked at the deputy commander, who kept muttering to himself, with confusion in his eyes.
“Ah? Ahem… I… I’m fine. You go out first. Guard the door and don’t let anyone in!” Fukadi waved his hand, signaling the guard to return to his post.
When the room was left with only him…
He began to observe his own state with some excitement.
His skin seemed a bit paler than before. Looking more closely, Fukadi was startled to find… on the palm of his right hand…
A black mark had appeared. It looked like an irregular shape—if forced to describe it… it seemed like a skull.
Concentrating his mind, he continued reciting the two sentences the young lady had taught him, clearing his thoughts, leaving only the purest faith.
Fukadi gradually noticed that a faint, barely visible black aura had appeared around his arm.
And the incantation from the mouth of that great existence became clearer and clearer.
“With faith as the guide, with soul as the pact… Wandering remains in the land of the dead, manifest your hatred here!”
Crack!
The second after Fukadi finished chanting, he felt as if he had established a connection with something!
And at that very moment, the ground three or four meters in front of him split open, and a pale white bone hand burst out from the earth!
Under Fukadi’s horrified gaze…
A complete pale white skeleton gradually crawled out from the ground.
It held a rusted broken sword in its hand, and in its skull burned a faint blue Soulfire.
At such close distance… Fukadi could feel the skeleton’s intense hatred for the living.
“Reanimated… I actually summoned a Reanimated!?”
But compared to that, this former lowly soldier, now deputy commander—
Perhaps he could also be called the world’s first true “Revival Priest”—was excited because…
It seemed… at this very moment, he could already be considered a Transcendent!
Moreover, he felt a certain soul connection between himself and the skeleton soldier in front of him.
If the skeleton soldier were killed, his soul would also suffer a backlash.
After thinking for a moment, Fukadi decisively swapped out the rusty longsword from the skeleton’s hand and had the skeleton put on his own armor and weapon.
Instantly, the broken undead soldier transformed into a heavily equipped Reanimated with a formidable presence.
Premium Chapter
Login to buy access to this Chapter.