Chapter 536: Frenzied Memories

The process of turning the Witch Demon Um into a corpse met with little resistance, and the subsequent infusion of Spiritual Power went just as smoothly.

The transition from Witch Demon to corpse was so seamless that Leech even began to wonder if Witch Demons, corpses, and Corpse Ghosts were all the same thing.

Leech read Um’s memories, a rather novel experience, as it was his first time reading the memories of a 187-year-old man.

That’s right. After turning himself into a Witch Demon, Um’s mind seemed to have become muddled. He wasn’t 97 or 87 as he had claimed, but 187.

Um wasn’t from the Lu Leiyi Continent, but from a material plane called the Rude Continent.

Um was a very bright child. He used his cleverness to get a job inside a castle, working for a nobleman.

He would secretly learn to read and write while on the job. The nobleman, fond of the boy’s sharp wit, casually taught him a few things.

At the age of 25, the nobleman died on the battlefield. The castle changed hands, and Um, as a matter of course, lost his job.

He went to a large city to find work and successfully became the steward of a nobleman’s estate.

As it happened, the master of the estate was a Mage. Not only was Um able to maintain the elegant lifestyle he’d known in the nobleman’s castle, but he also gained access to a wealth of knowledge.

Having served nobility since he was a boy, Um was elegant, poised, and literate—qualities that earned him his new master’s favor. But as he became the master’s confidant, Um began to feel that something was wrong.

He could always smell the thick stench of blood within the castle.

Guards were posted everywhere in the castle, but Um had never seen these dutiful sentinels remove their helmets. They neither slept nor rested, ate nor drank.

The maids were doused in a heavy, pungent, and unbearable perfume with a strange odor, as if trying to conceal some other scent.

Later, at a ball, the Mage master invited a beautiful young lady. She was completely captivated by the grand, perfect life in the castle, and Um was ordered to attend to her. The more time they spent together, the more Um fell in love with the girl, though she never once had eyes for him.

But one day, Um didn’t see the beautiful young lady. She seemed to have vanished, and the stench of blood in the castle only grew stronger.

At night, he could even hear the sound of bones being chopped.

So, one afternoon, Um went to the kitchen. There, he saw the floor covered in fresh blood, and a bone cleaver.

A bone cleaver in the kitchen was perfectly normal. What wasn’t normal was that Um, who was in charge of procuring food, hadn’t purchased any live animals recently. The meat that was delivered came pre-cleaned and wouldn’t bleed, so the cook had no need to chop bones.

He questioned the cook, but the cook claimed to know nothing.

Before long, Um saw the beautiful young lady again.

She was now dressed in a maid’s uniform, seemingly planning to stay and live in the castle forever. Um couldn’t bring himself to be happy about it. Although she was still as beautiful and her smile just as captivating, she now carried that same pungent, strange, and heavy odor.

Life went on.

At one of the balls, the Mage master went mad. He stabbed a Countess to death and made all the guests drink her blood.

Everyone descended into a frenzy, slaughtering one another.

Terrified, Um hid in his room. He shivered under a thick quilt despite the sweltering heat, listening to the incessant sounds of slaughter outside.

And he listened to the sound of chopping bones all night long.

This went on for several days.

When he could no longer bear it and finally emerged from his room, he saw the murdered Countess, along with several beautiful ladies from the party. They had chosen to reside in the castle forever.

And the castle had gained many more dutiful Knights.

A chill ran down Um’s spine. He knew his Mage master was dangerous, but the master had never touched him. Um guessed it was because he was responsible for procurement, which required him to interact with outsiders. If he carried that pungent odor, it would surely arouse suspicion.

Then one day, there was another ball.

Unable to bear it any longer, Um decided to poison the wine. The Mage master died, as did the other guests. The eerie part was that the castle’s guards and maids continued to move about normally, performing their daily tasks and even greeting him when they saw him.

He disposed of the bodies, then began poring over the Mage’s books, eventually learning his uncanny Magic.

Delving into such mysterious knowledge can be intoxicating. Um’s own talent was considerable, and with the entire castle’s fortune at his disposal, he could live comfortably, learn at his own pace, and enjoy the life of a nobleman.

As time passed, Um noticed the maids in the castle were beginning to decay. The young lady he had so deeply loved was no exception. Maggots grew in her eye sockets, crawling out of her eyeballs and into her ears.

The dutiful Knights collapsed as well. Kicking aside their armor revealed nothing but rotten flesh inside.

Um wanted to replace his beloved’s decayed body parts with healthier ones, to carve away all the sections hollowed out by maggots and rot.

He became obsessed with his work, his days spent with flesh-stripping knives, corpse-drying racks, and suturing needles.

His beloved young lady gradually became a stitched-together monstrosity.

But Um soon found that his own body was reaching its limit. He had to extend his life. He spent decades searching until he found Undead Magic and prepared to turn himself into a Witch Demon.

The process didn’t go smoothly, drastically altering Um’s temperament. He became muddled and listless, his only solace found in the cutting and stitching of corpses.

Leech, however, knew the real reason for his stupor: the Demon Lord’s Crown.

Anyone who wore it was driven by their innermost desires.

Unfortunately, Um had no memory of ever putting on the Demon Lord’s Crown, only that he had to obey and make sacrifices. This left Leech utterly baffled, and naturally, made him even warier of the artifact.

After a stretch of chaotic memories, Um arrived here, discovered the wondrous properties of the ore, and began his frenzied modification of various corpses.

‘I thought *I* was twisted.’

Leech opened his eyes. The next few decades of memories were nothing but experiments in stitching together corpses—a regular Dr. Victor Frankenstein.

The sight of his beloved, modified until not a single part of her was original, truly sent a chill through Leech’s heart.

“Clear out the Undead! We have no use for these brainless, unkillable monsters that only attack the living. And start mining the ore!” He snapped out of his reverie and issued his new orders.

The new miners had already been selected: the Burrowing Dwarves. That pack of unhygienic, treacherous little folk were far better suited to traversing veins and digging ore than any normal person.

According to Um’s memories, there were other powers in the underworld, though none could compare to him. Two that had caught his attention were the Scorpion-tailed Lions and the ogres. They had always been intended as raw materials for his corpse modifications, but unfortunately, Um himself died before he could begin.

“My lord, we’ve reached Iron Stone City,” a voice said near his ear.

Leech’s consciousness shifted. His gaze moved from the underworld to the towering city walls ahead, cloaked in the golden light of dusk.

“Let’s go.” He glanced back at his retinue. “I’m very much looking forward to the first ball of the year.”