Chapter 125: Undead Calamity

Chapter 125 -124: Undead Calamity

‘It’s a strange world. Who the hell knows what weird things might be hiding in the sky?’

Li Ye didn’t risk flying. Instead, he spread out his Divine Sense and followed the stench toward its source.

Sensing Demon Qi was more precise, but the scroll currently couldn’t provide Li Ye with Demon Qi. He now had six Derived Skills, but the Demon Qi they provided only allowed him to sense a radius of about ten li.

Although his Divine Sense at the peak of the Harmonization Realm wasn’t as precise, it had a much greater detection range…

Gradually, some fields and villages began to appear in Li Ye’s view, and he picked up his pace.

The village was empty. The ground was covered in bloodstains that had dried black. There were slash and hack marks from blades and axes on the walls and tree trunks, and the ground was covered in countless footprints.

Clearly, a battle had taken place here.

An army had slaughtered the entire village.

‘An army that slaughters a village?’

‘So, it wasn’t demons who did the killing.’

‘Why would an army slaughter a village? To not even spare the civilians… that’s too brutal!’

‘And where are the bodies of the slaughtered?’

Realizing it wasn’t demons who had done the killing, Li Ye relaxed slightly and continued to explore the village for information about this world.

Clothes woven from flax, writing in a Western Language…

‘So I’ve entered a world with a Western setting this time. No wonder there’s no Spiritual Qi.’

Li Ye mumbled to himself. After a quick search of the village, he headed straight for its most luxurious building.

Time Travelers couldn’t control which worlds they crossed into. Although the Time Travelers from the Demon Hunting Bureau more often entered worlds similar to Eastern civilizations, they were occasionally sent to ones based on Western civilizations.

The second world Song Jiani entered was one dominated by a magical civilization.

Li Ye had learned the Western Language for precisely this kind of situation.

Li Ye had never been abroad before; his knowledge of foreign countries was limited to the internet. He never expected his first trip to be such a huge one, sending him directly to a planet dominated by a Western civilization.

However, thanks to a Time Traveler’s photographic memory and superhuman learning ability, his mindset was still relatively calm.

After all, he had once been the master of two worlds.

In that luxurious house, Li Ye found some books and gained a basic understanding of this world.

The slaughtered village was called Annecy, the territory of a Baron named Raymond. The country they were in was called Molian, a human nation on the continent of Ounide.

That’s right. A human nation. Because this continent was home not only to humans, but also elves, Beastmen, and evil subterranean creatures.

This world’s currency consisted of Copper Coins, Silver Coins, and Gold Coins. An ordinary commoner family’s annual expenses were about ten Silver Coins.

This world had Magic.

Magic was a formidable power, wielded by Mages and Warlocks. They were respected, powerful, and served as the main force against the subterranean creatures, holding a very high social status.

If a Mage was born into a family, the family’s social status would also rise rapidly.

‘Magic?’

Li Ye closed the book in his hands.

There were no books on Magic in this small village, but in his memory, he had Song Jiani’s organized notes on the subject, which covered all sorts of Magic.

But casting Magic required Magic Power.

Magic Power and Spiritual Power were incompatible. Logically, Li Ye, who was already on the path of cultivation, should not be able to become a Mage.

But the Dantian simulator Li Ye had created himself had perfectly solved the problem of coexistence for Sword Qi and Buddhist Power.

He could easily create another virtual system in his Dantian to cultivate Magic Power.

After all, there was no way to replenish Spiritual Qi in this world. The Spiritual Power stored in his body was a finite resource, and he needed a new way to fight.

He got right to it.

Li Ye sat down cross-legged, emptied his mind, and skillfully constructed a virtual space in his Dantian. He then began to follow Song Jiani’s method, sensing the wandering Magic Elements in the air and guiding them into his body.

The first step in cultivating Magic was to sense the Magic Elements, then determine one’s own Elemental Affinity.

Typically, someone with an affinity for the Water Element would have a higher success rate in guiding Water Elements into their body and would choose to become a Water Mage.

Someone with an affinity for the Fire Element would choose to become a Fire Mage.

Occasionally, there were those with an affinity for two or even three elements, who would become rare Dual or Tri-Mages.

Of course, there were also Full Element Mages.

But such people were either complete duds or gods; there was no third possibility.

This was because getting the elements into one’s body was only the first step to becoming a Mage. To truly cast Magic, a Mage also needed powerful Spiritual Power to create an Elemental Resonance between the Magic Elements inside their body and the elements in the air.

The wider the range of the resonance, the more powerful the resulting Magic.

Most Mages used chanting to create Elemental Resonance.

In addition, the amount of Magic Elements stored in the body also determined the magnitude of the resonance.

Therefore, you couldn’t expect a Magic Apprentice to cast a Forbidden Spell like “Scorching Heavens.”

This was why a Full Element Mage was either a dud or a god.

A person’s energy is finite; it’s impossible to absorb all the Magic Elements into one’s body and cast a greater variety of spells.

Because of this, some Dual Mages would choose to abandon one element and specialize in the other.

A Time Traveler’s body, optimized by Demon Qi to near perfection, possessed a natural Elemental Affinity, allowing them to resonate with any Magic Element.

Song Jiani had chosen Water and Thunder Magic. Of course, it was possible she hadn’t tapped into the full power of her demon, which didn’t support her using All-Element Magic.

Li Ye had no such concerns.

His unique ability had boosted his physical constitution to its peak, allowing him to accommodate more Magic Elements without having to worry about any problems.

His Divine Sense, at the peak of the Harmonization Realm, also guaranteed his Spiritual Power was strong enough that he didn’t even need Meditation to enhance it.

…

In an instant, Li Ye sensed the densely packed, multicolored Magic Elements in the air.

Due to his powerful Elemental Affinity, the Magic Elements were most concentrated around him. Li Ye could even feel them cheering joyfully, expressing their affection for him.

‘Damn this charm of mine!’

Li Ye chuckled, opened up the virtual machine, and began storing Magic Elements in his Dantian.

Water Element, Earth Element, Fire Element, Wind Element, Thunder Element, Light Element, Dark Element…

Li Ye welcomed them all.

The Magic Elements lined up and flooded into his Dantian, forming a small hexagram.

Only when he had absorbed all the Magic Elements within his range of perception and the absorption efficiency began to drop did Li Ye open his eyes again.

By now, the hexagram inside his body was glittering brightly.

Li Ye opened his hand and mobilized the Fire Element from his Dantian.

Instantly, a massive Fireball, a full meter in diameter, formed in his palm. He casually tossed it, and the furniture in front of him erupted in raging flames, catching fire even faster than if it had been doused in gasoline.

He then conjured a water ball and extinguished the fire.

Mages could use the Magic Elements stored in their bodies to cast instant Magic, but they didn’t have enough Magic Power. If they only used instant-casting, just one or two simple spells might completely deplete their internal Magic Elements.

Unless it was a life-or-death situation, most Mages wouldn’t fight this way.

By using chants to create resonance between their internal Magic Elements and those in the air, they would only consume a small amount of Magic Elements each time, allowing them to cast more Magic.

Not every Mage could store Magic Elements in their body in such a rapacious manner, like a Time Traveler.

…

‘It’s convenient to use, but the power is a bit weak, and unlike Spiritual Qi, it doesn’t enhance my physical constitution.’ Li Ye concluded after trying out the Magic of each element one by one.

But regardless, he had found a new way to fight and no longer had to worry about his Spiritual Power running out.

Having ‘changed his class’ to a Mage, Li Ye didn’t linger in the empty village. He used the Wind Element to lift his body and flew in the direction of the stench of corpses.

He needed to find living people and figure out what on earth had happened to this country.

…

All the villages and towns along the way had been slaughtered. Just like the previous village, there wasn’t a single living person, not even a corpse left behind.

Li Ye’s frown deepened.

‘What is going on?’

‘Are they really leaving nothing behind, not even a blade of grass? So thorough they’d scramble the eggs in their shells?’

After flying for more than two hundred li, he saw a patch of black clouds obscuring the entire sky in the distance.

Beneath the black clouds was a dense fog that blocked his Divine Sense, preventing him from seeing what was inside.

After a moment’s hesitation, Li Ye covered himself in a shield made of the Earth Element and plunged headfirst into the mist.

A cold, sinister aura instantly corroded his body.

Inside the mist were densely packed corpses—men and women, old and young. They wore ragged clothes, their ashen faces devoid of expression. Rotting flesh hung from their bodies, and their wounds were teeming with maggots.

Some corpses had lost all their flesh, leaving only skeletons standing in place, with ghostly blue flames flickering in their eye sockets.

The putrid stench was emanating from them.

When Li Ye appeared, thousands upon thousands of corpses simultaneously turned their stiff necks, their deathly pale eyes locking onto him.

Then, the dense horde of zombies swarmed toward him, a guttural rattling sound coming from their throats, as if they had just spotted a delicious meal…

Holy shit!

An Undead Calamity!

Li Ye’s eyes widened.

He was floating in the air. These zombies couldn’t fly, so even if they rushed to the spot beneath his feet, they couldn’t reach him.

But the zombies still surged forward relentlessly.

Some zombies climbed on top of their companions, quickly forming a mountain of bodies. The ones behind scrambled up the corpse mountain, trying to grab Li Ye and tear a piece of flesh from his body.

‘No wonder those villages were empty. So they were all turned into zombies…’

His Harmonization Realm Divine Sense was blocked by the mist, but the mist couldn’t block his perception of Demon Qi.

Li Ye could clearly sense that for a ten-li radius ahead, the area was densely packed with these corpses, seemingly without end.

He swallowed subconsciously. ‘Just how many people had to die for this?!’

Sensing the commotion among the zombies, a flying creature began to approach Li Ye rapidly. Without a moment’s hesitation, Li Ye turned and fled. He was alone and had no desire to clash head-on with this undead horde of unknown size.

His Spiritual Power was limited.

Besides, even if he killed this entire swarm of corpses, it wouldn’t do him any good.