The Great Worm Lich

Zhang Lisheng watched the Gate of Witchcraft’s disciple stagger out of his sight from the corner of his eyes and could not help but smirk.

Even though there were distinctions between the different ranks of the Gate of Witchcraft’s disciples, it would only be asking for a snub to use such an unimportant matter as being insulted by a lower-ranking disciple to disturb the elders and Deacons at such a special time.

Moreover, once such a matter was made public, the Gate of Witchcraft’s disciple would also lose his dignity. For this reason, after having overcome with grief and indignation for a while, he would most likely just silently swallow the bitter fruit and pretend that nothing happened.

The young man understood this a long time ago so after showering and washing his clothes calmly, he transformed and used the wyrmdragon’s power to transform the water contained in the wet clothes into water vapor, before putting on the clean and refreshed dry denim onto himself and slowly walking out of the bathroom.

Sure enough, the Gate of Witchcraft’s disciple, who had been frightened by Zhang Lisheng’s retaliating torture, was still in the tent. Upon seeing Zhang Lisheng show up, he shuddered and respectfully cupped his hands together in front of his chest before ingratiating himself to the young man. “Junior Brother, which bed do you want to sleep on? I’ll make the bed for you.”

“I’ll sleep at this one outside.” Zhang Lisheng smiled and walked to the wire bed near the camp curtain before spreading the mattress on the bed and laying a sleeping mat on it. “It’s alright. I have both hands and feet so there’s no need for you to help me, Senior Brother.”

Upon seeing the young man’s amiable attitude, the Gate of Witchcraft’s disciple secretly sighed a relief and lowered his gaze to cup both hands in front of his chest to perform an ancient greeting. “Sure, Junior Brother. I’ll go wash up then. Oh yeah that’s right, my name is Pei Youliang, you can just call me Youliang when we’re alone.”

Turning around, he entered the bathroom.

Zhang Lisheng shook his head and smiled. Pondering about it, since he had already revealed his strength, there was nothing that he needed to worry any more. He sat on the iron bed and started to cultivate his secret method for the first time in the past two months.

In an instant, black mist gradually condensed behind the young man, silently lingering in the tent.

After a while, Pei Youliang ,who had finished showering, came out of the bathroom with his head lowered and a smile on his face. He bent over the wire bed in the camp to make the bed and muttered, “Junior Brother, I’ll sleep in this bed then…”

Raising his head, he abruptly saw the black fog spreading out from behind the young man.

At that instant, Pei Youliang’s eyes shrunk to the size of a needle tip. The wizard power in his body went out of control at once, forcing the blood in his body to be squeezed out of the pores. As though he was suffocating, his face was flushed with his mouth open wide. No matter how he wanted to avert his gaze, he realized that his body had completely become frozen and could not move at all.

He could clearly feel that blood was oozing out of his skin more and more as the sound of water dripping on the ground slowly reverberated in his ears. Pei Youliang, who had become like a bloody person, gradually felt despair and right at this moment, Zhang Lisheng suddenly opened his eyes, prompting the black mist behind him to disappear without a trace.

After a few seconds, the curtain of the camp was opened by somebody. The odd-job soldier, who brought Zhang Lisheng and Pei Youliang into this tent, entered with his arms swaying beside him. Then, after standing up and saluting, he said, “Senior Officer, Battalion Commander Liu has arranged an extra meal for you. Do you and your tent-mate prefer to go to the cafeteria to eat or should I send the food here?”

“We have an extra meal and can even ask for the food to be sent here?” Zhang Lisheng was stunned. “In that case, please send the food here. Thanks, Brother.”

“Ah no, Senior Officer, I’m called Wang Liansheng. Just call me Little Wang will do. From now on, I’ll be in charge of the food arrangement and public duty of the two of you. Senior Officer, if you have any clothes that you would like to wash, just hand it over to me.” The odd-job soldier flashed a full mouth of white teeth. “I’ll go take your food first, see you, Senior Officers!”

Then, he saluted again and turned around, before swinging his arm habitually beside him as he left the tent.

Watching the disappearing soldier’s back, Zhang Lisheng, who was suddenly treated with preferential treatment, pondered for a while. As a strange expression appeared on his face, he murmured, “The meal yesterday was just some watery and tasteless soup and nobody even bothered asking anything at all. Just now, they were still calling me by the title ‘comrade’ but now they’ve suddenly upgraded me to become Senior Officer? When somebody humbles himself before you, he must have some request to make of you! I can’t believe that these soldiers are so realistic. This doesn’t look good. This doesn’t look good…”

As he was murmuring, he slowly shook his head and unintentionally caught sight of Pei Youliang climbing up from beside the wire bed placed at the inner side of the camp with his entire face covered by the bed.

“Senior Brother Pei, what happened? Why did you fall so badly until you’re completely covered by the bed?” the young man chuckled and asked.

“Y-Yes. I-I accidentally fell. I-I accidentally… erm, fell on my head and b-broke my nose a-and became covered in blood. I-I’ll go wash up again. I’ll g-go wash up…” Pei Youliang, who had escaped a catastrophe by luck, snapped back to reality. Recalling the horrifying experience just now, he no longer dared to look at Zhang Lisheng. With his teeth chattering and body trembling, he stuttered in his reply and quickly rushed, and almost tumbled, to the bathroom.

Pei Youliang was acting out of the ordinary but Zhang Lisheng, whose mind was full of thoughts, did not bother to care about such an ‘ant’-like person like him now.

After waiting for a while, the young man saw the odd-job soldier named Wang Liansheng carry two aluminum food containers into the tent. After placing the food containers on the bedside table of two wire beds carefully, he saluted the young man and said, “Senior Officer, your rice and soup are here. After you’ve finished eating it, just place it outside of the tent and I’ll wash it.”

“Thank you, Brother Wang!” Zhang Lisheng nodded in a hurry and hurriedly opened the lunch.

The aluminum food container had six levels and was more than one foot tall. After opening them up, he realized that the six flat-bottomed bowl contained tomato and egg soup, chili and shredded pork, moo shu pork and more. There were a total of four dishes, one soup, and one full bowl of fragrant rice.

Even though the soup and dishes were common home-cooked dishes, Zhang Lisheng could not help but feel his heart tighten when he remembered that he was in an undeveloped camp in the foreign world.

After finishing up the food silently, he threw the food container outside the tent, and proceeded to sit back on the wire bed while touching his stomach. Sighing, he muttered to himself, “I’d most likely have to risk my life after eating such a meal in this world. Looks like this Oasis World is much more dangerous than I thought…”

Closing his eyes, he activated the wizard power in his body to surge and began to start his secret cultivation method.

During cultivation, the time flowed past unknowingly. When Zhang Lisheng snapped back to reality again, it was already the evening.

When he opened his eyes and the mist on his back disappeared, he saw a tall and fat man named Qiu Jiannan, one of the four Gate of Witchcraft’s elite disciples who would always follow Su Deli, stride into the tent and shouted for no reason, “Junior Brother Pei, Disciple Zhang, Big Boss Su and two elders have called for a meeting!”

“Yes, Senior Brother Qiu!” The young man leapt down from the bed and glanced at Pei Youliang, who had buried himself, including his head, in a blanket on the iron wire bed beside him. After cupping his hands at Qiu Jiannan, he quickly left the camp.

The sun had already set outside. In the sky, two round moons, one left and one right, were slowly rising in two different space orbits. The air was fresh but had a slight bloody scent, with unknown rustling sounds constantly resonating from the dark jungle.

Taking a few deep breaths in the camp, Zhang Lisheng saw that the wizards were briskly heading towards a tent in the north to gather so he also followed suit quietly.

When he entered the tent, he found that the area inside was almost the same as his own but there was only one bed, which was already occupied by Su Deli. Not far away from the bed were two folding sofas that were seated by two Grand Wizards. The other Gate of Witchcraft’s disciples, on the other hand, were standing just like Zhang Lisheng.

After waiting for a while, the number of wizards that gathered increased but there were two to three who had yet to arrive. All of a sudden, with a glum expression, Su Deli looked at the two Grand Wizards and said, “Master Chen, Master Du, I can’t believe that there are still disciples who would still be so slow at this kind of time. Let us not wait any longer and get down to business right away.”

“Good idea!” Chen Guanxing and Du Shancha blurted the two words with a blank expression and no longer said anything more.

Su Deli turned his head to sweep a glance at all of the Gate of Witchcraft’s disciples in front of him and said, “Master Chen, Master Du and I have already had a meeting with Major Liu in the camp. We are tasked to become the vanguard, starting from three days later, to bring the researchers in the camp to mop up the north.”

This task did not sound difficult and since the living environment of the Oasis World’s camp was very comfortable, adding on the fact that they had three more days to rest, most of the wizards had a faint look of joy on their expressions. Only a few people among them had a grave expression.

“All of you must feel happy right? For you to have good meals, good accommodation, good services and are even well-respected here in the A0001 campsite, so you must feel very comfortable,” When Su Deli saw the delightful look on the Gate of Witchcraft’s disciples face, he smiled coldly and stated. “Then do any of you know why nobody gave a damn to us when we were in the Gannan campsite but are treated as VIP here instead?”

The crowds could hear the infinite anger in Su Deli’s tone. Not daring to answer, they lowered their heads but only Zhang Lisheng alone answered after pondering, “Deacon, I think the task assigned to us by the Major must be very dangerous. For this reason, he makes sure we’re well pampered here first before making us risk our lives out there for him.”

“Disciple Zhang, stop showing off that small wisdom of yours!” Su Deli glanced at the young man, shook his head, and replied in a low voice angrily. “The reason we’re well pampered here is not because we’re made to risk our lives but it’s because more than 300 disciples from the Three Gates of Witchcraft of Life, Death and Sacrifice have already had their lives sacrificed. Of the three Gates, our Gate of Death has suffered the most deaths, with a death toll of 137 people, which really fits the name of our ‘Gate of Death’ anyway…”

The Gate of Witchcraft had given out its utmost effort for this exploration of Oasis World and had only managed to bring together slightly over 5000 people. 300 over people was already equal to about 5% of their strength. curses would always come home to roost. Thinking about their own situation, many wizards exclaimed in surprise as their expressions turned grave.

“Looks like this Oasis World is even more dangerous than we think. It may seem very calm for now but in truth, our Gate of Witchcraft has already reached a life-or-death crisis. After Master Chen, Master Du and I have discussed among ourselves, we’ve decided to pass down several witchcraft methods that can be learned quickly so that all of us can have more measures in handling emergency during danger. It will help somehow even if we only start to prepare at the last moment,” Su Deli frowned as he stopped the cries of surprise and continued to add.

Usually, it would basically be an unexpected piece of good fortune for disciples below the B-rank to be able to obtain a spell passed down by a Grand Wizard but after they had obtained the reason behind this unexpected good fortune, the wizards in the tent could not even laugh at all.

Only Zhang Lisheng’s heart gave a jolt as he blurted out and asked, “Deacon, will Junior Uncle Chen’s Worm Nest Spell be passed down as well?”