Chapter 219 - 218: The Enemy Approaches

Chapter 219: Chapter 218: The Enemy Approaches

Gu Su closed the book and stood before the Deceitful Tree for a moment.

Roots arched out from the soil. Slender rootlets reached for the book’s spine and curled around it, gently dragging the Koba District Bedtime Story Collection beneath the earth.

The rootlets poked around where the book had disappeared, patting the disturbed soil flat before retracting and becoming motionless once more.

Gu Su turned away from the Deceitful Tree and walked toward the Map Room.

The Map Room was to the right of the Watchtower, separated from the control room by a corridor.

When it was first built, the room had contained only a Metal table salvaged from a spaceship and a damaged star chart. It was otherwise completely empty.

Walking inside now, it was a completely different sight.

The Metal table was still there, but a modified projector now sat on its surface.

It was a Star Chart Device salvaged from a spaceship. Tooth Bone had taken it apart and put it back together countless times, finally managing to extract the Navigation module and imaging system. He had jury-rigged it into a map projector capable of receiving reconnaissance data from the White Crows.

Several cables of varying thickness were connected to the projector. They ran up a table leg to the ceiling, then along the corner of the wall to the adjacent control room and the Watchtower overhead.

Crow’s Caw stood before the projector, its wings slightly spread, reporting the coordinates sent back by the White Crows in a grating voice that sounded like Bone Joints rubbing together.

After each set of coordinates was announced, the projector would hum and cast a pale Blue light above the table.

The light slowly coalesced into irregular shapes: small squares marking manors, small triangles marking hills, and so on. It was clear that the map was being drawn out in great detail.

Gu Su stood at the edge of the table, staring at the projection for a good while.

The manors were like stars in the sky.

The phrase from the book hadn’t meant much to him when he read it, but now, seeing the markers on the map with his own eyes, he finally understood.

The manor he occupied was just a tiny gray dot on the map, its outline only visible when magnified to the size of the tabletop.

And around this gray dot, within a fifty-kilometer radius, at least thirty more gray dots of similar size were densely clustered.

Some were far, others near. Some were huddled together, while others stood alone in the middle of the wasteland.

The edges of some gray dots were blurry, likely because the White Crows had flown too far for the signal to return clearly. Others were still sharp; when magnified, the outlines of their walls, buildings, and fields were visible.

More than thirty manors.

Each one was roughly the same size as the ruins beneath his feet. Each had once housed people who farmed the land, raised livestock, and filled the air with cooking smoke and laughter.

Now they were all empty. All had fallen to ruin, swallowed by the forest and wild grasses.

Gu Su stared at the gray dots for a while. ’So much for my little enterprise,’ he suddenly thought. ’It really doesn’t amount to much.’

’The Graveyard Demon has struggled for so long, desperately consuming and expanding, only to occupy this one small piece of land. A single one of those manors is about the same size as my entire territory, and there are more than thirty of them nearby.’

He took a deep breath, pushing the chaotic thoughts from his mind.

’Well, I’m a transmigrator. I’ve taken plenty of hits before, so what’s one more?’

’They are them, and I am me. Life goes on day by day, and the Graveyard Demon has to grow inch by inch. What’s the rush?’

"Crow’s Caw," he called out, raising his head toward the ceiling.

Crow’s Caw poked its head out from behind the projector, tilting its head to look at him.

"Have Bone Ash come here."

Crow’s Caw nodded, and with a flap of its wings, flew out the window.

A few minutes later, Bone Ash appeared at the entrance to the Map Room.

He had just returned from outside, still covered in dirt and grass from the manor. The small tools at his waist had been clinking and clanking the whole way.

"Go check the other manors," Gu Su said, pointing to the gray dots on the map. "Look for any other bedtime story books like this one.

If you find any, bring them all back."

Bone Ash asked no questions. He simply nodded, turned, and walked out.

He understood Gu Su’s intent. What had happened in this land, who had lived in those manors, what they believed in, what they feared, what they hid—it was all in those stories.

Finish the books, read the stories, and you’d have a decent grasp of this land’s secrets.

As for anything else... that might not be so easy to find.

’After all, it’s not like you could count on the old manor lords to have kept diaries, right?’

The sound of a pickup truck starting up came from outside, then quickly grew distant.

Gu Su had just stepped out of the Map Room when Alice’s voice came from the Communication Puppet.

"Sir, the monsters are massing. It’s very clear now.

You can see for yourself."

Gu Su strode to the top of the wall, resting his hands on the battlements as he looked out.

On the distant horizon, a dense black mass was moving this way.

It wasn’t one or two, nor was it dozens. It was a dense swarm, spread across the gray wasteland like a moving black blanket.

They were still too far away to make out clearly. All he could see were black shapes, surging forward slowly but relentlessly.

"Crow’s Caw," Gu Su said without turning his head. "Send word to Jin Chang and his people.

Tell them the Graveyard Demon is about to come under Attack. They should make a detour if they have business this way, and stay clear otherwise."

Crow’s Caw acknowledged the order. A few White Crows flew over from the direction of the Withered Wood Forest, circled once before him, and then sped off toward the entrance of the Inverted Tower.

Gu Su turned and shouted to those below, "Close the main gate! Retract the ramp!"

The Skeletons guarding the entrance stirred into action. The two large gates, welded together from sheets of iron, were slowly pushed shut. Their hinges let out a series of grating squeals before closing with a final, booming THUD.

The ramp at the entrance, which was made from a semi-trailer, was also rolled up by vines. It was dragged back beneath the wall and wedged horizontally against it. Vehicles coming and going through the Deployment Pods were unaffected, but the main entrance was now impassable.

Gu Su returned to his position on the wall, planting his hands on the battlements and staring at the approaching black mass in the distance.

As the things came into clearer view, he froze for a second.

Leading the charge was a group of rabbits.

These weren’t the small, fluffy rabbits that hopped and skipped through the grass. These were rabbits marching forward in square formations, ten to a group.

They were a full size larger than normal rabbits. Their grayish-white fur was matted to their bodies in clumps, revealing inflamed red skin beneath.

Their eyes were red, too—not a bright, crystalline red, but a murky, blood-soaked crimson.

They didn’t move like rabbits. They didn’t hop; they walked. They shuffled forward one step at a time, their four legs dragging stiffly along the ground as if they were goose-stepping.

Ten to a line, with two or three paces between each row. They were perfectly orderly, and utterly silent.

"Ten little rabbits." The nursery rhyme from the book immediately came to Gu Su’s mind. "Ten little rabbits went for a drink, one drank itself to death, leaving nine. Nine little rabbits went shopping late, one wandered off, leaving eight..."

A single glance at the front row confirmed it: there were exactly ten rabbits, no more, no less.

Behind them was another row, also ten. And behind that, another row.

Row after row of them, more than he could count, spread out densely across the wasteland, all marching toward the Graveyard Demon.

The tune of the nursery rhyme echoed again and again in his head.

Gu Su stared at the rabbits without moving. ’I’m curious,’ he thought, ’to see just what these things that have walked out of a story are planning to do.’