Chapter 229 - 228: Chapel

Chapter 229: Chapter 228: Chapel

After Gu Su set a course in the Map Room, the entire Graveyard Demon began to move.

It wasn’t a violent, sudden movement, but a low rumble that emanated from deep underground, as if something had just rolled over in its sleep.

The stone spheres beneath its foundation started to roll, a dense mass of them grinding against each other with a thunderous RUMBLE.

A crimson mucus, dyed dark red by Dragon Blood, flowed between the spheres, coating each one in a slick, viscous layer that allowed them to roll without any friction.

In the cockpit, two Walking Dead drivers sat upright in the pilot and co-pilot seats, their four withered hands resting on the coarse levers.

Alice’s voice emerged from the Communication Puppet, unhurried and steady, issuing one command after another. "Turn fifteen degrees left... Decelerate... Depression ahead, go around it..."

The hands of the Walking Dead moved on the levers, and the Graveyard Demon glided slowly across the desolate landscape, following Alice’s guidance.

To call it gliding was an understatement; it was more like a relentless crushing.

After several expansions through consumption, the Graveyard Demon had grown immense and formidable. Its form was stocky and ponderous, yet it radiated an intense, intimidating presence. Narrow country roads could no longer accommodate its passage, let alone this desolate land that had been abandoned for years.

Former farmlands were now completely overrun by waist-high weeds. Thick shrubs and gnarled, withered trees grew wantonly, their branches and vines tangled into an impassable, interlocking mass. They had almost completely obscured the original paths, leaving behind only a sea of desolate green and decaying remnants. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but bleakness.

Alice, however, gave this no second thought. In her operational logic, as long as an obstacle wouldn’t cause the Graveyard Demon to sink into soft mire or otherwise impede its overall progress, there was no need to waste time circumventing it.

It was like an ordinary person driving a car, never bothering to worry if a small blade of grass poking through a crack in the pavement might be crushed by the tires.

Alice possessed this same purely functional mindset. In her view, the trees, shrubs, and weeds ahead were nothing more than insignificant obstructions. There was no need for hesitation; she could simply flatten them and move on.

And so the Graveyard Demon plowed straight through. Saplings as thick as a bowl were uprooted and pushed over. Their trunks snapped with a CRACK-CRACK-CRACK under the walls. Splintered wood and broken branches were sucked between the stone spheres and churned into the soil.

Bushes were flattened, and wild grasses were ground into the dirt. Roots that had grown for who knew how many years were unearthed, only to be pulverized by the stone spheres.

In its wake, the Graveyard Demon left a wide path of freshly turned earth—dark, black, and damp. Broken branches and shredded leaves were piled messily on either side.

Those shattered trees could have been used for Wood.

The trees in the Withered Wood Forest, after growing for so long, only produced one piece of Wood per hour. This path of destruction had wasted at least several dozen of them. Standing on the wall looking down, Gu Su felt a pang of regret but said nothing.

The Graveyard Demon had to pass through, and a path had to be cleared. He couldn’t take a long detour just for a few pieces of Wood.

They covered the distance of over a thousand meters in a little more than half an hour.

When the Graveyard Demon came to a halt, Xi Yue and her group emerged from the Doomsday Tavern. The five of them had mostly recovered from their injuries. They wore new robes and their weapons had been polished, showing no trace of the sorry state they were in just half a day ago.

Xi Yue looked up at the silhouette of the small chapel in the distance, then back at Gu Su, giving him a nod.

"We’re heading out now."

"Jin Chang is still waiting."

Gu Su didn’t say much, just nodded.

Xi Yue led the four other players around the walls of the Graveyard Demon, heading back along the freshly carved path.

After a few steps, Xi Yue glanced back, waved at Gu Su, then turned away. The five of them quickly disappeared into the shadows of the forest.

Gu Su withdrew his gaze and looked at the small chapel before him.

Though it was called a chapel, it barely resembled one anymore.

Most of the walls had collapsed. Only a single section remained relatively intact, standing alone and covered in withered vines.

Shards of colored glass littered the ground, glinting from within the weeds—purple, blue, and dark red, scattered here and there like a box of ancient paints someone had knocked over.

The altar was still there, leaning against a half-burnt wooden beam. Its surface was covered with a thick layer of dead leaves, and its corners were overgrown with gleaming, damp, green moss.

The chapel’s steeple was long gone, leaving only a few crooked rafters jutting into the sky like finger bones.

The cemetery behind the small chapel was the epitome of desolation. Waist-deep weeds grew in a frenzy, their vines strangling the dilapidated, mottled gravestones, whose inscriptions had long been eroded into illegibility by wind and rain.

Some had even cracked and toppled over, lying scattered among the weeds, a testament to the ravages of time and decay.

Many Tombstones had been weathered by the elements or disturbed by external forces, the earth around them scattered, revealing incomplete fragments of coffins below. The decaying wood exuded a heavy, musty odor, which mingled with the uniquely dense Death Qi of the cemetery, creating a chilling atmosphere.

Standing there, he could clearly feel the suffocatingly dense Death Qi and Yin Qi lingering over the cemetery. It was several times thicker than at the manor he had previously consumed, so dense it was almost tangible, washing over him in a wave that sent a chill down his spine. This was the Graveyard Demon’s most coveted source of energy.

Gu Su understood instantly. ’Compared to the previous manor, which was primarily for growing Tibia-thinning Grass and had sparse Death Qi, this abandoned chapel and its cemetery are the Graveyard Demon’s favorite kind of environment to devour.’

’Devouring the land from the manor came with a penalty. Swallow a hundred square meters, and you might only get eighty.’

’But a cemetery is different. However large this cemetery is, that’s how much I’ll get when I devour it. Not a single meter will be lost.’

’And these Tombstones, every single one of them, are prime material for the Graveyard. They’re far better than the scraps of skin and rotten flesh I painstakingly collected from the manor.’

Gu Su waved his hand, and countless blood-red strands of Corroding Mycelium surged from the cracks in the Graveyard Demon’s undercarriage. Like nimble tentacles, they spread toward the abandoned chapel and cemetery, entangling and enveloping everything in their path—weeds, ruined walls, and dead leaves—slowly devouring them completely.

But just as the Corroding Mycelium shot out, in the instant before it touched the chapel, Gu Su keenly sensed something amiss. A flicker of movement in his peripheral vision caught his eye. Something was madly sprinting toward them from the direction the Graveyard Demon had come. It was incredibly fast, sending broken branches and dead leaves flying in its wake.

Gu Su turned his head and looked back in the direction the Graveyard Demon had traveled.

The path carved out by the Graveyard Demon stretched from its base all the way to the distant forest.

At the far end of the path, something was running toward them. It was quite large, and its charge kicked up so much dust that it obscured half the road.

As the thing drew closer, Gu Su could finally see it clearly. It was a wild boar the size of a small hill.