Chapter 217 : The Calamity Corpse Demon and Jia Xu Awakens!
Chapter 217: The Calamity Corpse Demon and Jia Xu Awakens!
Facing more and more Azure Dragon Guards, Gan Ning no longer had much room to counterattack.
He could only passively defend.
The situation was clearly becoming increasingly unfavorable for him.
The human Lord had not even entered the battlefield, yet they were already this passive.
The operation had clearly failed.
This human territory was far stronger than expected.
If they continued fighting, they were very likely to be wiped out.
The Lord behind Gan Ning had clearly realized this as well.
The Lord’s Secret Attendant Acolyte suddenly transmitted a mental message.
Only they could hear the telepathic voice.
“Abandon the operation.”
“Retreat!”
The Secret Attendant Acolyte, whose entire body was tightly wrapped in black robes, suddenly raised his staff and stabbed it into his own body.
Immediately afterward, dense and highly corrosive poisonous mist poured out from within him.
In the blink of an eye,
the poisonous mist covered several dozen meters around them.
Although this attack did not distinguish between friend and foe,
the Bone Skeleton race was immune to this poison.
Gan Ning took the opportunity to activate his Shadow Instant Movement technique.
He escaped from the encirclement of the Eight Azure Dragon Guards.
“Go!”
Gan Ning ignored the other companions.
After flashing beside Su Fei,
he struck his two battle sabers together.
The shadow force field released in that instant enveloped both of them.
The next moment,
they vanished.
When Zhang Zhongjing saw Gan Ning and Su Fei disappear into thin air,
he hurriedly shouted to the Azure Dragon Guards,
“Not good! The thieves have escaped! Pursue them at once!”
Zhang San, Li Si, and the other Azure Dragon Guards immediately scattered in all directions.
They attempted to locate the traces of Gan Ning’s escape.
However, they discovered that no aura remained anywhere in Luoshui City.
“Hm?”
Inside the Core Hall,
Hang Yu noticed that the auras of Gan Ning and Su Fei had suddenly vanished from Luoshui City.
This was not ordinary shadow stealth.
Without hesitation, he immediately took action.
High above Luoshui City, a majestic Thunderhorn Eagle was summoned.
Lightning coiled around its body.
It circled Luoshui City at astonishing speed.
Hang Yu quickly discovered some traces.
He waved the Teleportation Staff in his hand.
A portal instantly appeared.
He stepped into it and appeared in a forest over ten li away.
This was the place!
The aura of Gan Ning and the other undead remained here.
This meant Gan Ning’s group had once appeared at this location.
Hang Yu soon found a stone in the forest.
A rune-inscribed short halberd was embedded in the stone.
The runes on it were rapidly fading.
A faint trace of spatial energy lingered around it.
“A teleportation secret art?”
Hang Yu inferred the situation from the evidence.
Gan Ning’s abilities were mainly divided into two types.
The first type was shadow-based.
It mainly included Shadow March, which allowed group movement,
along with his extremely fast and unpredictable shadow movement and shadow blade techniques.
The second type appeared to involve spatial teleportation.
Before attacking Luoshui City,
he had first left a transfer point here.
That was this rune halberd.
It served as his escape route.
Once the mission succeeded,
or if danger arose and the mission failed,
Gan Ning could swiftly withdraw through fixed-point teleportation.
Although this ability could only be used in shadow form,
it was definitely not purely a shadow skill.
It was a spatial method usable under limited conditions.
The rune halberd was the marker.
After entering shadow form,
Gan Ning could teleport and jump between any locations marked by rune halberds.
Unless all markers were discovered in advance,
capturing him would be extremely difficult.
This was practically the Flying Thunder God Technique from animation.
And it was a Flying Thunder God Technique capable of carrying multiple people through spatial jumps at once.
With this technique as a fallback,
combined with Shadow March,
Gan Ning could launch a surprise attack with his troops and then retreat safely.
As expected of someone with first-rate Famous General aptitude.
Gan Ning truly had some ability.
In *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* and many historical legends,
Gan Ning’s battle records were extremely rich.
Among them, the most legendary and famous was the story of “raiding the camp with one hundred riders.”
This event occurred after Zhang Liao “shook Xiaoyao Ford with his might.”
At the time, Sun Quan had just suffered a crushing defeat at Hefei.
While regrouping his troops,
he suddenly heard that Cao Cao was leading a large army to reinforce the battlefield.
Sun Quan then sent the general Ling Cao with three thousand soldiers to stop them and blunt their momentum.
Ling Cao soon fell into a bitter battle.
The situation became extremely dangerous.
Gan Ning volunteered himself to Sun Quan.
He then led one hundred cavalry in a surprise attack on Cao Cao’s camp.
In the end, he not only dealt a heavy blow to Cao Cao’s army’s morale,
he also killed countless Cao soldiers.
Most importantly, he returned victorious without losing a single soldier.
This was one of Sun Quan’s rare glorious moments.
From then on, Sun Quan often told others,
“Mengde has Zhang Liao, and I have Gan Xingba. They are enough to rival each other.”
The abilities and methods of famous generals in the Abyssal Three Kingdoms were largely influenced by history and legend.
Gan Ning’s current performance truly made even Hang Yu look at him in a new light.
Fine.
This time, he was lucky.
In any case, Hang Yu’s side had not suffered any losses.
Gan Ning’s methods would only be useful against Hang Yu once.
He would never be able to surprise-attack the main city a second time.
Nor would he successfully escape a second time.
Hang Yu returned to the Lord Core Hall through the portal.
Although failing to eliminate Gan Ning in this battle was regrettable,
overall, the gains were still considerable.
In the Huangmei Hamlet direction,
under Zhou Cang and the Azure Dragon Guards’ leadership,
the Calamity Army successfully broke through the enemy stronghold without surprise.
They killed the enemy general Zhang Shuo,
along with eight or nine hundred Bone Skeletons.
The one thousand Calamity Army soldiers who charged into battle were nearly wiped out in the process.
Although these Calamity Army soldiers were not very high-level,
they still converted around 3.5 million Essence income for Hang Yu.
The Essence dropped by the enemy in this battle reached over six million.
About half of that Essence could not be collected by players in time.
In the end, it was all taken by Hang Yu through the relic pearl.
The total income from Huangmei Hamlet approached seven million.
In the Sanxiang Ancient City direction,
the battle was even more intense.
A total of fifteen hundred players had launched suicidal reinforcements.
Each player died at least twice on average.
They eliminated roughly fourteen or fifteen hundred enemy soldiers.
Hang Yu gained over nineteen million Essence from the players.
The scattered Essence collected from the battlefield reached 6.5 million.
The total income from Sanxiang Ancient City was around 25.5 million.
The combined income from the two battlefields was around 32 million.
Hang Yu took out 12 million as rewards for the players who participated in the operation.
This was more than enough to compensate them several times over for the Essence they lost through death.
Together with the abundant Essence collected from loot,
many players leveled up because of this.
The territory gained nearly one hundred more Tier-Two players,
as well as at least seven Tier-Three players.
Hang Yu pocketed 20 million Essence.
The territory’s stored Essence had been used quite quickly recently.
This newly acquired Essence could replenish the reserves.
Besides the abundant Essence income,
the Bone Skeletons also dropped extremely generous amounts of Magic Crystals.
Each Tier-One Bone Skeleton could drop 20 Magic Crystals.
Tier-Two Bone Skeletons started at 40 Magic Crystals each.
The main forces stationed at Huangmei Hamlet and attacking Sanxiang Ancient City were generally Tier-Two skeletons above Level 11.
The largest portion ranged between Levels 12 and 15.
Some elite units even reached Level 16 or higher.
Although most of these drops had not yet reached Hang Yu’s hands,
he could roughly calculate that this battle had contributed at least over eighty thousand Magic Crystals to the territory.
Hang Yu currently lacked Magic Crystals.
The territory’s investment in recruitment and construction was already tight.
From a long-term perspective, there was an even larger funding gap.
Besides Magic Crystal income,
the territory also acquired over three thousand pieces of equipment.
Although they were Bone Skeleton-exclusive,
they could be modified for human use.
As for items with poor attributes or insufficient quality,
they could be sold,
or disassembled into equipment essence needed to repair gear.
This was also a consumable resource the territory badly needed to replenish.
Thus, the first clash of the Lord War came to an end.
Although Hang Yu was the initial defender in this Lord War,
the enemy’s first operation had ended in complete failure.
After this battle,
the Sanxiang Ancient City defenders suffered only minor losses.
Most Sanxiang defenders had remained on the walls or arrow towers firing arrows.
From beginning to end, the ones charging forward into close combat were the Calamity Army.
Because of this, the players suffered most of the casualties.
Yet the immortal Calamity Army did not suffer true losses.
Overall, the war caused extremely little damage and produced enormous gains.
These gains were not limited to loot such as Essence, Magic Crystals, and equipment.
Hang Yu had also successfully destroyed over two thousand of the enemy’s active troops.
He had also obtained intelligence on many major Bone Skeleton generals, including Gan Ning.
This would be highly beneficial for future operations.
By contrast, the enemy had not only failed in their surprise attack,
they had also lost a large number of combat troops.
They had gained nothing.
Throughout the entire process, they never managed to force Hang Yu to reveal himself.
They obtained no information about his strength or abilities.
This meant they had no way to formulate targeted plans against this human Lord.
As for Hang Yu,
there were certainly regrets.
For example, Gan Ning had escaped.
However, the battle in the main city had not been fruitless.
Of Gan Ning’s ten-man strike team, only two escaped.
The other eight remained forever.
Among them was a Secret Attendant Acolyte.
This further exposed important information.
“It’s a Calamity Corpse Demon!”
After seeing the Secret Attendant Acolyte,
Hang Yu determined that this was a race known as the Calamity Corpse Demon.
Calamity Corpse Demons belonged to a type of Corpse Demon within the undead races.
Undead races were a major group among the Stars.
They were primarily divided into four major branches: Bone Race, Corpse Race, Blood Race, and Soul Race.
The Bone Race included the various Bonefolk groups.
The Blood Race consisted of vampires and similar beings.
The Soul Race referred to ghostlike spirit races.
As for the Corpse Race,
the name suggested its nature.
It included various zombies and demonic corpses.
Its traits included many body-enhancing and recovery talents.
It also possessed high resistance to soul-based and mental attacks.
Corpse Demons were one of the stronger types within the Corpse Race.
Calamity Corpse Demons were a branch of Corpse Demons.
They were also known as the Corpse Shaman Race.
They not only possessed powerful bodies,
but also top-tier spellcasting talent among Corpse Demons.
They were naturally skilled in many strange and tricky spells.
This Calamity Corpse Demon Lord had deliberately exposed his Bone Skeleton Legion before Hang Yu.
In truth, he had intended to carry out strategic deception.
He wanted Hang Yu to underestimate him.
After all,
a lower race only slightly stronger than humans was one thing.
A Calamity Corpse Demon was far more troublesome to deal with.
Nothing else needed to be said.
Just their follower units alone were already Level 10 at minimum from the moment they were summoned.
They could even directly summon Level 11 Tier-Two units.
Not only did these units possess Tier-Two combat power,
they also possessed multiple racial talents and innate skills.
Their initial attributes and combat power were quite impressive.
As for why a Corpse Demon Lord possessed so many Bone Skeleton followers?
This was one characteristic of undead Star Lords.
Higher-level undead Lords could naturally create lower-level undead races as followers.
As for how the Corpse Demon could create Bone Skeleton Legions on such a large scale,
he most likely possessed a Starsea building capable of transforming natives into skeletons.
Although the Corpse Demon Lord controlled only three maps,
the quality of those maps was rather high.
At the very least, they contained abundant population resources.
Otherwise, the Corpse Demon Lord could not have built a Bone Skeleton Legion of this scale.
Although Calamity Corpse Demons were rather difficult to handle,
Hang Yu had complete confidence in his territory and troops.
The stronger the enemy,
the more powerful the talent he could seize.
The larger the enemy army,
the more loot he could obtain.
As Hang Yu summarized his gains and experience,
and began a new round of adjustments and planning for the territory and military deployment,
a sudden message came from New Wan.
Jia Xu had temporarily awakened from his coma!
This was truly good news!
Hang Yu thirsted for talent.
The territory was growing larger.
He needed civil officials and strategists like Jia Xu.
Most importantly,
Jia Xu’s talents, methods, and the Extreme Yin secret arts he had comprehended also seemed to belong to the shadow and undead systems.
If he could be used against the threat of the Calamity Corpse Demon,
things would undoubtedly become much easier.
Furthermore, this ancient Poison Scholar possessed astonishing strength and future potential.
He was absolutely not as simple as an ordinary Overlord Unit!
Hang Yu immediately issued an order.
He summoned Zhang Zhongjing.
“This old man was incompetent, allowing the enemy leader in the main city to escape.”
“Divine Physician Zhang, there is no need to blame yourself.”
“Resisting external enemies was never your duty to begin with.”
“Moreover, Gan Ning’s methods are indeed extraordinary.”
“Even if I had personally acted, I might not have been able to stop him from escaping without prior preparation.”
This was the truth.
With Hang Yu’s current strength,
even Zhang Xiu in his Defiled Infant state could be easily defeated within several rounds.
In terms of combat power,
Gan Ning was inferior to Defiled Infant Zhang Xiu.
However,
Gan Ning’s shadow movement technique was more flexible.
His shadow teleportation ability was also an excellent life-saving skill.
The first time Hang Yu fought him without intelligence on his abilities,
he could certainly defeat him with overwhelming strength.
But if Hang Yu was careless even for a moment,
Gan Ning could still easily escape.
The same applied even more to Zhang Zhongjing and the Azure Dragon Guards.
“Yin Jia Xu has awakened.”
“Old Divine Physician, come with me.”
Zhang Zhongjing had been gloomy because Gan Ning escaped.
Although he was only a physician and alchemist,
the Lord had granted him so many favors and rewards recently.
He constantly felt ashamed and unable to repay them.
Aside from daily research into pills and alchemy,
he had finally gained a chance to earn merit today.
Yet he had allowed the most dangerous enemy leader to escape.
This truly made him feel unworthy of the Lord’s great kindness.
“What? Mister Jia has awakened!”
Zhang Zhongjing immediately brightened.
He had known Jia Xu for many years.
He deeply understood Jia Xu’s wisdom and methods.
If Mister Jia could be cured and brought into the territory,
that would also be a great achievement.
Hang Yu recalled Zhou Cang to protect the main city.
Wen Pin continued guarding Sanxiang Ancient City.
Then Hang Yu brought Zhang Zhongjing and teleported to New Wan.
The preliminary clash between the two territories had ended.
At least for the next day or two,
the Corpse Shaman Lord was unlikely to launch another large-scale operation.
Hang Yu wanted to use this time to resolve Jia Xu’s problem and officially absorb him and the Extreme Yin Sect into the territory.
This would prepare the territory for the next confrontation.
……
At the same time,
after the operation failed,
the Skeleton Generals reorganized the remaining Bone Skeleton Legion and withdrew to their territory.
When Gan Ning, Huang Zu, and the other Bone Skeleton generals sensed the Lord’s summons,
they teleported several times through Blessing Points.
Eventually, they returned to their own main city.
This Calamity Corpse Demon territory’s main city was named Netherblood City.
The entire city possessed a unique and distinctive style.
First, the area where the city stood was covered by a chaotic lightless energy field.
The only sources of light came from the ghostly flames attached to various buildings.
Netherblood City’s color palette was extremely cold.
The entire city consisted of gray, white, and black.
Its architectural style somewhat resembled Gothic architecture on Earth.
Tall spires,
massive tombstones,
pale bone towers,
ashen vines,
and desolate graveyards formed everything here.
This was a common city style among undead Lords.
Netherblood City had been founded fifteen years ago.
This meant that this Calamity Corpse Demon had operated in the Abyssal World for at least fifteen years.
Taking fifteen years to develop to the fourth map was considered relatively fast for a lower race.
However, for a Calamity Corpse Demon,
this speed was undoubtedly rather slow.
This was definitely not because the Corpse Demon Lord was incompetent.
In truth, the Corpse Demon Lord ruling this city was an existence with considerable skill and background.
He had deliberately slowed his expansion to strengthen his territory’s foundation and reduce risk.
Because every new map was full of unknowns.
The faster a territory developed,
and the faster its Lord’s strength increased,
the greater the probability of triggering or being targeted by Lord Wars.
During the more than ten years he had ruled the territory,
this Corpse Demon Lord had patiently cultivated and polished his territory little by little.
He gradually assimilated and devoured the foreign native races under his rule.
In the end,
besides his own Corpse Demon Legion,
he had forcefully accumulated a fairly large Bone Skeleton Legion.
However, once his strength reached a certain point,
what was meant to come would always come.
Lord War was still unavoidable.
What delighted the Corpse Demon Lord was that
the opponent he faced was human.
In this Abyssal Plane,
such a weak race as humans had somehow survived.
How was this different from being handed victory for free?
Even so, the Corpse Demon Lord remained cautious.
He concealed his true forces.
He used only the subordinate Bone Skeleton Legion.
He formulated a decapitation strategy,
attempting to end the war at minimal cost.
However,
what happened was unbelievable.
The operation ended in failure.
Although the enemy was a human Lord,
this human Lord’s territory was unexpectedly powerful.
Gan Ning, Huang Zu, and the other Skeleton Generals walked across the cold, rotten ground of Netherblood City.
At the center of countless undead buildings radiating Starsea aura,
stood a gigantic four-sided pyramid.
The black pyramid was two hundred meters tall.
At the top was a hollow platform.
Only a single stone staircase led to the lower levels.
The staircase was extremely wide.
On both sides, every ten steps, there stood a pair of soul lamps burning with ghostly flames.
Beside every soul lamp stood a Secret Attendant Acolyte in black robes, radiating a mysterious aura.
Organized Corpse Demon Legions surrounded the enormous black pyramid.
On the broad platform at the top stood more than a dozen high-ranking Corpse Demon figures.
At the very center, upon the throne at the pyramid’s peak, sat the Lord.
“We greet the Lord!”
Gan Ning and Huang Zu knelt on one knee.
They saluted the Corpse Demon Lord above them.
Before the Corpse Demon Lord could speak,
a burly Corpse Demon General beneath him could not help cursing.
“Hmph! Useless things!”
“How do you still have the face to return before the Lord?”
Another Corpse Demon General also rebuked them.
“You couldn't even deal with a human Lord.”
“You also lost so many troops.”
“The Lord wasted so much Essence and resources cultivating you for years!”
Under the accusations of the senior figures,
the Bone Skeletons lowered their heads.
Huang Zu immediately said in a deep voice,
“This subordinate did his best.”
“The battle at Sanxiang Ancient City was extremely intense throughout.”
“The reason this operation failed was entirely because Gan Ning’s surprise attack was unsuccessful!”
Gan Ning was not someone who would swallow such criticism.
The moment he heard this,
he immediately snapped,
“Bullshit!”
“Sanxiang Ancient City did not exert enough pressure at all!”
“Not only did you fail to lure the Lord onto the battlefield,”
“there were also large numbers of powerful elites stationed in the main city.”
“That was the direct reason this operation failed!”
Huang Zu and Gan Ning were not on good terms.
The two began arguing immediately.
“Enough!”
A majestic voice rang out from the throne at the pyramid’s peak.
It was the master of Netherblood City and the Corpse Demon Territory.
Huang Zu, Gan Ning, and the high-ranking Corpse Demons all fell silent.
The Calamity Corpse Demon Lord slowly said,
“I saw everything.”
“The failure of this battle was not the fault of the Bone Skeleton Legion.”
“It was because we underestimated the foundation and strength of this human territory.”
A Corpse Demon Archmage serving before the throne asked in confusion,
“How could a human Lord possess such strength and foundation?”
“There must be secrets we do not know.”
The Corpse Demon Lord calmly said,
“Humans are weak.”
“But they possess certain special advantages that other races cannot match.”
The Corpse Demon generals present fell into thought.
Although this Abyssal Plane was extremely difficult to develop,
its native race consisted solely of humans.
This seemed to give a human Lord an advantage.
In this battle, the human Lord never appeared.
Whether it was the counterattack on Huangmei Hamlet,
the defense of Sanxiang Ancient City,
or the resistance against Gan Ning’s assassination attempt,
all of it had been done by local experts recruited by the human Lord.
Zhou Cang.
Wen Pin.
Zhang Zhongjing.
None of them were simple characters.
Based on various clues,
the Corpse Demon Lord inferred that this human territory might not have been established longer than his own.
Yet it had developed such a solid foundation.
This clearly meant it had gained the assistance and support of local natives.
That was an advantage other alien Lords found extremely difficult to obtain.
The reason the Corpse Demon Lord had been able to recruit Gan Ning and Huang Zu
was that he had exploited their desperate circumstances.
Through a series of schemes, temptations, and manipulations,
he had finally achieved that result.
Of course,
besides suspecting that the human Lord had gotten lucky and become a target of native support and loyalty,
the Corpse Demon Lord also realized that this human Lord possessed some unusual abilities.
Through battlefield observation,
he discovered that the reinforcements at Sanxiang Ancient City seemed to possess strange immortal characteristics.
After human followers were killed,
they did not drop loot.
There even appeared to be signs of resurrection after death.
This phenomenon was extremely strange.
He did not yet know the cause.
More careful observation and testing were necessary.
The Bone Skeleton Legion had suffered heavy losses in this campaign.
However, the Bone Skeleton Legion accounted for at most one-third of the territory’s total military strength.
The Corpse Demon Lord had not committed all his forces.
As for the destroyed skeletons?
They were merely consumables of the territory.
The Corpse Demon Lord still stored large amounts of raw material in his territory.
He could continue consuming these native raw materials to produce more Bone Skeletons.
“This setback means nothing.”
“Most Lord Wars require long and repeated struggles before victory is decided.”
The Corpse Demon Lord maintained a good mentality and did not fly into a rage.
“Although this human territory is stronger than expected, humans can never become a true threat to us.”
“They are merely stepping stones for this Lord’s further advancement.”
Indeed.
The other Calamity Corpse Demons nodded.
Although this human had obtained the aid of several powerful natives,
and although he was abnormally cautious,
allowing him to luckily avoid this attack,
the racial gap between ordinary humans and Calamity Corpse Demons could not be bridged by such small advantages.
Among the basic units summoned by Calamity Corpse Demons,
some were naturally Tier Two from birth.
They could immediately form considerable combat power.
As long as Magic Crystals existed,
and as long as the territory’s population capacity was sufficient,
they could exhaust the humans through attrition alone.
After all,
for humans to train initial units to Tier Two,
and give them skill systems sufficient for combat,
required tremendous time and cost.
…………
At this moment,
in the real world.
At the hotel hosting the Calamity Army’s offline event.
The players had suddenly logged in halfway through the event.
Over ten hours had passed since then.
Not a single player had logged out.
Zhou Zhengming had also learned what had happened in the game world through online leaks.
“That was too dangerous!”
“I never expected this Star Lord to be so cunning!”
When Zhou Zhengming learned that Skeleton Gan Ning, an Overlord Unit, had almost infiltrated the Lord’s Castle to assassinate the Lord,
he was badly startled.
Although Zhou Zhengming felt the Lord probably would not be successfully assassinated,
the fact that an assassin could approach him at all was alarming.
After all, one had to guard against every possibility.
If anything happened to the Lord,
everything would be over!
No one knew what would happen or what consequences would follow.
Fortunately,
the territory had left behind a far stronger-than-expected Azure Dragon Guard force.
Divine Physician Zhang Zhongjing had also eliminated the threat in time.
After seeing that the territory’s current strength and foundation were stronger than imagined,
Zhou Zhengming finally relaxed completely.
Just as he opened the forum to check more leaks,
hoping to understand the cause, process, and details of the incident—
“Director Zhou!”
Feng Ying came to his side.
Zhou Zhengming asked,
“What is it?”
“Did Academician Xia’s side discover something?”
Feng Ying nodded solemnly.
“Academician Xia’s team has completed scans on this batch of veteran players.”
“The final conclusion is...”
“An unimaginable amount of potential and power is accumulating inside their bodies!”
“What does that mean?”
“Although players have already noticed that playing the game improves their physiques, physical strength, and health,”
“according to the analysis, what is currently manifesting is only an extremely small portion.”
Zhou Zhengming asked,
“Academician Xia means...”
“These Calamity Army members might already be latent superhumans?”
Feng Ying nodded.
“Although we previously speculated that certain situations might occur,”
“based on the data and signs collected so far, the critical point for this major event may arrive earlier than expected.”