I Was Called A Demon

All of a sudden, the cold atmosphere around them felt significantly colder. Every single villager that had been walking past had their eyes fixed on them through the window, unblinking, cold… dead.

It was as if a massive marionette show was interrupted, its true nature revealed, while pissing off the one that had been painstakingly managing it. There was obvious killing intent radiating from those walking bodies, and it felt far more intense than aggression from non-cultivators ever should have done. As such, it was impossible for Bianca to simply relax and ignore them.

“So… We’re fucked, aren’t we.”

“Only insofar that you will not get to sleep in this village,” Long Shiyi confirmed, “In terms of cultivation realm, I don’t believe any of them would surpass the fourth realm, but… in terms of quantity alone, it might cause an issue.”

“Yaling, what’s the population of this place?”

“Why the fuck would I know?” the kitsune raised an eyebrow, “Somewhere around ten thousand, I believe.”

“And then you ask how you’d know.”

“It’s an estimate, you nymphomaniac,” she retorted, “It’s not as large as some of the cities, but- no, we shouldn’t be getting distracted at a moment like this. Look!”

Xue Yaling gestured towards the window, where the number of onlookers seemed to have doubled, but they also all got closer, their positions shifting, their bodies now turned in their direction and arms rising, as if in preparation to strike.

“Right… anyone remember the way out of this place?”

“I can navigate these streets well enough, though I’d prefer to be flying over them… regardless, if you must, follow my lead,” Shiyi did a quick stretch of her back, making some rather impressive cracking sounds while also showing off her rather lovely ass, even if it was on the smaller side.

Still, the moment she was finished with her stretching, she sprinted out, moving so quickly that she was nearly out of the building before Bianca could react and follow suit.

The moment the front door opened, they felt the air cool down significantly. Outside, there were more of the dead, standing, glaring, even that group of older men and women standing not far off, their bodies contorted, their eyes fixed precisely on Bianca specifically.

“Fourth realm, you said?”

“In all likelihood. They seem to be upset about you specifically,” Shiyi remarked, “I think the array is targeting you due to your poor choice of words.”

“Stop that, or you’ll turn into the kitsune.”

“That would be an unequivocal downgrade, frankly. Still… we won’t have long.”

“Why?”

Huang Su answered, “The array is turning them aggressive, their mortal lives being worn away in favour of sheer killing intent. Soon, they will attack us at full intensity.”

“Ah. How do you two see this stuff, is it just spiritual perception?”

“Yes.”

“Correct, Mistress,” Huang Su affirmed.

Indeed, after a moment, the bodies moved again, this time right before her eyes, limbs creaking and almost seeming to snap into place, vitality fading from their skin with every moment.

Soon, they looked like what they truly were, corpses animated by means beyond Bianca’s understanding, though she didn’t have any trouble categorising them in her head as zombies. The only question was which type of zombie they most closely resembled – she wasn’t a huge nerd about this stuff like some people she had known, but she had seen enough online to recognise that there were slow, shambling types, but also faster, more aggressive, more intelligent types, not to mention everything in between.

The answer would be certain to come soon enough, but just in case, Bianca prepared, putting a finger on that wing-shaped ornament in her hair.

In the next instant, a horrifying screeching suddenly sounded all around them, every single zombie’s mouth opening wide, practically unhinging their jaws in the process. It almost seemed like that’d be the end of it – it would certainly make things way easier, even if the screech would’ve been enough for any ordinary person to piss themselves – but of course, how could it ever end so easily?

As that horrific noise ended, they all charged as one, every single zombie in sight running towards them at full speed – and not just that of a regular human, but a cultivator, performing some kind of movement skill.

It was peculiar, each group seemingly moving faster the more zombies were a part of it. The group of elders only had about seven members total, but their speed was nearly double that of the lonesome zombie off to the side. In the blink of an eye, they were upon them, and with nothing better coming to mind in the split second, she activated the Archetype Replicator.

At once, a strange feeling rushed through her mind, as though the surface level of knowledge for the archetype washed over her, and in an instant she knew exactly what skills she had access to, only enough to be able to execute them but not enough to even attempt to learn them.

And thus, the air above suddenly turned into countless sabres, plunging down into the earth after a moment, each carrying the full power of the fourth realm. They hit the zombies directly, and shredding them to pieces, leaving the rotting body parts to fall apart and drop into an ugly pile of flesh and bone, the dead eyes still staring at them unerringly.

“W-What? Bianca, how did you…” the kitsune seemed completely perplexed, to the point of dropping her usual form of address, “Wait, that pin…”

The winged hairpin she had been touching now crackled with crimson light, darkened with a faint layer of smoke as the metal itself seemed to glow violet.

“That’s right, I can now copy archetypes! Fuck yeah!” Bianca happily admitted, because the simple act of unleashing so many sabres with a thought was unbelievably incredible, “It’s incredible! Fucking amazing!”

“Indeed, the true versatility of cultivation is a marvel,” the kitsune calmed down, “Sect Mistress, is that one of your gains from Su Guo?”

“Yep, and I knew I had to put it to good use the moment that he introduced it,” she responded, “Anyway, I’ve only got a few minutes of this, so let’s move!”

Rather than running, however, Bianca looked into the list of skills once more and pulled out a movement skill. Unfortunately, the archetype she had targeted was apparently specific to the Calm Skies Sect, and thus was less expansive than a more traditional archetype like Water or Fire, so she only really had one option.

The air around them thickened as it thrust them forward, as though they were sabres in flight, the same that were flung at their foes a moment prior. Bianca’s supply of planar energy was decent for her realm, but nonetheless, she was applying this movement skill to everyone around her, massively raising the cost.

After flying forward through just a few streets, she had expended nearly half of her planar energy pool and had to stop it, though it allowed them to evade quite a few packs of zombies on the way.

Of course, the moment they stopped, they saw countless more emerging from all directions, and those that had fallen behind quickly catching up.

“Okay, everyone, combat skills! We need to get out of here, and I alone won’t be enough!”

“You hardly needed to say it, Sect Mistress, as that much is obvious,” the kitsune remarked, though she was already readying her shards, more than prepared to fight.

Similarly, the others did what they could to prepare with what little time they had, as the horde of undead struck them soon.

At once, a couple of skills were thrown out. A vast beam of sunlight suddenly fell down from the skies, countless metallic shards flew up from the earth, slicing the front of the encroaching horde into pieces, several runes lit up on the ground and flared up once enough zombies ran atop them, and naturally, Bianca also employed her means, calling out the rain of sabres.

The only difference was that this time, she imbued them with more of her own energy, letting the façade of the archetype be broken and reveal the true crackling crimson burning underneath.

As all the strikes hit at once, their energies mixed together to form one vast explosion, and for a moment it was as though the whole world around them detonated, turning to naught but light and destruction.

Of course, even after that, plenty of dust had been kicked up to obscure their sight, but the results were absolutely undeniable. A vast hole replaced the streets and homes around them, leaving them on an island amidst a sea of desolation. And yet, the undead they had wiped out had only been a small fraction, for countless more were emerging from further beyond.

If there had been any doubt before, then this cleared it up – the entire city was after them, every single man and woman that had been unknowingly turned into the walking dead.

“I hope the necromancers won’t end up framing us for a massacre,” Bianca suddenly spoke, “… What?”

“For one, that’s a rather sudden thing to be worried about. Two, we are in the middle of a horde, is this the right time to be worrying about things like this?” the kitsune couldn’t help but sigh, “Just focus on the fighting, please.”

“Fine…”

To help herself achieve that goal, Bianca imagined the faces of those necromancers she had fought before. Every single one of them was enough to piss her off on their own, but with all the faces combined, she was practically bursting with rage and fury. The moment she came back to reality, the sword was already in her hand, crimson lightning crackling over the surface, almost enough to tear through her weapon.

As she swung it in the direction with the greatest number of zombies visible, an impossibly vast arc of raw energy shot out. It grew wider and wider, brighter and brighter, bearing power that nearly eclipsed the fourth realm, and it melted the air itself.

The resulting eruption of energy vastly overpowered the previous rain of sabres despite expending a similar amount, and it left a side covered while the rest of them were able to focus on the other directions.

Bianca didn’t pay any attention to the others as she fought, slowly making their way through the city – though whether they were doing more travel or property destruction was debatable. No matter what, the end result was a path of destruction and desolation, and while their energy remained sufficient, no monsters could get in their path.

Of course, their energy was ultimately finite. Bianca had been rather wasteful with her power earlier, so she was starting to run out before the others did, but at the same time, her anger was sufficient to be more sparing with it.

On the other hand, most of the kitsune’s strength came from her artefact shards. They required energy to manifest in full, but less than executing a typical skill of the same power. Better yet, her variety of artefacts was immense, and she had an option for every occasion.

Vast beams of sunlight, enormous cleavers, fragments of the Nocturnal Aegis and more tore through the battlefield, accompanied by numerous runes, Huang Su’s flaming feathers… and Shiyi’s metal shards.

Despite seeming to be of the same nature as the kitsune’s shattered shield, and without the assistance of any kind of artefact or shard, Long Shiyi was able to tear through every zombie with just a single sliver of metal each and every time. More than just that, she was handling nearly half the field alone, seemingly casually.

In a sense, that much was to be expected not just from a dragon, but a dragon that was hundreds of thousands of years old. Although her true power might have faded, her experience and powerful skills lingered on, and she was able to dominate this battlefield with obvious ease.

It lit up a strangely competitive flame in Bianca’s mind, however. Sure, she was almost two realms behind – she was merely at the start of the fourth realm, whereas the dragon was in the peak of the fifth – but she felt like she could do better.

Like she had to.

And so, she gathered even more of her energy, unleashing it in one fell swoop, a single enormous wave that briefly turned the entire town crimson.

“So that’s who is responsible for the mess. I didn’t think you would emerge from your fortress so soon, girl,” a figure suddenly appeared in the skies, an aged man clad in the robes of a necromancer, “I had been worried about how to get you out in the open…”

“Who the fuck are you?” interrupted from her efforts to build up even more energy around her weapon, Bianca looked up into the sky with a frown, “Is this place your doing?”

“I have no reason to answer you. Just know that you will not be leaving alive!”

“Mistress, that is the one that was controlling Long Mudan’s corpse,” Huang Su said, “He has reached the sixth realm.”

“Still, with Shiyi here, and you, does he really think that he can win?” Bianca asked, glancing between the false phoenix and the man floating above.

“… We are in his territory, and there is no array for us to activate this time around,” she replied, a hint of uncertainty in her tone, “Still, for him to truly be certain, to the point of being willing to expose himself…”

She didn’t finish her sentence, but the implication was obvious. For him to reveal himself, to confirm a necromancer presence, and provide further proof of their efforts to deceive the major sects by raising the dead perfectly… it meant that he was sure that they wouldn’t get away.

“Spare us the trouble and do not fight back. Reconstructing your forms would be… challenging,” Dao Shenzhen smirked, “Heed my call, Song Village!”

For a moment, Bianca wanted to mock him – many of the ‘residents’ of this place were already dead, reduced to dust. However, he did not call out to the dust, but something else, and his words reached them. The earth itself began to tremble, shaking, slowly at first, but intensifying with every moment. It was as if…

As if countless bodies buried in the ground began to move, desperately clawing for release.

“What the fuck… everyone, onto that roof!”

She gestured to the nearest building that hadn’t quite been destroyed, leaping atop it as the earth beneath them continued to shake, slowly cracking and breaking. Suddenly, the land broke, a decayed head emerging from the earth, the neck twisted so that it could glare directly at them, mouth agape, eyes dead… yet intense.

And then, others and others broke through, heads and arms and legs, as though the entirety of the village’s foundations were composed of bodies.

“The fuck is all this? How are there so many corpses under the village?” Bianca was confused, and the most composed among them, Long Shiyi, seemed to be somewhat uncertain.

“Our Soul-Binding Monolith has existed for countless decades! We are not without a foundation, girl!”

Although he didn’t state it outright, the fact was that the only way so many preserved corpses could’ve ended up beneath the earth, ready to rise on command, would be under the arrangement of a necromancer.

“So, uh… if the others were at the fourth realm, what about the whole of Song Village?”

“Peak of Linked Channels, at the very least.”