Salted Fish Chapter 73.2: The Undying Legion (Part 2)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: GaeaTiamat

 

Duan FeiZhou stepped through the wet, soft mud piled with fallen leaves, and into the center of the woodland surrounded by oak trees. More than a dozen black-clad men were firmly bound by a net woven from white hands, either pinned to the ground or tied to the trees, unable to move. Their bodies were gradually fusing with the ground and tree trunks, as if the woods were swallowing them.

It was Z who came up with the idea of drawing the enemy into the oak forest, and he offered to ask the ladies to come and “support.” (“What support? You just want to use them as tools!” Xenophon spat.) But the undead weren’t human beings, and couldn’t be judged by human reasoning, nor do they need to communicate with him in the same way as human beings, so Duan FeiZhou was taking a chance. If the ladies wouldn’t help, then they had to bite the bullet.

He didn’t expect Z to bet right. The undead spirits of successive Lady Perillas emitted a faint light, which illuminated the dark forest like a bright lamp.

“Uh, thank you guys,” Duan FeiZhou said to the undead who was closest to him.

The undead turned to him. Her beautifully shaped eyes gazed indifferently at them all.

“This is our land,” she said. “We are just guarding it.”

Another Lady Perlilla continued, “An ancient and evil force has awakened.”

Duan FeiZhou hesitantly asked, “Do you mean the Ether crystals buried under the Manor? The will of the Great Lord of Light is in them…”

The ladies just looked at him with indifferent eyes. “Go. Go and stop them.”

“If he awakens, the whole world will be destroyed in flames, then remade in flames.”

“Everything we love will disappear then become something that even we cannot understand.”

The women’s wording was profoundly difficult to understand, but at least Duan FeiZhou figured out that things weren’t going well at the mine. He turned to the other four people and nodded at them. Without further words, everyone understood what to do.

Duan FeiZhou thanked the ladies one last time and led the four men out of the oak forest.

The ladies looked at their backs, a ripple rippled through their cold, watery eyes.

Once they left the natural shelter of the oak branches and leaves, Duan FeiZhou was immediately drenched by the pouring rain.

“Which way is the mine?” Mr. R squinted his eyes to squeeze out the rain that had seeped into them.

Duan FeiZhou pointed to the fork in the road. “Remember? It’s that way.”

They were deep in the wet country road, as they watched where they walked because of the difficulty of getting from the wood to the site of the old manor house. Duan FeiZhou remembered that once in this location he had jumped up to look at the manor’s former magnificent main treasure, but now the end of the road was empty. The mansion had been reduced to ash. It was demolished and razed. A new structure had been erected in its place. It looked like a grandstand built of wood.

Something was approaching them from that direction. The ground beneath their feet rumbled, as if there were an earthquake. However, it wasn’t an earthquake, but more like an army of horses were rushing toward them.

Behind him, Evangeline, who was wrapped up tightly, drew a cold breath. “What the hell is that! What have they done?!”

Mr. R and Mrs. Q silently pulled their weapons, while Miss Acheson had her typewriter morph into a Gatling machine gun. Duan FeiZhou fished out a brass finger ring from his pocket and put it on his hand. This time he went out of his way to put a ring on each finger of his left hand. He had had a hard time getting all five rings filled. It wasn’t comfortable, and under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t do it. However today he was there to fight, he didn’t need any comfort.

A column of steel robots strode neatly. For a moment, Duan FeiZhou thought he was watching some science fiction movie. They had no weapons, and their hands were empty, but the steel and iron alone would be difficult to handle.

“Those are the undying soldiers…” Mrs. Q whimpered.

“I’ll help you suppress them.” Evangeline loosened the veil that covered her face, to reveal her pale to bloodless features. She looked exactly like a painting done in black and white.

Duan FeiZhou drew Sword in the Stone, then held the sword in his right hand, as his left hand drew runes in the air, while he drew energy and raised a secret shield.

Mrs Q also protected them with a shield. The double shield could withstand and deflect most attacks in the world.

“Miss Acheson!” Duan FeiZhou shouted.

Miss Typist turned the crank of her Gatling and the alchemically enchanted bullets poured out like an irresistible torrent! The sound of successive shots hit Duan FeiZhou’s eardrums. The super high rate of 1200 rounds a minute was the highest in the world at that era, and was enough to make the opponents lift their heads.

At the same time, Mr. R also raised his gun and fired. Unlike Miss Acheson, who was in charge of fire suppression, he was a very accurate shot. He obviously just had a revolver in his hand, but he made it look like a divine weapon, and each shot hit a mechanical soldier.

The immortal army continued to advance against the Gatling’s fire, even as mechanical soldiers kept falling down from bullets. A mechanical soldier was swept by the Gatling’s bullets and was torn apart, but its broken limbs automatically put themselves back together. The fallen body slowly stood up and returned to its original state.

“That…That can’t be!” Ms. Q was shocked, “Could there be occult practitioners behind the scenes repairing them?”

Duan FeiZhou’s eyesight was better than the old woman’s. He could clearly see that there was no trace of other people near the undying legion. The fallen mechanical soldiers were repairing themselves. He immediately drew energy from a ring and raised an earth wall on the path the mechanical soldiers had to take to advance. He wanted to see what would happen when these guys met the obstacle. Would they be foolish enough to mount it, or would they be smart enough to go around it?

It turned out that both of his presumptions fell flat.

With a loud bang, the wall of earth fell apart.

At the same time, lightning wrapped in a gust of wind raced toward them, as it looked to engulf the five people, then it hit a heavy transparent wall less than half a meter from Duan FeiZhou. The lightning scattered, like waves breaking on top of the rocks.

Simultaneously, the secret shield that Duan FeiZhou and Mrs. Q created together also shattered in response, and the energy flowed away into the storm.

“Those undying soldiers can use occult arts!” Mrs. Q was so surprised that even her voice was hoarse.

Duan FeiZhou’s heart beat wildly. In other words, they weren’t dealing with a hundred robots, but a hundred undying occult practitioners with steel and iron bones! Duan FeiZhou shouted to the old woman, “Ms. Q, withdraw and fill the shield!” 

“But…”

“I’m going to use ‘that’ secret technique!”

The old woman bit her lip, obviously extremely reluctant. But the distance between the undying legion and them was getting closer and closer, so they could only try this solution. She waved her hand to withdraw the secret spell shield. At the same time, Duan FeiZhou drew energy from all the rings, and then injected the energy into the ground.

The earth really shook this time. A crack extended from under Duan FeiZhou’s feet towards the direction of the undying army. As the crack gradually expanded, the soil on both sides rose upward and formed two cliffs as high as ten meters. Then the cliffs collapsed in a flash, as if the whole earth had turned over, which buried the undying legion under uncountable amounts of debris and mud.

Duan FeiZhou gasped for breath. The land in front of him looked as if it had been bombed by a plane. This occult technique was something he had seen in a book of occult philosophy from the Trading House, but he had never tried it. The book said that the occult technique required a lot of energy, and wasn’t suitable for precise manipulation types of occult practitioners to use. Instead, it was more suitable for the explosive occult practitioners.

Duan FeiZhou belonged to the latter category. Mr. Thales had flirted with the idea that he should join the artillery team.

Miss Acheson stopped firing, and the cold rain poured over the hot barrel of the Gatling, “hissing” up a white mist.

“All…done?” The typist lady asked.

“No…That’s not possible…” Evangeline let out a groan from hell. Like she had seen something appalling. She scratched her face wildly, her nails left a trail of blood on her pale, beautiful cheeks. The others, however, saw nothing but a bewildered look.

Duan FeiZhou frowned, Evangeline was a Dark One, so perhaps she was able to see something invisible to the human eye. He unfolded his psychic vision ability and looked into the distance. Wisp after wisp of golden smoke rose from beneath the mound where the undying soldiers were buried.

Farther away, the same golden smoke curled up in greater quantities from the site of the old Perlilla Manor, the Ether crystals mine. If it weren’t for the glowing smoke, Duan FeiZhou would have thought someone was having a picnic there.

The smoke gathered in the air and coalesced into a golden cloud. It was as if a second sun was hanging high in the sky.

“What is that, Miss Evangeline? Duan FeiZhou asked loudly.

Evangeline covered her face until just a pair of desperate eyes showed between her fingers, “It’s the Great Lord of Light.”

 

At the mine, the Queen stood on top of a high platform, and held up a telescope. The battles that were happening in the distance were all caught by her eyes. After the undying legion was engulfed and buried by the shocking waves made of clay, she put down the telescope and turned to the commissioner beside her.

“My lord, it seems that the undying soldiers are no better than that,” she said indifferently.

The commissioner’s face did not look very good, but still he maintained his fluttering demeanor, “The defeat is only temporary, Your Majesty.” At that moment his tone seemed less than respectful. “Soon the undying soldiers will recover. It’s just a little bit of dirt. It won’t stop them.”

“Is that so?” The Queen did not refute. “Then I really look forward to it.”

At that moment, there was a panicked scream from behind them, “Look! The Ether crystals! The crystals are actually…

The Queen turned around. A group of members stared at the pit in a daze. The Ether crystals that had been condensed on the walls of the pit began to dissolve in the air without anyone having touched them. The Queen wasn’t a scientist, but at least she’d went to school and studied physics. She knew that energy didn’t appear and disappear out of thin air, but only moved from one place to another, from one form to another.

When the party members performed the ritual, it dissolved some of the Ether crystals. The Queen understood that they were stored in the soldiers as energy for the undying soldiers to operate. So what about now? Where did the energy that was released after the crystals dissolved go?

A fist-sized piece of crystal could make a steam airship soar through the sky. You could imagine how powerful the energy it contained was. Now there were countless crystals that had disappeared. The energy in them was probably enough to level a city, right? Where had they all gone?

“What the hell is going on? Didn’t we say that this plan was foolproof?” A member cursed angrily.

“Why are you asking me? Who should I ask? Didn’t you also vote for it when we voted?” Another member yelled.

“What about Carter? Isn’t he in charge of the development of the undying soldiers? Yes! He should be the one to solve the problems!” Other commissioners were dumping the pot.

The Queen was in no mood to listen to their arguments, while Lord Perlilla grabbed his mother’s arm anxiously. Lady Edith went to the Queen’s side and whispered, “Your Majesty, the situation seems to have changed. Do you want to find a safe place first…?”

Lord Perlilla raised his eyes to the sky, and suddenly opened his mouth wide, as if someone had stuffed a transparent ball into his mouth. “Look, everyone…That thing…What is that…?!”

The female monarch looked in the direction he was pointing. A dark shadow swooped down from between the gaps in the dark cloudy sky. She raised her telescope and pointed them at the shadow.

Reflected in her eyes was a hideous beast: covered with black scales, spines full of spikes, a pair of bat wings on the back, round blood-red eyes that looked through the telescope and met with the Queen’s eyes. The queen hurriedly put down the telescope, while her heart beat violently. It should be a coincidence, otherwise why would the beast look at her? Could it have known that it was being watched by her?

The Queen forced herself to calm down. “Lady Edith, you are the mistress of this place. What is the safest place you can introduce to me?”

 

Z and Yeats ran at full speed in the rain. The poet’s physical strength was already bad, and much less than the body enhanced Z. He didn’t run for a while, and was left far behind by Z. Z had no time to wait for him. Now he had to rush to support the others. Z even regretted that he stayed behind to deal with Madame Boyle. He should have put aside his personal vendetta and gone to the front line. Without his protection, his little bad thing might get injured. Then what was he to do?

Two familiar figures appeared in front of him. Xenophon and Mr. N were crouched on the ground, as they studied something. Z slowed down and they both looked up at him. Their wet faces blossomed into gorgeous smiles.

“Geez Boss, I’m so glad to see you safe.” Xenophon plucked a handful of hair from his face. “Where’s our poet friend? There’s no chance of an accident, is there?”

“Behind.” Z said calmly.

After Xenophon and Mr. N stood up, he finally saw what they were working on. It was a corpse missing both arms that faced the sky. It was so dead that the skin was beginning to swell with rain. Z could still recognize it as Carter, though.

“What are you doing?” Z Shun frowned.

“Scavenging the body,” Xenophon said seriously. “I thought he would have some occult treasures with him, but there was nothing.”

“Don’t waste time, let’s go,” Z urged. “We have to catch up with the others.”

“Hmph, you’re just worried about your little lover.”

Xenophon muttered and grumbled, as he kicked aside the body of Carter, which was in the way, and darted up with Z.

Mr. N panted after them. “Wait! Wait for me…Take care of the handicapped…”

One of his legs was also a mechanical prosthesis, but it was an ordinary one, and its performance was far from comparable to Z’s. They ran through the fields and along the muddy path toward the mine.

The sky was suddenly overcast. The rainy day was already dim, but this time the gloom wasn’t caused by dark clouds or thunderstorms, but from some incredibly large object that was blocking the light spilling from the sky.

Z stopped in his tracks and looked overhead in dismay. A monstrous beast was soaring above them.

Xenophon let out a strange cry and rubbed his eyes hard. He asked in befuddlement, “Boss, am I hallucinating, or did you see it too?” 

Z didn’t answer his question. In fact, he didn’t even hear what Xenophon asked. His whole body and mind were filled with the sound of Leviathan’s voice — just like when he fell into the icy sea.

– Why are you here? He asked.

–  My Lord called me to come here. Leviathan replied.

– Your master? The…Lord of Light?

– His consciousness was scattered throughout the world and has now reunited. He called me to come and serve the Forerunner. If it were not for the actions of you humans, I would still be sealed at the bottom of the sea and would not be able to come. How ironic.

After saying that, Leviathan cut the connection with Z.

The giant beast moved its wings and swooped to the ground, its sharp fangs like a whole row of cold and shiny sharp creations.

 

Duan FeiZhou looked at the monstrous beast that was swooping towards them and suddenly understood one thing. Leviathan was not here to help them. Rather, it had come to destroy them. When the shadow of the beast first appeared in the sky, a wave of ecstasy welled up in him. Leviathan had saved Z and assisted the Wellington, so it was their friend! It must have sensed that his friends were in danger, so it came to their rescue.

However, he soon realized that the situation wasn’t right. Leviathan was obviously flying towards them, as it opened its bloody mouth, and flashed its sharp fangs. Behemoths and humans thought very differently. He thought they were friends, in the eyes of Leviathan…maybe not.

In the end, how could people and monsters be friends? Did he really think he was the Princess Distuani? Without thinking, he shouted to the others, “Find a place to hide!”

That giant beast was a monster that could fight against an airship, but humans were so tiny in front of it that they were no better than ants. However, it was too late. How could a human’s two short legs outrun a beast with wings that covered the sky?

Duan FeiZhou reflexively drew energy and opened a shield for himself. He was not sure if the occult shield could withstand the Leviathan’s blow, but he had to take a desperate chance. A dark, ghostly shadow swept overhead. The huge body of the beast pressed towards him.

He heard the sound of shields shattering. The last image he remembered was a pair of blood-red eyes.

 

“I’m dead!” Duan FeiZhou sat up. He was lying on a cobbled path, surrounded by darkness, the stars shining overhead, the path suspended in the starry sky as it was, stretching into the infinite darkness. He muttered to himself, “I’m alive again…” 

This was the second time he had come to this place. Last time, he was forced by Duncan McKellen to eat flesh and blood, and came there as soon as he opened his eyes, then met the Goddess of the Crossroads.

So what about this time? This time he hadn’t eaten anything indiscriminately. All he remembered was that he was attacked by Leviathan. He thought he was dead, but looking at the current situation…could he salvage a little more? He got up, moved his sore neck, and walked forward along the cobblestone path.

The path split into three forks ahead. In the center of the crossroads, a woman with dark hair that caressed the ground had her back turned to him.

“Ah, welcome.” Hecate turned around. Her dark eyes overflowed with laughter. “We meet again.”

“What’s wrong with me?” Duan FeiZhou asked.

“Nothing much. Just a serious head injury that’s left you torn between life and death,” Hecate said with a smile and a relaxed tone. It was as if they weren’t talking about life and death, but about which clothes to wear when they went out.