Chapter 88 : Ah, the Green Forest

Chapter 88: Ah, the Green Forest!

What first entered Yul Han’s reddened field of vision was the soul of the dead—ghosts.

The souls that slowly rose from the ground stared pitifully at the earth from which they had emerged.

When Yul Han cast his gaze there—

Tuduk, tuduk.

A hand broke through the soil, then an arm, and finally a body rose up.

They were the half-rotten bodies of the dead.

As their own souls watched them pitifully, the corpses staggered forward.

Dead Corpse Formation.

It was a formation known to have originated from the Apostate Cult, once called the birthplace of Central Plains sorcery.

The bodies of the dead were arranged into a formation and buried underground.

When certain conditions were met, the formation activated, and the resulting phenomenon varied by type.

In some cases, corpse poison spread to intoxicate those who entered the formation.

In others, ghostly energy created illusions to sow confusion.

Among all such Dead Corpse Formations, the worst was the one that constructed formation pressure from the corpses themselves.

The bodies of the dead burst out of the ground and moved—no different from living zombies, yet they were not living zombies. Already dead, they felt no pain.

Once the formation began, the bodies of the dead neither stopped nor died again until sunrise the next day.

People called this Death Scent.

Because a horrific stench of rotting corpses spread through the area where the formation was set. It was also a name given because living people died within that stench.

That Death Scent revealed itself in Jiulong, darkened like night beneath thick storm clouds.

The first victim appeared among a Mount Dian martial artist who had been continuing the search.

Thud.

At a strange sound, the daoist stopped—and something grabbed his foot.

Startled, he looked down at the ground and saw a hand, its wrist swollen grotesquely, clutching his ankle.

“Ghk! W-what is this?!”

He screamed and tried to pull his foot free, but the hand that had burst from the ground gripped him like solid iron and would not let go.

Another Mount Dian martial artist rushed over at his companion’s scream, hurriedly drawing his sword to sever the hand protruding from the ground—

Thud.

Another hand shot out and seized the incoming blade.

Despite grabbing the blade, the hand was not cut.

No matter how hard he tried to pull the sword free, it would not budge. And in that moment—

Thud, thud.

Hands burst out from all directions, reaching for them.

Sensing imminent danger, the Mount Dian martial artists shouted.

“H-help! Please help us here!”

They shouted at the top of their lungs, but no one came to help.

Because the same situation was unfolding throughout all of Jiulong.

Everywhere, hands burst through the ground, obstructing movement—or seizing people so they could not move at all.

Eventually, the owners of those hands began to reveal themselves above ground.

The Death Scent had begun in earnest.

Across all of Jiulong, an incomparably dense stench of rotting corpses began to spread.

Battles erupted everywhere.

They were battles against the dead.

The fiercest fighting occurred where Yul Han was.

As the corpses rose from the ground, Iron Demon, Profound Demon, and Poison Demon activated their internal energy to resist.

That was when the problem occurred.

The surrounding shambling corpses suddenly became empowered, moving with strength and speed that could not possibly belong to the dead.

Staring hard at that sight, Yul Han shouted.

“Withdraw your internal energy! Withdraw it now!”

At Yul Han’s roar, Iron Demon, Profound Demon, and Poison Demon hastily withdrew their internal energy and stepped back.

In that instant, the corpses charged forward.

Yul Han drew the Lightning Cloud Blade toward them.

Zzrrrrrk.

From the very moment it was drawn, lightning energy began to scatter, swelling in power as it absorbed Yul Han’s internal energy.

If it had been an ordinary sword, that internal energy would have produced barely an inch of sword energy—but the Lightning Cloud Blade answered with lightning energy well over two inches long.

That monstrous lightning energy plunged into the charging corpses.

Kwarrrrung.

With a deafening roar like thunder, the lightning coursed through the corpses.

Puk, puk, pubeobeobeok!

The corpses struck by lightning burst apart with horrific sounds.

Like fireworks detonating in succession, every corpse the lightning swept through exploded.

In an instant, the air filled with chunks of flesh—and silence.

‘If a living person had been in that space…?’

It was a sight that forced Iron Demon, Profound Demon, and Poison Demon’s eyes to widen in shock.

Leaving the three behind, Yul Han leapt onto the roof of the tallest building, and the cityscape entered his vision.

The entire city was filled with shrieking corpses.

That was not all.

From the outskirts of the city, black masses of corpses were surging inward. The city was completely surrounded by the dead.

Dropping back down, Yul Han turned to Iron Demon and the others.

“Do not use internal energy. Demonic energy only strengthens them.”

It was a command to fight using pure physical force alone.

At Yul Han’s words, Iron Demon, Profound Demon, and Poison Demon exchanged troubled looks.

Though their appearances were those of men in their thirties or forties, in truth they were all well over seventy. Their raw physical strength was no longer as vigorous as their looks suggested.

Worry came first—but fortunately, the Vice Cult Leader was with them.

That thought softened their stiff expressions slightly.

At that moment—

“H-help! Please help us here!”

A shout rang out, followed by desperate cries for salvation erupting from all directions.

Hearing those cries, Yul Han looked at the three.

“I think I need to go. Please hold out.”

Leaving only those words behind, Yul Han vanished in a blur.

Left alone, Iron Demon, Profound Demon, and Poison Demon’s faces twisted sharply.

Then the corpses descended upon them.

By the time Yul Han reached the place where the first cry for help had arisen, corpses bursting from the ground had already slaughtered two Mount Dian daoists.

The torn bodies of the two daoists were a sight too gruesome to behold.

The corpses that had created that carnage moved again in search of the living.

“You think I’ll just let you go?”

Yul Han’s eyes cooled as he wrapped lightning energy around the Lightning Cloud Blade and leapt straight into the center of the corpses.

Kwarrrrung.

Thunder roared.

Zzrrrrrk.

Lightning scattered.

Fire was said to be the direct counter to killing intent, and lightning energy was fire compressed to the extreme.

That lightning energy flowed along the bodies of the dead raised by dark sorcery.

Pubeobeobeok!

With a deafening roar, the bodies of the dead exploded and collapsed.

No matter how powerful the dark sorcery that forced them to move without stopping until the next sunrise, bodies shattered into fragments could do nothing.

Even if only a few fingers twitched, or fallen eyeballs rolled and glared, it meant they were incapable of doing anything.

Yul Han’s red eyes turned away from the crushed and pulverized dead bodies and lifted toward the empty air.

It was because the souls, their expressions far more peaceful than before, were ascending into the sky.

Though they had been bound by the Dead Corpse Formation carved into their lifeless bodies and had been unable to go to the afterlife, the lifting of the dark sorcery finally granted them freedom, allowing them to depart for the beyond.

Realizing that his actions were easing the suffering of the dead, Yul Han’s heart grew lighter.

The unease that he might be killing the dead a second time faded away.

Perhaps because of that, strength filled Yul Han’s movements.

To save even one more person, Yul Han rushed about in all directions.

Although the Bright Cult martial artists were more skilled than the Mount Dian martial artists, danger reached them first instead.

Just as with Iron Demon, Profound Demon, and Poison Demon, it was because demonic energy overflowed from the internal energy used by the Bright Cult martial artists when they fought back.

For those who had cultivated demonic arts, that unavoidable condition only empowered the enemy.

Even though Yul Han rushed in like the wind to help, out of the five squad leaders, only two were rescued alive.

They were Lee Tae under Iron Demon and Samyeong under Profound Demon.

Unable to leave those two behind, Yul Han continued rushing about with them to rescue the Mount Dian martial artists.

Unfortunately, among the Mount Dian martial artists who had accompanied Ghost Immortal on this mission, there was not a single daoist who had trained in sorcery.

Because of that, the Mount Dian martial artists could not take advantage of the sect’s inherent strength against dark sorcery.

As a result, the number of Mount Dian martial artists who were killed or grievously injured skyrocketed.

That was why the number of Mount Dian martial artists Yul Han managed to gather barely exceeded twenty.

Ghost Immortal wore a stunned, devastated expression at the fact that more than half had fallen.

To him, Yul Han said,

“If we scatter, it’ll be hard to respond. We need to stay together and endure.”

“What if we escape?”

At Ghost Immortal’s question, Yul Han shook his head.

“The city is completely surrounded by the bodies of the dead. I confirmed they’re pouring in from all directions.”

At Yul Han’s answer, Ghost Immortal’s gaze hardened.

“Then…?”

“There’s no choice but to fight and hold out.”

At their exchange, Profound Demon cut in.

“Dead Corpse Formation. It’s a Dead Corpse Formation!”

At Profound Demon’s shout, as if the realization had finally struck him, Ghost Immortal’s eyes widened.

“Isn’t that an Apostate Cult dark art that vanished more than five hundred years ago?”

“When living zombies have shown up, what couldn’t appear?”

After replying to Ghost Immortal, Profound Demon looked at Yul Han and said,

“If it’s a Dead Corpse Formation, we just need to endure until the sun rises tomorrow.”

“Until the sun rises tomorrow…”

Repeating Profound Demon’s words, Yul Han looked up at the sky, which was covered by pitch-black storm clouds.

Because of them, it was as dark as night—but it was still daytime. That meant the sun had not yet set.

And yet, to last until the next sunrise. The sheer length of that time felt hopeless.

Still, if that was the only way.

“We’ll form a circular formation. Put the wounded inside and hold out.”

At Yul Han’s command, everyone hurriedly formed a circular formation. Yul Han stood outside it.

Because he intended to run into the most dangerous places to help.

The moment preparations were complete, the bodies of the dead surged in once more.

Raising the Lightning Cloud Blade toward them, Yul Han leapt forward.

It was to reduce, as much as possible, the number of dead bodies reaching his comrades.

Kwarrrrung.

Untimely thunder—

Zzrrrrrk.

And lightning began to echo endlessly throughout Jiulong.

A night with the moon shining bright.

The thunder and lightning that had roared through Jiulong finally stopped.

Though it was still before sunrise, no more bodies of the dead came charging.

Yul Han, his shoulders heaving as he drew rough breaths, was stared at with stunned eyes by Iron Demon and the others.

From midday the previous day until now, with the moon risen, Yul Han had not rested for a single moment.

Lightning energy did not arise on its own—meaning he had poured out his internal energy nonstop for nearly half a day.

Perhaps because he had expended such an enormous amount of internal energy, Yul Han looked exhausted.

Thanks to that, all the bodies of the dead were destroyed. Or rather, since the next day’s sun had not yet risen, they were technically still moving.

But shattered into tiny fragments of flesh, they could no longer harm the living.

The stench of rotting corpses filled the air. Piles of flesh fragments rose like hills, and sticky blood covered the ground like cotton.

After all, there had been seventy thousand.

The bodies of the dead that had swarmed in.

It was no exaggeration to say that Yul Han alone had brought them all to ruin.

Even so, some bodies of the dead slipped past Yul Han and crashed into the circular formation built by Iron Demon and the others.

The fighting there was fierce as well.

Because the Bright Cult martial artists could not use internal energy and thus could not display their true strength, the formation’s combat power was severely limited.

Even so, Ghost Immortal’s performance stood out. Daoist martial arts, which directly countered dark sorcery, erupted brilliantly.

Of course, with the limited range and the overwhelming number of dead bodies charging in, it did not result in remarkable gains.

Still, thanks to that, additional deaths among the group stopped at five.

All of them were Mount Dian martial artists.

That weighed heavily on Ghost Immortal’s heart.

After catching their breath and waiting cautiously for a time—

At last, the sun rose.

When the severed and shattered fragments of flesh touched the rising sunlight, they scattered and vanished like burned ash.

As if nothing had ever happened, the city—now devoid of flesh and bloodstains—stood empty.

The horrific stench vanished as well.

Sensing at last that everything was over, the group collapsed where they stood, releasing the tension they had held.

Amid them, Yul Han gazed into the empty air.

It was because every soul ascending into the sky was pointing in the same direction—southeast.

As Yul Han watched that, Profound Demon approached him.

“What are you looking at?”

At Profound Demon’s question, red-eyed Yul Han turned his head and looked far to the southeast.

“What lies in that direction?”

“That way would be… Guizhou.”

“Guizhou?”

“Yes. The territory occupied by the Green Forest…”

“Then we must hurry. The Green Forest is in danger.”

At Yul Han’s words, Profound Demon’s eyes widened as he grasped their meaning.

Urged on by Yul Han, the group—unable even to fully recover from their exhaustion—began running toward Guizhou.

At that same time, the martial artists of the Green Forest Eighteen Fortresses, having received the written dispatch of the Chief Banner Lord, were gathering one after another at the main fortress.