Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Darkness, nothingness, silence.
The Astral World maintained its usual state as if it was eternal. However, a giant beast on a long journey broke the eternal tranquility of the Astral World. It was a huge transparent worm with a body the size of a continent. At its core, there seemed to be a silver whirlpool revolving.
Wherever it went, it left traces of dimensional folds. One breath or one movement could set off an Elemental Wave that could spread over millions of kilometers. Inside the wave, an Astral World meteorite was born, accompanied by a special Astral World creature.
A unique Energy Creature emerged from the huge Elemental Wave. It only possessed faint awareness and it followed the footprints of the Chaos Worm instinctively. There was also some unique Liquid Vitality hidden within the Astral World meteorite.
Hence, when the Chaos Worm passed through the Astral World, there was a long tail of Elemental Waves with Astral World meteorites and Astral World creatures following close behind. It had formed the beautiful scenery of the Astral World.
Bang!
When the giant Astral World Chaos Worm arrived, it stopped in its track, its whole body melting little by a little, and the brilliance from the explosion of the inner silver whirlpool enveloped everything around it.
The Astral World Chaos Worm was slowly dying, its original shell turning into layers of dimensional folds that wrapped around its insides and formed a mini bitwall. It was the death of an Astral World Chaos Worm that hadn’t yet matured, so it formed a half bitwall instead of a full bitwall.
The silver whirlpool inside the original Astral World Chaos Worm condensed rapidly after the explosion and gradually formed a floating island within the half bitwall.
A special fluorescent organism was also formed in the half bitwall that filled the half bitwall like a massive silver yarn. It emitted a silver glow and illuminated the entire half bitwall. The long tail of Elemental Waves behind the original Astral World Chaos Worm crashed into the half bitwall immediately.
Many groups of special Energy Vitality, Liquid Vitality, and Gaseous Vitality also bolted into the thin half bitwall, and after a long time of being lost and floating, all of them fell into the interior of the half bitwall.
Lu Zhiyu appeared and stood on the floating island of the half bitwall. Floating islands like this one could be seen everywhere in the half bitwall.
“In the long course of evolution, have there been distortions and things went astray?”
Lu Zhiyu walked through the half bitwall which hadn’t yet fully evolved and formed. He observed everything around him and could see that the Chaos Worm had completely died. It hadn’t successfully evolved into a world, so it couldn’t be re-nurtured from the end of that world at the time of its demise. This was the very end of its life.
“The evolution of the Chaos Worms is also risky. To surpass the others by evolving to its final stage would take to long, especially when all kinds of accidents can happen to it at any time.”
“This place has no sun, but there are special fluorescent organisms. What an interesting half bitwall.”
After checking it out, Lu Zhiyu discovered that the failed evolution of the Chaos Worm wasn’t caused by external reasons, but by internal reasons. After all, it took ten thousand years for its growth and maturity period. That was too long and tedious for any life form.
And the half bitwall, which was not far away from Maria’s World, was influenced by Maria’s World and was gradually attracted to Maria’s World. The half bitwall was moving towards Maria’s World.
That was the first naturally occurring half bitwall of the Astral World. There might be more instances of such a phenomenon in the future. As Lu Zhiyu envisioned it, the Astral World would become increasingly lively.
—
The northern part of the Mara Kingdom stood at the foot of the Andromeda Mountain. There was a small village, Iris Village, in the Bright Plain.
Hundreds of years before, or even a thousand years before, that place wasn’t called the Bright Plain. It had been a decaying marsh. However, as more and more people migrated to that place, after hundreds of years of harnessing resources, developing water canals, drawing water in, and cutting down the forests into farmlands, it had developed into what it was now.
It had gradually developed into a natural granary of Mara Kingdom. The food produced by the Bright Plain could feed half of the population of the Mara Kingdom.
With the marsh transformed into a useful farmland and the dark forest removed, brightness enveloped that place. At a glance, one could only see windmills and wheat fields swaying with the wind.
People had gradually forgotten the darkness and terror hidden in the rotten marshes. They had forgotten that this place was once the haunting space for the Dead Spirits and the Undead Wizards. They had even forgotten that the King of the Dead who once walked down the Andromeda Mountain and the Corps of the Undead who occupied the entire land were the ones who had named it the Bright Plain.
Iris Village was a remote village at the foot of the Andromeda Mountain. If one looked up, they could see the beautiful mountains and the snow-covered Andromeda Peak.
The village was far from the heart of the big city and the core areas of the Mara Kingdom. Even the nearest Steam Train Station in Ollie City took three days on foot to reach. That was the only way to go to the city. There was public transportation by Steam Locomotive available every two days. There was no gas, no water supply, and no Alchemy Street Light.
The only Magic Crystal alchemy devices were Crystal Purification Tower and Alchemy Mill. The Crystal Purification Tower was used to control and purify all of the farmland in Iris Village. These ensured the successful harvest of crops for the whole village. The village head controlled the Crystal Purification Tower. Every year, there would be an acting priest from the Church of Light who would inspect the village. The Alchemy Mill belonged to Old Man Brie, his family was the richest in the village.
At night, it was pitch-dark there. The only entertainment was the magic radio that some wealthy people owned. The radio attracted people from the whole village to come listen to it in the town square.
“I really want to go to big cities. I heard that girls in big cities can wear beautiful clothes and skirts, eat all kinds of delicious snacks and food, go to school by car in the morning, and dance with friends in the evening at a ball. Wow!”
“I want to be a girl in a big city!”
Alice often went to the forests of the Andromeda Mountain to collect firewood. She sometimes sat beside a tree stump and looked at the wheat fields under the mountains and imagined things like all the other country girls would. She would be thinking about the life of the city girls living lives like princesses.
She was a girl born to a peasant family in the mountain, but now she lived with her sister and brother-in-law after her father’s death. But her brother-in-law always looked at her with an odd expression, especially as she grew up to be a beautiful girl.
In the original Andromeda Mountain, there were dangerous beasts, even magical beasts, and ghosts. But with the collapse of the King of the Dead, Adenos, the Faith of the Sun, The Church of Light, and the Mara Kingdom sent several groups of priests and Holy Knights to clean up the entire Andromeda Mountain from corner to corner. And all the beings associated with the dead were cleared out. Even ordinary magical beasts and beasts were removed.
Hence, it was rare to see any beasts there anymore. It was a very safe area. Men and women in the village would often go up to the mountains alone to pick wild fruits and firewood to cook with.
“Ah!”
When Alice stood up, she accidentally cut herself on the sharp branches under her feet, leaving a large wound. Alice squatted down in pain, and her blood flowed directly onto the tangled roots and through the cracks in the tree.
Her blood was dripped onto a corpse buried under the tree, a corpse that had been in sleep for an unknown length of time. Blood dripped down the roots and into its eyes. The corpse was clutching a heavy black book with a metal cover and a few big letters carved in bronze. The title –”Book of the Undead.”
That book was what countless Ghost Wizards were fanatically looking for. The Faith of the Sun and The Church of Light wanted to destroy it. It was the legendary Book of the Undead by Adenos. It recorded all the exceptional Ghost Witchcraft performed by Adenos and the legendary “Song of the Undead” which could cause the Undead Calamity.
Ta-ta!
The fresh blood appeared like it was dripping on the surface of the water. Like gunpowder that stirred up thousands of waves, layers of black smoke rose from the ground, the clear and cloudless sky transformed into dark clouds all of a sudden, and the Bright Plain under the sky lost its light, covered by darkness.
In hell, riding on the Boat of the Soul was the black-robed ferryman who ferried souls along the River Styx. In the dark waters of the Styx, the dead struggled painfully in the river without an end. The faintly illuminated Boat of the Soul was traveling silently. No souls dared to look directly at the ferryman or the lights on his boat.
At that moment, the ferryman, without any expression, suddenly raised his head and looked at the sky of Hell. His eyes seemed to penetrate through the sun of the underworld, through all Nine Levels of Hell, and he saw the earth in an instant.
Adenos didn’t know how long he had slept or how many dead souls he had brought over on the Styx. At that moment, he instantly recalled all his memories, his past lives, and his teachers Bohr and Edward.
He was the prince of the Mara Kingdom, the first Ghost Wizard, and the King of the Dead.
He could almost see the sunshine of the human world. It was so resplendent, so beautiful, Adenos was overly excited, and his whole body was burning with Undead Flame. The bandages on his body all burned up in an instant and ignited all the water of Styx.
The whole river was devoured by the Undead Flame and Adenos turned to ashes within them. In that fire, he got rid of the shackles of the Styx, the shackles of hell, and the identity of the ferryman.
At the speed of light, herds of Deathbringers with soul sickles arrived, and a huge Divine Shadow emerged from the deepest part of hell to look at the Boat of Soul and the fire above the Styx.
“Suicide?”
Before Cetisius became the demi-emperor of the Death Underworld Sector, the ferryman of Styx was already there to lead the dead. Even when he first saw the God of Death in the Death Underworld Sector, that ferryman was also the one who personally led him. At that time, the horrifying ferryman of the Styx left a deep impression on his mind.
No one knew the ferryman’s identity or origin, and his sudden self-immolation deeply puzzled Cetisius. But after the Undead Flame extinguished, no information could be found regarding the Styx’s ferryman. His origin wasn’t recorded in the Book of the Dead which Cetisius was holding onto. He only knew that the ferryman was punished by the gods and had to remain forever on the Styx as a ferryman who couldn’t have any memories.
“Maybe he had a sudden moment of realization and chose to die instead of face his desperate situation!”
“But what happens to the souls when there’s no ferryman? Some important souls and beings still needed him to lead them in!”
Cetisius flipped through the Book of the Dead and then circled one of the names with a goose brush, “I’ll pick you! Lynn Ahenaten! You’re the next ferryman!”
Sealed in the deepest part of the underworld, according to the rules of hell, Lynn Ahenaten became the new master of the Styx. His memory was erased, like those of all his predecessors. He went and stood on the Boat of the Soul.
Lynn Ahenaten, dressed in a black robe, looked into the distance, bewildered. It took a long time for him to steer the Boat of the Soul towards the gates of hell instinctively.
There was a new arrival of souls that needed him to bring them over. That was his duty as the master and ferryman of the Styx.
Cetisius nodded, satisfied, and watched Lynn Ahenaten go far away into the distance before he returned to the Temple of the Death God and began his complex and repetitive work. Those groups of Deathbringers gathered around the Styx dispersed in an instant.
At the foot of the Andromeda Mountain, green flames erupted in the eyes of an ancient undead being embracing the Book of the Undead. He climbed out of his grave.
