The mayor stepped forward, drawing closer to Ye Tianxie step by step. With a gaze that was almost reverent, he studied the Hero’s Badge carefully at close range, then lifted his head. “Young brave one who bears the Hero’s Badge — may I, on behalf of all of Guping Town, ask a favor of you? Will you deliver us from a calamity that is certain to come?”
A calamity?
A quest?!
“Very well. Please, speak — if it is something I have the power to help with.” Ye Tianxie put away the Return Scroll at exactly the right moment and adopted an attentive posture.
The mayor’s gaze lingered a while longer on the badge. He sighed lightly and said, “Guping Town was not always called Guping Town. Once it was called Little River Village. A hundred years ago, the Skeleton Cavern to the south suddenly gave birth to a terrible Undead Sovereign. He left his territory and came here, intending to wipe out every living thing in this place. And just as our forebears fell into despair, a hero appeared — a hero named Gu Ping. And upon his chest he wore a badge exactly like yours…”
Slowly and in detail, the mayor recounted to Ye Tianxie a past that was neither distant nor ever forgotten. He told of the Undead Sovereign’s might, of the might of the warrior called Gu Ping, and of how that day had finally ended. The hero died in the end, but his name had been engraved in this town’s memory for generation upon generation.
Then the mayor’s account turned abruptly, leaping from a century ago to the blood-colored phoenix. “No one knows when the blood phoenix was born, or where. We first saw it three years ago. The phoenix belongs to fire, and should by rights favor places of light and great heat — yet the blood phoenix seems otherwise. The place it dwells is dark and damp, where neither sun nor moon is ever seen… And the Skeleton Cavern is the very nest in which the blood phoenix now makes its home.”
Ye Tianxie: “!?”
“Undead creatures fear fire, yet strangely they seem not to fear the blood phoenix’s flames… or perhaps the blood phoenix’s blood-colored fire is no true fire at all. Since the blood phoenix took up residence in the Skeleton Cavern, it and the undead there have coexisted without conflict. It dwells even now in the cavern’s deepest reaches.”
“And what is it you would have me do?” Ye Tianxie asked, frowning.
“When this warrior of the City of Heaven’s Stars returned gravely wounded, he brought terrible news.” The mayor indicated the injured city guard with his eyes. “On the fifth level of the Skeleton Cavern, a full century after the first Undead Sovereign perished, the yin energy there has begun to form a new Undead Sovereign…”
Ye Tianxie: “…”
“On the day the Undead Sovereign completes his growth, he will be able to survive outside the darkness — and on that day, our Guping Town will suffer a calamity we cannot possibly resist… Young brave one, will you use your courage and your strength to destroy this terrible Undead Sovereign? You bear the Hero’s Badge; you must surely be, like the hero Gu Ping of old, a hero sent by heaven to save us in our hour of peril!”
“Ding… The mayor of Guping Town entrusts you with defeating the Undead Sovereign on the fifth level of the Skeleton Cavern. Quest type: Hidden Unique. Time limit: six months — after six months the Undead Sovereign will reach maturity and the quest will fail automatically. Quest reward: Unknown. The people of Guping Town await the Undead Sovereign’s destruction with every passing moment; therefore, the longer completion is delayed, the smaller the reward. Penalty for failure: favorability with all people of Guping Town −10. Accept?”
Defeat an Undead Sovereign?!
This…
What. Kind. Of. Joke. Is. This!
The Undead Sovereign was a max-level, Level 100, death-element super-BOSS of at least Heaven-Severing grade!
And he was a Level 14 player without so much as a class… If the Undead Sovereign so much as broke wind, it would probably kill him a thousand times over.
Ye Tianxie didn’t accept. Instead he said calmly, “Mayor, I would very much like to help you, but my level is only fourteen. I could not possibly be a match for an Undead Sovereign.”
“No! Young brave one, you can do it. You obtained the Hero’s Badge — you must surely have ability enough.” To Ye Tianxie’s surprise, hearing his level did nothing to shake the mayor’s faith, and he explained, “The Undead Sovereign as he is now is not a true Undead Sovereign, but is in an unformed, infant stage; his abilities in every respect are wholly immature… As far as I know, the Undead Sovereign’s level at present cannot exceed 20. You, who bear the Hero’s Badge, can surely defeat him and avert the great calamity about to descend on our Guping Town. But if it is delayed too long, then at the rate an Undead Sovereign grows, six months will see him reach Level 100, and his grade will attain the invincible Heaven-Severing tier… and by then, all will be too late.”
The mayor’s explanation set Ye Tianxie’s heart racing. Under Level 20… He had defeated the Level 20 Lord BOSS, the Amethyst War Tiger, at Level 10 — so what reason had he not to challenge this newborn Undead Sovereign? And this quest was plainly a Hidden Unique quest — the rarest kind of all, far harder to encounter than either a hidden quest or a Unique quest!
Its difficulty might be the greatest of any quest type, but its reward, beyond question, would be the richest.
“Very well. In that case, I’ll go and destroy this Undead Sovereign.” Ye Tianxie’s expression cleared, and he spoke with complete confidence.
“Ding. You have accepted the quest ‘The Guping Town Mayor’s Commission — Slay the Undead Sovereign on the Fifth Level of the Skeleton Cavern.'”
The confidence that suddenly blazed from Ye Tianxie infected the mayor, and a relieved smile appeared on his aged face. “Thank you. You have shown me enormous hope. In this moment I suddenly feel the burden of all these long days grow much lighter. The Skeleton Cavern lies south of here; walk south and you will see the blackened land and the black mouth of the cave. Before you go — if you need any help at all, tell me at any time, and our people will give you all the aid we can.”
Ye Tianxie soon learned exactly what “all the aid we can” amounted to…
Thirty Advanced Recovery Potions, usable at Level 10, restoring 400 HP instantly with a five-second cooldown, and thirty Advanced Magic Potions, usable at Level 10, restoring 400 MP instantly with a five-second cooldown. Looking at the sixty little bottles that had appeared in his backpack, and then at the townsfolk who had turned out en masse to see him off to the Skeleton Cavern, their faces full of fervor, longing, and worship, Ye Tianxie felt rather like weeping without tears.
So stingy… unbelievably stingy…
The quest reward had better not be this stingy too… Ye Tianxie thought glumly.
……
……
The mountain paths here were poor going, with scarcely a level stretch anywhere. The further on he went, the sparser the vegetation, and an hour later there was essentially none left on the ground at all — the occasional tree that did appear looked ready to wither away at any moment.
This was, in fact, entirely natural. A place that could spawn undead creatures, and even give birth to an Undead Sovereign, must be steeped in an enormous concentration of yin energy — and yin energy goes by another name: the breath of the dead. Death and life are natural enemies, and it devours life without mercy; weak life it can strip away with the greatest ease. Because the yin energy here was so heavy, there was no trace of bird or beast anywhere around, let alone people.
The Skeleton Cavern was not far from Guping Town. An hour’s journey later, Ye Tianxie came to a stop on a stretch of terrifyingly black earth and looked at the pitch-black cave mouth before him — a mouth that ran horizontally, yet somehow gave the impression of leading down into a bottomless abyss.
Faintly, a cold and sinister wind drifted out toward him, carrying a yin energy that set the teeth chattering and a stench of rot that turned the stomach.
Ye Tianxie stood in place in silence for a while, then walked in after all.
The Skeleton Cavern had existed for a very long time; its precise origin and the cause of its formation could no longer be traced. As Ye Tianxie stepped inside, everything around him grew quieter and quieter, the light dimmer and dimmer, and that corpse-rot stench grew plainly thicker. Ye Tianxie’s brow furrowed.
When his eyes adjusted to the darkness here, what he perceived was not an empty blackness, but a faint green glow suffusing everything… a sinister green glow. This glow was certainly not seeping in from outside, not the light of the sun, but the faint phosphorescence given off by rotting corpses. By its dim light, Ye Tianxie could just make out a range of five or six meters ahead.
The ground was a lifeless black, yet unexpectedly level — and it was quiet here. Too quiet. Quiet without a single sound.
The Skeleton Cavern, first level.
And since this was a cavern of skeletons, it naturally would not lack for skeletons, that most representative of undead creatures.
Creak…
At last a sound came through the silence — a sound anyone would instinctively recognize as bones grinding against one another. Ye Tianxie whipped around and looked at the black shape in the darkness ahead, which seemed to be clawing its way up out of the ground itself. Detection activated at once.
Skeleton Soldier — Level 17. HP: 680. An undead monster spawned when the breath of death takes the bones of the dead as its vessel; it instinctively rejects all living things. Though possessing no true consciousness, its body is incomparably hard.
Talent — Undead Body: Automatically restores health in darkness or in the presence of undead energy, and is immune to 70% of death-element attacks.
Skill — Skeletal Hands: Swings its stark white bony hands to rend the target; 20% chance to deal 150% damage.
Creak, creak…
The sound of grinding bones rose in chaos before him, behind him, to his left and right, and the once-silent cavern was suddenly filled with that terrifying noise. Yet Ye Tianxie’s slightly taut heart actually eased… Generally speaking, the further from a main city, the higher a monster’s level. And the first level of this Skeleton Cavern held Level 17 monsters. Numerous as they were, monsters of that level posed him no threat at all.
Creak, creak, creak…
Creak, creak…
(End of Chapter 97)