Chapter 1883

Su Xiao pushed open the door of the small wooden house. He had seen two Holy Cultivators in the Dead City, and without exception, they were all in such makeshift small wooden houses.

The small wooden house was filled with a musty smell, about forty square meters in size, with traces of having been lived in.

Near the inner wall of the wooden house, a skeleton leaned against the wooden wall. Beside the corpse, there was a strip of rust, on which golden light particles could be vaguely seen. This should have been the Holy Cultivator's weapon, but due to the long passage of time, it had been weathered and corroded.

Su Xiao's hand gripped the air, and a crystal long staff formed. He used the crystal staff to touch the Holy Cultivator's skeleton, and with just a light poke, he poked a hole in the skull.

Clearly, this Holy Cultivator hadn't left anything behind. Just as Su Xiao was about to leave the wooden house, he discovered that this Holy Cultivator's skeleton was sitting on a raised stone slab.

This stone slab was clearly something that had originally belonged to the Dead City, with a lower degree of weathering. Su Xiao moved the Holy Cultivator's corpse away and found that there were words carved on the stone slab.

The stone slab was divided into upper and lower parts. Su Xiao couldn't understand the text on the top at all, but the carvings were neat. As for the carvings below, they were significantly more sloppy, as if they had been carved by force with a sharp tool, and there were also annotations nearby.

The text below was because this Holy Cultivator was simply too bored, so he deciphered the text above. The content of the deciphering was as follows:

"I am Kefirson, a bard from Lingao. That's right, that city of magic—clean, prosperous, free, the dream city of elementalists. My pack is very heavy, at least 20 Ao (about 36 jin), so I need to find a place to rest."

"Although the positions between the two kingdoms are hostile, in my opinion, the Dead City is really beautiful. The folk customs here are simple and honest..."

When Su Xiao saw the four words "folk customs are simple and honest," he almost couldn't help but kick the stone slab to pieces. What the hell kind of simple and honest folk customs.

"The folk customs are simple and honest, the scenery is beautiful, especially the Supreme Sanctuary in the center of the city. From an architectural point of view, it can already be called a miracle. With the architectural level of the Mortia Kingdom, how on earth did they do it? It is worth mentioning that this time the envoy brought wind power generation technology, which might allow the tense situation between the two countries to ease."

"Unbelievable, the Mortia Kingdom and my motherland have actually broken out into an all-out war. The Dead City is very wrong. Things I couldn't figure out have been explained. There is a reason why this place is called the Dead City, especially those hateful Crow Doctors. Is their only therapy bloodletting? If they can't cure it, they suggest burning them to death? Utterly absurd."

"Home... is gone, razed to the ground by the Mortia Kingdom. I must leave the Dead City as soon as possible. The residents here are very wrong. They are gradually turning into monsters. Although those Crow Doctors have finally figured it out, the residents here are not sick. The problem is the whole city. This is a war weapon, the origin of destruction. Compared to this city, elementalists are not worth mentioning at all; they are more like conjurers."

"The first day of the Day of Destruction, everything... turned into fragments. The war shattered the star we lived on. The only thing that was preserved was the Dead City, but I am imprisoned here. No one can leave. Where will this city drift to? Perhaps only the gods know."

"The Crow Doctor looked at my 'condition'. I am being assimilated. Even if I am an outsider, once assimilated, the attitude of those Crow Doctors has changed a lot. They brought me food, quilts, and even asked if I needed 'Ice Therapy'. I refused; that would turn me into another kind of monster."

"I have already forgotten what the sun looks like. I have probably lived for more than 200 years. After being assimilated, I did not age, and... I am now a hunter, a hunter who has accepted 'Ice Therapy'."

"Hunting is to protect those who have not yet been completely assimilated, but every time I open my eyes after sleeping, the first thing I think of is actually where to go hunting today, how the wear and tear of the weapon is. I have immersed myself in it, forgetting my original intention."

"Those residents who have not yet been assimilated are afraid of me. They kneel down and cry, begging me to leave. So... I had already turned into a monster, and the most powerful kind at that. No wonder, yesterday when I cut off the head of the 'King Snake' and bathed in its blood, that feeling of exhilaration was indescribable."

"They are all trash. Today, I will go to battle. The prey, the Black King. I told them long ago that that drifter on the sea is unreliable; he is a living person."

"Coming to the Dead City, I have no regrets. Mad Hunter Kefirson."

Seeing the records on the stone slab, Su Xiao had a guess about the origin of the Dead City. This place did not originally belong to the Black Throne Continent, and it wasn't even a city of this world.

The Dead City originally belonged to a country called the Mortia Kingdom. That country was at war with another country that was relatively prosperous in technology. The process of the war is unknown, but the result was that the two countries shattered the planet they lived on. Because the Dead City was relatively special, it was squeezed onto the Black Throne Continent.

The difference between the outer periphery of the Dead City and the central area is the difference in the speed of assimilation. The central area was once the safe zone of the Dead City. Those living here were residents who had not been completely assimilated. As for the outer periphery, it was full of monsters.

And that circular river is a kind of defense mechanism. The Crow Doctors in the central area developed a treatment method called 'Ice Therapy', or rather, a self-protection measure. People who accept Ice Therapy are called hunters, and they enter the outer periphery to hunt those residents who have completely turned into monsters.

But shortly after, the residents who still retained their own consciousness discovered that Ice Therapy could not save them, but would instead increase the speed of assimilation. Even worse, Ice Therapy resulted in the assimilation of even stronger monsters.

Therefore, the Crow Doctors changed their strategy. Artificial creatures like the Moon Daughter and Tree Erosion were born. The original intention for their creation was also to defend against the monsters in the outer periphery and to find a way to leave the Dead City. Alas, Tree Erosion could not resist assimilation and instead became a guard of the Dead City. There was only one Moon Daughter, and by the time she grew up, the central area had already been assimilated by the Dead City.

Before being assimilated, the residents of the central area made their final struggle. They imprisoned themselves in their residences. Even if they turned into monsters, they didn't want to be like those 'beasts' in the outer periphery.

What happened after that is unknown, because that was the era of the Black King. The Dead City was suppressed by the Black King and could only be imprisoned in a corner of the continent. Without coordinates, it was impossible to enter this place at all.

Su Xiao roughly understood what was going on with the Dead City. He turned and left the small wooden house. A few dozen meters away from the small wooden house was the Sacrificial Altar.

The Sacrificial Altar was an oval-shaped building with a huge iron ring in the center. Although they were still more than ten meters away from the Sacrificial Altar, Su Xiao felt a sense of security.

A stream of energy wrapped around the Sacrificial Altar, making the colors of this oval building vivid, no longer the gray-black tone. Looking at it, this place seemed to be the only building in the Dead City that had not been assimilated.

The stone door of the Sacrificial Altar was wide open. Xiang Ignoring Bubu Wang entered first. Two seconds later, Xiang Ignoring Bubu Wang zoomed out with a 'whoosh'.

Tut-tut-tut...

Xiang Ignoring Bubu Wang's hind legs were vibrating at a high frequency—no, they should be shivering.

"Woo-ao-wang-ao-woo."

Xiang Ignoring Bubu Wang was 'babbling'. It was so scared that it almost blurted out human speech.