Chapter 134: The Germ That Makes Undead Rot

Lisa enthusiastically rolled up the hooded woman's sleeves and summoned Holy Light to wipe it on.

"Holy Light! A hound of Light!" The hooded woman was shocked; as a lich, what would happen if Holy Light touched her?

Seeing the attitude these people had when speaking of liches, she had thought they were of the Neutral faction, but she never expected them to be disguised hounds of Light.

It didn't matter if two powerful mages were watching, or even ten thousand; a lich would never let filth touch her body, for Holy Light was far more terrifying to a lich than excrement.

"Ah!" Just as the lich tried to resist, Lisa suddenly vibrated and exploded, sending out a ring of Holy Light that pushed her back, then Lisa said calmly, "Stand still."

It was as if an invisible giant hand had grabbed her, making it impossible for her to move even an inch.

The caravan erupted in commotion; Eric instinctively tried to move but immediately froze. He struggled to turn his head and saw that the mage's gaze was locked on him, with a row of fireballs appearing before him.

"No... surely not..." Eric muttered, feeling as if a siege crossbow were pointed at his forehead. To Ange, it was merely a first-level spell, but to a merchant like Eric, it was no different from a magic crystal cannon; if it hit, it would shatter him.

Turning back, he found that the little girl had somehow approached his side, her hands wrapped in Holy Light like two gauntlets ready to strike.

Seeing him stop and not act, she pursed her lips in slight disappointment.

Looking behind the little girl, he saw a big boy already prepared to charge, with clouds of smoke rising around him as he armored himself.

Eric was so frightened his toes curled tight; even if he let out a loud fart now, the fear would turn it silent.

With everyone motionless, Lisa's Holy Light touched the hand of the witch-lich.

The wrinkled flesh on the back of her hand visibly plumped up; not only did her skin quality improve, but the patina accumulated over centuries was purified completely, leaving it tender and white, more vibrant than that of a living person.

"Know the Purifying Face Art? Plump, whitening, skin-softening, spot-removing, anti-wrinkle, moisturizing." Lisa smiled, released her restraint on the witch-lich, and introduced it with a smile.

The witch-lich raised her hand to her eyes and stared blankly; no one could see the expression beneath her hooded veil, but everyone could see her body slowly trembling.

After a long while, the witch-lich suddenly scratched hard at the boundary between the vibrant and the withered on her palm. Seeing it wouldn't come off, she came to her senses and asked firmly, "How much?"

Lisa smiled slightly and said calmly, "That depends on you. In your mind, how much is a vibrant appearance like mine worth?"

At first, when Lisa said she was over a thousand years old, no one believed her, but now everyone finally realized that the plump, tender young woman in the black gauze dress before them might indeed be a thousand-year-old witch.

The witch-lich leaned close to Lisa and murmured; no one knew what they discussed, but shortly after, Lisa used Holy Light to wipe her face, rubbing a few times through the veil, then suddenly said, "Forget it, I came too slowly; let me show you a miracle."

She ran over to Seeing Ange, saying, "My lord, my lord, help! Let her see a miracle. I've been in this plane for almost a month and haven't developed a single fanatic, and that brat Sha Fei Ya is always causing me trouble."

"A miracle?" Seeing Ange tilted his head in confusion.

"Just use the Purifying Face Art to restore her, as fast as possible, and as dazzling as possible," Lisa said.

"Oh." Seeing Ange didn't understand "as dazzling as possible," but he understood "as fast as possible." As soon as Lisa finished speaking, a cluster of Holy Light orbs flew over and hovered beside the witch-lich.

Then Seeing Ange pinched from a distance, and all the Holy Light orbs rushed into the witch-lich's body. The overwhelming Holy Light evaporated her clothes, revealing a hideous lich beneath that made one want to look away.

Liches are hideous; at least by the aesthetic standards of living races, this withered, wrinkled animated corpse has no beauty. Originally, Lisa had exerted great effort to make herself merely 'clean,' with no connection to beauty.

Native ones like the Little Zombie were slightly better, for they had been liches since they first gained consciousness and did not find liches ugly.

If these liches were reincarnated from humans and retained memories of their past lives, it would be even harder to accept their current appearance.

If the corpse was not preserved well after death, rotting halfway, and then reincarnated as a zombie, that state of decay would be preserved; they might never want to see themselves again, and those with weak psychological fortitude might commit suicide immediately.

The witch-lich before them was of the poorly preserved type; half her face was rotten, all the hair on her head was gone, and her ears were missing.

Her collarbone was also rotted; when she screamed...

"Wah!" Some with weak psychological fortitude in the caravan vomited on the spot.

Eric also turned pale; he never expected the female mage he had always admired to have such a terrifying appearance. Although he had been prepared, the visual impact was still too great.

The witch-lich was so ashamed and furious she wanted to die; the aspect she least wanted to show outsiders was now nakedly displayed before others without warning, but under that massive Holy Light, she couldn't even move a finger and could only instinctively scream.

Then, a miracle-like transformation unfolded before everyone's eyes.

The withered flesh quickly filled out like an inflated balloon; the rotten areas visibly healed, the pale skin turned ruddy, and the dehydrated skin gradually became vibrant.

In a few breaths, a withered, rotting dried corpse became a tall, slender... bald girl with white, tender, and vibrant skin.

Hair failed to grow, so Seeing Ange leaned close to the witch-lich, first smearing essence liquid on her head. The small tree sprout atop his own head immediately excitedly waved its true leaves: "Grow hard—grow hard."

Hair grew out of the witch-lich's bald head with a rustling sound; with such a noticeable effect, many in the caravan and among the Sand People couldn't help but touch their own sparse scalps.

The witch-lich experienced the greatest rise and fall of her life in an instant; first ashamed and furious to the point of death, then in a blink, everything that had once drifted away from her returned, and she, who had been too ugly to look in a mirror, became the beautiful, youthful girl she once was.

The next moment, she realized something, covered her body with both hands, and felt unbearable shame. Although her clothes had been evaporated in both instances, her state of mind before and after was completely different.

Lisa waved her hand fiercely, and a chain of Holy Radiance wrapped around the witch-lich, binding her so she couldn't move, but also covering her sensitive parts.

She ran over, lifted the witch-lich by one hand, and hurried toward a distant tent.

Eric finally came to his senses, wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth, rubbed his chest, and thought that the great ups and downs of life were truly thrilling; the impact of the rotting dried corpse earlier was strong, but the impact of the white-skinned girl afterward was even stronger, yet Eric's mind kept reminding him that these two were the same.

He couldn't calm down for a long time until a tall figure in an ultra-tight white mini-skirt emerged from the distant tent.

"You're too tall; my clothes don't fit you, so you can only wear the Little Angel's, but she's too short. Don't your caravan have cloth? Find a tailor to cut one later," Lisa said.

Saying she was too tall to fit was to spare the witch-lich's feelings; the main issue was that she was too flat to wear them.

The witch-lich was full of shy discomfort, constantly pulling at the dress on her body; pulling it down exposed the top, pulling it up exposed the bottom.

The Angel Skeleton ran over, tilted her head to look at her, seemingly curious why the other was wearing her clothes.

For the same type of white dress, Lisa had customized dozens for it, since shining Holy Light would inevitably ruin one.

The witch-lich also realized her clothes belonged to the little girl before her, smiled apologetically, and whispered, "Thank you."

She was a polite little girl; Lisa nodded with a smile and brought her before Seeing Ange to introduce her: "My lord, this is Jerica from Dark Side City."

Then she turned to the witch-lich and said, "Jerica, do you believe in the Undead? This is Seeing Ange, the God of all Undead Souls, the Undead God."

Jerica crossed her hands over her shoulders, knelt devoutly before Seeing Ange, and said, "Greetings, My Lord Seeing Ange." A thick soul flame surged from her body, rushed into Seeing Ange's soul, and formed a symbol.

The fifth symbol.

"My Lord Seeing Ange, please save us!" Jerica pressed her forehead to the ground and spoke as if using all her strength.

The road in the desert extended to a point three days' journey from Keren Town; as for why it didn't extend to Keren Town itself?

"Are you stupid? The desert is the best barrier. If you build the road to someone else's doorstep, are you inviting them to come and attack you?" Lord Nai Ge Li Si's small paw tapped on Luther's small head, making a thumping sound.

Luther was unconvinced: "It's only a three-day journey now; if others want to attack, they can do so anyway."

"That's why all the roads go around the water sources and oases. Small merchant caravans are fine, but if a large group marches without following the water sources, they'll die of thirst on the road. And there's also a subterranean river we crossed — if anyone really tries to attack the oasis along the road, we'll just collapse the subterranean river and the enemy won't be able to get through," Lord Nai Ge Li Si said.

Brusk beside him sighed in admiration: "The ancestor my lord is truly wise."

Lord Nai Ge Li Si glanced at this dragon clan chief who had slept for four days and five nights straight, and said irritably: "Flattering me won't do you any good. Do you think I've forgotten what you said? Didn't you say you'd do as much as Seeing Ange does? After you fell asleep, he repaired thirty-four kilometres of road."

"But it's already finished, isn't it?" Brusk spread his hands and said shamelessly.

"The road's done, you can do something else," Lord Nai Ge Li Si said.

"Alright, alright, the teleportation array, I know, ancestor my lord, you're a member of the dragon clan too, stop always swindling my little nest egg," Brusk said irritably.

"Who's swindling you? Seeing Ange saved two of our dragon clan's hatchlings, and you slack off when asked to do a little work, and you pinch pennies when asked to hand over a bit of material. Tell me, what matters more — our little hatchlings, or your little private purse?" Lord Nai Ge Li Si gave him a thorough dressing-down.

Spending too long with Lightning does have its perks, as long as it doesn't give you a heart attack first — at the very least, his arguing skills have skyrocketed.

Brusk had been slippery, saying that however long a road Seeing Ange built, once he woke up he'd build one just as long. Who could have known he'd sleep for four days and five nights, and only crawl out nonchalantly after the road was completely repaired, never once mentioning the road work.

To force a Truth-tier powerhouse into such a state, one can well imagine how monstrous Seeing Ange is.

Hopefully the Hope Oasis's teleportation array was destroyed by the sand bandits, and there's no material to repair it either, so he can only swindle him — serves him right for being slippery.

The group returned to Hope Oasis. By now the edges of the oasis had completely changed. Starting from Seeing Ange's few sandstone houses and extending outward over several stretches of dune, the whole area was covered in checkerboard grass grids.

The straw-mat sand-fixing technique used on the roadsides was applied here on the wasteland first, stabilising the dunes, improving the sandy soil, and then interplanting date trees and go-yams.

If date trees are grown from the pits, they only bear fruit after three to five years, and only enter full production after six or seven years. So Seeing Ange chose to do cuttings — specifically seeking out date trees already in their full-production period, snipping their branches, dipping them in a bit of essence liquid, then soaking them in diluted essence liquid and activating the halo.

The Instant-Death Halo used alone isn't suited for rooting, because there are no roots yet to absorb nutrients and moisture — the moment it's activated, the cutting withers.

The Holy Essence Liquid also isn't suited as a rooting powder, because it simply wasn't made for plants — its effect is far too strong for vegetation.

But when the two are combined, they can even force a World Tree branch to sprout, and with a bit of Life Essence added, even a dead branch might be brought back to life.

After a flurry of dragon-like operations, Seeing Ange obtained a large batch of full-production-period date saplings and interplanted them with go-yams in the grass grids.

At this growth rate, next year's grain harvest is sure to see a major breakthrough.

As for why he didn't just accelerate them straight to maturity? Because it costs far too much soul energy.

Recently, Seeing Ange has often felt his soul energy running a deficit. Thank goodness he'd hidden in the woods near Mara Town for a month and a half earlier and stockpiled a bit of soul energy — otherwise he'd have run out long ago.

Lan and Anna, who had stayed behind here, came out to greet them. At a glance they asked: "Lisa? Why hasn't Lisa come back?"

"Oh, they went to the Shadowside City. A kind of pathogen that can infect undead has appeared there — undead that catch it have their bodies and bones continually rotting. Lisa and Philin were very curious, so they went to take a look," Lord Nai Ge Li Si replied.

"Shadowside City? Where is that?" Anna exclaimed.

As the second-in-line city lord, Anna had, the moment she settled down, gone to Safia to learn all kinds of geography, culture, and history. She could recite the major cities by heart, yet she had no impression of this Shadowside City at all.

"It's a city built by the undead of this world banding together to survive. Calling it a city is generous — it's actually just a network of underground caves, right in the desert. If it weren't in the desert, the Church of Light would have wiped it out long ago."

The words had barely fallen when someone raised the alarm. Looking into the distance, it was Philin, Lisa, Jerica, and the others — each of them riding a horse, with another horse trailing behind them, wrapped up tightly all over, yet occasionally leaking out death energy.

From afar, Lisa began calling for help: "my lord, save us, there are Holy Knights chasing us!"

Pulling the line of sight a bit further out, sure enough, a few hundred metres behind Lisa and the others, a squad of Holy Knights was in relentless pursuit. Seeing the oasis in the distance, perhaps afraid they'd escape, one of the Holy Knights suddenly leapt up from his mount and, with a flash, unfurled a pair of wings.

How is this a Holy Knight — this is clearly a Holy Spirit Angel. That pose, why does it look so much like Holy Light Blazing?