Chapter 454: Can Do. Do Not Burn the Fields

A crow landed on the castle wall, its jet-black eyes scanning everywhere, spotting several fishing rods and flowerpots propped against the battlements.

A lich swordsman clad in soul armor sat there, utterly focused on fishing, occasionally pulling the line.

Empty. Frustrated, "he" cursed under his breath—this must be the mayor Locke the townsfolk had mentioned.

This was a quiet, peaceful remote village; from the townsfolk's conversations, it had long been under Mayor Locke's rule, with residents living in peace and prosperity, stable security, and thriving economy.

Not long ago, Mayor Locke even hired people to build a Central-tier teleportation array, strengthening ties with Northwind City—a move universally seen as wasteful.

A remote village? Why need a Central teleportation array? Look, it now sits abandoned, rarely used; it's better for townsfolk to walk to Northwind City than burn several magic crystals to activate it.

But wasteful is good—only true liches are wasteful. Only life races with limited lifespans, needing food, drink, and excretion, bother to count every coin.

Liches? Waste it all—after all, they won't starve. Building useless things fits Mayor Locke's persona perfectly.

The crow's peripheral vision caught movement; it turned its head and saw a pink, adorable little girl creeping toward it along the wall, hands outstretched, clearly preparing to pounce.

Seeing the crow turn, the girl realized she'd been spotted and immediately bared her teeth, roaring: "Aow!"—clearly trying to scare the crow.

The crow sighed inwardly in resignation, playing along by flinching in fright, taking flight—crows must behave like crows; what kind of crow wouldn't even scare away?

Another undead creature clad in a cloak-like soul armor stepped out, shouting at the girl: "Aow!"

The girl shrieked "Kakaka" and ran back.

Another undead creature clad in soul armor dragged a dead warhorse behind him, muttering: "You dead horse, let me ride you, let me ride you."

Another undead creature clad in soul armor conjured a shovel in one hand and turned the soil in a corner flowerbed.

An alchemist dressed in a magician's high-collared, high-hatted cloak and gloves, wearing a mask, returned hauling a pile of alchemical prosthetics. Spotting the crow in the air, he suddenly stopped, staring at it thoughtfully.

The crow felt a mental scan sweep over it.

Found? The crow wasn't worried; it drifted lazily upward, turned, and flew off in another direction—all the while, the alchemist kept watching it.

Being found was normal; not being found would be strange—it'd mean the undead here were too weak.

Though allied with the Sorcerer's Alliance, the Undead Empire held no particular aversion to sorcerers, since undead could learn sorcery spells, and due to their longevity, often had firmer foundational mastery than humans.

But sorcerers valued creativity, which was never mainstream among undead; this alchemist was already quite powerful.

From mayor to residents—even the alchemist was undead—this village could never be a hidden base for the Light's dogs.

Having reached this conclusion, a large flock of crows rose silently from various parts of the village and flew toward the next settlement.

Seeing the crow flock depart, a small yellow book flew up from Ang's body, its pages opening.

Inside the pages, a giant brass dragon's massive claw patted the head of a much smaller corpse dragon: "See? See? We fooled the Nightmare Witch too. See?"

Nagelis's true body was over fifty meters long; the lich dragon's corpse was only eighteen meters—there was as much difference as between a giant lizard and a chameleon. The lich dragon shrank into a ball under the blows: "Alright, alright, you're amazing—who are you guys?"

Nagelis sneered: "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you—we're subjects of the God of Undeath."

"Believe, believe—I believe you're subjects of the God of Undeath, or maybe even the Pope of the Light Church—so amazing, light and dark united, like some knight novel, what a load of nonsense," the lich dragon sneered.

The lich dragon simply lacked tact—daring to be sarcastic in this situation earned him a beating from Nagelis; in the Brass Book, Nagelis was absolute ruler.

Only after the lich dragon "submitted" did Nagelis ask: "What's the Nightmare Witch's identity? Why send her? What special abilities does she have?"

"She induces nightmares and steals information from dreams. Just now she was observing you, but information gathering had already been completed through ordinary people's dreams—probably found nothing, so she left."

Anthony frowned: "Aguri! No—if the Nightmare Witch is this powerful, why do villages full of Light faithful still exist? Send her around once and she'd uncover them all."

The lich dragon sneered: "That's like saying 'work hard for five hundred years and you can buy an estate'—total nonsense. Do you know how many villages exist across the entire plane? Even checking one per month would take over a thousand years. You want to kill the witch with overwork?"

Anthony frowned: "Why one per month? One per day—thirty years and it's done."

"... You humans are terrifying. Working one or two days a month is cruel enough—you want her working every day for thirty years?" the lich dragon muttered in disbelief.

Nightmare Witches are too few—only a handful—and stealing information through dreams isn't easy. To conduct large-scale screening, it would take decades or even centuries to survey every village across the plane—it's practically a death sentence for the Nightmare Witch.

If screening takes too long—say three or five hundred years—population generations would have changed entirely; it'd be meaningless.

Besides villages, what about cities? How do you screen a city with tens of thousands of people?

Eventually, Light faithful would be forced to infiltrate cities, making it better to let them live in isolated settlements—just as long as they don't cause major trouble.

Anthony nodded in agreement: "True. The desert has few villages—just sweep them in a few days. Lord Nagelis, beat it."

The lich dragon was stunned: "What? Beat it even though it answered correctly?"

Anthony nodded: "Attitude problem. Beat it."

After being thoroughly beaten, Anthony said: "You can find someone to protect you—then you won't keep getting beaten."

Anthony had asked nearly all the questions he needed—he could now kill the lich dragon or establish a soul link.

Ang had no interest in forming a new soul link; the lich dragon had no choice but to offer his soul to the little zombie.

"Ahh—ahh—ahh—" As he shoved the linked soul back into his body, the lich dragon Gadrigo lay there groaning.

A mighty lich dragon reduced to offering his soul to an unknown nobody—how humiliating. His previous master was at least the Chairman of the Necromancer Council, one of the top five or six figures in the Undead Empire.

But he'd miscalculated—something even more humiliating was coming. The little zombie dragged over a large wooden frame and slipped it over Gadrigo.

"What are you doing?" Gadrigo suddenly felt a terrible premonition.

The little zombie slipped the frame on, then pointed to the plow beside him: "Aow!"

A twenty-meter-long lich dragon, not used to pull a plow? What a waste.

Ang had fully animated its body; no trace of its former lich dragon form remained. Even if someone saw it now, they'd never link it to the corpse Ang had seized.

Thus, around Shenyin Village and the dam irrigation zone, a twenty-meter-long dragon dragging a row of plows, groaning as it crawled, could occasionally be seen.

Due to its size, it could pull twelve plows at once, working twenty-four hours a day, thirty days a month, year-round—successfully living a "cruel" life.

Now it didn't call humans cruel—the little zombie was even more cruel.

The only benefit was that the little zombie shared soul energy through the soul link, letting it stay energized for work; over time, its soul had grown noticeably denser.

…

A month passed; the last crow left Northwind City—the Nightmare Witch found nothing.

After inspecting Shenyin Village, the Nightmare Witch scoured every corner of the desert—even Albert in the Stone Tomb Cemetery had seen the crows.

But the solitary Albert didn't attract the crows' attention; they didn't linger. They sought Light Church outposts, not a desert vagrant.

Finally, all crows converged on Northwind City. For a time afterward, the city's residents experienced nightmares far more frequently.

Yet the Nightmare Witch uncovered no trace of any Light Church outpost, nor any suspicious signs—ultimately concluding the two six-winged archangels and the Pope had merely passed through.

After the last crow departed, Feiwo and Silver Coin finally relaxed.

…

Underground in Shenyin Village, Ang—who had already seized the opportunity to till all land in Shenyin Village and the dam irrigation zone—was preparing to extend into the desert when he was called back to a meeting, listening listlessly as Silver Coin and Feiwo reported.

"The Sorcerer's Ladder now hovers at ten thousand meters above Northwind City, occasionally harassed by the lich dragon, but unable to be dislodged. Currently, both sides are locked in strategic stalemate—the focus has shifted to the populace."

"The Sorcerer's Ladder descends during the day to distribute food and exchange goods, then ascends at night to prevent raids."

"The Necromancer Council has deployed vast numbers of undead to patrol key transport routes and disaster zones, suppressing bandits and taking over the Sorcerer's Alliance's former duties," Silver Coin reported.

The Sorcerer's Alliance's arrival objectively restored order to the surface world. In an agrarian economy, as long as order holds, large-scale disasters won't erupt.

To maintain order, you need food, no disease, no war.

Food still existed, but due to collapsed order, localized shortages occurred; places with food hoarded it out of panic, causing numerous tragedies.

The Sorcerer's Alliance's arrival stabilized food prices and maintained order.

Their arrival also accelerated the sluggish Undead Empire's operations.

Without the Sorcerer's Alliance's threat, those upper undead who thought working one or two days a month was cruel would have waited until all living things died before reacting.

"In a sense, both sides have reached a balanced cooperation—jointly maintaining surface order while competing for the support of noble landlords."

"Both the Sorcerer's Alliance and the Necromancer Council have sent envoys to us, offering every convenience to help us restore production—as long as we sell the output to them," Feiwo said.

Winning public support requires resources—if you can't even provide food, and people are starving, who will obey your rule? Thus, landowners capable of producing grain were the first targets both sides competed for.

Northwind City originally had no advantage here—its grain output was less than a fraction of the southern grain-producing regions, and it even had to import food for its own consumption.

But both sides noticed the dam irrigation zone; the Sorcerer's Ladder's position offered direct sight of it, though it had been abandoned recently.

Someone approached Feiwo, hoping he'd assign workers to restore cultivation in the irrigation zone and sell the grain to them.

Feiwo couldn't decide, so he said he'd consider it. Just after discussing with Silver Coin, a second group arrived with even better terms—same demand: sell the grain to them.

Silver Coin's eyes flickered; he immediately had Feiwo say "we'll consider it," then loudly and conspicuously see off the second group.

No sooner had the second group left than the first returned, offering even richer terms and promising advance payment.

Before Feiwo could respond, the second group returned too—both nearly came to blows at the governor's mansion entrance.

Nagelis stared in disbelief: "So you used just 'we'll consider it' to drive the price up to ten magic crystals per ton? And they offered a twenty-thousand-crystal deposit, promised to buy all output, and offered full logistical support?"

Silver Coin nodded: "I didn't take the deposit. I didn't accept any other terms. I just said I couldn't decide—bidding will happen after harvest, highest bidder wins."

"Why not take the deposit?" Nagelis asked.

"Can't take it. They don't want grain—they want to monopolize the supply. Even if they burn the crops, they won't let the other side get them. So you can only take a deposit from one party—but if you do, the other will burn the crops."

Ang, idly arranging magical arrays with both hands, suddenly looked up, fixing Silver Coin with a stare.

Silver Coin quickly waved his hands: "Not me burning them—they will."

Anthony added: "This is a struggle for dominance of the plane—brutal. Whoever takes a deposit, next year their crops won't be harvested. If many take deposits, next year's harvest will collapse—then we're in trouble."

"That's too cruel. Won't Your Majesty stop them?" Nagelis asked.

"Your Majesty is trapped in the Void Seal. Currently, the Necromancer Council's high-ups are in charge," Anthony said.

"Then what do we do?" Nagelis asked.

Silver Coin said: "Simple. If everyone refuses deposits and insists on auctioning after harvest—highest bidder wins—then the crops are safe while still in the fields."

"How do you get everyone to refuse deposits? Most people can't think that far ahead. I was just wondering why you didn't take the deposit." Nagelis sighed.

Silver Coin said: "Only one channel can reach everyone with our warning: the House of the Departed. We can use bounty postings to analyze the situation—surely alert most people."

"But the House of the Departed's permissions are controlled by the Necromancer Council—they might delete it. If we use the highest authority seal, others will learn someone holds higher power. So I'd like to ask your permission to use the highest authority seal."

Of course, this decision required Ang's approval.

Can do. Do not burn the fields.