Chapter 454: Fine, But Don't Burn the Fields

A crow landed on the castle wall, its jet-black eyes glancing around, and spotted a few fishing rods propped on the battlements, along with flower pots.

A lich swordsman clad in soul armor sat there fishing with full concentration, pulling the rod every now and then.

Empty, and so angry that 'he' started cursing—this must be the Mayor Locke the townsfolk had been talking about.

This was a peaceful, tranquil little town in the middle of nowhere. Listening to the townsfolk's chatter, the place had long been under Mayor Locke's rule; the people lived and worked in peace and contentment, public order was stable, and the economy flourished.

A while back, Mayor Locke had even hired people to build a hub-grade teleportation array, strengthening the connection with North Wind City—a move that everyone agreed was a colossal waste of money.

A remote little town—what on earth does it need a hub teleportation array for? Look, now it's just sitting there idle, with a low usage rate. Rather than spending several magic crystals to activate the array, the townsfolk might as well just walk to North Wind City.

But wasting money is good—a lich that wastes money is a true lich. Only those living races with finite lifespans, who need to eat, drink, and relieve themselves, would pinch every penny and scrape by.

A lich, after all, losing money is losing money—no one starves to death over it. Building something useless like this fits Mayor Locke's character perfectly.

Out of the corner of its eye, the crow spotted something moving. It turned its head and saw a pink, adorable little girl sneaking toward it from beside the wall on hands and feet, both hands stretched out in front, looking ready to pounce.

Seeing the crow turn its head, the little girl realized she'd been spotted and immediately waved her claws and let out a roar: "Rawr!" Clearly trying to scare the crow.

The crow sighed helplessly inside, and very cooperatively put on a startled look before taking flight. A crow has to act like a 'bird,' after all—would a crow that can't even be scared off still count as a crow?

An undead creature wearing a straw-cape-style soul armor walked out and shouted at the little girl: "Rawr!"

The little girl let out a string of "kakaka" sounds and ran back.

Another undead creature in soul armor was dragging an undead warhorse outside, tugging as it spoke: "You dead horse, let me ride you, just let me ride you."

Another undead creature in soul armor condensed a shovel in one hand and was turning over the soil in the corner flowerbed.

An alchemist wearing the magician-style high collar, tall hat, cape, and gloves, with a mask on, came back dragging a pile of alchemical prosthetics. Upon spotting the crow in the air, he suddenly stopped and stared at the crow thoughtfully.

The crow only felt a sweep of intent pass over its body.

Spotted? The crow wasn't flustered. It lazily took off, took off, turned around, and flew off in another direction. Throughout the whole process, that alchemist kept his eyes on it.

Being spotted was perfectly normal; not being spotted would be the strange thing—it would mean the undead in this town were too weak.

Although they were on hostile terms with the Sorcerer Alliance, the Undead Empire held no particular prejudice against sorcerers, because undead could also learn all kinds of sorcerer spells, and thanks to their lifespans, they often had a more solid grasp of the fundamentals than humans did.

But sorcerers emphasized creativity, which had never been mainstream among undead. The sorcerer here was already considered quite formidable.

From the mayor to the residents—even the sorcerer was an undead creature. This little town absolutely could not be a hideout for the Light's lapdogs.

Having reached this conclusion, a large flock of crows took off one after another from various parts of the town and silently flew off toward the next village.

Seeing the flock of crows leave, a little yellow book flew up from Seeing Ange and spread its pages open.

From within the pages, a giant brass dragon slapped the head of a corpse dragon several sizes smaller with its big claw: "Did you see that, did you see that? The nightmare banshee got fooled by us too—did you see that?"

Lord Nai Ge Li Si's true body was over fifty meters, while the dragon lich's body was only eighteen meters—the difference was as vast as that between a monitor lizard and a chameleon. The dragon lich was slapped into a huddle by it: "I get it, I get it, you're amazing, who on earth are you people?"

Nai Ge Li Si curled its lip: "Tell you and you probably won't believe it—we are the children of the God of the Undead."

"Sure, sure, sure, you're the children of the God of the Undead, or the Pope of the Church of Light—how impressive, light and dark in one body, just like a knight novel. You really know how to brag." The dragon lich said with a face full of mockery.

It could only be said that this dragon lich's personality wasn't exactly smooth—at a time like this, it still dared to talk back with that snide tone. It got stomped on by Nai Ge Li Si; within the Huang Tong Book, Nai Ge Li Si was the sovereign.

Once it 'submitted,' Nai Ge Li Si finally asked: "What's the status of this nightmare banshee? Why would they send it? Does it have any special abilities?"

"It can make people have nightmares, then steal information from within the dream. Just now it was only observing you, but in reality, the information gathering had already been completed in the dreams of ordinary people. It probably didn't find anything, which is why it left." The dragon lich said.

Anthony frowned: "Aiguli! No, wait—if nightmare banshees are this powerful, why do villages made entirely of Light believers still exist? Just send a banshee around once and she could dig out all those villages."

The dragon lich curled its lip: "The way you talk is just like that 'work hard for five hundred years and you can buy an estate' nonsense—it's all bull. Do you know how many villages there are on the entire plane? Even if you check one a month, checking them all would take over a thousand years. Are you trying to work a banshee to death?"

Anthony frowned: "Why check one a month? Check one a day, and you'd be done in just over thirty years."

"... You humans are truly terrifying. Working one or two days a month is already considered cruel, and you actually want to make her work every single day for over thirty years?" The dragon lich couldn't help cursing.

There were far too few nightmare banshees—only a handful. Stealing information from dreams wasn't easy either. If you wanted to conduct a large-scale sweep, without several dozen to a hundred years, it would be impossible to check every village on the plane. That would be working a nightmare banshee to death.

If the sweep took too long—say, three to five hundred years to complete—the population would have gone through who knows how many generations by then, making it completely meaningless.

Besides villages, there are cities too. How do you sweep a city of tens of thousands?

In the end, you'd just force Light believers to blend into cities, which would be worse than letting them form their own self-contained settlements, as long as they didn't cause any major incidents.

Anthony nodded in agreement: "Fair enough. The desert has few villages, so sweeping it once takes only a few days. Lord Nai Ge, please give it another beating."

The dragon lich was shocked: "What? It gets beaten even when it's right?"

Anthony nodded: "Attitude problem. Beat it."

After getting a thorough beating, Anthony finally said: "You can find someone to shelter you, that way you won't have to take beatings all the time."

Anthony had pretty much asked all the questions he wanted answered—time to either kill it or establish a soul link.

Seeing Ange had no interest in adding new soul links, so the dragon lich could only choose to dedicate its soul to the little zombie.

"Sigh—sigh—sigh—" After stuffing the soul with the newly established soul link back into its body, the dragon lich Jia Delige lay there sighing endlessly.

A majestic dragon lich, and it had fallen to dedicating its soul to some nobody—how utterly beneath it. Its previous master had at least been the Speaker of the Council of the Dead, one of the top five or six figures in the Undead Empire.

But it had miscalculated—something even more beneath it was coming. The little zombie dragged over a large wooden frame and slipped it onto Jia Delige's body.

"What are you trying to do?" Jia Delige suddenly had a bad premonition.

The little zombie fitted the wooden frame on, then pointed at the plow beside them: "Rawr!"

A nearly twenty-meter-long dracolich, not used to pull a plow and till the fields—what a waste that would be.

Seeing Ange had already fully animated its body; from the outside, no trace of its former dracolich self could be seen. Even if someone saw it now, they wouldn't connect it to the corpse Seeing Ange had snatched.

So around Godfall Town and the dam irrigation area, one could occasionally see a twenty-meter-long giant dragon dragging a row of plowshares, crawling past with endless sighs.

Because of its size, it could pull twelve plows at once, work twenty-four hours a day, thirty days a month, all year round without rest—successfully living a 'cruel' life.

Now it no longer called humans cruel—the little zombie was even more cruel than humans.

The only silver lining was that the little zombie would share soul energy with it through the soul link, allowing it to throw itself into work in high spirits. After a period of this, its soul had actually grown considerably more solid.

……

A month passed. The last crow left North Wind City, and the nightmare banshee had gained nothing.

After sweeping Godfall Town, the nightmare banshee had swept every single place in the entire desert along the way; even Albert in the stone-chamber cemetery had seen crows.

But Albert, all alone, hadn't managed to catch the crow's attention, and they hadn't lingered there. What it was looking for were strongholds of the Church of Light, not some vagrant in the desert.

In the end, all the crows gathered at North Wind City, and for a period afterward, the people of North Wind City found their chances of having nightmares greatly increased.

Unfortunately, the Nightmare Banshee could find no information about any stronghold of the Church of Light, nor any suspicious traces, and could only conclude that those two six-winged great angels and the Pope had merely been passing through.

Only after the last crow departed did Feiwo and Silver Coin's taut hearts finally relax.

……

Beneath Shenyun Town, Seeing Ange—who had taken the opportunity to bring all the land in Shenyun Town and the Dam Irrigation District under cultivation—was preparing to extend into the wasteland, but was called back for a meeting and listened with boredom as Silver Coin and Feiwo reported on their work.

"The Sorcerers' Ladder at North Wind City has now risen to an altitude of ten thousand meters and is hovering there. The Dragon Lich harasses them from time to time, but can't do anything about it. The current situation is that both sides have fallen into a strategic stalemate, and the focus of contention has shifted to the populace."

"The Sorcerers' Ladder descends during the day to distribute grain and exchange supplies, and rises at night to guard against sneak attacks."

"The Council of the Dead has also dispatched large numbers of undead to sweep bandits at major traffic routes and disaster areas, maintaining order—taking over the work the Sorcerer Alliance used to do." Silver Coin reported.

The arrival of the Sorcerer Alliance objectively rescued the order of the surface world; in an era of small-scale farming, as long as order was maintained, large-scale disasters would not break out.

Maintaining order required having grain, no disease, and no fighting.

Grain was still available, but because order had collapsed, there were local shortages; in places that had grain, panic led to hoarding and reluctance to sell, resulting in numerous tragic incidents.

The arrival of the Sorcerer Alliance calmed grain prices and maintained order.

Their arrival also jolted the dull, Clumsy and Heavy Undead Empire into accelerating its operations.

If not for the threat of the Sorcerer Alliance, those high-ranking undead who felt it was cruel to work even one day a month probably wouldn't have reacted until every living thing had died off.

"In a certain sense, both sides have reached a balanced cooperative relationship, jointly maintaining order on the surface world while competing for the support of the noble landlords."

"Both the Sorcerer Alliance and the Council of the Dead have sent people to find us, willing to provide every convenience and help us resume production, as long as we sell the output to them when the time comes." Feiwo said.

Contending for the hearts of the people required resources; if you couldn't even produce grain and everyone was left hungry, who would submit to your rule? Therefore, the great landlords who could produce grain were the first targets both sides competed for.

Originally North Wind City had no advantage in this regard—the grain it produced wasn't even a fraction of that of the southern grain-producing regions, and the grain it ate itself still had to be brought in from outside.

But both sides had noticed the existence of the Dam Irrigation District; the position of the Sorcerers' Ladder allowed a direct view of the district, though it had lain fallow for some time.

So someone came and hoped Feiwo could arrange hands to resume planting in the irrigation district, with the output sold to them.

Feiwo couldn't make the decision, so he said he'd think it over. Just as he finished discussing it with Silver Coin, a second group came, offering even better terms, likewise asking that the output be sold to them.

Silver Coin's eyes rolled, and he immediately had Feiwo say he needed to think it over, and sent the second group off with great fanfare.

Unexpectedly, no sooner had the second group left than the first group returned, offering even richer terms and saying they could pay in advance.

Before Feiwo could agree, the second group also returned, and the two sides nearly came to blows at the gates of the City Lord's residence.

Lord Nai Ge Li Si stared wide-eyed and said: "So you just used one 'I'll think it over,' and got them to push the grain price up to ten magic crystals per ton? Plus a deposit of twenty thousand magic crystals paid in advance, a promise to buy up all the grain, and providing every convenience to help you resume production?"

Silver Coin nodded and said: "I didn't take the deposit, and I didn't agree to the other conditions either. I just said I couldn't make the decision, and that we'd auction when the harvest came—highest bidder wins."

"Why not take the deposit?" Lord Nai Ge Li Si asked, puzzled.

"We can't take it. What they need isn't grain—they need to monopolize the supply. Even if they had to burn the grain, they wouldn't let the other side get it. So the deposit can only be taken from one side, but if you take it from one, the other will definitely scheme to burn the crops." Silver Coin said.

Seeing Ange, who had been bored and idly arranging formations with both hands, suddenly raised his head and stared at Silver Coin.

Silver Coin hurriedly waved his hands: "It wasn't me burning it, it was them."

Anthony added: "This is a struggle for dominance over the plane, and it's very cruel. Whoever takes a deposit will definitely not be able to harvest their grain next year. If many people take deposits, next year's grain output will definitely drop on a large scale, and that will be trouble."

"That's too cruel—doesn't Your Majesty stop them?" Lord Nai Ge Li Si said.

"Your Majesty is trapped within the Annihilation Barrier; the ones running all this now should be the upper echelons of the Council of the Dead." Anthony said.

"Then what do we do?" Lord Nai Ge Li Si asked.

Silver Coin said: "It's simple. As long as everyone refuses to take deposits and insists on auctioning after the harvest—highest bidder wins—at least the grain will be safe while it's still in the fields."

"How do we get everyone to refuse deposits? A lot of people can't think that far ahead—I was just wondering why you didn't take the deposit." Lord Nai Ge Li Si said, vexed.

Silver Coin said: "There's only one channel that can get our warning out to everyone—the House of the Reborn. We can use the bounty-posting method to analyze the situation for everyone, and it will definitely alert most people."

"But the permissions of the House of the Reborn are in the hands of the Council of the Dead, and I'm afraid they'll delete it. If we use the Supreme Authority Imprint, the fact that someone else holds higher authority will be exposed, so I wanted to ask my lord whether we may use the Supreme Authority Imprint."

Of course, a matter like this required Seeing Ange to decide.

"You may. The fields must not be burned."