7 The Necropolis (2)

AU Note: Consider this as begging from a loveable priest — could you guys please review this and help it get attention? Also stones, those are helpful too!

'You said the formation needed hundreds of beasts, right? I have two hundred lying around. '

Yuan Ming was alarmed. He realized he had been doing whatever he was ordered to do since the beginning. Clearly there was something wrong, he was following orders like a dog.

[You've regained your senses faster than I thought you would. But I don't think you'll survive. You see that road leading into the village? It's a road that leads to the nearby Jade City. It's only a few li away. Your undead stronghold will be destroyed once they notice the unusual amount of death energy here.]

Yuan Ming ignored the whispers and commanded more and more undead into the formation. He noticed something about the undead — they were different.

Unlike the ones he made from the traveling cultivators, they had the appearance of a bent, twisted humanoid figure. Much of their brown-green flesh had rotted away, exposing a fair amount of bone and twisted facial features. Just like Yuan Ming, they were unrecognizable as human. He also noticed another thing, the longer the disease festered in their bodies, the more twisted and corrupted their bodies became. Just like him, they grew twisted claws. But the resemble died there.

They were 'Ghouls'. The shock troops of the Plague Lord.

The light emanating from the summoning formation brightened, and slowly began to dye the village red. The ground began to shake as Yuan Ming stepped back and growled at the advancing ghouls, telling them to step back.

The ground inside the formation caved and fell into the void. A green rift filled with crackling thunder replaced the ground.

Yuan Ming stepped back from the rift and watched the blue lighting with concentration. Unfortunately, he was a bit too close to the rift unlike the Ghouls, who ran away into the forest. A stray bolt of lightning threw itself at him in such speed that he felt like that damn snake was in front of him again.

The numerous ghoul's green eyes shimmered as they watched the bolt disintegrate as soon as it touched their King.

Yuan Ming didn't even feel like something hit him until much later. That was how fast the bolt was.

[Don't be so overconfident. You could absorb that bolt of essence only because it wasn't powerful.]

It was true. The lightning wasn't even comparable to the strikes of that snake. Yuan Ming hurriedly escaped into the trees for cover.

Slowly, blocks of dead flesh and stone flew up from the rift and began amalgamating into a building. The space the rift took was huge, almost the entirety of the square was swallowed by it. The building that was being built was the same size.

Following the materials materializing from the rift, the ground around it started to strangely rot. It turned blue at first and then black, like coal. Each and every bush, tree inside the village turned dead as the soil decayed.

Life-essence emerged from the ground and the trees and floated towards the rift; the more essence the rift absorbed the more faster the building speed became.

Yuan Ming recognized the rot. It was the Plague. The disease!

Eventually, the black rot reached the ground where Yuan Ming was standing upon and attacked the trees, turning them into black lifeless husks. Strangely, he felt a mystical healing power affect him when the rot reached him.

Just where he was standing, the rotting stopped. Yuan Ming looked around and noticed that the rift had closed, floating above it was a grand palace.

Its dark walls were littered with undecipherable symbols and runes. A huge door leading into the Palace was marked with runic symbols.

The sculptures in front of the palace looked like they had been made long ago by masters of the craft. They were set on pedestals amid the water of a few fountains and the rotten walls.

Oh, and the water from the fountain was green.

Yuan Ming slowly crawled towards the floating palace and looked at it in interest. The Ghouls followed him and stared at the bright Necropolis.

A light broke out from the Necropolis's roof and covered the village in a transparent blue dome. Yuan Ming felt a tidal wave of Spiritual Essence enter the village once the dome appeared.

Yuan Ming closed his eyes and focused on the Palace. And seconds later, he found himself teleported inside.

[Welcome to the Necropolis. The citadel and heart of your scourge.]

[Here, you can conjure and create powerful and noble undead creatures…only if you have the amount of undead required as a sacrifice, that is.]

[I would recommend you to acquire a Blight Revenant. It's Rank 3 and available in exchange for only a few dozens ghouls.]

Yuan Ming ignored the voice and instead focused on the insides of the Palace. Unlike what he had seen on the outside, the inside was actually very human-ish. The purple interior was surprisingly aesthetic.

Few decorations studded the ground floor, instead of normal furniture the Palace had weird and Illogical furniture he had never seen before. Yuan Ming felt a strange calling from one of rooms on the ground floor as he closed his eyes and found himself inside a grassy plain.

He was surprised, but not that much. From far away he could see purple walls, meaning he was still inside the Necropolis.

[Welcome, this is the Summoning Grounds of the Necropolis. At the left side of the room you'll find a set of paintings that'll help you out with this…]

Yuan Ming growled at the whispers and scurried towards the left. He quickly found himself before numerous huge paintings. As soon as he saw them he felt strange information once again enter his soul.

There were many paintings inside the room, but he couldn't see them as they were blurry. The only one he could see was at the leftmost corner.

It was a painting of a Blight Revenant. A winged mass of necrotic flesh shaped like a mountain. It wasn't very tall, but it was horrendous to the eyes. Rotten entrails leaked from its scarred belly and mouth. It was armed with nothing but its claws.

Perfect.

It was perfect. Yuan Ming had never seen a beautiful creature like it before. He wondered how much power he would gain if he devoured one.

Unfortunately, there was a hurdle in his path. He needed to sacrifice five hundred Blight Ghouls. And he only had a hundred, while the rest he sacrificed to summon the Necropolis.

Yuan Ming didn't care for anything but the hunger in his soul. Even the towering and powerful snake didn't tempt him that much. He would…only have a bite of the Blight Revenant.

Yuan Ming thought that the Ghouls he had would be enough, but he understood that he was lied to from the start. The voice in his head lead him into an entrapment!

He had to be careful against the voice, but sometimes it feels like he loses his reason…

Suddenly, Yuan Ming noticed a disturbance inside his soul as a link with one of his Ghouls disappeared.