Chapter 155 (Patreon)

The ten-meter monoliths gave off an intensely uncomfortable feeling, as though they emitted the chill of death itself. Zac got goosebumps from their aura even from his hiding spot amongst the foliage. The undead seemed to love it though and even fought amongst themselves to get as close as possible to them.

Zac actually knew what those things were since he had looked up as much general knowledge as he could about the undead forces in preparation for finding his sister. He would likely need to traverse the domain of the undead to reach her.

The large pillars were called unholy beacons, and they were tools that transformed Cosmic Energy into miasma.

There were many unclear points as to how the undead legions could actually exist, but it was clearly linked to miasma. The undead did not cultivate using Cosmic Energy, and to a certain degree it was almost harmful to them. Cosmic Energy could be considered to be life energy, and putting that into the body of a living corpse could be quite harmful.

They instead absorbed miasma, or Death Attuned Cosmic Energy as it was also called. Some places where extreme bloodshed had taken place naturally created miasma, other times the undead forces manufactured it with beacons and arrays. The beacons essentially terraformed an area into an environment that suited the undead.

The need for miasma was also one of the reasons why the undead forces created such a number of zombies. Zombies were generally quite weak unless they managed to awaken their intelligence, but they acted as miniature unholy beacons. 

Low tiered Zombies could still absorb Cosmic Energy, but most of it was actually released again as miasma. The process was far less efficient compared to the real beacons, but Zombies were self-propagating, creating a natural spread of the undead domain.

Miasma was not too toxic to humans, and one could actually absorb it just like Cosmic Energy. However, doing so for too long would have negative effects, affecting both the mind and the body. That only went for people like Zac who had a sturdy constitution though. 

A normal mortal at level 1 would fall sick and die within a few days if he or she stayed within miasma, while Zac would be able to traverse the whole incursion without much problem.

Zac hadn’t expected the undead invaders to actually bring beacons with them to the island. It meant they weren’t just planning a quick assault, but a long term occupation of the area after his town was dealt with.

A frown emerged on Zac’s face as he surveyed the shining pillars, as he couldn’t have those things keep spewing out miasma. It had only been a few hours since the invaders arrived, but the vicinity was already largely converted, giving it a ghastly feeling.

A large part of the island might become uninhabitable if the monoliths were left unchecked for too long. Their presence only reaffirmed his opinion that the third wave needed to be dealt with in a lightning-quick manner. If everything went well here he might actually strike a second leader within the hour, as soon as the Zombies started rampaging.

There were a few more minutes before the agreed-upon time, and Zac kept looking over the area to get a grasp of the forces the Corpse Lord brought. He counted at least fifty Corpse golems, most of which surrounded the monoliths. He could only find five aberrations though. Perhaps those freaks of nature were quite rare,  Zac didn’t really have much knowledge about them.

Finally he spotted a large tent that looked surprisingly normal, apart from its dour colors. The walking corpses didn’t care about a roof over their heads, so it should belong to the Corpse lord. There were a few corpse golems standing guard around it as well, making it quite hard to sneak up on.

However, he was already prepared to fight through a sea of Zombies to reach the Corpse Lord, as sneaking around wasn’t his strong suit. Hopefully having the necklace while speeding through the masses with [Loamwalker] would be enough to give him a leg up on the enemy.

It was almost time, so Zac steadied his breath for a few seconds, some fear lingering in his heart. However, that fear was eclipsed by a steely determination. Months on this island had reforged him and given him an unflinching mentality. Just seeing the horrid sight in front of him would have made him run away screaming a year ago, but now he only looked at it from a tactical viewpoint.

He took out his axe again, carefully looking it over. Hopefully the upgrade would prove useful in the fight, as the stone cost 6 million. He felt the excitement of the axe when he fed it the stone, but he still haven’t figured out what had changed by using it. It looked pretty much the same as before, and he hadn’t really felt anything different when he killed the rockmen earlier.

Next he put on a nondescript cloak that would mask himself a bit, and without stalling any further rushed toward the command tent when there were five seconds left to the deadline. Each step with [Loamwalker] pushed him almost ten meters, barely leaving a shadow in his wake.

Most of the zombies didn’t even register Zac's passing by and mindlessly kept milling about. A few gave a start and started growling while looking around with confused faces, perhaps trying to understand what was going on.

Zac didn’t bother with them as he infused a huge amount of cosmic Energy into his arms and axe, wanting to end it all with one swift strike.

Finally he arrived right outside the tent, and Zac was already mid-swing when he appeared. A five-meter fractal blade ripped through the air horizontally, infused with the Dao of Heaviness. A corpse golem stood in the way of the swing, but [Verun’s Bite] had the force of a train as it ripped right through its dense muscles, completely bisecting the hulking golem.

The blade continued unimpeded right into the tent, but as it was almost completely through Zac felt a painful shockwave in his arm as his swing lost all its momentum. A huge shockwave spread out, pushing away any Zombies in the vicinity, and two of the huge corpse golems even fell on their backs from the force.

The tent was rendered into ribbons by the wild energies, showing Zac the interior of the tent. The Corpse Lord stood stably like a mountain, his bone hook holding Zac’s fractal blade in place. Zac’s eyes met with the sinister eyes glowing like red orbs of the undead leader, and the Corpse Lord’s mouth opened into a ghastly grin showing sharp teeth.

“I suspected you might try this, human,” the undead warrior said with a sneer. “You think my true death will solve your problems, and you might be right. But just this amount of power won’t be enough.”

Zac didn’t answer the taunt and quickly materialized a new fractal blade. He actually noted that the hand of the Corpse Lord was very subtly shaking, probably meaning that the defense wasn’t quite as relaxed as the undead humanoid wanted to make it look.

He remembered Ogras advice and mustered all he had in each of his swings. He needed to end this quickly before he was overrun by a sea of undead monstrosities. Each of Zac’s swings was imbued by either his Dao of Heaviness or Dao of Sharpness, and he tried everything in his book in order to create an opening.

The Undead was an even match, the huge bone hook tearing through the air to meet each and every swing. Zac noted with some relief he was actually pushing the man back a bit, and kept his pace up.

Zac was also getting a constant stream of Cosmic Energy, as the Zombies in the area unhesitantly joined the fight between the two powerhouses, and kept streaming toward Zac in an effort to disrupt his rhythm. However, the Zombies were too weak to do much of anything, and most were destroyed simply by the errant energies or shockwaves from the battle.

Suddenly the Corpse Lord jumped back and released a bestial roar. The unholy beacons blazed to life and shone with a ghastly turquoise that covered the whole area. The world turned almost monochrome with all warm colors in the spectrum gone.

That wasn’t all, as every the zombies in the vicinity of the fight suddenly shrieked as they fell down on the ground, melting with visible speed. The former humans turned into a putrid goop on the ground, and from the puddles a stream of deathly energy rose, joining the energy the monoliths released.

The whole sky was covered with billowing waves of miasma and Zac felt like a small boat on turbulent seas. The density of deathly energy was skyrocketing where they were fighting, and Zac was starting to feel a bit nauseated, forcing him to actually start circulating his Dao of Trees to combat the nausea.

A torrent of energy was gathering above the Corpse Lord, who started emitting an even mightier aura compared to before. Zac wasn’t sure what was going on, but he knew he had to do something about the situation. If the Corpse Lord swallowed up all the energy in the skies he would turn into a true monster.

Zac pushed off the ground and created an overextended edge that he swung in an effort to disrupt the gathering miasma above the corpse lord. He knew he couldn’t rip apart the whole miasmic clouds in skies, but he could at least do something about the part the Corpse lord tried to absorb. Unfortunately, it was like cutting a cloud, and the edge harmlessly passed through it.

Zac knew from the start that his swing might fail, but he kept the swing going and released the edge right toward the closest monolith. The fractal blade flew away, and with a thundering explosion destroyed the undead beacon.

An enormous shockwave of wild energies erupted from the monolith, instantly killing a few corpse golems and hundreds of zombies. It seemed all the cosmic energy and miasma gathered in the pillar was released like a bomb when the beacon broke. Zac suddenly felt a huge surge of Cosmic Energy in his body, proving that the System credited him all the kills.

Zac noted with some relief that the clouds quickly thinned out a bit, and set his sights at a second pillar. However, the Corpse Lord wouldn’t have it and quickly intercepted Zac’s second strike. The leader seemed taken by surprise by the fact that the fractal edge could detatch from the axe, but he wouldn't make the same mistake again. 

The undead leader suddenly pushed one of his hands toward the sky with a ripping motion causing two swirling torrents of miasma to emerge from the clouds, quickly transforming into actual fractal beasts. They looked like some sort of worms with huge maws and emitted an intense aura of death. 

The two miasma monsters descended and Zac quickly summoned multiple fractal edges and launched them at the beasts. To Zac's disappointment the edges only passed through just like with the clouds, as the monsters were largely incorporeal. 

At least the beasts temporarily lost their forms from the swings, and two clouds landed on him instead, completely drowning the area in highly concentrated miasma. 

Zac hoped that was it, but to his dismay he saw the clouds starting to reform, and from just standing in the clouds he was quickly growing numb and deathly cold. Desperate for a solution Zac released Cosmic Energy imbued with the Dao of Trees into the area where the beasts were reforming, and it actually worked. 

The pure life energy created some sort of reaction in the reforming beasts, leaving two convulsing clouds failing to properly reform. It would likely have been better to just cut them with edges imbued with the Dao, but he still wasn’t able to imbue his edges with the Dao of Trees.

Just as Zac breathed out in relief he felt an intense danger and immediately jumped to the side while activating a defensive charge on his gear. At the same time, he started gathering his remaining energy into the fractal on his arm, preparing for a final desperate gambit. If it failed he would have to flee and take as many as he could with him through the teleporter.

The Corpse Lord emerged out of one of the clouds, the air around him distorting from the teeming energy in his body. His whole body was swollen, likely from absorbing an unordinary amount of miasma. The bone hook in his hands shone with extremely concentrated energy, and it made a beeline straight for Zac’s torso.

Zac hoped that the erected shield would buy him some time, but to his horror he saw that the shimmering barrier actually cracked soon after the undead leader’s weapon slammed into it. It was the first time his gear wasn't able to block a strike, proving the power of the Corpse Lord. 

With the barrier destroyed the sinister bone-weapon continued into his gut, and the pain made Zac almost immediately pass out.  

It was far worse than a normal stab wound, and it actually felt like Zac was dying. However, he grabbed hold of the hook with his hand, refusing to let go as he finished pushing energy into the fractal on his other arm. The fractal was finally satiated, and Zac pushed forward his arm with a roar.

Reality cracked, and the familiar hand from [Nature's Punishment] extended down toward the Corpse Lord from above. The spatial hole also released a torrent of a multitude of colors that offset the deathly lights of the monoliths. 

The Corpse Lord looked alarmed for the first time since the fight started, and without hesitation he pushed backward with immense speed, even giving up on the weapon that Zac was holding on to.

However, he couldn’t outrun the gigantic hand that wanted to crush him. As he fled the undead leader stabbed his sharp nails into his own chest while gritting his teeth. 

For a second Zac thought the Corpse Lord had made a mistake, but he quickly realized he was wrong. A disgusting black ichor rushed out like a waterfall from the wound the undead created, to the point that the hand from [Nature’s Punishment] was getting completely drenched.

“WORLD ROT!” the undead roared, and Zac felt a pain in his arm that even eclipsed the wound in his gut. It felt like his hand was quickly rotting away, and even though he had imbued the hand with the Dao of Trees the protection was limited.

At least Zac’s Dao stopped the hand from immediately disintegrating, and Zac used all his determination to do some damage before it was too late. The rotting hand swooped down to crush the corpse lord, who desperately dodged. 

However, the hand was huge, and it at least managed to grab one of the arms of the undead leader, and with a sickening crunch broke it beyond recognition before Zac was forced to release the skill.

It was either that or losing his life, as he was afraid the rot would spread if he let the black liquid keep corroding the huge hand. Zac felt feverish and nauseated, but he wouldn’t let the opportunity go as he mustered some of his last reserves to move next to the Corpse Lord. Zac didn’t use any fractal or skills, only the Dao of Heaviness with the true edge of [Verun’s Bite].

The Corpse Lord was momentarily distracted from the pain of getting his arm crushed, but he still used his arm to block the axe strike instead of getting decapitated. The Axe slammed into the Corpse Lord, whose inhuman sturdiness stopped the edge after only pushing in a small bit. 

The endurance of the Corpse Lord was clearly far higher than Zac’s, and his body was as good as any defensive gear. Zac noticed the undead used some sort of defensive skill though, as the arm was shimmering with miasma.

Zac suddenly felt a primal rage erupt from the axe, and the teeth on it started to rattle. Without warning a spirit of some prehistoric beast with a huge maw emerged from the axe and bit into the shoulder of the Corpse Lord with a growl.

The undead screamed in rage and tried to hit wave it away, but it was an incorporeal being. With a quick motion, the beast ripped out a large section of the Corpse Lord’s shoulder before dissipating into nothingness again.

Zac didn’t understand what just happened, but he felt this was his last chance to kill the undead leader. Both his arms were currently ruined; one from [Nature’s Punishment], while other was almost completely severed from the axe ghost. The axe was also freed from the arm from the bite so Zac swung it down again at the Corpse Lord.

The undead was in a miserable state and kept trying to move away from Zac. His desperate assault was starting to produce real results, even though Zac himself also was in a miserable state.

Zac looked down at his freely bleeding wound, and saw that there was a sickly black tinge to it. It was painful beyond compare, and he quickly swallowed one of his best healing pills to combat the wound. He felt a warmth spread through his body, but it seemed it had small effect in working against this particular wound.

Still, there was no time to worry about this. Zac rushed toward the mangled corpse lord, and with a growl swung his axe. He also ignored his pounding head and infused it with the Dao of Heaviness one time after another. Each swing was like a falling meteor, and the Corpse Lord was struggling more and more in avoiding a killing strike.

Unfortunately the corpse lord possessed some sort of odd skill that made him swap position with a Zombie, foiling Zac time and time again. However, it’s range was quite limited and seemed to cost quite a bit of miasma, so Zac didn’t relent and kept following like a blood hound.

Finally Zac managed to strike out before the Lord once again performed the body swap, and the axe hit down next to the neck of the Corpse Lord, cutting straight down toward his lung, drawing a huge torrent of the black ichor.

The Corpse Lord looked like he was barely hanging on, but before Zac could finish him off a humongous fist closed in on him. He didn't even have time to dodge, and the fist clocked him right in his face. With Zac's monstrous endurance he was largely okay, but while he wasn’t hurt the power of the swing threw him away.

Zac had been too focused on the undead leader, completely ignoring the surroundings, allowing corpse golem to sneak up on him. Zac quickly tried to return to the undead leader deliver the final strike, but the aberrations and corpse golems went berserk as they disregarded their safety and swarmed him.

Zac was feeling woozy from his festering wound and energy consumption, but he grit his teeth and killed them one by one, each kill giving a huge infusion of cosmic energy.

It only took thirty seconds to push past the resistance since he was going all out, unheeding of energy expenditure, but Zac couldn’t locate the Corpse Lord as the last aberration fell. He looked all over, and finally found his target right next to the incursion crystal, his bone hook somehow back on his back.

“We will meet again, human. Death won’t be a reprieve for you,”  the Corpse Lord said with seething rage as jumped straight into the shining crystal.

A light flashed, and before Zac even had time to react the undead leader was gone, and soon after the crystal lost its luster.

As if something snapped in the heads of the Zombies they almost instantly started roaring, gaining a bloodthirsty aura. Relief flooded Zac’s mind, and he almost sat down to rest. He didn’t manage to kill the undead leader, but at least he completed his mission.

But he barely had time to take a breath when a stone spear erupted from the ground, going straight for his heart. It thrummed with abundant ice-cold power, and Zac didn’t hesitate in using his second defensive charge.

As the stone spear approached darkness congealed into a stone-man dressed in exquisite gear, and Zac’s eyes locked with two black holes filled malice.

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Author note: Phew, an even longer chapter this time, 3450 words. Don't go expecting these lengths in the future ;) 

That marks the last chapter of September, I hope you've enjoyed them. Hopefully I'll see you here tomorrow for some bonus chappies!