/*unedited*/

The sound of fighting echoed through the air as the caravan cut through the wave of the undead beast. Because of the sluggish movements of the beast though they are hard to kill still fell one by one by the swords of the mercenary cultivators.

Grawl!!!

Loud growling sounds of beast permeated through the air as they brainlessly eyed the humans attacking them with their mouth wide open.

A huge decaying beast that looks like a rhino is being encircled by 5 cultivators. The undulation of aura from the beast shows that it is a level 4 beast.

"This is a big one, how can we take it down?"

"Just follow what the boss has said. These undead beasts weakness is their necks. All we have to do is concentrate on severing its neck since it looks tough we should hit it over and over until we can fully decapitate it."

"But look at that thickness. I don't think that even our blades can cut through that... fat. Plus I'm already low on Qi."

"Brothers hold on a little longer we can win this."

Saying their piece, the five cultivators forced themselves to calm down while the undead rhino tried to chase after each of them. Every time it chases a cultivator the others would attack it making it turns its focus on another cultivator. When it starts to chase after that cultivator the others would attack it once again, they repeated this process over and over as the beast goes on in circles.

Yet it didn't fall after a long time have pa.s.sed, since it is already undead its stamina is almost unlimited as if it didn't even feel tiredness and even pain is non-existent as all the beast could think of is devouring the food that's in front of it.

"d.a.m.n this thing is really inconceivable. It's not even dead or even tired after all that." One of them said with a helpless expression.

Still, the cultivators didn't stop and take turns slas.h.i.+ng at the beast's neck little by little, but their thin blades though covered with Qi is still unable to thoroughly penetrate its thick hide. One can even wonder how this strong beast can become an undead. With its strong body and level of power, it's almost impossible to turn it into an undead or even kill it.

While the five are busy ganging up against the undead rhino, the other mercenary are also busy facing against hundreds of other undead creatures. But because of the sluggish movement of the beasts, though they outnumber the cultivators 10 to 1, they still fell like flies especially to those powerful cultivators in the gold core realm.

"Master Fu, your suggestion is truly right. We were able to defeat because of your help. We are truly indebted to you." Bibao Ling said while showing a grateful expression.

"Master Ling is very polite. You have accepted our selfish request, I and my family are always grateful." Jin Fu said with a nod.

"There is no problem, no problem at all. But would you like to ride in the middle of the caravan with us? I know that you have declined this offer many times but I really feel that your family should be there especially the little child. It's not safe for him to be behind the caravan." Bibao Ling said trying to convince Jin Fu like the many times he had tried before.

He truly feels that this family should be with him in the middle part so that they can be safe. He already saw how skilled and powerful Jin Fu is as a cultivator. He can even handle 5 gold core realm cultivators and came out without a scratch, he could not dare to imagine what their background is. Perhaps when they reach Snowpeach Town he can discover this answer and who the said grandfather of the child is.

Judging from the temperament of Jin Fu's wife and even his small child, Bibao Ling is sure that their background is not just ordinary.

s.h.i.+n Jiao on the other hand just leaned his body against the wagon and calmly watches the situation as it unfolds. When he caught sight of Jin Fu walking back towards their group he nods his head.

"This guy truly has a righteous aura. I almost can't believe that there are still people just like him in this chaotic world. I wonder what this family's background is." s.h.i.+n Jiao thought.

It didn't take too long after that, as s.h.i.+n Jiao saw that the undead beast horde slowly fell to the ground. But on the battlefield, there are still those monstrous beasts that are really hard to deal with. No matter how much a cultivator group gang-up on them, they are still unable to take them down.

Seeing this, the people in the last caravan sigh in helplessness. Then suddenly one of them walks forward while taking out a long spear from his spatial tool. The tall man has a heavy built donning strong muscle on his arm which is shown with his sleeves torn. His cultivator's robe looks like a martial artist robe without sleeves from a fighting game while s.h.i.+n Jiao was on earth.

As the man walks forwards his aura is still suppressed by some technique and is not shown to others, but for s.h.i.+n Jiao who is using his gla.s.ses, it is as clear as day. The man is a late-stage gold core realm cultivator. His aura seems to be almost breaking past the bottleneck and approaching the infant soul realm cultivation.

"Hey, Bok Du. Don't go overboard this time. Those are just brainless beasts. Hehe…" one of the women in the group standing beside the other who looks like her.

s.h.i.+n Jiao already considered that the two might be sisters as they have the same facial features. One of them immediately grabs the hem of her sister's robe and pulled back when she heard her sister shouting.

Seeing her sister's reaction, she just smiled at her and held her hand.

Upon seeing the expression of the timid young woman, s.h.i.+n Jiao's expression suddenly changed.

"You noticed it too right." A woman's voice suddenly entered his ears from his side.

"Umm… you know about this?" s.h.i.+n Jiao nods and curiously asked.

"Actually yes, I wanted to help her but I'm not skilled enough to do that. Though I'm good with medicine but I'm not proficient yet. I think she needed an infant soul realm medical cultivator." the young woman said.

Upon hearing this s.h.i.+n Jiao was a little surprised. Though the young woman carried a beast-man aura, she still cares for a human's life. But still, he has his suspicions about her ident.i.ty and why she is hiding in the human land.

The man called Bok Du slowly approached a huge beast that looks like a giant crocodile. Because of its thick hide, the cultivators fighting against it are having a headache. No matter how hard they tried to attack their weapons and Qi seems ineffective against its hide. With its unlimited stamina and not feeling any pain at all, they are now in a bind.

But then all of a sudden a flash of light suddenly appears from the side of the crocodile looking beast. Then a loud sound suddenly echoed.

Thud!

They all saw the huge head of the beast fell to the ground along with its huge body which suddenly fell and stopped moving.

Then they saw someone walking past the group and walks towards another location where the same thing is happening.

"Who was that?"

"With just a swing? Is this for real?"

"How strong is that guy really?"

"He is one of those monsters riding the black wagon at the back of the caravan."

"What? You mean those people are this strong?"

"Che, you haven't seen it when they handled the bandits a few weeks ago on our journey to the Dark Forest. They are truly powerful and skilled, especially the guy they called Master Fu."

"Oh, you mean the guy with the beautiful wife?"

"d.a.m.n… I got my eyes on that woman."

"You're asking to die?"

"That woman is not weak either. I also saw her kill a bandit with just a wave of her hand."

The mercenaries on the field suddenly began to discuss upon seeing Bok Du killing the huge beasts one by one. s.h.i.+n Jiao also was able to discover that the people inside the last wagon with him are not as what they seem. Except for the guy named Bok Du who is currently killing the undead beast on the battlefield.

After cleaning the battlefield, the group immediately began to move forward. They wanted to take out the beast cores of the undead creatures but it seems that it is contaminated by an unknown Qi. So no one dared to harvest them from the corpses, no one except for an inconspicuous young man who stealthily takes out the cored of the huge beasts.

After the battle s.h.i.+n Jiao felt that there is something wrong with the undead, so he decided to investigate. He walks to a corner and when no one is looking, he suddenly puts on a cloak. Then when he presses a b.u.t.ton on the cloak, his figure suddenly vanishes.

"These cores… they seem to have traces of pure dark energy mixed with life. This may be the reason why even though they are dead, yet their corpses can still continue to move." s.h.i.+n Jiao muttered as he inspected one of the undead corpses.

"But the contaminated darkness and life Qi in these creatures are too weak. These things must have been turned undead just recently."

"Is there a possibility of a necromancer in this place?" s.h.i.+n Jiao mused as he checked the corpses.

Meanwhile one of the mercenaries took a core from a beast he killed. Then he showed it to others, upon doing so the people around him suddenly back away.

"What have you done you fool?!" one of the captains of the mercenaries shouted at his subordinate.

"Throw it away! Now!"

"But captain, this is a huge beast core. We can sell it for a huge amount of spirit stones." the mercenary said.

"We are not sure what caused the creatures to be turned undead. But what if it's their core, do you know what you have done?" the captain said.

When the mercenary heard this, his expression suddenly turned white. He didn't want to be like those things. His hand suddenly trembled and dropped the core on the ground.

"Everyone here didn't take a core because of the special circ.u.mstance of these beasts. So be careful next time." the captain warned with a stern look in his eyes.

The mercenary nods his head in confirmation.

When s.h.i.+n Jiao saw this he just shook his head. Though what the captain said might be true but according to his a.n.a.lysis, the cores are unstable but the energy and Qi they emit is a very important specimen for research. s.h.i.+n Jiao's curiosity is now piqued and wanted to learn more about these undead things.

The caravan left the area after cleaning the way of the beast carca.s.ses. None dared carelessly touches these things for fear that these things might come alive again as they have already been dead once.

Not long later, the caravan arrives in a small village. The village is enclosed in a wall which is made by cultivators who have an affinity to the land.

The atmosphere was tense as the people on top of the wall watch the incoming caravan with vigilance. Before the caravan arrived near the wall a voice suddenly echoed through the air.

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"Stop! Who are you people?" a man's voice said sternly.

Instead of replying to the front wagon, it lifted its flag up which shows a certain bird's eye as its insignia.

"The Roc's eye merchant caravan!" a man standing near the one who called out muttered.

The two looks at each other and nods their head. The huge wooden gate of the village slowly opens up as they welcome the caravan. Although Roc's Eye Merchant caravan didn't say anything, the two people have seen the aura of that flag which signifies the authenticity of the caravan.

As they enter the village, s.h.i.+n Jiao noticed the tense atmosphere especially the worry in the eyes of the people. Both mortals and cultivators have the same expression of fear which seems to stem from the roaming undead beast which can be seen just outside of the village.

Before entering the village, he noticed that there are many burnt corpses of beast surrounding the town. This only means that they are attacks in this village which seems to be frequent. s.h.i.+n Jiao can understand that the people wanted to leave this small village but are unable to, due to the danger of the roaming undead beasts outside.

"Master Ling welcome again to Xiling village, I'm glad that you are safe from your travels to this place. I'm afraid that since your last visit everything has changed… I reckon that you have met our welcome committee outside?" a man wearing a blue robe said with a chuckle.

"Village chief you jest. Those things are truly terrifying and hideous, what happened?" Bibao Ling said as he alighted from his wagon.

"Sigh… this is truly a dark time for my village. The cultivators of my Xiling village are almost at our limits. If the town of Snowpeach doesn't send us help then all we can do is defend this small village of ours with all we got. I'm just happy that one of my people is able to manipulate the land forming this wall." The village chief said.

"All of this happened a fortnight ago. In the middle of that night, we were attacked by these creatures. Although we have fended them off and was able to kill many, however, a lot of our cultivators have fallen in this ambush. But what made these things complicated is that the bodies of the cultivators who died vanished. It seems that those undead beasts carried them while escaping." The village chief explained while they walk towards the village hall.

"Escaped? What do you mean to escape? These things can think?" Bibao Ling suddenly asked in confusion.

"I… I'm not that sure about it either… But when we killed almost half of their numbers, they fled from us outside of the village. And those cultivators who fell also disappeared."

"This… this is bad. What if… what if they are being controlled?" Bibao Ling muttered.

Upon hearing his words, silence engulfed the atmosphere. Each people in that place knew that what Bibao Ling said might be true.

Meanwhile, outside the hall, s.h.i.+n Jiao checked the whole village. When he spread his spiritual sense he counted around 50 something buildings are in the area, and the number of people inside including them doesn't didn't even reach 500. With this, he can truly say that the village is small. But when he saw the cultivation of the cultivators he was amazed. Though it is a small village most of the cultivators in the area except for the children have already reached the core-forming realm and gold core realm.

But when he checked their aura his eyes turned into slits as there is something different with their aura. The undulation seems chaotic and a strong dark Qi seemed to be mixed with it. Then a sudden realization enters his mind.

"These people… they… they can't be using those cores from the undead beast right?" s.h.i.+n Jiao muttered upon realizing this scary truth.

Though he is not sure what the effect of the core in a cultivator when absorbed, but he is sure that it would not be normal. He hasn't checked the cores thoroughly yet as he didn't have time for that. But if he is not wrong, it has an adverse effect on one's cultivation skill and Qi control. If compared to the demon core, these cores from the undead beast seemed more chaotic and heavy with life and death Qi. If one absorbs such a core then there is a possibility that something would turn amiss and affect that person's body and cultivation as a whole.

These are just his own speculations and he is not sure if it is right or wrong. But if he is right then, this whole village is already a goner. Well at least for the cultivators that are, the mortals though unable to absorb the Qi would become powerless and be food for the undead.

"Whoever planned this is truly devious. That person seemed to have a huge grudge against this small village. I wonder what happened." s.h.i.+n Jiao thought.

"Hey… I think that there is something wrong in this place." The young woman with a beast-man aura muttered in a low voice to s.h.i.+n Jiao.

s.h.i.+n Jiao is amused as he didn't know why the young woman would always talk to him. But then, it is not yet time to think about this matter as they need to be more vigilant and prepared in case anything might happen.

s.h.i.+n Jiao can even notice everyone in the wagon is a little tensed. He could not help it as these people are unique and strong. With their abilities, they would have immediately noticed that something is wrong and is now on guard.

While this is happening outside of the village, deep within the woods deep within the darkness, hundreds of eyes suddenly started glowing. Heavy breathing can be heard and low growling sound which is like a chilly chorus coming from the depths of h.e.l.l blended with the howling winds of the forest.

The darkness of night seems to have drowned everything even the ominous feeling of each cultivator in the Roc's eye caravan became nil as fatigue slowly overcome each of them. As they have already fought against the undead beast with all their might plus the long travel, now their body is screaming of rest.

Unknown to each of them, a large army of unknown creatures are slowly closing in surrounding the whole village.