Infinite Journey: Dark Souls

In an instant, he understood what Zhi meant. This was to attack where the enemy would have to defend. If they wanted to stop them from going upstairs, they would definitely show themselves. What Xiaoyan had to do was to act as bait in front of them.

Without the slightest hesitation, purple flames ignited on Xiao Yan's body, and she rushed towards the stairs first.

The footsteps suddenly intensified, converging above her head. Her enhanced vision allowed her to barely make out the movements of the two slaves in the dark room.

Wow!

Suddenly, the sound of a sharp blade scraping against rope came from above, and the next moment, Xiaoyan's vision was blocked by a shower of mummies falling from the sky.

"Damn it, it's not that simple after all!"

Zhi immediately looked up at the top of the roof beam, but this time she saw nothing!

Suddenly, Xiao Yan returned to her side and stabbed the mummy that had fallen behind her with a single sword. Behind her, the slave who had fallen with the mummy was about to draw his dagger.

"Now the debt is paid off."

But Zhi didn't respond. She took a step forward and plunged a knife into a seemingly normal mummy.

Blood slowly soaked the white bandage.

You still owe me one.

After carefully wiping the cold sweat from her forehead, Zhi used her magic eyes to thoroughly examine the entire room again. Only after confirming that there were no problems did she walk upstairs with Xiaoyan.

"This feels even more tiring than when I was fighting like a mob in a crowd. No matter how strong you are, there are always tricks that can catch you off guard. I can't be careless just because I've awakened my abilities."

As she spoke, she stood at the top of the stairs and searched the entire second floor before leading Xiao Yan inside.

"This floor seems normal. Let's check out that balcony... Take it slow, there might be a trick involved."

However, once they took in the view from the balcony, they no longer cared about any kind of routine or not.

Because right now, only one thought is wandering in their minds.

People, many people, a great many people.

Although a quick glance outside the house had already given a glimpse, looking down at so many figures still sent chills down one's spine, especially when several bodies were crammed into one creature.

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Homura Akemi's Intelligence Compilation Manual

Information about the world itself:

According to Zhi, the world of the torch seems to have "come alive." Enemies who previously had no clear objective are now actually "working." I'll make a note of this; I don't know if it will be useful.

PS: Yunxi: The title 744486102 is getting too creative. Let's stick to more normal titles from now on.

PS1: Thank you to reader [Kirishima Touka] for the donation!

Chapter Twenty-Six: Long-Awaited Suffering

What does living mean to a wandering spirit?

They don't need to eat or sleep; as long as they can move, they are alive.

Is living so cheap? Of course not. When they wander aimlessly day after day without desire, action, or meaning, their sense of self is being worn away, and in the end, they are nothing more than walking corpses.

No one wants to live this way, but for the villagers of the Undead Settlement, there seems to be nothing else they can do but grind the already shattered corpses into even smaller pieces.

Lothric rose up, the bridge connecting the city was broken, and they were no longer qualified to deal with wandering spirits. Just when they were about to lose their will to live, the mentors of the Deep Cathedral arrived. They thought they would at least get a guy to deal with the garbage, but in the end, apart from secretly sending some conquering knights over to Lothric, they had nothing else to do.

The mentors were proclaiming the sage's name to them, but the sage had not yet assigned them any actual tasks.

They are still so insignificant.

In order to at least avoid becoming like wandering ghosts, they have no choice but to continue doing the work that no one else needs them to do, day after day.

Finally, this slow death ended not long ago. On that day, the mentors joyfully announced that their saint had reached the other side of the abyss, glimpsed the knowledge of the great god, and was now moving towards a higher level. At the same time, he needed his faithful followers to offer their meager strength.

They couldn't understand anything about the abyss or knowledge; all they knew was that they had something to do again, and having something to do meant they wouldn't become wandering ghosts.

What else is there to say?

The once lifeless undead settlement has thus become strangely active.

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A bustling scene of activity is underway in the village's huge square.

Xiaoyan and Zhi hid on the balcony of the building, watching as the villagers piled up some of the corpses there. Then, under the supervision of three abnormally obese mentors carrying heavy tomes, they were slowly devoured by four disgusting monsters that were themselves made of corpses.

Or perhaps "fusion" would be a more accurate description.

But fusion is not always successful. They saw some monsters that, after devouring the pilgrims' corpses, disintegrated into a pool of sticky minced meat, which was then loaded onto carts by the villagers and transported deeper into the settlement.

They suddenly felt a little lost about what to do.

Especially when Zhi saw this strange vitality permeating the settlement, it was far more like a vibrant village than the lifeless, scheming, and undead settlements she had experienced before.

She now finds it difficult to rush into the square and slaughter all the villagers without a word, just like before, because in this functioning village, such an action would only make her seem like a barbaric and rude thug.

But what village can survive on piles of corpses?

This is inherently illogical, yet it is illogical in a way that creates order. As outsiders, any action they take that interferes with this process will only disrupt this bizarre order. Human beings, as social animals, are instinctively preventing them from destroying the social ecosystem here.

Xiaoyan, however, had fewer concerns. Her goal was clear: to find the Cursed Tree. Her current worry was how to get through the plaza, as they could no longer simply rush into the crowd.

They had to retreat from the balcony.

"Let's find a campfire first, and then think about how to get through this square."

The search for the campfire went smoothly, proving their earlier assessment correct. Even though some slaves were hiding on the first floor, the third-floor attic where the campfire was located was still a safe place to rest.

"Wait, I just remembered something else!"

After lighting the campfire, Zhi stopped Xiaoyan from sitting down.

“Before, whenever we sat down by the campfire, all the enemies in the world would resurrect. But now these enemies are clearly active. If we sit by the campfire, will they still resurrect? And if they do, it will be those villagers we killed before…”

"You'll only know the result after you actually sit in it, right?"

This was a problem that had to be faced sooner or later, and Zhi couldn't refute it. After Xiaoyan sat down, she slowly sat down as well.

Flames filled the field of vision.

With trepidation, they arrived at the first floor of the house.

The thumping footsteps suddenly intensified, signaling that their previous actions would need to be repeated continuously.

"Let's go out and take a look before drawing any conclusions."

Having figured out the routine, dealing with the slaves wasn't as thrilling as the first time, but the danger level still hadn't decreased, because the environment here was perfect for these petite slaves to jump around. It took them quite a while to clear away almost all the mummies hanging in the room before they finally forced the three slaves out and killed them.

The facts were staring them in the face: even though the entire village was in operation, the world's operating mechanism seemed unchanged. What they saw from their doorway was still the endless stream of corpse transport convoys.

"I feel like we're trapped here."

"Then we have no choice but to try to get through. I see a lot of wooden barrels in the square. If we can detonate them all, we can greatly reduce their numbers."

"Are we going to risk our lives to find a way again? This brings back a lot of painful memories."

Some schemes are so blatantly obvious that even if you can clearly see the whole picture, you still have to use all your skills to get through them. And what they were facing was just such a blatantly obvious scheme.

The once bustling square was interrupted by a deafening roar and bursts of flame.

The crowd erupted in chaos. They dropped what they were doing, grabbed their tools, and charged at the thugs who dared to disrupt their hard-won work.

Xiaoyan and Zhi split up and plunged into the crowd, one counterclockwise and the other clockwise, igniting the piles of wooden barrels stacked on the square one by one with fire pots.

With her magic eyes fully open, Zhi moved among the villagers like a butterfly flitting among flowers. However, the crowd density, which was far greater than that on the broken bridge, put a lot of pressure on her. She had only managed to detonate two piles of wooden barrels when cold sweat began to trickle down her forehead.

Xiaoyan's situation is even more dire. Lacking the ability to spot weaknesses like Zhi, and having completely abandoned attacking in favor of charging forward, she can only repeatedly rewind time to dodge the endless attacks.

The barrels continued to explode one after another.

Only then did they realize that the impact of crowd density was relative. With the explosion reducing the number of people, the troublesome enemies who had previously been hindered by the crowd were now finally able to attack them.

The obese mentors were the first to make a move. They initially tried to unleash a few miracles, but the swarms of stalking insects were often blocked by the villagers after they were released, serving no purpose other than splattering blood on the unfortunate creatures.

So they simply raised their maces-like staffs, and after the crowd thinned out due to the explosion, they swept aside the villagers who were still blocking their way and charged towards Zhi and Xiaoyan.

That wasn't all. The monsters formed from the fusion of corpses weren't just for show. They actually used their tangled arms and legs to support their bloated bodies, and as they ran, various parts fell off as they howled and pounced.

The executioners pulling the cart added the final blow to this desperate situation. Their arrival meant that both Xiaoyan and Zhi had to face at least three powerful enemies each. Add to that the remaining ordinary villagers, and they were completely out of options.

Xiaoyan couldn't hold on any longer. She used Time Rewind frequently, causing the Elemental Ash Bottle's capacity to decrease rapidly. After realizing that things were hopeless, she no longer had enough magic to rewind to a safe place. She took several attacks from the villagers, then dodged the disgusting corpse monsters, and resolutely rushed into her mentor's arms.

Then the mentor, engulfed in cursed flames, was burned alive.

Zhi quickly followed in Xiaoyan's footsteps. Due to overuse, her magic eyes skipped the process of magic depletion, causing her to feel extremely dizzy. She didn't even realize that Xiaoyan had already died. In her last moments of lucidity, she still managed to kill many villagers. In the end, she subconsciously avoided the corpse monster and was cut in two by the executioner.

You die

It seems like it's been a long time since I've experienced this feeling of being repeatedly tormented by the pain of death in the dark.

Especially since this torment comes from the burning of flames, Xiao Yan doesn't know whether she should look forward to the healing power of the campfire, after all, it is fire, at least it looks like that.

But that's only what it appears to be.

A warm current flowed through her body, and the flames before her eyes dispelled the burning sensation caused by the cursed flames. She experienced the feeling of soaking in a hot spring for the first time in a long time, and in her daze, she even didn't want to be resurrected so quickly.

Indeed, this feeling was quite captivating. She began to understand how a girl who used death to escape battle could so calmly jump off a cliff.

If every injury is perfectly healed, will the lessons learned from those injuries also be quickly forgotten?

The flames dispersed.

"As expected, this won't work. Without a strategy, there's no way to get through this number of enemies head-on."

As soon as I returned to the campfire, I heard Zhi complaining.

"Weaving, do you still remember our encounter in your intermittent world?"

"Huh? Why bring that up? Aren't there only 'corpses' that are even more disgusting than wandering ghosts?"

"No, I mean, doesn't the location 'Cannibal Building' seem quite fitting? Right now, we can just turn this building into an ashes version of the 'Cannibal Cabin'!"

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Homura Akemi's Intelligence Compilation Manual

Information regarding a formidable enemy:

New Enemy: A new enemy discovered by Weaver in the Undead Settlement Square appears to be a monster formed from fused corpses, which, according to her, is like an enlarged version of some kind of caged pile of wandering souls.