Witch Troupe and the Undead

"Hey!" The colorful elemental aura pressed the metal back into a flat, slender metal plate, which was then tossed onto the anvil by the witch. The hammers, which had been waiting in ambush, rushed forward, and the sound of the automatic forging system echoed throughout the cellar—well, never mind how it works, just tell me if it's automatic or not!

Under the almost white, blazing flames summoned by the witch, the flat iron plate was quickly hammered and extended into the prototype of a two-handed sword. After the blade and tip were hammered out, the whetstone in the corner strode over and pressed the already somewhat animated, screaming blade firmly onto the whetstone, where sparks flew as it was rubbed by the diamond whetstone.

Next, the witch installed the wolf head on the sword blade. These devices showed signs of activation, so she had to extract half of the unformed soul fragments from them to calm these mischievous creatures down.

"Phew~" The little witch wiped her sweat and placed the reforged sword on the shelf. Although it might not be as compatible with the Holy Light of the Holy Lord as it was originally, its demon-breaking and exorcising effects had increased by at least several times. It was an anti-hell alloy, a scientific achievement of the witch, for which Black Horse and Minotaur made outstanding contributions as testers.

Livia pulled out a dropper and dripped a drop of dark red blood onto the blade. Instantly, the blood boiled and evaporated on the blade. "Hmm~" A satisfied smile appeared on the little witch's face. The weapon that had damaged Old Ma could definitely take down ordinary hellish creatures in two hits, if not one.

Chapter 383 It's estimated to reach the level of Dunhuang.

In the stable, the old horse sat on a pile of hay, its forelegs resting on its chin. "I think I might need some new equipment." Everyone else was getting new gear, but it had none. How could it, as a long-time employee, bear this?

"Then go find the young lady. What's the use of telling me?" The bull-headed man sitting on the wooden stake said, blowing out a smoke ring as he held a cigarette rolled with leaves between his fingers. He had to admit, these "soulful" (physical) tobaccos were indeed quite enjoyable to smoke.

The quantity was a bit small, after all, Roach doesn't smoke, and neither does the little witch. They even find the smell somewhat unbearable. Apart from growing some as an ingredient for a certain kind of potion, there wasn't much at all. Moreover, Minotaur could only find naturally fallen leaves to process into tobacco leaves.

As a farmhand, he didn't have to worry about being disliked by the little witch for the smell of smoke. Occasionally, in order to get the bullhead to work hard, the little girl would even come and give him some hay and beans, even though it was just ordinary hay and beans.

"Hmm... let me think, how should I start?" Old Ma fell into deep thought. Solving problems with fists and sticks was quick, but it wasn't so convenient when dealing with old friends from hell or things of the same level. If it weren't for that, he wouldn't have missed the rift closing and ended up stuck in hell, almost experiencing the witch's forced recall effect.

Meanwhile, in the witch's room, Livia was lying on her desk, drawing something with a quill pen, when she saw a horse's head appear outside the window. "..." The little witch thought for a moment, grabbed her staff, and raised it. The horse's head immediately retracted.

After a while, he reappeared, which made Livia look at Old Ma with some displeasure. Her emerald eyes clearly said, "If you don't have a good reason, you'll be punished." She hadn't forgotten what happened before.

“This…” The black horse’s head nuzzled Livia’s arm affectionately, revealing a pleading expression. This made the little witch hesitate for a moment, then she seemed to have thought of something and nodded gently.

"It's resolved!" Old Ma returned to the stable with a happy expression. "I've talked to the young lady, so it shouldn't be a big problem."

At the same time, Livia pulled out a new parchment and drew a three-headed black horse on it, with several arrows extending from its body, pointing to the blank areas on the paper.

Next, Livia drew a horse mask on the head, with a foot-long horn on the forehead; then came the vest and cloak on the body; horseshoes and reinforced leg armor on the legs, making it look like it was truly armed to the teeth. The whole thing looked like a cute-looking but probably very fierce mobile fortress with four legs fully armed with metal.

Then Livia thought for a moment and drew an armored knight next to her, along with a lance and a banner, followed by the entire team's design. Now she roughly knew that Alessina was more skilled with dual swords, so the beast-girl's design was that of a thief wielding dual swords.

The witch herself and Leslie's appearance remained unchanged, while Roach was no longer a knight, but a tall, somewhat ugly-cute Frankenstein carrying a basket full of chibi bombs. Lulua, on the other hand, didn't undergo many changes and still looked like a fighter.

Although Vivi wasn't there, Livia still prepared a picture for her, featuring a dragon pattern on armor, with everyone except the knight and the horse on Vivi's noticeably enlarged back.

The little witch looked at the blueprints for her new creation and nodded in satisfaction, feeling that it was almost complete. At that moment, Roach and Leon returned.

The little witch skipped down the stairs, looking up at Roach and Leon with a clear expression that said, "Why did it take so long?"

“There’s been a problem with the procurement plan.” Roach called everyone except the mermaid together and presented the information and intelligence he had obtained from the mayor, including the symptoms of the miners and the patterns on the stone gate. The latter came from the mayor’s oral account of what he had received from the mine manager, which Roach then drew based on the oral account.

There weren't many patterns or carvings on the door. The two sides were decorated with some kind of plant, which didn't look like anything that would sprout tentacles from inside. The door frame had a relief of a war scene, but since the person who witnessed it was a mine foreman, he couldn't tell what kind of weapons and armor they were. He only knew that there were many spear-like weapons.

"The gate is embedded between waterlogged rocks, and there are also many traces of salt mines. Oh, right, the samples of the Abyss Stone are here." Roach took out several translucent, black-based, mottled crystals from his pocket.

"Abyssal Crystal," Livia said seriously after glancing at it, then ran up to find a notebook that looked like it was about to fall apart, and flipped to the section about Abyssal Crystal.

"It looks a lot like Abyss Stone." Livia wasn't surprised that Roach or the locals would mistake it for something else, because the two minerals could be considered the same thing, both being products of shadow magic and earth magic eroded in the dark, underground environment.

The products that can be refined are the same as those from the Abyss Stone, except that the content of purple gold is almost non-existent, while the content of dark copper is slightly higher, resulting in a lower overall value.

Many inexperienced alchemists suffer losses because they buy Abyss Crystals as Abyss Stones, only to find out during the refining process that something is wrong—the yield of Purple Gold is almost zero. Yes, almost zero, not completely nonexistent.

Many sorcerers with lower levels of knowledge would think that the problem lies with their own recipe and technique, which caused excessive loss of purple gold, and would not realize that the problem lies with the materials.

"Oh, I see. But is there anything strange about this ore?"

"..." Livia held the abyssal crystal sample in her small hand, closed her eyes to sense it for a while, and then shook her head. "No." It was just a simple abyssal crystal.

Aside from being able to scam alchemists with severely inexperienced skills, it's not very useful. And calling it a scam isn't quite accurate, since it can still refine purple gold. It's just that buying it back at the price of abyssal stones would be a huge loss. If the alchemist has plenty of money, then it doesn't matter.

"Where are the plants?" Livia carefully observed the plant traces for a long time, then shook her head, a blank look on her face. This was the first time she had encountered something she didn't recognize at all. Well, it was also possible that the other party hadn't observed it much, which made Roach's drawing based on his description too abstract.

"It's a pity that the mine owner is down there too, otherwise we could go and ask him in person." Luo Qi scratched his head. People in his line of work are somewhat prepared for such strange things, although he has never encountered anything like it in his life.

"So what could cause such widespread whispering, leading to mental damage and prolonged stays underground in mines, yet the effects don't extend to the surface, or for some reason don't extend to the surface, and then be relieved by getting some sunshine?"

“Hmm… Cave dwellers can be mind-controlled and whispered,” Livia said after thinking for a moment, “but they won’t be deactivated by sunlight.” Cave dwellers are a common type of underground monster. They are called cave dwellers because they can mimic the appearance of creatures that enter their habitat (mostly intelligent beings like humans). In reality, they are not human at all.

Moreover, unlike other mimicry monsters, this mimicry is not sophisticated. Without being influenced by the mind, its appearance can only be described as having a basic human form, with two hands and two feet, a large head without facial features, and a hunched back.

Without considering mental influence, their combat power is basically zero. Adventurers wearing mental interference resistance runes can easily wipe out an entire swarm of underground cave dwellers.

“Those adventurers wouldn’t have gone down to their deaths knowing there were some kind of whispers below without taking any mental precautions, which means they couldn’t have died from an attack by the cave dwellers,” Leon said.

"Hmm~ Powerful whisper, penetrates protection, sunlight removed..." Livia pressed her small hands to the sides of her head, seemingly unable to think of any monster that possessed all of the above characteristics at the same time. She did know of monsters that possessed only one of the above characteristics.

Powerful Whisper could also be a bloated, fleshy worm called the Abyss Broodmother, which uses mind control to enslave other creatures as its worker bees, collecting food to feed itself. However, it cannot penetrate mind defenses; it is simply very powerful enough to force its target to commit suicide.

While a low-level monster called a "Whispering Butterfly" can penetrate mind protection, the reason it does so is because its effect is very weak. It is a long-lasting, continuous interference, and can penetrate the lower limit of most protective runes to affect the target's mind.

No mental protection can be a perfect shield; otherwise, the person being shielded will gradually lose their mind and normal perception of the world around them. A minimum window for mental interaction with the outside world must be reserved.

“Then is there a possibility…” Roach suddenly thought of something, “This is not mind interference, but quite the opposite. The whispers that the miners felt were actually the part that penetrated through the powerful mental barrier, and those mental disorders were essentially the side effects of perfect mental concealment.”

"So, the mine is actually shrouded in a powerful protective barrier, and the miners' symptoms are actually due to this protection?" Leon said. "That also means that what is sealed behind the stone door is about to break free, or it is extremely powerful enough to penetrate this powerful mental protective barrier."

“Hmm, that’s possible,” Livia thought for a moment. It’s true that something can violently penetrate the mental barrier; for example, a high-level Nightmare Demon like Old Ma can do it.

“No, didn’t you say that those miners who are deeply affected refuse to leave the mine, and even feel some kind of mysterious call from underground? As for a perfect state of mental concealment…” Alessina began, “it shouldn’t have that function, right?”

"Hmm, that's also a point of doubt." A perfect mind shield wouldn't have that kind of attraction. On the contrary, it would make any intelligent being enveloped in it feel an indescribable sense of loneliness and terror, and would be eager to escape from this area, just like locking a person in an iron coffin. They would frantically bang on the coffin lid, trying to break free.

The essence of that kind of dementia and madness is simply that the pressure of being unable to escape this confined, dark space has driven people insane.

"It seems we can't guess here; we'll have to go down there ourselves."

"By the way, if we're going to seal off the mine, what dosage of explosives would be appropriate given the current situation?" Roach began trying to use the little witch's brain to calculate this complex matter. His talent could ensure the direction of the blast, but he couldn't determine the blast intensity. No, he could determine the precise intensity of the blast, but he couldn't determine the upper limit of the blast field's tolerance.

"..." The witch gave Roach a deep look, reached out her small hand and took his hand, looking earnestly into his eyes and said, "Don't use it!"

"Well, if there really is some powerful mental demon inside, then resealing it is obviously necessary, or rather, killing the target, then..."

“This…” Livia thought for a moment, puffing out her chest as if to say, “Leave it to me.” But she was met with a cold rejection from Roach, “Miss, I’m afraid your stamina can’t support your grand ambitions!”

"..." Livia kicked Roach hard, very angry that he looked down on her performance, but she also knew that Roach was right. She was well aware of her own physical abilities. If she could ride a horse, she would ride a horse; if she could take a car, she would take a car; if she could take her house with her when she went out, she would take it with her. She would never show off, and she would rest every three steps or every five steps.

“…Hmm, this much,” Livia gestured, indicating that this was the maximum dosage she could use. Roach glanced at it and understood; the starting point was the Shaanxi History Museum level, and the maximum would not exceed the Dunhuang level.

Then there's no need to worry about it turning into a flat-topped mountain. As for whether it will turn into a fiery mountain, that's hard to say. However, considering that the Little Witch also thinks it needs to have an artistic element at the level of the Shaanxi History Museum, then it's not impossible for the final artistic scene to reach the level of the Louvre or even the Forbidden City, turning Gray Hill into a "bottomless pit".

"However, if we're going down there in person, then mental defenses..." The witch herself doesn't need to worry. As long as it doesn't involve physical or real-world confrontation, her defenses against mental whispers are exceptionally strong. You see, she's practically immersed in the whispers of all things in the world. But others need to consider this aspect.

“If their willpower is weak…” Livia looked at Roach and Leslie with concern. These two were probably the weakest in willpower among them. Roach looked like he had never suffered much, and Leslie, this useless mermaid, was lazy and didn’t seem like someone with a strong will. On the contrary, Leon and Alessina looked like they had a will as strong as steel.

The mermaids didn't need to be brought, but Roach was definitely going, which made Livia think it best to strengthen Roach's defenses first. Fortunately, she still had enough gems and other resources on hand. Meanwhile...

imperial capital.

A silver-gray dragon pierced through the clouds and swept along the White Stone River. Vilandella was preparing to head to the capital to meet up with Roach and the others, but...

"Where is the capital? Where did I end up?" The capital is located upstream of the White Stone River, but it hasn't been found there yet. There's only a huge spiral-shaped sinkhole surrounded by city walls. The dragon folded its wings and landed beside a collapsed village. Looking at the distant city walls, it immediately sensed something was amiss.

"Isn't this the North Gate of the capital? Wait, this is the capital?" How come there's only a pit left? The academy is now sitting atop a vertical tower-like structure, the imperial palace stands alone on the opposite side of the crack, and the entire city is shattered. What on earth happened? Could it be...?

Vivi recalled what had happened at a certain cemetery and her expression immediately turned horrified. Was Master Roch now no longer content with upgrading ordinary dangerous places to perilous or even higher-level secret realms?

Has he already evolved to the point of turning a major city like the capital into some kind of large-scale ruin? This made Vivi sweat for those guys in the Sage Council. If Master Roach knew that they had spent so much time arguing and only offered a pittance in prize money, the island where the Sage Council was located might soon disappear, right?

"What happened in the city?" Vivi quickly found a refugee camp outside the city. Many survivors had evacuated outside and, with the help of the Knights of Gisano, had set up this small camp.

For a megacity like Beijing, if the problem originates from within and causes a significant population decrease, while the surrounding villages and satellite cities remain undamaged, the refugee relief issue is actually quite easy to resolve.

Food and supplies are readily available and plentiful, making subsequent reconstruction easier, since these homeless refugees are the best source of cheap labor.

However, most of the disasters came from external invasions. Before the capital fell, all the surrounding satellite outposts had already been destroyed.

"What else could it be? Some cultists have torn open a rift in hell, and now there are still demons roaming the city." The militiaman guarding the refugee camp mistook Vivi for an alchemist from the academy. Although he looked impatient, he still answered her question, since the camp itself needed the academy's help.

Having lost a city that served as a wedge for civilization, the magic of the wilderness, mixed with the magic of hell, is seeping out from those cracks. Some livestock and wild animals are showing obvious signs of hellish and demonic transformation, with some even turning into monsters. Without the academy to provide barriers, purification rituals, and magical power, these camps will soon be putting on a show of the joy of expanding the frontier in the heart of the empire.

"A demon... phew~" Vivi thought it was Master Roach who blew it up, but it turned out to be a demon... Wait, a demon? Where are Roach and Livia now?!

Chapter 384

At the entrance to the mine, only a few miners were going in and out with baskets containing almost no ore. Two guards with spears watched Roach and his group warily as they came up the slope of the mine, but their expressions relaxed considerably after they spotted Leon.

Livia looked around curiously, occasionally showing interest in the equipment used for transporting and processing ore. For everyone, including Roach, going down into the mine was a first-time experience.

Due to the complexity of the mining area, a miner was needed to guide them and also to instruct the seemingly senior "professionals" on how to deal with the situation underground.

No mine owner would have dared to take on this job, but Livia's gold badge was so convincing that even though she looked like a little girl who was no more than 14 years old, she gave the mine owner a great sense of security.

After all, in the eyes of ordinary people, mages are no different from the weirdos in storybooks, and witches are even more so. So, it's not strange that the other party looks like a little girl. As for whether they would discuss in private whether Livia was some old witch who deliberately transformed into such a wicked person, that depends on how many cups these miners had drunk.

“Ron, my name is Ron.” The mine foreman, who looked to be at least forty or fifty years old, rubbed his hands nervously. He wore a dirty face mask, and a light tube hung from his belt. The two ends were metal, and the center had a section of glowing crystal. Ropes, tools, and rock spikes were neatly arranged on his belt. He carried a large backpack with a birdcage hanging from the edge.

Clearly, neither he nor the mayor thought the witch would prepare supplies for this "guide," so the backpack contained his own supplies, mainly dry, hard black bread, a water bottle, and some replacement glowing crystals.

“No, don’t use open flames in the mine, it’s easy to cause an accident.” Ron said, pointing to the backpack on Leon’s back, where there was a large bundle of wood. Livia looked at Ron, then at the firewood, nodded, and gestured for Leon to unload the firewood.

“Then we can set off.” Ron looked at the group’s attire and hesitated, but considering that they were all extraordinary men, he ultimately held back.

The mine foreman spun the metal tube a few times, and the crystal emitted an even stronger light. Then he carried the crystal lamp into the mine.

The shallow mining area was still in operation, but even Roach, who knew nothing about mining, could tell that the miners were simply digging for rocks, occasionally unearthing a few bits of iron ore of questionable purity. The ground was deeply dented by the mine carts, and lights hung from the wooden support beams, their eerie blue-white glow making the bare-backed miners look like ghosts from the underworld.

With foreman Ron leading the way, Roach and his men reached the elevator to the lower level without having to find their own way underground, and the miners along the way kept their distance from them.

“Go down from here, and you’ll be in the lower mine.” Ron looked at the darkness below the elevator, swallowed hard. Not every miner who goes down will get lost. In fact, the effects of the whispers are slow. As long as you return to the surface in time within two or three days, there are almost no aftereffects, as long as you don’t go down multiple times in a short period of time.

However, he still had an unusual sense of fear, as if something in the mine was opening its mouth wide, waiting for him to willingly throw himself into it.

The elevator was supposed to be operated by someone on top, but obviously no miners dared to approach the area. So, after everyone was on the platform, Livia pointed her staff at the winch, and an arm made of air pushed the winch to lower the elevator platform down little by little.

The height difference between the deep and shallow areas wasn't actually that great, only about two or three stories. However, there was an unusual atmosphere permeating the area. Ron, who was leading the way, visibly frowned. He had already heard some kind of rustling whispers, but the whispers weren't strong enough yet.

“Some kind of whispered message…” Leon heard it too, but Roach and Lulua hadn’t reacted yet, which meant that their telepathic abilities were relatively poor.

“There’s something that says it’s hungry…” Livia said after listening for a while with a frown.

"So, that door below really does contain some kind of seal?"

“Hmm!” Livia nodded, but she didn’t know what it was, and she had never seen the whispering mist that enveloped the lower mines before.

Something's coming...

"What?" Ron nervously raised his miner's lamp. Under the light, a staggering figure appeared in the mine tunnel, accompanied by the noise of some kind of metal object scraping against the ground.

“…Open…eat…it’s rabbit…sticky…” The gaunt man dragging a pickaxe muttered incoherent fragments of words as he approached Ron. When he got close to the light, he seemed to be stimulated by the light and let out a scream, as if the light was some kind of unbearable stimulus to him.

The man was only wearing a loincloth, a common attire for miners in the sweltering mine. His muscles were taut against his bones, making it hard to imagine what gave him the strength to lunge at Ron.

"Get out of the way!" Leon grabbed the miner's backpack and threw him behind him, then kicked the man wielding the pickaxe. The impact of bones against rocks produced a dull thud, and the body soon lay motionless in the rubble.

“The soul… is shattered.” The emerald eyes reflected the faint halos on the corpse, invisible to ordinary people. Those were fragments of the soul. This man’s soul was shattered. The soul moving in this body was just a remnant, a fake object kneaded together by some force.

Therefore, when such a being is exposed to sunlight, the sun's magic is enough to destroy its fragile soul-binding entity, and even such weak light can bring great stimulation.

"Your soul is shattered? What happened to your original soul?" The little witch simply shook her head silently in response to Leon's question.

"Are you alright?" Lulua helped Ron up from the ground. "I'm... I'm fine. That person, I remember..." Ron didn't go on to say anything more, like the person's life story or how many children he had. He knew the men weren't interested, while Roach knew that this kind of story wasn't an isolated case.

"Keep moving forward. If we can't solve the problem with that stone door, this kind of thing will eventually spread to the shallow areas and even the town." As for that white-billed lord, we can't count on him. The mayor must have reported the mine's anomaly to him immediately, but the fact that he hasn't come to check on it for so long shows what kind of person this lord is or what kind of character he is.

Shortly after Roach and his group left, some kind of invisible viscous liquid seemed to seep from between the dark rocks. Soon, the twisted and broken body began to move again. The collapsed sternum slowly recovered, and the broken limbs and the wounds from the sharp ore cuts on the body remained, but no blood flowed out. Only a black, sticky, and unidentified liquid dripped down the wounds, staining the withered body with black streaks.

“…Dream…cold…so much…blood,” the muttering miner staggered on as he continued to disappear into the mine tunnel.

“Why didn’t we burn that body just now?” Leon looked at Roach, who looked at Ron. The mine foreman tried to calm himself down before saying, “No, don’t light any open flames down there. It’s easy to cause an accident.”

Moreover, in such deep mines, air, or rather oxygen, is very limited. Lighting an open flame here could easily cause leaked gas or other substances to explode, and it could also consume the already scarce oxygen. It's best to forget about relying on the rudimentary ventilation equipment above to provide enough oxygen to completely cremate a body.

Of course, it's not entirely impossible. The little witch could summon fire elements directly from the fire elemental level to turn the corpse to ashes, but the little witch's energy and stamina are more precious than the oxygen here, so it's best not to do that.

“I bet that corpse has definitely gotten back up.” Leon had plenty of experience, or rather, a premonition, or rather, he had seen many similar things before.

"Those zombies don't seem to have the ability to actively seek out enemies. They won't go berserk as long as they're not exposed to light, and they also seem to have normal human physical abilities." At the very least, the damage caused by Leon's kick was no different from that to an ordinary person; it was fatal.

“And if all else fails, we could consider amputating their limbs,” Alessina suggested. “At least they won’t be able to catch up.”

"That's true." Severing the limbs of an adult is very strenuous for an ordinary person, but for a warrior like Leon, it's just a matter of one strike. The closer they got to the stone gate, the stronger the whispers became. In the shadows of the mine tunnel, something seemed to be writhing and multiplying, and judging from its appearance, it was definitely not a zombie.

"Huh?" Ron suddenly asked in confusion. In front of them was an unfamiliar mine tunnel, with a large number of spiky crystals growing between the soil and rocks, and the rock walls were covered with a faint silver-gray hue.

"I remember……."

"Did you take the wrong turn?" Leon walked over warily. As an old mine manager, it was unlikely that he would get lost down there, but that was based on the premise that the other party was of sound mind and memory. Considering the presence of those whispers, it was questionable whether he was of sound mind now.

“No, I remember that a lot of the ore here should have been mined out, but this mine looks like it was just dug out. Could it be that my memory is wrong?” This made Ron’s spine grow cold. As an old miner, he knew all too well what the consequences would be if he got lost in the mine.