Tomb of the Undead

Mo Fan came from humble origins and had never run in powerful circles, so when Dean Xiao informed him that a spot in the World Academy Tournament had been set aside for him, he barely reacted.

It wasn't until the Tournament's selection process began heating up in earnest — intense, all-consuming, with candidates competing fiercely for every opening — that he truly grasped just how valuable that reserved spot was. No amount of money could buy it.

Mo Fan had been climbing the rankings one step at a time on his own merits, so having such a towering title suddenly thrust upon him from outside brought him no joy — only a fair amount of worry.

Still, he was the sort of person who made his peace with what came his way. Let the world churn with noise; he would put his head down and train.

He had beaten Ding Yumian, who held a top-ten ranking, and earned the right to train in the Three-Step Tower for seven days out of every month. His Summoning Element Star Nebula was still at the first level, not producing enough to sustain her. He needed to push it up another level before he could properly feed the little Flame Queen.

Once the little Flame Queen grew strong enough, who among those red-eyed, sneering rivals would Mo Fan have anything to fear from?

*Anyone who's got a problem can answer to her teeth…* Honestly — not a single one of them trained properly or pushed themselves forward. All they knew was how to run their mouths. Can't stand to see someone coast on charm, can they?

Mo Fan paid none of it any mind. All he wanted right now was to stay at school and work on his cultivation.

Plenty of people on campus were probably already halfway to High-Level, while he hadn't even touched the threshold. When in heaven's name would he finally become a High-Level Mage and command those far more powerful high-level spells?

Autumn gave way to winter. In the central region, cold winds were scarce, and the Ancient Capital's surroundings stretched for a hundred kilometers in every direction as a sea of withered grass — gray and colorless as far as the eye could reach.

The Ancient Capital itself wore that same palette: gray, brown, the dull tarnish of old copper. The few brightly colored watchtowers visible inside the walls were nothing more than fresh paint masking ancient stone.

The city's four districts ran straight in the cardinal directions, and strangely, the roads only widened as one approached the center — all of it laid out in precise, orderly grids radiating around the Bell Tower.

The Magic Association of the Ancient Capital, Xi'an, had established its headquarters in the Bell Tower. Association offices always occupied landmarks — or rather, the Magic Association, wielding supreme authority, simply claimed whichever landmark it pleased. Either way, this ancient tower had seen a constant, unbroken stream of visitors across the ages, and nothing about that had changed.

The Hunters' Alliance occupied the Drum Tower, barely a kilometer from the Magic Association's Bell Tower. The two famous towers faced each other across the distance like a pair of sentinel statues carved there to stand eternal watch.

Military forces maintained their camps outside the city walls. The threats bearing down on this ancient city were countless. Chief among them were the Tomb of the Undead — already being put forward for recognition as a world civilization site — and the monsters of the Qin Mountains. Between those two, the city had not known a truly peaceful year in a very long time.

It was said that whether within the city walls or beyond them, dig a hundred meters into any patch of earth, and you would find bones.

Bones in themselves were not frightening — they were only the remains of those who had once fought. What was frightening were those who had been reduced to nothing but remains, yet still clung to this world, unwilling to depart.

These beings had lost all memory, all consciousness. What remained was nothing but the hunger and killing instinct of a beast: if anything living came within range, they would hurl themselves at it in a frenzy.

And so the Hunters' Alliance, the Magic Association, and the military all had an unending workload every single month — sending these lingering souls on their way.

Zhang Xiaohou had left Shanghai in a hurry. The moment he returned to the Lintong Military District, he was immediately assigned a grueling sweep mission.

He had been stationed here in the central region for Field Expeditions for some time now. Most of his days had been spent on patrols, drills, study, and personal cultivation. The military district had handed him missions before, but they had all been relatively low-stakes affairs.

This time, the moment he returned, new orders were waiting: mount a rescue operation and extract a survey team stranded in the depths of the Xianchi area.

The survey team had set out roughly half a month prior, heading into the restless Xianchi region to assess the situation — on one hand, measuring the rate at which the Undead were proliferating; on the other, doing what they could to evacuate the scattered villages near Xianchi before catastrophe struck.

The people of this land had lived alongside the Undead for generations, sharing the same fields. Even those without a drop of magical ability had developed their own folk methods for avoiding Undead attacks. Some of the hardier communities had even learned to turn the proximity to their advantage, drawing on the resources the Land of the Undead provided to sustain their villages.

This arrangement was not uncommon in the region. It had been passed down for nearly a thousand years. To these residents, the Undead were no different from ordinary wild beasts — savage, relentless, striking down anything living on sight, but manageable with the right precautions. With proper methods, coexistence was possible.

Not long ago, the Shamang River stirred. A strange disturbance rose from its depths, and the creatures slumbering beneath the earth began awakening with unusual frequency — incident after incident, all within a single month.

Where things awakened, slaughter followed. The chaos along the Shamang River bled into the surrounding Undead territories, shattering the uneasy peace that had held for generations. Villages that had survived for centuries by threading through the cracks of the Land of the Undead were devastated. Four settlements had already vanished from the digital map in a single night.

The Magic Association and the Hunters' Alliance took the situation extremely seriously. They dispatched survey teams with clear instructions: the moment any sign of unrest or fluctuation was detected, the surrounding danger-zone villages were to be notified immediately and ordered to evacuate in full.

But before long, the survey team detected a Crimson Wind rising over the Xianchi region, sweeping across the land — and just as they moved to drive the nearby villagers to safety, all contact was lost. They simply vanished.

The mission Zhang Xiaohou had been given was nominally a rescue. In truth, with the survey team missing for nearly two months, the higher-ups had essentially sent him and his team to determine how they had died — recover the remains, and give the Magic Association and the Hunters' Alliance something to report back to.

"Honestly, what are they thinking up top? Sending us to do this. Going after a survey team that's been missing for two months... where was all this urgency back then?" Wang Tong, one of the team's scouts, grumbled without pause.

Zhang Xiaohou's team numbered nine in total. Unlike a standard military formation — one officer commanding a full squad of Military Mages — Zhang Xiaohou belonged to a special unit. He was typically deployed alongside other standout officers to handle missions of considerably greater difficulty. Special forces, in all but name.

Every member of the team held officer rank. Two of them were scouts, responsible for pathfinding, drawing out enemies, and disruption. Zhang Xiaohou was one of them; the other was Wang Tong.

At the moment, both scouts walked near the front of the column. Wang Tong was a born complainer, and he had been at it without a break since the moment they set out.

"And look at Qin Hu over there, living the good life." Wang Tong craned his neck upward, eyes fixed on the pristine white Celestial Eagle soaring high above the team. "Doesn't even have to move his legs."

Qin Hu was their captain and commander — and a Celestial Eagle Mage. While everyone else trudged along on foot, he rode his eagle without a care in the world.

"Complain all you want," Zhang Xiaohou said, keeping his tone easy. "But unless you march straight back to command, request a withdrawal, and take whatever punishment comes with it — you're finishing this mission no matter how much you gripe."

"I just like to vent! A day without venting and I feel physically wrong." Wang Tong shrugged.