Sha Yuan, the Myriad Corpse Pit (Part II)

Countless crimson pupils, packed so densely they could never be mistaken for anything as beautiful as a field of stars. They were thick enough to raise every hair on the body — as if the most ravenous, starved, and savage gazes in the world were boring a thousand holes straight through the heart.

The abyss below was dark, but Zhang Xiaohou could see it: countless bodies and limbs writhing in the depths, packed together completely — layer upon layer, corpse upon corpse, corpse crawling over corpse, piled up like a mountain.

The abyss stretched as far as the eye could see. Not a scrap of earth was visible anywhere. Nothing but those revolting, skin-crawling masses of corpse-things.

The ground above had held a few dozen Undead just moments before, but once they fell in, it was like raindrops vanishing into the sea — gone in an instant, swallowed by the mountain of corpses.

*Thousands.*

*Tens of thousands.*

That many Undead crammed into a single enormous pit — it was like the furnace of the eighteenth level of hell, packed with countless damned souls, its lid suddenly torn open and laid bare before the living world. Every torment and agony of purgatory on full display. The torrential resentment billowed upward into a massive pillar soaring toward the sky, churning into black clouds that rolled and rolled without end.

Zhang Xiaohou stood frozen, unable to look away. He was dangerously close to the edge of the Sha Yuan — one more step and he would fall in.

Right now, he would rather be hacked to pieces by the Blade-Axe Corpse General than fall into that myriad-corpse pit. There was no difference between that and descending into hell itself.

The Blade-Axe Corpse General at his back, no escape ahead, no time to flee to the side.

Jia Xi's face — darkened to something barely human — drew ever closer, that long tongue lolling out as though it longed to lap every last drop of blood from a living body.

Blades and axes whirled. Zhang Xiaohou clenched his teeth, his back to the hellish pit, and braced himself for a final stand against the Blade-Axe Corpse General.

But just as he steeled himself to die fighting, the Blade-Axe Corpse General suddenly wheeled around — and gave chase toward Shi Shaoju instead.

A vicious, crowing laugh rang out beside his ear. Zhang Xiaohou had never been so terrified in his life — his legs refused to obey him. Not only because the deadly Blade-Axe Corpse General had suddenly spared him, but because behind him lay hell itself, open and exposed to the living world: a furnace crammed with millions of corpse-things.

His legs buckled. He dropped to his knees, every ounce of strength gone. He didn't know how long he stayed there before he could crawl back to his feet.

The death-energy behind him surged in waves — it could pull any living thing into that pit. Zhang Xiaohou refused to die here like this.

With the Blade-Axe Corpse General no longer hunting him, he could flee back the way he'd come.

The others had scattered — he didn't know where. Some dead, some running. Their unit, an elite squad of officers handpicked from the military, had proven utterly helpless in the Land of the Undead. They were nothing but prey, hunted at will.

**Bell Tower — Ancient Capital Magic Association**

Inside an office that breathed antiquity, a young female inspector rushed toward the conference room, clutching an electronic instrument panel in both hands.

"Black! Black!!" she cried out in panic as she ran.

"Calm down. Speak clearly," said Peng Yu, Vice President of the Ancient Capital Magic Association.

"Black — a black point has appeared here... It's a Sha Yuan!!" The inspector jabbed frantically at the screen.

The display showed an electronic map — the region appeared to cover the Ancient Capital and the territories surrounding it.

It was deep in the night. Beyond the Ancient Capital's Safe Zone, the entire map had turned blood-red — vivid and alarming. It meant the Undead in the surrounding area were several times more agitated than usual.

And there, amid that sea of crimson, a black dot had appeared without warning.

*Black.* That was a Forbidden Land.

Purple marked Demon-Beast territory, where even a Supreme Mage faced near-certain death — and black meant no living creature had any chance of survival whatsoever.

Amid the blood-red expanse surrounding the Ancient Capital, a black dot had appeared.

It meant the most terrifying thing in all the Land of the Undead had surfaced.

"Could the instruments be malfunctioning? How could black appear — you'd need tens of thousands piled into a mountain." The young association member laughed — then glanced over at Vice President Peng Yu and found her face set in an expression of absolute gravity. The laugh died on his lips.

"What do you know," the inspector said, her voice rising. "This could be a Sha Yuan."

"A Sha Yuan?? I've been stationed here so long — how have I never heard of that?" the young man said.

Vice President Peng Yu let out a long, slow breath before speaking.

"You said just now that it would take tens of thousands of Undead stacked into a mountain for black to appear — correct?"

"Right. No matter how thick the Undead get, they can't possibly reach that density," the young man said.

"In fact, a Sha Yuan is exactly as you described. It is also known as the Myriad Corpse Pit and the Abyss of Hell. The instruments don't lie — a Sha Yuan has truly appeared on the lands west of Yangyang Village..."

"No... that can't be right." The blood drained from the young man's face.

"Notify the other factions — a Sha Yuan has appeared. The Undead have grown so active that a Sha Yuan has been exposed. If we cannot find the root cause of all this, these lands may be swallowed by hell entirely." Vice President Peng Yu's voice was heavy as iron.

Undead wandering the Ancient Capital region was nothing unusual. For centuries, the people here had learned to "coexist" with the Undead.

But since the uprising at the eastern end of the Shamang River, this territory had grown impossible to control. Undead by the thousands were clawing out of the earth before full dark. Higher-tier corpse-creatures roamed freely through areas where humans lived. And now, a Sha Yuan — the closest thing on earth to hell itself — had surfaced. Wasn't that enough to prove that a Great Calamity was on the verge of breaking?

The Ancient Capital had stood for thousands of years, because for all those millennia the Undead had loomed hungrily over it — and its people had learned, through thousands of years of unceasing war, how to guard against them and how to fight back.

Day and night blurring together. Undead rampaging with savage ferocity. A Sha Yuan rising like a vision of hell. There had to be a reason behind all of it.

Yangyang Village lay close to a mountain stream. They said the water ran at its clearest in the hour before dawn — sweetest of all for brewing tea.

Su Xiaoluo rose every morning at first light to collect the stream's earliest water, carrying it home in heavy pails to fill her family's water jar. It wasn't only so her father could enjoy a good cup of tea — the water also did wonders for her complexion.

That morning, she went to fetch water as always. Distant howls drifted from somewhere in the dark, Undead that had "stayed up through the night," but she paid them no mind.

She scooped a ladle-full and was about to pour it into the bucket when she suddenly noticed — the water was completely red.

A metallic stench rose from the surface. Su Xiaoluo wrinkled her nose, irritated. *Which idiot Undead wandered into the headwaters this time...*

She looked upstream — and stopped.

A man lay collapsed in the stream, covered head to toe in blood, the lower half of his body submerged in the current.

Blood still flowed from him. Wounds covered every inch of his body. The sight was wretched beyond words.

Su Xiaoluo, to her credit, had nerve. She walked over and rolled him face-up.

"He's still breathing — someone! Help, quickly!!" Finding the man barely clinging to life, she immediately began shouting to rouse the village.