Translated by XephiZ

Edited by Aelryinth

"Hello, Brother Fan..."

"You're asking about Boss Zhan Kong? I don't know either, I had completely forgotten about him if you hadn't mentioned him. I haven't heard from him for a long time!"

"I'm in the middle of a mission, so I won't be able to contact him for some time, but I heard that he went missing after returning to Bo City with the Darkwing Wolf's head."

"Alright, I'll call you immediately if I hear anything from him, but I will be on a mission for some time, I don't know when I'll be back at headquarters."

"How's the Flame Belle doing?"

"I'm fine, I'm the best at running in the whole team. How could I possibly not outrun my enemy if I can't beat them in a fight? We're all soldiers, so none of us will desert the others. Those who manage to make it back safely will report on the situation back to headquarters. Even if the others are dead, I'll still be fine."

Zhang Xiaohou was talking to Mo Fan with his earpiece. They had not arrived at the area around Xianchi yet, thus they were not required to stay on high alert.

After hanging up on the call, Wang Tong glanced at him with a gloomy look and blurted out unpleasantly, "Who were you cursing to be dead? I can guarantee that if someone's going to lose their life on this mission, it will be you for sure!"

"Hehe, I was just using it as an example," said Zhang Xiaohou, scratching his head.

"You can't even use it as an example… who's the guy on the phone, I heard you call him brother. Didn't you say you're an only child?" Wang Tong continued on with the conversation in boredom.

"We grew up on the same street. He's just like my brother, looking after me since I was little, even now," said Zhang Xiaohou.

"You're a soldier, talented among the Intermediate Magicians. Why do you sound like you're still a kid, being looked after?" said Wang Tong.

"He's a lot stronger than me."

"Alright, alright, we've got plenty of those talented maniacs in the army, yet none of them were able to clean up these filthy things..."

------

The nine-man team gradually made their way toward Xianchi.

Xianchi was merely the name of a place where there were rarely any plants on the surface. The soil was soft, and usually covered in thin white sand...

The white sand was in fact the dust from corpses that had undergone long exposure to the sun and wind. It looked exactly the same as salt sprinkled over the ground. The locals did not call it salt literally, but referred to the place as the salty land.

{TL Note: Xianchi in Chinese means 'salty pond'. Apparently, in some Chinese poems, it refers to a pond where beautiful girls bathed during ancient times.}

Xianchi was the land between the Qinling Mountains and Xi'an Territory. Since the place was slightly sunken, it looked like a pond on the map, hence it was called Xianchi (Salty Pond).

A lengthy safe zone was constructed along the northeast border of Xianchi. Usually, the safe zone mostly consisted of boundaries set up with fortresses, depots, watchtowers, and supply stations, with cooperation between the army, Hunters, and Magic Association guarding the boundary.

However, the demon beasts in the vicinity of the Ancient Capital were fairly different, so the safe zone of the Ancient Capital was not very stable, only consisting of a long wall around the boundary area.

The wall, constructed by Earth Magicians, served as a layer of defense. As the walls were moved around quite often according to the activity of the undead, some of the villages that were initially within the safe zone would suddenly be excluded from it at times.

If a village was located along the coastline in the south or north, it was extremely dangerous to be outside of the safe zone. The village would be trampled to ashes within a few years, leaving not a single survivor behind.

Meanwhile, the villages located on the edge around the Ancient Capital had their unique methods of avoiding the undead. Hence, there were still villages outside of the safe zone… quite a lot of them, actually. These villages were commonly referred to as the Villages of Miracles by the Magic Associations in other countries, since the villagers were utterly fearless, living outside of the safe zone!

---

"Our first destination is here, the Sunny Goat Village. It's located around the foothills of the Qinling Mountains, with around thirty villagers." Captain Qin Hu had come down from the sky holding a seemingly new map in his hand.

It was extremely important to get their hands on the latest maps if possible, as only the new maps contained information about the recent changes to the landscape in the area. As for old maps… eleven out of ten would result in a trap!

"The name of the village sounds quite cheerful," said the 'naughty kid' in the team, Lu Hongjing.

"Enough with the nonsense," Qin Hu straightened his face, not giving the others a chance to express their comments.

"The Sunny Goat Village is around four kilometers away from here. The sun is setting soon; shouldn't we think of a plan?" proposed the female Battlemage in the team, Shi Shaoju.

"Let's go straight to the village. I don't think it's that complicated. Are you telling me we can't handle a bunch of weaklings? We'll just kill every single one of them when they appear!" said Lu Hongjing.

"Don't be naive! Did you forget that this place has already been inspected before, it's categorized as an orange zone!" Qin Hu was obviously a cautious leader, and immediately spoke up sternly when he saw his team dropping their guard.

"It's just orange zone, I spent lots of time roaming the red zones..." interrupted Wang Tong.

The people of the Hunter Union were in charge of discovering the distribution of the demon beasts in the area, and tagged the areas with different colors to represent the density of demon beasts.

The higher the density of demon beasts in the area, the stronger the color used to tag it. The colors started from white to orange, then red, and finally black, correlating to the color of alerts.

Green was used to tag the areas in a safe zone.

White meant there were only a few demon beasts roaming in the area.

An orange zone implied that there were packs of demon beasts residing in the area, so it belonged to a dangerous zone. Only experienced Hunters, special squads and powerful Magicians were allowed to enter the area.

Red, or simply a blood-colored zone, represented death. It was extremely easy to be flanked by packs of demon beasts, as the number of demon beasts in the area was like a surging tide.

There was still purple between red and black. A red zone referred to a kingdom of demon beasts. Even Super Magicians had no chance of making it back alive from a purple zone.

As for a black zone, any life form was forbidden within it. No one had ever gone to a black zone before, and it seemed like even the demon beasts did not dare to enter one, either.

Green, white, orange, red, purple, black. There were six colors in total, and the last four correlated to the four types of alerts.

The red alert that Bo City was placed under was the second level alert for a city.

The Ancient Capital was located near the Kingdom of Undead, hence it was the city with the most alerts raised in the entire country. The alert was so common to the residents of the city that it was simply treated as an alarm to wake them up every morning. Those who were drinking tea continued to enjoy their tea, those gossiping continued to gossip, and those who were responsible for protecting the city made their way to the battlefield!

That being said, due to the unique traits of the region, when the sun was high up in the sky, the electronic map only displayed green and white zones, and occasionally an orange zone when the beasts from Qinling Mountains got lost and trespassed into the zone...

However, as soon as the sun set into the horizon, when the light protecting the land was withdrawn, all the zones across the map, apart from the safe zone of the Ancient Capital, were turned entirely red!

Once night fell, humans no longer reigned across the land...

------

Currently, the special team from Lintong headquarters was outside of the safe zone. The final glimpse of sunlight had disappeared, leaving the scent of death lingering in the air nearby...

A strange noise was heard coming from under the white-covered ground. It sounded like someone munching on something, or something beating...

Zhang Xiaohou was the first person to step into the Land of the Undead. He was extremely nervous, his alert scanning his surroundings...

All of a sudden, pairs of dried, rotten, arms poked out from the ground and began to wave and grab wildly in the air less than five meters away from him!