409 A Bad And Basic Bait For Baiyi

"Please, take a look at this," the young secretary said, handing Baiyi a stone slab. 

As soon as Baiyi touched the slab, he realized that a video had been recorded in it. This was similar to the little trick he had done with pebbles, back when he first advertised Da Xue to the world. Baiyi laughed and said, "That's copyright infringement right there, agree?"

He activated the magic placed in the stone slab and began to watch the recorded video. A few minutes later, Baiyi put done the slab, an expression of confusion appearing on his face. 'Why do I get the feeling that this job is better suited for the Church, not me?' 

There were two videos on the slab. The first one showed a mountain village that had been annihilated by an army of skeleton shoulders. The corpses of the villagers could be seen getting back on their feet; they had turned into zombies! Hovering wraiths could be seen all around, and a bit farther away from the village, a bunch of revenants, which were clad in black armor, could be seen atop their undead horses. 

The second video was a lot more epic, if not harrowing. It showed a large flatland filled with a sea of undead, which stretched for miles. They were marching forward, and the sky above them was filled with skeletal dragons flying in seemingly random trajectories. The size of this army of undead rivaled even the size of the Lich Walker's army, in its prime. 

It was very obvious that somewhere, somehow, a certain Lich had broken through to the Demigod level. This army was basically this Lich's way of showing off its might. The little village was just unlucky to have been chosen for this fatal display of power. This was the reason why Baiyi thought that the Church ought to handle this matter; it should not concern the Principal of an academy. 

"You should look at this, too." Seeing the lack of interest on Baiyi's face, the secretary raised his hand and presented a badge to Baiyi. The emblem on the badge looked strange at first, but on closer examination, it was very familiar. A black flame, which belonged to an old adversary of his — the Godsfall cult.

The huge battle that broke out in Mars ten years ago had cost Godsfall cult its two most powerful supporters: the Fairy King and an Abyss Lord. As the late Wise Mad King had foretold, after the battle, the cult lost its power and influence. Before that, Godsfall had been strong enough to indoctrinate some members of the Church, a faith-based organization. After the huge battle in Mars, however, Godsfall deteriorated so much, even smaller organizations began to hunt them for sport. Now, the cult was thought to be inexistent, with even their old allies — the barbarians of the north and the dwarves in the twin realms, Mars and Marle — hunting them. 

Hence, even Baiyi slowly forgot about Godsfall. He had so much to do nowadays, so there was no time to spend investigating the wellbeing of the has-been that was Godsfall. 

It seemed he was now witnessing the return of Godsfall, which seem to have enlisted the aid of a very powerful Lich. How much threat could a mere Lich pose to him, though? Even the Void's in-house Lich, who was widely regarded as the most powerful Demigod Lich to exist, spent most of his time hiding from everyone in order to avoid a beating. What more could be said of this unknown Lich; could it possibly stand alone against humans? 

Nope, that was not possible. 

If the secretary knew this, why then had he shown Baiyi the videos? Why use them to start off a dealing between the empire's military and Baiyi? 

Baiyi asked a question that was on his mind. "What is with those undead? They do not seem to have been created by a single Lich. Furthermore, with a threat this large looming, it is surprising that Isythre has been relatively quiet. I can assume that those vile things... they aren't from our realm, are they?"

One thing Baiyi picked up from the Lich Walker's memories was that Liches never worked alongside other Liches. They had abysmal levels of trust for things that were not under their control. The only time Liches would be seen together was when they were the butt of a joke; for example, "Three Liches went into a bar…"

If a Lich wished to build an army of undead, it could not do so by writing a number in midair while chanting rhymes. The Lich first had to orchestrate horrifying events that would leave behind lots of corpses; this was easier said than done. In the past ten years, Baiyi had received any news of a Lich wantonly slaughtering people, so where had all the undead in the videos come from? 

The only thing Baiyi knew about the videos was that they had been recorded in other realms. 

The secretary smiled in admiration. "Lord Principal is as clever as he is shrewd. One look at the videos and you have pieced everything together. As you said, these videos were recorded in a very large realm that we just discovered. We called this realm 'Duat'. The creatures you just saw are the masters of the realm."

The discovery of a large realm where life existed was not surprising, as both Gouve and Mars had both been discovered with life already existing in them. What attracted Baiyi's attention was the last line. 

"Is it a realm really controlled by a Lich?"

"No. The undead does not seem to be controlled by anything at all; their actions are of their own free will," the secretary replied. "Every single skeleton soldier you saw in the video possess their own will, even though their level of intelligence is lower than that of animals. There are not anywhere close to the mindless undead controlled by necromancers. A hierarchy seems to exist amongst them, just like it does for the demons of the Abyss. In that realm, the strong definitely dominate the weak." 

"A realm completely controlled by naturally-born undead creatures?" Baiyi cried in shock. In the Void, he turned his attention to the Lich Walker and asked, "Is this even possible?"

Necromancy was still considered taboo, and the actions of the Lich Walker, when it was alive, had not been forgiven, or forgotten; hence, Baiyi did not let the Lich Walker leave the Void, not to mention letting it teach at Da Xue. It was quite fortunate he had done this, seeing as he could now ask the Lich Walker questions. 

"I would not disregard its plausibility," the Lich Walker replied, with shock evident in its voice. "There are wild undead creatures here in Isythre, as well, but their numbers are pitifully low. These undead are born from the extremely rare Dead- Transforming Formations that form naturally, or as a result of a Lich's mistake. However, neither of these reasons could possibly give rise to such a massive number of undead, with all having their own wills! This Duat place is very interesting... 

"Here's a friendly reminder, though: these undead creatures are far different from the undead we are familiar with," the Lich Walker added. "The undead we know, our version of the skeleton soldiers, all have a shred of their souls left over in their bodies, which a necromancer can control to make puppets of the corpses and bones. For undead to retain their self-awareness, fragments of their consciousness would have to remain. I am sure you know how difficult and annoying that can be to pull off. This is why I am certain this army of undead, who all possessed self-awareness, could not be the handiwork of a person. Oh, yes, I'm very curious as to how they were formed..."

Baiyi nodded in his head in understanding, and then he directed a question to the secretary. "Godsfall has joined hands with these undead creatures, haven't they? Do they intend to stir up a storm alongside their dead partners?" 

"To be honest, we are still unsure," the secretary replied sincerely. "We found the badge with the black flame emblem at the village that had been decimated. The badge may have been accidentally left there by one of the cultists, or it could have been all that remained of the cultists after they battled the undead. Frankly, we cannot tell what link the cult has with the undead. We also cannot rule out the possibility that a Lich was behind the attack on the village. The only thing we suspect, to a certain degree, is that Godsfall is connected to these undead."

"And, this is where I come in, right?" Baiyi said, finally understanding the gist of things.

"That is correct. Lord Principal is the expert on these type of affairs, and the archnemesis of the Godsfall cult. There is simply no one else more suited for the job. To show our sincerity, we are willing to add your name into the list of potential arms suppliers," the secretary said. 

On the surface, it sounded as though the empire had complimented him, but on closer examination, one would see that the statement had been laced with ridicule. The empire did not consider Baiyi the best candidate for the job because they saw him as a world-class detective. It was because Baiyi had ties to no one but his family. Should anything happen during the expedition, the empire would not have to answer for it. In other words, Baiyi was considered a mercenary on a suicide mission. 

Furthermore, the only reward offered a spot on the list of potential arms suppliers. The empire was acting as though the business of supplying arms was not already monopolized by rich nobles, whose roots ran deep. The military only pretended to accept non-noble suppliers so that the public would seem them as transparent and fair. Most knew that the military would never really task a civilian with supplying arms to it. 

Baiyi felt so insulted that the empire would think of convincing him with such cheap rewards. Furious, Baiyi silently stood up and walked towards the door. 

The Southern Duke, who had been quiet the entire time, rushed forward to block Baiyi's path. "My friend, you should, at least, believe me on this one. It is not what you think it is."

He carefully led Baiyi back to his seat and coerced him to sit down. This time, Duke Link took it upon himself to brief Baiyi more on the matter.

A noble family that had been supplying weaponry to the military had recently suffered a great loss. One day, the family's young heirs, out of the blue, decided to go exploring. On their way, the heirs met the Alpine Barbarians of legend, and unfortunately, they had a misunderstanding with these barbarians, who promptly sent them off to meet their makers. 

Hence, a blood feud ensued. The family asked the empire to declare war on the despicable barbarians. The Emperor, who did not wish to offend the family, agreed, sent two thousand elite soldiers and twenty sorcerers to the family. One would think that such a large force would be all that was needed to curb stomp the barbarians. 

Whoever had thought that would have been wrong. The army, which marched alongside a few members of the family, were decimated. This was all it took for the family to fall from grace. 

Having lost its prestige, the empire considered the family unfit to remain an arms supplier for its military; hence, the empire began to search for a new supplier.