Chapter 161: Natural Undead
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
It was a cinch to become a Undead, any necrolyte could help to reincarnate the dead souls (necromancy), and even preserve their consciousness during life.
The low-rank undeads may have no intellect, but if a sword saint decided to be transformed into a undead, as long as his body and soul were complete, he would not even fall below Silver rank.
Subsequent to the growth of necromancy, there came the easiest path to immortality. A strong one who had acquired considerable strength, would just need to approach the necromancer and sign a secret agreement before the end of life.
Tempted by this immortality, every year in Xiluo Kingdom, there were secret visits from countless swordsmen in black hoods and sorcerers in a grey robe, these included quite a number of names which were famous across all countries. There were even some unknown ones who emerged as new powerful undead warlords annually.
Even I, the demigod undead emperor, in conjunction with the most exquisite ingredients could not guarantee a successful transformation of dead souls every time. Nevertheless, it was not a secret when it came to the methods of maximizing the success rate of undead transformation.
The soul, all energies originated from the soul. It was the foundation of the world and was thus the key to increase the success rate of undead transformation.
The transformation between life and death might sound miraculous and magical, but in the eyes of mine, it could actually be explained with logic and knowledge.
Just like the living, the undead was also made of a body and soul, just that theirs may no longer be the original ones.
A complete living being was analogous to a personal computer. The living was manufactured by the factory, with a perfect combination of software (soul) and hardware (body), along with the capability of auto updating (growth in life).
The undead might carry the same software after reincarnation, but its original hardware was definitely not viable anymore. The new body was similar to a computer assembled by several compatible parts, its performance might be superb, but system collision and inexplicable crashes were very common with it.
It was now evident how the undead transformation would fail, whether it be a collision between hardware and software, or the data loss of software (soul).
The former could be overcome by changing another body, but the latter could not be saved. No matter how good a computer was, it was not able to read from a hard disk with a piece missing, no matter how important the contents of the hard disk was, how passionate and wild the performance of the actors was… Cough, it was just an example, get your mind out of the gutter.
Of course, the necromancer could have completed the soul by incorporating the souls of others, but that might completely change the contents of the soul. Besides, such mingled souls were susceptible to defects, as the present technology was not able to retain the vitality and memory of the souls for a long period, there was a 90% chance that a cobbled together soul might become retarded.
Hence, the fundamental and imperative factor for a successful spectre transformation was quite obvious — Keeping the soul in its complete form.
The undead always arose from the bitter grudge. Grudges (unresolved regret) were undoubtedly the culprit of non-dissipated souls, while the strong will, a pure character, would render the soul more solid, and thus increase the success rate of a undead transformation.
And then, the conclusion was obtained.
According to my experimental theory which contradicted the general idea, the success rate of a undead transformation had nothing to do with the strength of the soul during life, but the will of one who had undergone hundreds of battles could never be weak, leading to a higher success rate of transformation.
There were no deaths without casualties, preserving more than 80% of the dead’s memory was good enough. Taking the hard disc as a metaphor, if it had more than 20% of data loss, the hard disc (soul) would have 20% of unusable space.
Speaking of which, the difference between natural undeads and reincarnated undeads by necromancy was discernible now.
Theoretically, they were the same. However, the will of natural undead was incredibly firm, and their character was pure to the point of no sundries, the grudge they held before death could stir up six months of blizzards.
Their souls refused to undergo transmigration after death, and were not dissipated at all. Without requiring the guidance of necromancer, they performed the transformation from life to death on their own.
This explained why the capabilities of natural undead were so astounding. Their souls had not dissipated at all, and were almost like their previous form. Moreover, having wandered across the boundary of life and death, they had discerned the arcanum of their own soul, developing a profound understanding of the basis of strength.
Losing part of their souls, the growth rate of common undeads would be severely affected. There was an exception however, which was none other than my Seven Deadly Sins, they were not strong at the beginning, but grew rapidly later.
The common undeads had concentrated on the creation of strong undeads bodies (hardware engineers), but I spent my effort on the soul, which was the foundation (software engineers). Of course, this was due to me being natural undead too, yet I had been to the styx for several times. It was already difficult for the other necromancers to start dissecting the souls, as their level of expertise remained at the soul transformation theories on the blackboard. Therefore, they might have regarded the creation and assembly of the soul as the sole authority of the God of Creation.
And I, had created and innovated numerous souls, these included bigoted and distorted souls, flawless, newborn yet talented souls, loyal and unyielding souls, and some which were completely reinvented with the souls of others as the ingredients. In a sense, it was right for Omar and Adam to call me their father.
The perfect but bigoted souls, had formed the basis of the incredible Seven Deadly Sins. Being the culmination of my research, their souls were flawless, coupled with the specially prepared bodies, they even outmatched the normal livings in their flawlessness and bigotry. In a way, they were the artificial natural undeads.
But actually, due to some flaws in my technique, in comparison with the genuine natural undeads, their capabilities were lower by a certain level. After all, the natural spectres I had met were all super monsters, these included I myself, Harloys, and Ayer.
In mythology, the Valkyries would greet the Einherjars and bring them to Valhalla. Frankly speaking, they were not all too different compared to the necromancers. In recent times, the Einherjars below the sacred thrones had no fundamental difference with the artificial undeads as well. The disparity was merely that the Gods performing the necromancy, which preserved even more the memories and battle techniques during life, under influence of the divine force.
Everything arose from the soul, the Einherjar souls were already strengthened to its maximum. These looked good apparently, but had actually ceased the advancement of the Einherjars. The undeads were suffering the same fate. Disregarding the dazzling halos, the Einherjars and undeads had too much in common, and they were both incomparable to the natural undeads.
The natural undeads mainly existed in ancient times. In recent times, however, the resurrection rate of natural undeads was negligible, as the soul of recent men were too fragile to attempt reincarnation, not to mention resurrections with complete souls. Aside from this, the hardest condition to satisfy was the furious rage, the unbreakable will, the desire of wanting to destroy the world.
Suffering the destruction of our countries, me and Harloys were also the final royal descendants who witnessed the annihilation of our own people and kingdoms. You might say that we were undeads who remained in this world for the sake of vengeance, Ayer did not share what he had encountered, but it must not be anything good.
Even when the conditions were satisfied, a certain amount of luck was required, so the figure of success rate started to count only after the decimal point.
In consequence, in the perspective of recent men, the undeads were merely the undead reincarnated by the necromancers, transformation to natural undead was never an option, some necromancers were not even aware of the existence of natural undeads.
Hence, the reincarnation of Suana as a banshee was never known or expected by anyone, perhaps even the Elven Gods who were the brains behind all schemes, would not have thought of such a miniscule probability event.
The pure souls were most likely to transform into undeads, and thus, female Elves would be one of the races which could most easily transform into banshees. Ever since the reincarnation of Suana as a banshee, the title of Queen of Banshees was no longer exclusive to Harloys.
In a sense, there were quite a few similarities between Harloys and Suana. Not only did they come to birth as Elven princesses, they both suffered the betrayal of their most trusted people and Gods, and their demises were also equally tragic — the sacrifice of war.
Ironically, the fellow Elven gods who were once supreme and ascendant, had created a godlike enemy like Harloys, as the undeads had more than enough time to investigate the truth, when everything was revealed under the sun it would be feared that even Suana would arise as the next godlike enemy.
Nevertheless, it had been a tradition for the Elves and Elven Gods to dig holes for themselves and jumped into them [1]. The typical examples was none other than the golden Elves and Lorci, who had both triggered the extreme transition of the Elves from riches to rags. And this time, if the fellow Elven gods had turned into Gods of Chaos, Lorci’s actions, who was notorious for being incredibly vindictive, was indeed something to be anticipated.
Back to the story, even though the Humans had been gathering up for a final, defensive stand, with Maple city as the heavily fortified core zone, it would be futile to stop the group of a legendary warrior, a golden archer, and a natural undead Elf.
“Ah. Mr. Skeleton is not here. Sister Elisa, how did you come back?”
Annie gave a sigh of evident disappointment, not only because Roland was absent, but mainly due to the return of Elisa. This false intimacy had Elisa stunned, with her eyebrows flickering. What did Annie mean, to ask about her boyfriend as soon as meeting her? Besides, was it like the previous fight they had never happened?
“I thought you would first ask about Adam and the others, they were here a couple days ago.”
“For sure I know about stepfather and Sister Margaret, I am always in touch with them. By the way, didn’t stepfather tell you that I’m coming?”
“Adam, a bastard as always…”
Suddenly, the picture of that man giving his big middle finger, like he always did, flashed across my mind, his face filled with the watching-for-fun smile — “I did what I could, don’t thank me”
“Alright, I certainly welcome all of you, but as you can see, I am too busy to entertain you. Pardon me for any offense.”
Outwardly, Elisa said so, but her lips deliberately uttered a “soft” grumble.
“An Underworld Autarch, an Underworld Beastking, sneaking out just like this? They are both very much adults, but simply ran away from their posts without letting anyone know, don’t they know the severity of that?”
Obviously, judging from her past experience, Elisa believed that these two people were not here for business, most likely, they were just annoyed of their work and ran out from their houses after shaking off their entourages.
Unexpectedly, an embarrassed expression was not seen, instead, a triumphant smile was hanging on Annie’s face.
“We are coming for real business this time, by the way, still remember the manifesto “the Underworld people have the right to sunlight too”? We are coming for this!”
“So, going to war?”
This was the first response of Elisa upon hearing this sentence, the call for “the right to sunlight”, wasn’t this about the invasion of Underworld alliance army mentioned in the Roland’s prophecy?
Considering the situation where Roland was still in East Mist, to battle against two sides was absolutely impossible, Elisa’s expression immediately turned grim and unpleasant.
But luckily, Anya intervened in time to prevent the atmosphere from getting worse.
“Most of the Beastman warchiefs had requested to form an alliance for an invasion, but we are still assessing the possibility of concession.”
“Concession?”
“Yes, either purchase or rent. Lands without owners are good as well. This is the will of Emperor Roland, the most imperative part of it, is to form a delegation to contact the possible buyers, and we are the frontline of the delegation.”
Perhaps there was such a possibility, Suana did not talk any further after nodding her head. Nevertheless, the banshee who had been constrained since her entry, broke out of her silence.
“Roland? Are you referring to the legendary holy knight, Emperor Roland?”
“You are?”
At first, Elisa supposed she was a random banshee coming from the Sulphur Mountain City, but now it didn’t seem so, as the banshee was a high-rank undead, and a natural one was even rarer, could she be the envoy from Xiluo?
“I’m Suana, Suana Newleaf.”
This name was the recent headlines, and was also the fuse of the war, Elisa definitely knew about it.
She was first astounded by that, but recalling something later, she nodded her head, smiling.
“…This is indeed interesting. Perhaps the cunning Lorci would be pleased by your arrival. Oops, I was impolite for not answering the question of your highness. Yes, we were talking about Roland, the Roland who was a holy knight three hundred years ago.”
“Please don’t call me princess… Now I’m no longer a royal member of the Tassel Kingdom, not to mention an Elven princess.”
Gazing at the dejected Suana, Elisa was about to say something, suddenly the guard outside the gate, barged in with an excited look, like he had some important news to report.
“Lord Elisa, our reinforcements have finally arrived!” (To be continued)
[1] TL Note: In Chinese, “挖坑自己跳 – Dig hole for oneself and jump into it” means asking for trouble)