"Even creatures as ancient as totem beasts will become undead? I always thought they were exceptions and would not undergo such a transformation."

Military commander Lu Xu muttered to himself, while turning his gaze to the gray-white leopard-shaped undead running in front of him.

The history of totems is much longer than the concept of the dead.

Nowadays, there are very few surviving totem beasts in the world. Apart from the totem black snake in Hangzhou City, the gray-white leopard that has transformed into a ghost is probably the second surviving totem beast in the world.

...Well, from a certain perspective, the undead leopard can also be regarded as a continuation of life, right?
After all, the gray-white leopard is able to move freely, jump actively, run endlessly, and is not bound by death energy and maintains normal thinking ability.

Aside from the lack of a heartbeat and temperature, the gray leopard is in many ways no different from ordinary living creatures.

The gray-white leopard did not run for too long. After more than ten minutes, it stopped, and the group of electric blue leopards following it also stopped.

"Ao! Ao?" The gray-white leopard turned its head and let out a series of roars towards Xu Mu.

"understood."

Xu Mu jumped off the back of the gray-white leopard and stood steadily on the ground. After landing, his eyes turned to Zhu Meng and others who were flying in the sky.

Zhu Meng and others were obviously still afraid of the gray-white leopard. They did not dare to get too close and could only fly cautiously from a distance.

"Zhu Meng!" Xu Mu shouted to Zhu Meng in the sky, "The Totem Thunder Leopard wants to go to our city to temporarily avoid the undead chaos."

"Are you serious?"

Zhu Meng suspected that there might be something wrong with his ears. How could it be possible that the undead needed to escape from the chaos of the undead?

He refused without hesitation: "No."

Zhu Meng thought for a moment and added, "Even if I agree, it will be useless. I am just a councillor. The ancient capital is not under my jurisdiction. I cannot make the decision."

Although this gray-white leopard, like the totem black snake, is friendly to humans, it is impossible for him to accept allowing a monarch-level undead creature to enter the city.

Unlike the gray-white leopard, the reason why the totem black snake can live safely in Hangzhou is that it has been guarding this land since the time when Hangzhou was just a small village, and it has never harmed any innocent people for thousands of years.

Moreover, as a guardian family, the Tang family has a deep connection with the totem black snake. After considering many aspects, the senior decision makers agreed to let the black snake stay in Hangzhou.

At the beginning, if the plague had not broken out, making the Totem Black Snake a suspect, then no matter how powerful he was, he would have been powerless against the Totem Black Snake.

In comparison, the situation of this gray-white leopard is far from that of the totem black snake.

Even if he agreed, Han Ji, the president of the Clock Tower Magic Association, would never allow the gray-white leopard to enter the city.

"He can't make the decision." Xu Mu turned his head and said.

"Ao! Ao~" The gray-white leopard let out a low and powerful roar, howled a few times with an expressionless face, and then led the electric blue leopard group away.

Only after the gray-white leopard left did Zhu Meng and his party feel at ease to settle down.

Military commander Lu Xu turned his gaze to Xu Mu and asked doubtfully, "Did it just leave so easily?"

Military commander Lu Xu was a little worried that the gray-white leopard might do something dangerous to the ancient capital.

"Yeah." Xu Mu nodded and replied, "It said it wanted to find a safe place to take refuge, probably to Qinling Mountains."

"Let's not consider the issue of the 'Gray Leopard' for now. Let's quickly return to the Magic Association and inform them of the appearance of the Ghost Tyrant." Zhu Meng said.

……

……

When the group returned to the outer city wall, night had fallen.

Zhu Meng and his companions returned to the Magic Association to discuss matters concerning the Ghost Tyrant with Vice President Peng Yu, while Xu Mu stayed alone on the city wall to continue collecting spirits.

The air was filled with a thick smell of death. One after another, unknown creatures slowly crawled out of their tombs deep underground. Their green eyes flickered faintly in the darkness as they looked at the world around them curiously.

These creatures seemed a little confused at first, standing at the entrance of the tomb for a while, as if they were feeling the breath of the outside world.

But soon, as if they had received some signal, they all turned their heads and stared in the direction of the city wall.

Then, they opened their bloody mouths, let out creepy roars, and rushed towards the ancient capital city using their hands and feet.

The undead that emerged during these few nights are not only huge in number, but also more ferocious in power!

The number of mage guards on the outer city wall has increased significantly tonight. Compared with usual times, there are not only local military mages, but also military mages and hunting mages dispatched from various places.

Although many of these mage guards have never experienced a battle with the undead, due to their rich practical experience, they are able to remain calm and strictly follow orders even when encountering such enemies for the first time.

The mages' casting movements were uniform, and the magic they released was not colorful light, but unified magical skills, with only slight differences in color depth.

The difference in color depth is mainly due to the different elemental spirits they each possess, which causes the magic they cast to appear in different colors.

Turning around and looking at the dense, black army of undead under the city wall, Xu Mu keenly noticed that countless residual souls and essences were like small streams, continuously pouring into the vessel of undead souls he carried with him.

At this time, the ghost vessel seemed to have become an efficiently operating production workshop, constantly refining these residual souls into essence souls.

In just a moment, the ghost vessel in Xu Mu's hand successfully condensed two slave-level spirits!

Without hesitation, Xu Mu quickly used these two precious essences to strengthen his own thunder magic stars.

In his boundless spiritual world, a broad purple-red galaxy flows in the central area, like a magnificent painting.

In the center of this galaxy, 343 stars are rotating in a disorderly manner. Among them, 64 stars are particularly dazzling. They are brighter and more gorgeous than the other 200 stars.

Afterwards, the two slave-level spirits transformed into a mysterious dim light and merged precisely into the two stars, adding stronger energy and brilliance to them!

"It has reached 66..." Xu Mu completed the star enhancement, slowly opened his eyes, and muttered in his heart. Since he started to enhance the stars, he has never stopped.

After all the stars were upgraded to the third level, he began to use the essence he had accumulated before to further strengthen the stars.

Including the two spirit essences just used, there are now 66 star seeds that have reached the fourth level, and another seven star seeds have reached the fifth level.

Xu Mu silently calculated the resources needed to strengthen the remaining stars in his mind: "We need to strengthen 277 more stars. Each soul essence requires two hundred residual souls to condense. This means that at least more than residual souls are needed."

Although more than 50,000 residual souls sound like a huge number, if each residual soul is calculated at 10,000 yuan, the total price is only about 500 million...

In comparison, if one chooses to directly purchase spirit essence to strengthen the stars, the cost will be a staggering amount of more than ten billion.

From a cost-effectiveness perspective, it is obviously more cost-effective to choose a soul vessel that can condense spirit to strengthen the star.

Especially for him, since he holds a soul vessel in his hand that can automatically absorb the surrounding residual souls, the cost of this strengthening process is almost negligible.

The only headache is that the collection range of the ghost vessel is limited to about one hundred meters, and the essence and residual soul that explode after the death of a living creature will disappear without a trace in just three minutes.

Therefore, even if there are countless residual souls piled up under the city wall, it will be difficult for Xu Mu to collect them all within the effective time.

"Thunderbolt - dance wildly!"

Xu Mu completed the outline of the magic star map. He threw a ball of light containing the power of thunder and lightning to the place where the undead gathered most densely. The ball of light exploded and immediately cleared out the many undead in that area.

"Thank you!"

The mages in charge of defense expressed their gratitude to Xu Mu, then turned around and continued to fight to eliminate the undead.

The number of high-level mages on the city wall is obviously insufficient, or the outer city wall is too vast, resulting in the distribution density of high-level mages being far from meeting the demand.

At the foot of the city wall, every time you pass a watchtower, you can see groups of undead.

In some areas, the number of undead was so great that they began to form "human ladders" in an attempt to climb over the barriers of the city wall.

The attack that Xu Mu had launched before was aimed at a critical area that was about to be broken through by the undead "human ladder".

Xu Mu stayed on the city wall all night, casting a few rays of silent thunder and death from time to time to clear the area where the undead gathered.

Around him, the mage guards took turns to go into battle. After a night of fierce fighting, their magic power had long been exhausted and they had to leave the battlefield to restore their magic power.

As the long night gradually faded away, the morning sun rose from the horizon, shining brightly on the earth, dispersing the pervasive deathly air and preventing it from condensing again, and the undead spirits retreated back underground and entered a dormant state.

Xu Mu stayed on the city wall throughout the long night, and the mage guards around him were replaced three times.

Xu Mu leaped down from the city wall. He acted quickly, collecting the residual souls and essences before they completely dissipated.

After about two or three minutes, the soul vessel that was originally busy collecting the residual souls stopped moving and instead focused on condensing these residual souls inside the vessel into complete soul essences.

Without the threat of the undead, the area around the city wall became peaceful. Xu Mu returned to the hotel provided by the Clock Tower Magic Association, intending to have a good rest.

……

Xu Mu had just arrived at the hotel gate when he happened to meet Zhu Meng and the chief palace guard Wu Pingjing. He casually asked, "What was the result of the meeting you attended?"

"There is no progress at the moment." Zhu Meng replied with a sigh.

The chief palace guard Wu Pingjing, who was standing nearby, added: "There are currently three different opinions: The councillor advocates that in order to completely solve the problem of the undead, we must go to the vicinity of Shayuan for investigation."

"After hearing the news about the Ghost Tyrant, some noble families firmly opposed it. They firmly believed that the riots of the undead were only a short-term phenomenon and would naturally subside after a period of time."

"A typical disagreement between conservatives and radicals." Xu Mu seemed to be thinking about it, and then asked, "What about the neutrals, such as the Magic Association? How do they view this issue?"

"Peng Yu, the vice president of the Magic Association, feels that the area near Shayuan is too dangerous. Not only is there a ghost tyrant, but there is also an unknown monarch-level creature. He thinks it is better to observe for a while." The chief of the palace guards, Wu Pingjing, continued to answer.

"Where is President Han Ji? As the top leader, shouldn't he personally come forward to preside over such an important matter?" Xu Mu couldn't help but ask.

Two monarch-level undead have already posed a huge threat to the ancient capital. Why doesn't the top decision-maker come out and say something?
"President Han Ji is looking for relevant ancient books, trying to see if there are any records about the Undead Rebellion from previous generations. Now the Magic Association is under the control of Peng Yu." The chief of the palace guards, Wu Pingjing, said with some helplessness.

"This..." Xu Mu's mouth twitched. Looking up relevant ancient books to solve the problem was something he couldn't do.

From these people's perspective, Zhu Meng's proposal was indeed too risky, and there seemed to be no better solution except consulting ancient books.

Shayuan is an absolutely dangerous black zone. Even the forbidden spell wizards dare not go there to investigate easily. Moreover, there are not only ghost tyrants entrenched in the surroundings, but also an unknown monarch-level undead lurking.

If we were to send personnel to conduct an investigation near Shayuan, we would probably need to mobilize nearly two-thirds of the ancient capital's high-level combat power.

This move involves huge implications. Unless it is absolutely necessary, the top leaders of the ancient capital will never take such action easily.

"So what should we do next?" Xu Mu asked.

Zhu Meng replied: "Let's take a short rest first, and then we will go to the area around Xianyang for a field survey in a few days."

"Didn't you say we need to observe for a while longer?" Xu Mu asked doubtfully.

"According to the monitoring equipment of the Magic Association, the space near the Sha Abyss has been cracked, and the spatial structure has become unstable. The Sha Abyss is likely to be displaced soon." Zhu Meng explained.

"I understand." Xu Mu suddenly realized.

When Sha Yuan exists, a large amount of dead energy will gather around it. This dead energy can not only awaken the undead within a few miles, but also allow these undead to move freely during the day without being restricted by sunlight.

Once Sha Yuan moves to other places, although the thick deathly aura left by Sha Yuan may remain around Xianyang, as long as the undead cannot move in the daylight, their threat to humans will be reduced to an extremely low level.

Even if the Ghost Tyrant could appear in the daytime, it had lost tens of millions of its undead subordinates, and with the strength of Zhu Meng and others, it was able to beat the Ghost Tyrant on the head.

(End of this chapter)