Dragon's Soul: An End's Beginning

by Tony Tran

  While watching his men Zhang thought, “why couldn’t they just be regular zombies….” Because had they been zombies then a swing to the neck would be able to stop them. Instead of tediously having to sever all of their limbs.

  “Onward to the village!” Zhang yelled out as he led the three siblings into the village while swinging his sword at the undead who came his way.

  When they entered the village Zhang saw a trail of destruction telling him that a large battle happened. Broken farm tools could be seen laying on the ground and of course there were many undead also.

  “They must have moved back to center of the village.” Ha Rin said with a worried look on her face.

  “Let’s go.” Zhang said to her as they began moving once more.

  While Zhang and the three siblings headed for the center of the village, his soldiers were making short work of the undead surrounding the village. Luckily for them this group of undead was not as numerous as the one they had faced before.

  One could imagine how large the other group was just from the fact that they almost overran an army of fifty thousand soldiers.

  “You men follow me and let's go help our lord.” One soldier said as he slashed the head off a corpse.

  Soon a group of soldiers gathered up and moved into the village following Zhang.

  As Zhang made his way to the center of the village he sees faint trails of red blood on the ground. This confirmed that Ha Rin was right when she said that the villagers most likely moved toward the center of the village.

  The trail of blood led Zhang and the three siblings to a mass of undead who seemed to be trying to pry down a makeshift barricade in front of them. The barricade was most likely made up of whatever the villagers could get their hands on in such short notice. This was because Zhang could see things such as doors, carts and shelves being a part of the barricade. Behind the barricade were many villagers desperately trying to keep the undead back.

  Zhang withdrew the chained daggers from his interspatial ring and make them fly about in the air. The chained daggers weaved around in circles until finally the plunged down into the mass of undead. With a single thought Zhang made the daggers pierce into one undead after another. Then using the chains attached to the daggers Zhang chained the undead together.

  While this was happening Ha Rin screamed out, “Mother! Father!! Are you there!? It’s my Ha Rin!!”

  Moments later a middle aged woman could be seen peeking out from a small hole in the makeshift barricade. “Ha Rin!! Why are you back! Didn’t I tell you to take your siblings to the city and ask for help??” The middle aged lady yelled back.

  “Mother I did bring back help.” Ha Rin said.

  The middle aged lady was about to say something until she noticed Zhang dismembering the corpses with his blood red sword.

  “We’re saved!!! Our saviors have arrived” A mix of voices yelled out from behind the barricade. But suddenly screams of horror could be heard.

  “Run!!! One of the barricades have been knocked down.” A scream sounded out.

  “Shit…” Zhang cursed as he continued dismembering the undead who had been chained up.

  “My lord we have come to help.” Some voices could be heard from behind Zhang.

  Without looking back Zhang said, “You guys take care of these and protect those three I have something I have to do.”

  After finishing his words, he ran toward the barricade and while using the various things sticking out of it as stepping stones jumped over to the other side.

  Once on the other side Zhang weaved through the mass of villagers toward where the screaming with the loudest. And the moment he arrived Zhang plunged his sword into an undead. Then using the sharp edge of the shield in his other arm, he slashed of the head of another undead.

  “Everyone break down the barricade in that direction and run!” Zhang yelled as he pointed toward the direction that he came from.

  More of his soldiers should be arriving soon making the direction that he came from the safest and most secure.

  As his words entered their ears the villages scrambled to knock down the barricade that they had previously erected. Once the barricade was knocked down they were greeted by dozens of Zhang’s armored soldiers.

  Ha Rin’s parents ran to their children and embraced them, happy to be able to reunite with each other.

  “Everyone follow us in an orderly fashion! Do not push or shove!” Zhang’s soldiers yelled. They did not want any of the villagers to die from being trampled over by others.

  “Lead them toward the hill!” Zhang yelled to his soldiers,

  While his soldiers were leading the villagers away Zhang swung downward with his sword trying to cleave the last undead in the area into two halves. But he overestimated the length of his sword and slashed into where the corpse’s chest cavity was instead.

  Oddly however the corpse stopped moving and fell toward the ground. That was when Zhang noticed something squirming about in the chest of the corpse. Using his sword Zhang tried to inspect the corpse.

  Upon closer inspection he found a creepy looking dozens small green worm squirming about in the corpse’s heart. Zhang leaned in to get a closer look, but suddenly something jumped out from the corpse's chest cavity.

  Although he was startled Zhang was able to quickly move to the side to evade.

  “What was that…” Zhang murmured as he tried to find the thing that jumped at him.

  A bit away from Zhang there was a huge red worm squirming about on the ground. As if trying to get away the worm began pushing itself forward.

  “Oh no you don’t.” Zhang murmured he walked up toward the worm.

  “A Goliath Heart Burrower.” Zhang said once he got a better look at the grotesque worm crawling on the ground as he walked toward it.

  As he continued looking at this worm a grim thought appeared in Zhang’s mind.

  “Yuying please be safe…” He murmured as he ran toward his soldiers and the villagers. The image of the huge red worm jumping out of the corpse at him crossed Zhang’s mind however instead of seeing himself he saw Yuying.

  Chapter 62: Heart Burrowers

  While Zhang was off saving the villagers, Yuying could be seen standing by where Zhang had planted his halberd on the ground. On top of her head was a familiar looking arachnid. The corpse that was stuck to the halberd had been taken down by the soldiers and tied it up.

  A blue aura was emitting from Yuying and covering the corpse. However, moments later the aura retracted back into her body.

  “Odd….” Yuying murmured as creases appear on her forehead and a frown appeared on her face.

  “Let’s see what makes you tick.” Yuying murmured as she withdrew a short dagger

  from her interspatial ring and placed it on the chest of the corpse. She then began to make an incision into the chest of the corpse. However, as the dagger slit open the skin something caught her attention.

  The skin around the area that she cut began bulging and moving. As Yuying was looking at the moving intriguingly something popped out from the cut that she had made.

  A reddish worm could be seen popping out of the freshly made cut and before Yuying could react it shot out from the corpse and headed straight for her. As the reddish worm shot through the air and inched closer and closer toward Yuying something else launched itself into the air.

  Moments later squishing sounds could be heard. And Silky could be seen biting into a large red worm.

  “Phew…. Good Silky.” Yuying said with as she patted Silky. As if it was responding to her Silky rubbed itself against Yuying’s hand and then began devouring the worm by injecting it with Necrotic venom and liquefying the insides of the worm. Normally Titanic Golden Spiders only used neurotoxic venom that paralyzed their prey but when they prepare their prey to be eaten they use necrotic venom.

  “Sis are you okay!!?” Ai yelled as she put her hand on Yuying’s should.

  “Yuying are you alright? Ling said as she also put
her hand on Yuying’s shoulder.

  “What is that thing?” Ai asked with a disgusted face as she watched Silky devour its dinner.

  “It’s a Goliath Heart Burrower Worm.” Yuying said confidently.

  “In the Underworld I read about them in a book once. They were classed as level one demonic beasts but the term parasite would describe them better. Like their names suggest, they burrowed into the bodies of their hosts and incubate their eggs in the host’s heart which of course instantly killed the host. Although the Goliath Heart Burrowers were considered low ranking demonic beasts, they possessed the uncanny ability to control the corpses of their hosts.” Yuying stated as Silky finished consuming the red worm and moved on to the corpse.

  Each corpse would be manipulated by an adult heart burrower along with hundreds of adolescent ones they link up and control the body by using each other as a replacement nervous system. But that's not the end of it, each adult heart burrower is mentally linked to their queen creating a hive mind.” She said as she watched Silky munching on the little green worms inside the corpse.

  “Then how do we stop them?” Ling asked.

  “Three ways of stopping them were mentioned in the book it read. First is to kill the worm directly while it is in the host’s body, second is to sever their link to the queen by killing it and lastly do what we have been doing and incapacitate them. Besides these three methods I'm not sure there are any other ones.” Yuying said.

  “But something is odd about the current situation. Usually Hear Burrowers can only be found in demonic beasts, only rarely are they ever found on humans. But so far we have faced thousands of them.” Yuying added.

  “Madams it's time to move.” Lu Xun said politely toward the three beauties.

  =================================

  “Are all of the villagers gathered here yet?!!” Zhang yelled toward his soldiers and the villagers as he looked into the sky. A green flare could be seen lighting the sky quite a distance away.

  Once he saw this Zhang shot a flare of his own into the sky.

  Although he and the three beauties could tell each other's location and communicate through their magical transmission bracelets, he decided flares would be better to communicate with the army as a whole.

  “My lord all of the people in our village were gathered up behind the barricade so everyone should be here.” An elderly man said.

  “Okay let's begin moving out, we must regroup with the rest of our forces.” Zhang said as he began walking the direction the first green flare was shot.

  Soon Zhang's soldiers and the villagers began moving through the forest. The soldiers had placed themselves loosely on the edges of the group to protect the villagers.

  As he tried to lead everyone toward the rest of the army, a question kept popping into Zhang’s head. “How? How did so many people get infected by the Heart Burrowers?” Zhang thought.

  A single colony of Heart Burrowers couldn't possible infect so many people. And for it to get to this point without any requests for help. It either meant that the ruler of the Black Wind Province was an idiot who wouldn't handle the situation before it got out of hand or the situation got out of hand too quickly for him to act.

  “Senior do you know how this situation came about?” Zhang asked the village elder who happened to be the elderly man who spoke to him earlier.

  “Young lord sadly I don't know what caused this situation to come about. To be honestly only recently have the sightings of the undead been spotted around the village and only today did we get attacked.” The village elder replied.

  “Hmmm has there been news of any big events happening in the province?” Zhang asked trying to see if anything that happened could have caused the outbreak.

  “The only thing that comes to mind the grand construction of the aqueduct.” The village elder said.

  “Aqueduct?”

  “Yes our lord the ruler of Black Wind city had started a huge construction project to divert underground springs of water from the mountains into cities about a year ago. Last I heard they had begun to channel water from the springs into the aqueduct they managed to complete ahead of schedule. The water was channeled to a few cities and they were working on bringing the water to Black Wind City.” The village elder said.

  “They must have awakened a dormant colony of Heart Burrowers during the construction in the mountains. The worm larvae must have gotten mixed into the water and was transported into the city. Then people drank the water with the worm larvae and became infected. And since everyone in the cities were infected no one was able to request help and anyone who did was cut off by hordes of undead. But if the village elder is correct then Black Wind City should be safe, at least for now.” Zhang thought but before he could say anything tens of red flares could be seen in the sky.

  “Everyone move quickly somethings is wrong!!! Zhang yelled as he began taking long strides.

  =============================

  “General have our men abandon the carts and cross that shallow looking river with our horses. Once we cross to the other side we can easily deal with this horde of undead. Since the water will slow them down.” Yuying said to Lu Xun as she pointed to a river a short distance away.

  Moments ago they had just fired a green flare and were on the road moving through the forest however they rode straight into a horde of undead. And to make things worse a horde of undead also appeared from their rear. But luckily there was a shallow looking river to their right behind some trees.

  “Right away madam.” Lu Xun replied.

  “Once we reach a large body of water your water magic will also be strong wouldn't it sister?” Yuying said to Ling as they lead their horses toward the river.

  “Of course.” Ling replied while tugging on the reigns of house to guide it through the trees.

  Soon the army made their first steps into the stream. However, to their terror on the other bank of the stream hundreds of undead appeared.

  “Form phalanx!!! Protect the madams!!” Lu Xun yelled.

  “Water cutter!” Ling yelled as a blue aura envoy wiped her body and water from the stream floated into the air and formed crescent blades.

  Dozens of crescent water blades sliced through the air and diced a few corpses to pieces.

  With a wave of her hand a pillar of water rose from out of the stream and lifted Ling into the air. From the air she sent down countless razor sharp blades of water.

  “Quickly cross the river with the horses!!!” Sun Ce yelled as he pulled the on reigns on his horse and tried to cross the water.

  Despite looking very shallow if they recklessly galloped into the water there was a chance they could ride straight into a deep pool below and sink. Which is why they had to be careful while crossing despite being in such an urgent situation.

  Thanks to Ling’s constant barrage of crescent shaped water blades the number of undead on the opposite bank dwindled drastically. However, Ling’s face turned from a rosy pink color to a very pale almost white color.

  Constantly using the technique was draining her of essence very quickly.

  “Ling drink the water that brother gave you!!” Yuying yelled seeing Ling’s face turn pale.

  Moments later the pillar of water collapsed by before Ling crashed into the water below, some of it rose up and cushioned her fall.

  As the water swirled around her Ling made a small bottle appear in her hands. After popping off the cap on the bottle and drinking it the color on face her returned to normal. Luckily Zhang had given her the spare interspatial ring that he had and filled it with various useful thing.

  “Madams!! This way!” A soldier beacons to the three beauties. They had managed to secure the opposite bank of the stream and were moving into the forest.

  “Everyone quickly!” Lu Xun yelled as he watched as numerous undead were approaching their rear.

  “Sis what are you doing let's go!” Ai yelled toward Yuying.

  “One moment! I'm sending brother
a message telling him to release the Titanic Golden spiders he has in the domain.” Yuying said as she fiddled with the transmission bracelet on her arm.

  “C’mon! Quickly!” Ai yelled as she pulled Yuying’s hand before the message could be sent.

  Shortly after the horde of undead that were toward their rear entered the water.

  “Take them out as they try to make it up the banks of the stream!!” Lu Xun yelled.

  Following his commands, the soldiers waited on the banks of the shallow river and began dismembering the undead as they tried to walk up.