Demon Hunter: School of the Wolf.

Chapter 590 Undead Catastrophe
Black smoke rose from the earth, darker than the night.

The forest did not burn; it was not smoke or dust from burning wood.

The black smoke did not sway with the howling mountain wind, but instead rose slowly from the earth as if it had solidified, connecting with the sky that was faintly tinged with a ghastly green.

Dense, white maggots wriggled on the ground, mechanically crawling towards the eastern horizon.

Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that the maggots crawling under the trees that had withered in late summer were actually naked humans.

They were at least once human.

Now, with his swollen, silent face, the pale bones oozing flesh, and his hunched, crawling posture, he can no longer be called a human being.

Carrying a ghastly green lantern, semi-transparent, ethereal spirits floated among them.

Groups of ghouls were even squeezed to the edge, drooling with yellowish saliva, greedily watching the living dead that exuded a strong stench of decay.

The Witcher was standing on high ground, so he could see far.

Looking around, the sparse, withered woodland was filled with crawling undead, zombies, and demons.

An intense sense of foreboding sent a frantic warning through my senses, making my scalp tingle as if the back of my head were pressed against a board of needles.

But at this moment, the Witcher couldn't tell whether it was the danger lurking in the shadows that triggered his senses, or the instinctive rejection that came with being human.

He finally understood why the journey had been so quiet, and why he hadn't seen a single patrolling soldier.

Ban Ad actually used necromancy to transform all the soldiers, nearly ten thousand vibrant lives, into undead, zombies, and demons.

The undead, zombies, and spirits will not rebel because of necromancy or heavy casualties; they were born from these very causes.

The witcher clenched his fists, trembling, as he smelled the blood and stench in the air.

"These damned beasts!"
-
Just as the Witcher witnessed this human tragedy and was enraged by his empathy as a human being,

Beneath the same ghastly green sky, in a cave shrouded in illusion, surrounded by the undead, zombies, and demons, a group of sorcerers dressed in black robes embroidered with six-pointed stars celebrate their feat.

When the wine glasses clinked together, the splashes of bright red wine resembled foul-smelling blood.

"Those damned old fogies of the Warlock Brotherhood cherish a pile of linen but reject true treasures!"

A male sorcerer who looked extremely old, with skin clinging to his bones, and who was not much different from the demons lingering outside the cave.

His gaze was fixed feverishly on the faint green light streaming into the cave entrance. He took a deep breath of the putrid stench that seemed to breed death, slapped the table with satisfaction, and shouted in a hoarse voice:

"Necromancy is the jewel in the crown of the goddess of magic, the art of manipulating life and death. What other spell can reach the essence more directly than it?"

"No!" the other sorcerers in the cave shouted in unison, then clinked their glasses and drank heartily.

They were not worried that the commotion inside the cave would attract the mountain people; no one in the entire northern continent knew better than these ritualistic sorcerers how to hide and protect themselves.

“Malaki, look at those pale bones, what a beautiful color,” another equally aged sorcerer said, holding up a translucent wine glass and looking out of the cave through the wine. “Those filthy farmers have finally found their true attire.”

The sorcerer known as Malachi nodded in agreement, saying, "The war has returned to the way it should be."

"An army of ten thousand men has been formed, and after a month, they still can't find a nest of those long-eared creatures."

"But the corpses of ten thousand people can, within a week, dig out all the long-eared creatures hiding in rabbit burrows and integrate them into our undead army..."

“In less than a week,” the middle-aged wizard next to Malaki interrupted, downing his drink in one gulp and waving his index finger. “I bet it will be three days at most, no, two days, at most two days, and those long-eared creatures will be unable to resist jumping out of their rabbit burrows and dying a spectacular death.”

"This is true efficiency!"

"What use are those war behemoths that the Risberg Civil Cooperatives painstakingly developed, which can't distinguish between friend and foe?"

"Altoran, a legend of the Association of Talents and Skills, has created a bunch of things, but few of them are actually useful."

"This is how war should be fought!"

"To die a spectacular death, yet powerless to change anything..." Malachi nodded. "That's the kind of death that long-eared people would have."

He put down his wine glass, looked around at his colleagues who were disillusioned and had buried the most brilliant years of their lives in mundane tasks such as maintaining magical barriers, divining lost items for nobles, finding cheating wives and daughters, and even searching for pets. He couldn't help but sigh:

"I used to look down on Sunny, thinking he was just an ambitious but incompetent jerk, but I never expected him to have such courage..."

"Only someone like this can truly lead a male wizard to establish a kingdom that belongs exclusively to sorcerers."

"Why are we, the darlings of magic, always ordered around by mortals?"

"That's right!" the crowd shouted angrily.

“Master Ignaz,” Malaki swirled his wine glass, then, as if suddenly remembering something, placed it on the magically conjured table and casually tilted his head to ask, “Besides cleaning up those long-eared creatures, does our king have any other orders?”

The noisy cave fell silent because of Malachi's words.

Malaki seemed oblivious to the unease on everyone's faces, his eyes fixed on the aged Ignaz: "Isn't it... a bit of a waste to kill just one long-eared wretch who was already barely clinging to life among nearly ten thousand undead?"

Ignaz paused in his act of raising his glass, avoiding Malachi's burning, scalding gaze, and carefully chose his words:
“Senny didn’t give any further orders. He just told us to stay hidden and not to expose ourselves to those useless nobles…”

“Nobles…” Malaki sneered, “Even if they knew, what could they do? The real warriors died long ago in the war between Cordwin and Aden. Those outside are just a bunch of useless trash.”

He stood up from an exceptionally neat rock, looked down at his colleagues, and said with a smirk:
Do you think they can't guess what we're going to do?

"Of course they could guess that he was just afraid we would include them in the ceremony as well."

"A group of people called 'leaders,' who were actually farmers plundered from some village near Banad, were certainly not as important as their lives, wealth, and power."

"But is it really worth worrying about people who are inherently despicable?"

“Look at the forces we have outside, my colleagues…”

Malaki's forehead veins bulged as he pointed at the cave entrance and growled:
"They must be afraid of us!"

The cave was quiet, and no one responded.

The eerie, shuffling footsteps and the sharp, piercing cries of the spirits emanated from outside the cave, but instead of frightening the many male wizards present, they seemed to fuel their burning ambitions like dry tinder.

That was their power, enough to overthrow a kingdom's regime.

Those who wield power do not want to be constantly ordered around.

"Gulu~"

Some people swallowed hard.

Ignaz is one of the most senior male wizards among the ritual masters, and of course, he also has another identity—a spy sent by Sunny.

This was no secret; everyone knew it, because they all "coincidentally" came from the same family. It wasn't something that needed to be hidden anyway, since eliminating the Mountain People was a major undertaking, and Sunny couldn't possibly have chosen not to send his trusted men.

But now, everything seems to have changed with just a few words from Malaki.

What kind of monster has Sunny unleashed...? Ignaz's heart sank.

But he pretended not to notice anything, put down his glass, tilted his head back and thought for a moment, then changed his words:

"It seems there really is such a thing..."

"What is it?!" Everyone at the long table asked impatiently.

Ignaz didn't keep them in suspense: "Senni has always hated those freaks of the Wolf School. Before I came back, he sent Shaquille and Valery with those war behemoths of the Risberg Civil Cooperative to Kaer Morhen."

"What does this have to do with us?" Malaki frowned.

“Sennis wants to wipe out the Wolf School witchers, and those half-finished products from Risberg are definitely not enough,” Ignaz said. “Besides, at this time, the Wolf School witchers have not yet returned from all over the world.”

“Senni originally planned to clear out the elves and then set his sights on Kaer Morhen. Considering that we had already been through a war, he intended to send us back to Ban Ade to rest.”

"Since you all have unfulfilled power, why can't we be the ones to eliminate those disgusting freaks of the Wolf School?"

Of course, Sunny never mentioned to him the future after the Ritualist cleaned up the long ears.

But luring a lion back into its cage after it has been released and seen blood always comes at a price—either the prey's flesh or the trainer's…

“The Wolf School…” Malaki and the other wizards exchanged bewildered glances upon hearing this.

“We have nearly ten thousand undead here, while Kaer Morhen only has a handful of witchers,” a sorcerer complained.

Another wizard, who knew a bit more about the situation, curled his lip in dissatisfaction: "Having a hundred would be amazing, especially since they're eating Risberg's leftovers..."

Ignis listened to the young wizard's restless discontent without showing any emotion, but sweat was already silently seeping from his forehead.

"Alright, alright," Malaki interrupted, raising his hand. "It's good enough to have something to eat. Even a few witchers to fill our stomachs are better than not being able to get any meat at all before."

Ignis breathed a sigh of relief and gave Malachi a grateful look, only to meet Malachi's gleaming gray eyes.

That was not a look of compromise, Ignis was absolutely certain of.

“But…” Malaki held up one finger, his pupils burning with fire, “The Wolf School can only be a beginning, not an end.”

"We can play a bigger role!"

"Does Senny only want to build a sorcerer kingdom that consists of just one small city, Ban Ade?"

"That's not as good as Hidaris and Sintra; at least those two small countries have coastal wealth."

"A land as vast as Cordwin, and also Aden, Redania, Temuria, and even the entire northern continent..."

"As long as there are people, Ignis, as long as there are people, we can help Sunny conquer everything in his sight!"

Malachi’s fanatical voice sounded to Ignis like the whispers of a demon.

He instinctively wanted to ask, after conquering the northern continent with the undead, what else could Senni rule?
A bunch of bones and ghosts?
What kind of monster has Sunny unleashed...? Ignis was horrified.

But amidst the greedy, wolf-like gazes around him, he held back, simply nodding slightly and saying, "I understand. I'll have a 'good' talk with Sunny."

After witnessing the bloody lion, would one really be able to return to their cage?
At this time.

A young wizard next to Malachi, who was laughing heartily as he imagined the future, suddenly stopped laughing.

"What's wrong, Lyotard?"

The young wizard Lyotard looked on in surprise and uncertainty: "'Feast of Flesh and Blood' suddenly fluctuated..."

“What’s so strange about that?” one of the wizards next to Lyotard said nonchalantly, taking a sip of his drink. “Most likely, a few more long-eared creatures have sprung out of the trap, trying to launch a night attack or escape…”

“No! Lyotard’s position isn’t in the core.” Malaki frowned and put down his wine glass.

“It’s the entrance,” Lyotard nodded, looking at Malachi with a puzzled expression. “Malachi, didn’t you tell those nobles that once they came in, they wouldn’t be able to get out?”

“Those nobles don’t have the guts,” Malaki shook his head, pondered for a moment, and then revealed a cruel smile. “It’s us… who have new guests!”
-
The "new guest," Erin, was unaware that he had been discovered. He was currently wandering aimlessly through the sparse forest like a headless fly.

The undead, zombies, and spirits were more perceptive than he had imagined; "Night" simply couldn't hide from those monsters' sense of smell for living people.

Moreover, as soon as one of them discovers him, a large group of monsters will swarm around him, as if there is a large net connecting them all.

But to say they are truly intelligent, yet are being manipulated...

After being "triggered," those monsters would return to their original state within a few minutes, almost as if it were instinct.

This made things a bit tricky for Erin, who had tried to probe several times.

What's even more troublesome is that to maintain this insane and massive ritual, there must be a group of spellcasters present, but he just can't find their locations.

The undead visible within the field of vision are scattered and have no pattern.

The footprints were useless; there were only messy footprints everywhere.

Smell is useless; the thick stench in the air can mask any distinctive odor.

In the whispers of life, even the undead are considered living beings...

Even the wild language, due to the evil rituals, cannot summon the clear sounds of nature...

The grand spectacle of interdimensional fusion only works wonders on intelligent beings. A hundred or so uncontrollable carnivorous creatures, thrown into this vast withered forest, are like a needle in a haystack.

"Should we really contact Francesca?"

Erin squatted on the top of a fairly dense oak tree, frowning and muttering to himself.

Even though the free spirit was suppressed, it certainly knew more about this forest than he did.

But he didn't want to expose the matter of the alien fusion to the free elves, not even the slightest possibility.

Just at this moment...

"Om~"

The wolf-head emblem, baring its teeth, suddenly emitted a deep hum.

(End of this chapter)