Am I really hallucinating?

Chapter 421 The Great War of the Spirit Corpses
The City of Spirits, known to the spirits as the City of Undead.

This city doesn't have the tall walls typical of corpse cities, but even the dazed and unconscious zombies instinctively avoid this area.

From above, this area looks terrifyingly chaotic.

If other places are just typical post-apocalyptic ruins with nothing but zombies, then the situation here is probably closer to the chaos of the Red Violent World.

Here, it's difficult to see a single living, moving object. Normally, nothing visible to the naked eye here is alive; only large quantities of pots, pans, and other utensils float and fly around in the air.

The streets are littered with trash, or rather, all sorts of abandoned and carelessly discarded items.

This is a ghost town, literally.

Since spirits have even lower material needs than corpses, the city's infrastructure development is ridiculously rudimentary, aside from some basic planning.

This place can't even be called a doomsday shelter. The corpses have to fight against their mindless zombie brethren, but the spirits have no such worries.

They have always believed that this is a symbol of their superiority, a way to get rid of inefficient and decaying physical bodies and achieve spiritual sublimation, which is their spiritual body.

However, when the corpses launched an all-out attack and deployed armaments, the spirits panicked.

They ignore matter, making all the matter they control utterly vulnerable to the army of corpses. And their spirits themselves, naturally, the army of corpses from the Undead City also has weapons specifically designed to target spirits.

There are even spirit hunters; the Undead City army has several large units fully equipped with weapons and equipment against spirits. After the vanguard clears the obstacles, these units will follow up to harvest the spirits.

While many spirits still believed they could remain invincible due to the invisibility and intangibility of corpses, and that even if the Undead City had countermeasures, it would be impossible for them to be widespread, that massive, dark army crushed such fragile pride.

For the Undying King, methods against spirits were second nature, and it would be even easier to popularize them to arm his own army.

Prior to this, there were some minor skirmishes with the spirits. The Undead City either had the Undead King personally slap them in the face, or they simply dispatched a few teams to cooperate with the regular troops, which was enough to handle the situation.

Unfortunately, this effortless measure may have led to some unwarranted misconceptions on the part of the spirit.

The City of Undead is located near a mountain, and its core building is a dilapidated temple situated on the mountain.

However, all religious traces within the temple had been swept away, and the murals and statues in the main hall only depicted a white figure draped in a black robe, which, apart from its outline still being human, was otherwise pale.

Ghost King, Wolf Without Soul.

The empty hall was so cold that it was unbearable for most people, yet there was no physical trace of frost.

But from another perspective, this place actually brings together a lot of things.

"Reporting to the King... The area east of Zhou Lanshan has been completely lost. Our main force has retreated to Zhou Lanshan and is currently dealing with the fierce attack of the Undying City army."

"The infiltration forces suffered heavy losses and lost contact, and our capabilities are no longer sufficient to gain an advantage in the face of the Undead City's defenses."

"More than a dozen cities of corpses that were originally under our control suddenly rebelled. Some of them must have been premeditated, while others acted on opportune circumstances."

"..."

The spirits chattered amongst themselves, starting as lively as a market, but gradually quieting down after the Ghost King remained silent.

There was a sense that everyone in the noisy class felt insecure because the homeroom teacher was silently watching them.

"So..." the Ghost King began slowly, "isn't there a single piece of good news?"

"This...the Undead King Aldrich has not yet been found on any of the battlefields..." Is this good news? The answer is naturally no.

Before even making a move against the most crucial and important target, or even personally overseeing any battlefield, they had already swept them all away. If the Undying King had appeared, they would probably be long gone.

An unknown period of time ago, the Undying King once shouted through the world's loudspeaker: "This world is mine."

The vast majority of beings scoffed at this. They could ignore the other cats and dogs, whose spirits were far superior. How dare a mere corpse claim that the world belonged to it?
But now, after this battle, they have fallen silent. Some even feel a sense of fear: Could this world really belong to that immortal king?
"Is it Zhou Lanshan's side?" After a long while, the Ghost King spoke again: "Once they pass Zhou Lanshan, they will have a direct route to the Undead City, at which point we will be completely passive."

Those spirits present who had seriously studied military matters understood this issue quite well.

Due to their unique nature, spirits lack a structured army. If it weren't for a prominent Ghost King who could subdue all spirits, it would be extremely difficult for them to form a cohesive group.

In short, all the evil consequences of the spirit's past arrogance and recklessness have come to fruition in just one month.

"Concentrate all our forces on Zhou Lanshan; this will be the final crucial point. They have advanced all the way from the Undying City to Zhou Lanshan in a short period of time, covering a long battle line. They must be trying to take us down as quickly as possible. Our priority is not to defeat them, but to slow them down."

The Ghost King began to analyze the situation: "Now that your usual pride has been exposed, you must have come to your senses. But there is no need to underestimate yourselves. There is still a gap between corpses and spirits. We have a huge advantage in a protracted battle. As long as the corpses cannot get rid of their rotting flesh, they will never be able to defeat us in this respect."

"Over time, they will show signs of weakness. They will make a great effort, but then their momentum will wane and they will eventually be exhausted. Only then will they be able to find an opportunity to fight back."

"But... can we withstand their offensive now?"

"We have to hold on, even if we can't. Besides... I'll take action." The Ghost King said calmly.

If the Ghost King makes a move, then by the same token, the Undead King is also very likely to make a move as well.

In a duel between two kings, the outcome largely depends on the strength of the troops on both sides.

The spirits had no other choice, and the meeting thus made a decision.

……

"Hu Chi... Hu Chi..."

The corpses wore black gas masks and black combat uniforms with gold trim. They looked around, checking for any stray spirits.

Among these black-clad corpse soldiers, Jiang Si stood out. She had her hair tied in a simple low ponytail and was wearing the same military uniform, but she had secretly changed the gold trim to blood red. She was not equipped with a mask that could see spirits and prevent spirit possession, which was also unnecessary for her.

The Immortal King did not comment on her overstepping actions.

This is a spirit-hunting unit. Jiang Si was mainly assigned to patrol within the spirit-hunting unit during this war. Although most of the battles went smoothly, they occasionally encountered some tough opponents.

In such situations, to maximize resource utilization, Jiang Si would be sent to handle the matter.

The corpses had a very high opinion of Jiang Si.

Although their blind worship of the Undying King led them to have no doubts about Jiang Si, this "parachuted-in relative".

But seeing Jiang Si's performance on the battlefield, feeling admiration or even fear is a completely unrelated thing.

Compared to the corpses, if they don't use the various weapons developed for them by the Undead King, they can only use some specialized organs at most.

The most powerful of all specializations is called "Corpse Explosion".

The suicide zombie soldiers are specially selected fanatical followers of the Undead King, while other corpses at most use their specialized organs to provide support on the battlefield.

In this respect, the zombies with a touch of fantasy are still more powerful than the zombies that haven't mutated much, except for a few exceptions.

Especially the Spirit Hunters, for the sake of their equipment, cannot even use large-scale specialized organs, and fight entirely with the equipment they carry.

Of course, the performance of these equipment is more than sufficient, even far superior to their specialized organs. For them, specialized organs are purely for emergency use; when extended to the entire Undead City army, their primary function is to provide various high-quality raw materials.

For example, the most commonly used airships are made from the skin of corpses. The skin of these corpses is really useful. In fact, the uniforms of the Undead City's army were made from various types of skin corpses.

Jiang Si didn't feel anything while wearing it. There was no odor, and it wasn't noticeable to the eye. It was also very lightweight. Who would mind wearing an extra layer of armor?

(End of this chapter)