A dull longsword and a heartbroken villager

He stretched his body, feeling the weight of the two swords at his waist and on his back. As long as the swords were still there, there was no need to panic.

If the fanny pack is also safe and sound, then there's even less to worry about.

However, he now has a problem that is giving him a headache, which is that he doesn't know what to do next.

They were sent here inexplicably, without any clear purpose.

He originally just wanted to confirm whether he could go to the cemetery again and ask Mira about her specific situation.

Who would have thought that a single disagreement would send me to the underworld?

This place looks boundless, and there are unlikely to be any "go this way" signs.

"So, what should we do next?"

Muttering to himself, he slowly closed his right eye and used his inner eye to observe the Yellow Springs.

Then, in the world of his mind's eye, Bray "saw" only complete darkness and deathly silence.

However, it wasn't that there was nothing at all; he sensed something faintly present in the Yellow Springs.

He walked in the corresponding direction and soon saw a group of zombies.

No, calling them walking corpses isn't accurate, because these things don't have physical bodies; they are semi-transparent ghosts.

These departed souls walked slowly and steadily in the same direction, their steps faltering.

From the semi-transparent outlines of the undead, it's not hard to tell what they originally were.

The elderly, children, men, women, and even animals.

Unlike the lost souls of the "Wandering Tomb," these dead have no physical bodies but possess a clear direction.

Even the gusts of wind carrying the smell of decay that blew past were heading in that direction.

The pale blue lights in the sky also swayed in that direction.

"It's really lively here. There was nothing here when I came before," Bray said casually after opening his right eye.

There is no audience here; it's just him talking to himself.

Thinking of "Lord of the Underworld, Dizoka" and the order of the underworld that his followers kept emphasizing, Bray suddenly wondered if this pattern of moving in the same direction was the order those guys were talking about.

"Fine, I'll just follow them." Since we're aimless now, we might as well go with this group of undead.

Anyway, if he just stood there, no one would come to save him.

Honestly, what would happen if I couldn't go out? It would be such a hassle... It's not just one or two people doing nothing at home, it's a whole bunch of them.

With that thought in mind, Bray silently followed the vast horde of undead, heading towards some unknown destination.

The surrounding spirits were indifferent to his presence, perhaps having no interest in anything other than themselves in the underworld, except for that destination whose location was unknown.

---

As Bray walked through the underworld, the Deathbringer faithfully carried out its mission—to reap lives.

They continued to kill, constantly spreading death.

To turn the living into the dead, to leave the spirits nowhere to go, in order to destroy the already crumbling "Wandering Tomb".

"The last one..." The third rider, on the snowy land of the distant northern continent, used his scythe to kill an elf in the wild.

All around me were countless corpses of elves.

The Deathbringers are madmen who roam the land. They possess the power of the gods, the authority granted by the gods, and the freedom to spread death wherever they please.

Although the Deathbringers never knew the principle behind their ability to travel between other continents.

Ultimately, everything can be explained by "divine power."

After the killing ended, the Deathbringers, including the Third Rider, picked up their scythes and wiped the blood off them.

Like gusts of cold wind blowing against them, their hearts were as cold as ice.

Perhaps the group of undead that Bray saw, those who did not linger on the earth but fell into the underworld, were killed by the Third Knight himself.

His hand, which did not hold a sickle, gently clenched its five fingers, and a coffin rose from the snow-covered earth.

The coffin was opened, and he entered without hesitation, as did the other death hunters.

After passing through the coffin, they found themselves in their hometown the next moment.

One moment you're standing in a place where only death awaits, the next you find yourself in a vibrant town.

This is largely a satire of those who seek to take lives.

The third rider just wanted to go back to his empty house and have some peace and quiet. He was exhausted, both physically and mentally.

Unfortunately, the god he now serves doesn't seem to want him to rest.

Almost the instant he returned, a death hunter approached and gave the third rider some news that was neither good nor bad.

"Third Knight, our great god... has finally sent down a divine decree once again." The Deathbringer, dressed in black robes, spoke to the Third Knight in a slightly fanatical tone.

They are the kind of people who can proudly tell others that they are followers of Dizoka, so the importance of oracles to them is self-evident.

"A divine oracle?" The third rider did not show any obvious like or dislike, but was just a little puzzled.

He would only obey the demands of the gods, without any willingness or dislike.

But... an oracle, this thing is truly rare.

---

PS: I'm taking the train, so I'm updating ahead of time. In the underworld, among countless spirits who are like pilgrims, there is a living person.

The only thing that person had in common with the undead was probably their tattered clothes and old weapons.

Bray followed the vast procession of the dead at a leisurely pace, and to this day, he has not reached the end.

Of course, he knew that the end was uncertain, and perhaps even these spirits didn't know.

They simply keep going early, and keep going.

During this process, Bray was also wondering if he would have to follow along for a year and a half, and how time actually passed here.

Everything about the underworld is unknown, which made Bray feel a sense of melancholy.

After all, he was just passing through here last time, so it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he only stood in the underworld for a while.

The scenery along the way seemed to remain unchanged, as if it had never changed.

The great river, still flowing with turbulent muddy water, continues to carry the unknown remains to distant places.

The road surface remained unchanged, making it impossible to tell how far one had traveled.

Even the bright moon overhead seemed to remain in the same position.

Just when Bray thought he would continue walking in this monotonous way, he noticed that a huge stone tablet had appeared in front of him at some point.

The stone tablet stood tall, like a landmark on the dark earth.

The stone tablet is as tall as a watchtower, its shadow blending into the color of the ground.

Although it is called a stone tablet, there are no words on it, only messy and meaningless scratches.

The ancient stone tablet has stood alone in this place for who knows how long, and some brown spots have appeared on it.

"A stone tablet?" Finally, Bray stopped following the undead and looked at the stone tablet in confusion.

Not far from the stone tablet, he could also vaguely see a bridge.

Even from a great distance, Bray could understand just how enormous the stone bridge was.

The stone bridge was so large that it could span the entire muddy river.

You should know that if you don't look carefully, you can't even see the other side of the river very clearly.

This is enough to prove just how exaggerated the span of the stone bridge is.

However, this stone bridge has no carvings whatsoever; rather than being simple, it is more accurate to describe it as crude.

It's as if someone, arbitrarily, chipped away at an unimaginably large rock to build this bridge.

"..." In the unchanging scenery of the Yellow Springs, this landscape, though magnificent, is also somewhat abrupt.

The stone tablet and the stone bridge seem to be telling all beings in the underworld that this is a place with an owner.

To be honest, Bray is a bit tempted to cross the bridge right now...

There's no particular reason; I just felt that since I was following a group of dead people and didn't know where we were going, I might as well try crossing the bridge and see what was going on.

Since there is a bridge, there must be differences between this side and the other side.

Of course, this was all Bray's baseless speculation, and he wouldn't be too surprised if the two sides turned out to be exactly the same.

Most importantly, he was curious.

"Let's go somewhere else," Bray nodded to himself, muttering to himself.

After saying that, he broke free from the tide of the dead.

But when passing by those semi-transparent undead, I always get a strange feeling.

There was nothing wrong with me, I just felt a sense of unease.

Despite being semi-transparent, it still gives the impression that the other party is a real entity.

Eventually, the number of undead around him dwindled, and Bray walked up to the stone tablet.

When he was in front of the stone tablet, he casually tried to touch it with his hand.

The surface of the stone tablet has alternating rough and smooth surfaces, making it slightly different from ordinary rocks, but nothing else particularly special.

It stands there quietly, unchanged through the ages.

They won't speak out of nowhere, won't suddenly move, and won't be the subject of pre-arranged traps.

Bray withdrew his hand and prepared to walk towards the stone bridge.

Unfortunately, the stone tablet did not undergo any strange changes, but the turbid river next to it showed some inconspicuous movement.

Something seemed to be trying to crawl out of the river; it was something other than the countless skeletons.

Bray captured the subtle changes in the murky river.

Without any hesitation, the longsword was drawn from its sheath and slashed towards the river from a distance.

The sword cleaved the riverbanks, cutting them open and silencing the murky water for almost a second.

The muddy water, which had always flowed orderly in the riverbed, splashed out and landed on the dark ground.

After the turbid river water hit the ground, it formed watermarks or puddles. From the puddles and even the almost dried-up watermarks, something kept sticking out, as if trying to break free.

That could be a ghost, or something even more terrifying.

There wasn't time to properly observe the strange phenomenon for Bray, because something else was crawling out of the river.

The metallic sound was so out of place in the underworld.

A monster crawled ashore from the murky river.

The moment it crawled out, the things sticking out of the river water hanging on the monster's body stimulated the nerves of everyone around.

The monster was dressed in a tattered black robe, its arms were covered in rusty black metal armor, and its legs were as thin as a dried-up corpse.

His head was the complete skeleton of a wild beast, and beneath the skeleton was something chaotic, the texture of which was no different from river water.

The rusty chain hammer swinging in the monster's hand proves that it is not entirely a beast that fights by its body.

However, it was impossible to tell what was underneath the cloak.

"Ha—" Black mist spewed out from beneath the skeleton, spreading to the surroundings.

The monster was not unscathed after Bray swung his sword; his shoulder armor was completely torn apart, and one of his arms was ruined.

"A monster?" Bray frowned. Why would there be a monster in a place where only the dead should be?

Is this the guardian that the golden seed placed in the underworld?

"Roar!!!" The Guardian of the Underworld in Bray's eyes let out a hoarse roar and charged towards Bray without the slightest hesitation.

Those desiccated legs suddenly unleashed extraordinary speed, and a whistling wind arose abruptly.

"Clang!!" The sword was deflected, and the sparks from the collision of the weapons became a new source of light in the underworld.

After being deflected by Huang Quan's guard attack, he once again used his ferocious speed to receive another blow.