840 Crisis And The Way Out
The thinktank forecast wasn't optimistic.
Only Mercury, Venus and Earth—the strongest planets weren't facing a big problem.
Because Mercury faced Sin Abyss—their opponents were Beast Awakeners. A few decades ago, Abyssals used parasitic beasts to hide inside the human corpses and assasinated the army officials during cremation.
Thus, it became a tradition to cremate the corpses on the spot.
Venus, on the other hand, faced the Sea Abyss. Since most of the Abyssals were Water Awakeners, Venus recruited a lot of Fire Awakeners to figh them.
As a result, during the war, most of the corpses—Human or Abyssal were burnt and couldn't turn into an Undead.
Then came Earth.
Moroever, since Demon Abyss members were Body Awakeners, they used to humiliate humans by crushing them to pulp. Humans started to return the favor. So, there were almost no Abyssal Undead on Earth's planetoids.
Their difficulty was reduced by half. Moroever, Earth's army was significantly stronger than Demon Abyss'. They had full confidence in controlling the situation.
The remaining planets had difficulties.
Perhaps because it's luck was just that bad, it was Neptune that was facing the worst danger once again.
Because while Varian slaughtered the Abyssals on thirty planetoids, he didn't destroy their corpses. Moreover, he didn't destroy the human corpses on twenty five planetoids.
Compared to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune which were curretnly overwhelmed but could still hold on, Mars was in an existential predicament.
If these Undead rose out of these planetoids, they'd be an unstoppable force.
The combined Human and Abyssal army of nearly thirty planetoids—while only a third of them would likely qualify as an Undead, even that was a terrifying number.
It's nearly equivalent to the Human and Abyssal army of ten planetoids or simply the Abyssal army of twenty planetoids!
For the record, the total number of planetoids across the solar system was only 500!
Even then, if these Undead were scattered throughout, it wouldn't be so terrible.
But Mars took a significant part of that Undead…thanks to Varian. So did Neptune where he actively massacred the Abyssals.
Realizing that even the things in good faith backfired, Varian had the urge to curse lady luck and all her relatives.
It was so much that even Enigma couldn't help but stomp.
"You sound like a gangster spewing those vulgar words," Enigma snorted as she glanced at Varian with light contempt.
Varian gave her a look of equal contempt. "For your information, objectively, I am the biggest criminal. I killed a Sovereign, nearly wiped out Mars' level 9s, caused millions of deaths. Now, I unleashed millions of Undead against the Federation."
Enigma opened her mouth to continue the argument but realized she had nothing left to say.
She rolled her eyes and jumped out of the ghostship, into a planetoid where one of the two level 9 Undead appeared.
Since level 9 fights were too intense, the chances of them having an intact body to become an Undead were slim.
So, the burden on Enigma was bearable.
"Boo, back to those thirty planetoids again." Varian said as he closed his eyes to rest.
Boo looked at Varian with a worried gaze. Even though he didn't show it, Boo could tell that Varian was under severe stress.
Perhaps he was blaming himself. After all, even when Enigma warned him that something might be off about the corpses, he didn't destroy them.
"Master, it's okay. You just didn't want to dishonor the deceased, it's not your fault." Boo said slowly.
Varian stiffened for a moment before he laughed. "I'm fine. Don't Worry."
Boo nodded and returned to the lab.
A couple of Undead were strapped to beds and were closely observed. The observation had just begun and Boo didn't find anything important yet.
Boo checked the results of preliminary tests and tilted its head. "They're dead, but they have something in common with the living. And they have a special…energy in their body."
Even though the quantity of the energy seemed to be diluted millions of times, its quality far exceeded anything Boo saw in the Human Federation excluding Varian's weird powers that day. They weren't in any grade.
"Boo saw this somewhere…Undead…Ativ….why can't Boo remember?"
Even though the energy seemed familiar, Boo's memories were too incomplete to recall any useful information.
But one thing was clear to Boo.
The Abyssal Kings and Queens were incapable of posessing a mysterious power. They could only control it through a treasure or multiple treasures.
Boo's IQ exploded for a moment and the cute ghost gasped in realization.
Undead appeared on almost every planetoid. They all have this special energy. Since Abyssals couldn't handle this special energy, they could only use a treasure to do it.
That meant—
"Every planetoid has a treasure that's responsible for converting the dead to Undead. If that's found, maybe Boo can find a solution."
Hearing Boo's words, Varian said. "Inform the army. I'll do my best, but better be safe than sorry."
"Yes, Master."
A few minutes later, Varian landed in a planetoid whose Undead was about to board spaceships and embark on a conquest.
'None of these Undead had any intelligence. So, someone must be directing them.' Varian squinted his eyes and circled the entire planetoid.
There was no living creature. There was no direct control.
"But there is a treasure here. Maybe they're using that treasure to command them." Varian muttered and avoided the attacks thrown at him.
Hundreds of fire balls and lightning bolts exploded behind him, painting the sky with beautiful orange and yellow.
Varian teleported to the Abyss bases and began to scan every square meter for the 'treasure'.
Meanwhile, he also casually attacked the Undead Army. The Undead army, despite numbering almost forty thousand, was quickly blasted to pieces.
But Varian still couldn't find the treasure.
"Wait…" Varian stopped the search and slapped his forehead.
With a wave of his hand, an Abyssal appeared in his hand.
With a blank face and cripppled body, he was one of the many 'test subjects' stored in Ghostship.
Varian killed him without hesitation and threw his body on the planetoid.
Then, he kept all his senses focused on the Abyssal's corpse.
And he waited.
Seconds turned into minutes, but Varian still couldn't sense 'energy' that was turning the dead into Undead.
As he's about to give up, one of the senses that rarely stood out, his Plantae sense shook.
Varian felt an incredibly vague sensation coming from a certain direction.
For his plantae powers that promoted vitality, this sensation was extremely repulsive.
This sensation signified Death.
After a few minutes of grappling, Varian finally caught the slippery and almost invisible thread of energy.
"Got you!"
