896 Mad Undead

'When life gives you lemons, make a lemonade.'

It was a famous saying in the Old Earth that carried to the current day. Until recently, Varian used to believe in the ancient saying too.

But now, whenever he recalled that saying, he simply wanted to smash the guy who came up with it.

He's hit by a strand of death energy that's slowly killing him and the best he could do is slow it down. Fine.

He's thrown into an alien world, got nearly killed by a Sovereign, chased by natives, and pushed into a weird region filled with Undead and Living beasts. Fine.

Turns out, the weird region was fucking weird because the living turn into Undead, and the Undead turn into living, creating a never-ending cycle. Fine!

But.

"Run! Run!"

"Don't stop!"

Three shining lines passed through a vast forest in the blink of an eye. Wherever they passed, the trees on a mile on either side were uprooted due to the fierce speed.

From the clouds, it looked like three lines were imprinted on the forest.

And then suddenly, twelve more lines appeared as twelve grey silhouettes followed like laser beams.

"These zombies," Varian cursed through gritted teeth as he passed through a mountain valley and ran over a river.

The world accelerated in front of him and everything seemed to be running backward. It was such a speed that wherever he passed by, he left the mark of his travel due to the sheer speed.

Even then, Varian couldn't stop. On top of his body power, he used his telekinetic, and ice powers to boost himself.

To his left, a silhouette covered in black energy kept up with Varian even as he ran at full speed using multiple powers. It was Enigma. She was on alert for any sneak attacks.

To his right was a silhouette in white energy. It was Sarah and she was keeping watch on the pursuers.

"Behind these twelve, there are twenty more. And just now, two more are added." Sarah's voice rang.

"Great. Just great." Varian had confidence in defeating the first twelve. Even taking down twelve more. But not ten more.

If they stop and fought, they'd be quickly surrounded. If they don't, they'd have to keep running to escape which would end up in them getting exhausted and getting caught.

It's a lose-lose.

The chase continued for thirty minutes and the distance between the two groups continued to shrink.

As the situation seemed to turn dire, Sarah suddenly accelerated in a particular direction, shouting. "Follow!"

Without any question, Varian and Enigma followed her and jumped into a deep underground passage.

It was an underground plain with no light. The walls around were filled with strange grass, mucus, and colorful rocks.

The air had a contradictory mix of musky and rancid smells. The soil, on the other hand, was soft, almost sucking the feet in. The only oddity was the numerous metallic threads scattered everywhere on the ground.

As far as Enigma and Varian could sense, this was just a weird underground location with no peculiarities whatsoever.

The Undead might enter this place at any second, they couldn't afford to waste any more time standing still.

Before Varian could ask anything, verbally or mentally, Sarah gently swiped her thumb.

Several screens lit up, showing live pictures from a giant colony of elephant-sized spiders.

A few screens showed the Undead reaching the underground passage, about to jump down.

Sarah looked at Enigma and Varian with a determined expression. "Even though I can only barely sense their auras, these spiders are all living and have at least thirty level 9s, and at least one peak level 9. We'll have to use them to drive away the Undead."

Varian's expression turned grim.

The Undead had no peak level 9. This group of spiders was more dangerous. But that's only a superficial analysis.

The living beasts were easier to deal with than the Undead.

"Fortunately, they were all sleeping. They'll wake up the moment we intrude on their territory. We have to time well." Sarah gave Enigma a look.

Enigma nodded and started running her artifact.

Massive teleportation was dangerous here and ended up landing them in trouble many times.

But the places they'd already been to would be a much safer bet.

Of course, they can't just teleport and escape these Undead. For some reason, the Undead weren't finding them through normal divine senses.

For instance, if a peak level 8 beast could only sense the surrounding two hundred miles,  a peak level 8 Undead could sense them from almost five hundred miles away.

For this reason, throwing off Undead was much harder.

Pure teleportation would have done the job. But with the Spiders holding them back…

Varian tensed his muscles and prepared for a sprint.

The moment the Undead on the screen were ten miles behind them, he shot toward the spider colony like a bullet.

The distance between the Undead and Varian's trio quickly shrank. And when they were about to catch up, the trio crossed into the Spider's colony.

The Undead followed them almost right away and all of them were locked by the aura of the giant spiders.

But right then, Enigma's artifact activated and the space around them fluctuated.

The spiders had space awakeners that wanted to disrupt the teleportation, but thanks to the sturdy artifact, the trio successfully teleported back to their previous position and they quickly returned to the surface.

On the other hand, the spiders laughed a raging battle against the Undead and left the latter unable to chase the humans any longer.

After escaping to a secluded valley, Sarah leaned against a tree and hissed. "This is the seventh chase in two days. What is going on?"

Enigma stretched her exhausted body and sighed. Her beautiful face was visibly tired. "They want our life because we are the only ones here that didn't go through reincarnation?"

"I agree…" Varian said. "Once the Undead reincarnates into a living thing, it loses all its memories. It's like a newborn except for its muscle memory. We aren't like that. Our souls, if you will, haven't gone through that cycle of cleansing yet. So, we're standing out like sore thumbs."

Enigma nodded in agreement. Whether souls existed or not, they were being targeted because they didn't join the cycle.

In these two days, they witnessed many strange things and made many observations.

Firstly, the reincarnations weren't infinite.

There were pregnant beasts. So, new life was being born.

So, if all dead turned into Undead and the Undead turned back into living, there is no net decrease in the number of creatures. Moreover, birth from living beasts was a net positive for the population.

In a thousand or ten thousand years, the population explosion would've destroyed this place. And this region gave off ancient temperance as if it was far older.

But the population explosion didn't happen. That proves there's some restriction on reincarnation, either a limit for an individual creature or a limit to keep the population controlled.

Secondly, reincarnations swallowed all but muscle memories.

Yesterday, a monkey colony was attacked by Undead ants. A father monkey, specializing in spears, protected its child but succumbed to injuries in the process and turned into an Undead.

The very next day, the Undead monkey attacked the very child it died to protect. Surprisingly, it was still able to use its spear skillfully and even displayed knowledge of geography in the battle.

Thinking of these two conclusions they reached, Varian shuddered and continued in a low voice. "If a human dies, he'll…be reduced to a fighting beast, not hesitating to kill his own people. And I—"

Varian suddenly froze.

He had less than a month to live.

In this weird place, even if the death strand killed him, he'd never truly die. He'd turn into an Undead and quickly grow stronger.

Due to his insane rate of growth, he'd grow too strong too soon.

And then, with his own hands, he'd hunt down the 'uncleansed' souls—the two girls that risked their lives for him.