Versatile Mage (Web Novel)

Translated by XephiZ

Edited by Aelryinth

Zhang Xiaohou's face turned blue from holding his breath too long.

He finally exhaled a mouthful, as he would lose consciousness if he did not breathe.

The zombie in front glanced at Zhang Xiaohou confusingly, as if it was completely unaware of the guy that had somehow appeared behind it.

The zombie lowered the rusty saber, and did not attack Zhang Xiaohou.

Meanwhile, the zombie behind Zhang Xiaohou completely ignored him, and continued to roam aimlessly. It would glance into the distance at times, or lower its head, trying to find the arm it lost yesterday.

"Phew~!"

Zhang Xiaohou let out a relieved sigh. The others could feel their legs cramping because of the tension, and they almost fell to the ground.

The trick worked!

Neither the skeletons nor the zombies attacked them. They were simply glancing at the humans who were uttering the foul breath in confusion. However, these Undead did not possess any intelligence. As long as the thing was not alive, it was meaningless to attack them. Maybe they were just stinky?

Captain Qin Hu raised his head without saying a word, signaling the group to continue forward in formation.

The group quickly gathered. They were still alert at the start, afraid that something would go wrong. However, as they walked past the Undead at very close range, the zombies would only groan at them in warning for straying too close, without lunging at them. As such, they began to lower their guard.

"If we knew about this trick all along, why would we still be afraid of the Undead?" Wang Tong seemed elated from the success.

"These Ash Garlics are extremely rare. You might find them on the black market, but there won't be many. The chief has spared us some of their stock they had saved up..." said Shi Shaoju.

"Either way, it's good that we don't have to fight those things. Once we locate the bodies of the scouting squad, we'll go back at once," said Bi Lu.

"It seems like us talking won't attract their attention, either..."

The group realized that it was fine talking in front of the Undead. As long as their breath was covered by the foul scent of the Ash Garlic, the Undead would not notice their presence.

However, everyone began to panic slightly as they continued along the journey across the vast land. Every few steps would lead them to a few more Undead...

The density of the Undead had completely surpassed their estimation. Every one hundred square meters would have one or two Undead roaming around. By that standard, the whole area would be showing as bloody red on the electronic map!

As they proceeded, they suddenly saw a group of several dozens zombies ahead...

The zombies were stacked together like a wall, standing right in the path they were heading in. The zombies slowly dragged their bodies along, uttering unpleasant cries.

Before any living thing captured their attention, the zombies would simply roam around aimlessly, like walking corpses.

"Let's just walk past them. They won't attack us anyway," Wang Tong led the way with a smile.

However, when Wang Tong was less than twenty meters away, the group of zombies suddenly turned around and stared at Wang Tong with bloodshot eyes...

Wang Tong was stunned!

The zombies began to scream and charged in Wang Tong's direction.

As the zombies sprinted across the land, it swept a huge cloud of dust into the air!

"Quick, the Ash Garlic!" yelled Shi Shaoju.

Luckily, Wang Tong reacted fairly quickly. He took out an Ash Garlic and munched it.

The effects worked fairly quickly. Wang Tong was almost knocked out by his own foul breath.

The zombies were right in front of Wang Tong, yet they suddenly lost their target and came to a stop. They simply stared at one another in a foolish manner.

A moment later, the zombies returned to their aimless roaming as if they had forgotten why they were running in the first place.

Wang Tong stood in the middle of the zombies, having almost wet his pants in fear.

As everything returned to normal, Wang Tong finally burst out cursing, "This stinky thing only lasts for such a short time?"

"We don't have a lot of the Ash Garlics, and it seems like they don't last long either. We have to make use of the time," said Shi Shaoju with a frown.

Since the effect of the Ash Garlic ended for Wang Tong, it would be the same for everyone. The others quickly took out an Ash Garlic and ate it...

------

The cold moon hanging high up in the sky shone down, observing the moving dead.

The land was cold but restless, as the Undead who had overslept would rise from the ground and roam aimlessly like a homeless scavenger.

When there was nothing alive for them to feed on, the Undead would pick up stuff or dig things up from the ground. The broken limbs they found would always come in handy. Occasionally, they would dig up a burial pit and found themselves a nutritional habitat. Spend a few years there, and they might even evolve into stronger Undead...

Along the journey, the group had witnessed the vicissitudes of life. They had no idea why these things would even exist in their world.

A tide suddenly erupted ahead, sweeping the black soil into the air, fairly shocking under the moonlight.

The tide was dragging dead bodies, torn clothes, and zombies that happened to be in the area forward.

The whole ground began to vibrate, as an Undead with a body as strong as an ox crawled out from the hole...

The Undead poked out of the soil, revealing sturdy muscles as impenetrable as armor plates.

Its limbs were thick and sturdy. It had four limbs in total, and somehow two of them had were fused with hatchets stained with blood. The other two were like long sabers. It was no different than a meat mincer when it started to swing the weapons!

"It's the Hatchet Corpse General!" blurted out Wang Tong in shock.

"Has it been following us around?"

"Or perhaps we were still inside its territory all along!"

The group of eight subconsciously backed off when they saw it. The Corpse General was the actual reason they almost got wiped out in the first place, and now, the giant creature had appeared once again.

"Don't panic, we've eaten the Ash Garlic, it won't notice us… right, don't move, stay right where you are. The chief has mentioned that the Warrior-level Undead have good hearing, they can tell if we are Undead based on our movements. So don't move, and you'll be fine," said Shi Shaoju.

The group clearly remembered the chief's warning. They turned into statues, staring at the Hatchet Corpse General in astonishment.

Zhang Xiaohou did not move his gaze. He realized that the Undead's head was gone, but as he took a closer look, it did not seem like it was beheaded.

The others were aware that the Hatchet Corpse General looked slightly different than before, but none of them made a noise. God knew if talking would attract the Hatchet Corpse General's attention.

The sound of something digging its way up from its flesh was heard.

An out of proportion head slowly stuck out from the neck of the Corpse General.

Disgusting black hair stained with blood appeared first, clumping on the Corpse General's neck.

A head appeared after, which looked the same as a human's.

Finally...

The head turned one hundred and eighty degrees, revealing a face covered in blood and ichor, but most importantly full of gall and hatred!

"Why...why...why did you leave me!?" its mouth opened, shrieking hateful words.

The group could feel their scalps exploding on seeing this. The head that had popped out from the Hatchet Corpse General's body was the dead Battlemaga, Jia Xi!