Versatile Mage (Web Novel)

Translated by XephiZ

Edited by Aelryinth

"My leg, my leg!" someone began to scream suddenly. The cry of agony echoed in the darkness which had just descended upon the place.

Zhang Xiaohou turned around and discovered Lu Hongjing standing right on top of a pile of rotten arms, which were holding tightly onto his legs. The hands grabbing onto Lu Hongjing's feet were as strong as steel, totally impairing his movement.

The rotten hands and claws were scratching and tearing at Lu Hongjing's legs. One of the corpses that was seriously starving sprang out from the ground and stuck its head onto Lu Hongjing's hamstring and bit it...

The group was unable to react in time. When they finally realized they should be saving the poor lad, all that remained under Lu Hongjing's knees were bloody white bones. He was falling backward in extreme pain!

"Don't fall!" yelled the captain Qin Hu.

Once Lu Hongjing fell to the ground, he would turn into a pile of bones. The bites and scratches of the corpses were faster than a school of piranhas!

"Earth Wave!"

Zhang Xiaohou was the first to react. He quickly cast the Spell.

He manipulated the soil in the area and utilized the second characteristic of the Flowing Mud to turn the soft soil into solid rock.

The Flowing Mud was able to turn soil into swamp or quicksand to entrap his targets and impair their movement. When reversed, it was able to harden the soil into rocks, too! Zhang Xiaohou forcibly turned the ground Lu Hongjing was standing on into solid rocks, trapping the claws of the corpses and stopping them from moving freely!

His Earth Seed was extremely effective in a situation like this. The claws stopped attacking Lu Hongjing and started smashing the suddenly-solid soil instead. Lu Hongjing finally hit his limit and fell to the ground. Luckily, he was lying on the hardened soil. Otherwise, he would have instantly lost his life!

"Save him," said Qin Hu ordered Wang Tong.

Wang Tong was stunned for a second, before he quickly dashing toward Lu Hongjing.

The bones below Lu Hongjing's knees no longer had any flesh. Wang Tong straightaway carried him back to the team...

The cries of the undead, which sounded like their mouths were filled with soil, rose once again as their eerie heads poked out from the ground. Their bloodshot eyes were glaring at the nine living humans. The scent of blood had driven them berserk, and they could not wait to break out from the ground and enjoy their meal.

The buried undead mostly looked like humans. The Ancient Capital had gone through lots of dynasties and huge wars between humans and demon beasts. The number of humans who died here significantly surpassed that of demon beasts. With all the deaths in the area, the ground was no longer made of ordinary soil, but filled with a deathly aura that nurtured the dead. Once the sun disappeared, the undead would poke out from the ground like the shoots of fertilized plants. Even if they were destroyed, they would rise again after the next season arrived!

Due to some unknown curse that the land was under, both the demon beasts and the humans that died here would resemble humans after they turned into the undead...

Even though they had bones of the demon beasts, the bones would somehow be structured into a weird-looking skeleton giant. Their head was still the same head of the demon beast that was half-rotting under the ground, but their bones would be rearranged into the shape of a human.

Some looked like a beast with a rotten body and four limbs standing on the ground, yet the head was a rotting human head...

Either way, the undead would do all they could to assemble their dead body parts into a human figure, be it half-human, half-beast, or the combination of a few dead bodies, or a giant human corpse made purely from the bones of demon beasts!

The undead that the group of nine had bumped into so far all had the appearance of humans. It was most likely due to the villagers that had died here lately, the nutrients in the ground had stacked up, so as soon as their new bodies were constructed, they immediately burst out from the ground and attacked their prey.

"Kid, nice reaction speed, you managed to save this overconfident guy!" Qin Hu said to Zhang Xiaohou.

Zhang Xiaohou forced a smile on his face. It was all possible because of the Earth Seed he acquired at Xizhao Valley, the Flowing Mud. Zhang Xiaohou was able to suppress anything coming out from the ground with it.

"Let's move forward. We'll be safer once we reached the Sunny Goat Village. These things took us by surprise by showing up before the place was completely dark. Perhaps the thick aura of death has blocked off the remaining sunlight," said the female Battlemage, Shi Shaoju.

The team did not have a Healer, hence the others could only wrap his legs up to stop the bleeding.

Lu Hongjing lost a significant amount of blood, so it was important to treat his wounds as soon as possible. The serums they had brought with them could merely help him last a little longer. If they dragged the time out, not only would Lu Hongjing die due to excessive loss of blood, he would simply be killed by the poison from the undead!

"I'll lead the way!" volunteered Zhang Xiaohou bravely.

"Alright, your Soul Seed is able to slow them down when they try to come out from the ground."

"Holy crap, lots of undead are heading toward us..."

"Why are they so many? Even a red zone would not have this many undead when night has just arrived."

"It's most likely that lots of people died nearby recently."

The team took some time to prepare themselves. Although the ambush had taken them by surprise, everyone quickly calmed down and started drawing various Star Patterns under their feet. The energies of the Ice, Fire, Lightning, and Wind Elements lunged at the filthy creatures and utterly destroyed them!

"Forest of Kun!"

The female Battlemage Shi Shaoju was a Plant Magician. As the path ahead was blocked by a pack of a dozen walking corpses, Shi Shaoju quickly cast the Intermediate Plant Spell to entrap them.

The branches from the Forest of Kun immediately wrapped around the undead and formed a thick cage. The undead had a limited level of intelligence. They simply tried to bite anything that they came across, resulting in a weird scene similar to the game Plant versus Zombies, where the zombies were biting through the wall-nuts...

The only difference was, the zombies were not as lost and adorable as those in the game. The appearance of the savage creatures was, well, ghastly. They would simply chew any person nearby into bones, something that Lu Hongjing had already experienced first-hand!

"Let's go, it's impossible to kill them all!" yelled Shi Shaoju when she saw the team was still trying to eliminate the creatures.

The team quickly withdrew their Spells and followed behind Zhang Xiaohou.

As Zhang Xiaohou led the way, the soil of the area he walked on would simply harden instantly, preventing someone from being dragged into the soil again.

It was still four kilometers away from the village. They should be able to arrive safely if they moved at full speed.

The villagers had their ways of avoiding contact with the undead. Once they arrived at the village, they would be able to escape being surrounded by the creatures.