The short man was very envious of the Night Thunder Dream Beast and Darkness's ability.
One must know that gray garlic was rarely found and only the residents of Danger Dwelling Village knew how to gather it, and even then, it had many flaws.
Right now, the gray garlic they had prepared was just barely enough for this trip. If anything unexpected happened, like rain, they'd be swallowed by the Sea of Undead.
But Lu Jun's Psychic Invisibility relied entirely on magical effects, which had strong risk resistance and allowed him to move freely in undead territory.
Mo Fan, Asharia, and the others also breathed a sigh of relief.
After that, the group smoothly arrived at the hillside corner where Danger Dwelling Village was located, just as the night rain gradually stopped.
Danger Dwelling Village was backed by the vast and majestic Qinling Mountains. In the distance, the towering mountain peaks stood like giants, and the branching ridges created a crisscrossing terrain of countless gullies and ravines on the plateau.
The first settlement, "Yangyang Village," was nestled in one of those ravines.
But when they arrived, they found nothing but a pile of abandoned, scattered wooden planks. The land bore black ashes as if it had been burned there was no sign of any village!
"What's going on?!" Asharia's male attendant turned around angrily and questioned, "Are you playing us?"
The short man quickly explained, "No, no! The village was right here. It was definitely here last time."
Lu Mei, the elder sister beside them, checked the map and frowned, "The phone's GPS says we are in the right place."
At this moment, the burly man looked devastated and disbelieving. He started madly diving into the mountain ravine,
But no matter how hard he searched, all he found was a heap of broken wood. Not a single soul in sight.
Seeing this, Mo Fan's expression turned grim. Danger Dwelling Village was where Zhang Xiaohou went missing. Even the local villagers had mysteriously vanished things didn't look good for that monkey.
He murmured, "Not long ago, a Dark Abyss appeared around here—a black undead forbidden zone. Could they have been slaughtered by the undead?"
"Impossible," the burly man refuted. "Our Danger Dwelling Village has drunk from the Kun Well for generations. The undead don't harm us. We've been safe for years."
"What do we do now?"
Asharia suggested, "Why don't we check out the next village?"
The short man sighed, "That's all we can do."
Who would've thought a simple corpse retrieval trip would turn into all this?
Only Lu Jun shook his head. Most of the six villages of Danger Dwelling had already been wiped out. The remaining residents of Huacun had also been completely destroyed later on by Fang Gu, the village chief of Yangyang Village, in an act of revenge.
Fang Gu was the first undead mage to wear the ancient Royal Armor Robe.
Speaking of which, Huacun had it coming. The Black Vatican had stolen the Kun Well water from the six villages, stripping the Danger Dwelling villagers of their protection.
Fang Gu had brought his whole family seeking refuge, only intending to stay one night. Yet the village chief of Huacun, Xie Sang, turned them away.
So he snapped. He used the Kun Well water to refine his entire village into intelligent undead, surviving in an unusual way.
What followed was just a typical human tragedy a tale of revenge and cliché.
The strong man still retained some reason. With no corpses found, it wasn't the worst-case scenario yet. So he led the group toward the next village, Huacun.
This time, with Lu Jun present, the night rain didn't bring any trouble.
Soon, they arrived at Huacun.
"What the heck," the short man shouted. "The people of Huacun are gone too!"
They saw the village ahead in complete disarray, traces of blood visible in the mud.
Just as a sense of dread began to rise among them, Lu Jun suddenly said, "They're not dead. They're all hiding inside that well."
Lu Jun's mental strength was exceptional. He secretly used Psychic Detection, covering a radius of several hundred meters nothing could escape his scan.
Not to mention, the Psychic Imprint planted on Zhang Xiaohou had just triggered a response.
Upon hearing this, the burly man sighed in relief and ran to the well opening, shouting, "Is anyone down there? I'm Fang Miao from Huayang Village."
Not long after, voices came from below, followed by a loud and energetic male voice: "There are people here. We'll come out now."
It was not a large well, yet more than a hundred villagers climbed out of it one by one.
The first to come out was a young man. The burly man recognized him at a glance and hurriedly asked, "You're… Hong Jun, the village chief Xie's son. Do you know what happened to our village?"
"Oh, you're Fang Miao from the neighboring village."
Hong Jun shook his head and said, "I'm not sure what happened to your village. We were attacked by undead."
The next dozen villagers were questioned one by one by the burly man, but none of them knew anything. His expression grew more and more sorrowful.
At the end, when a man and a woman climbed out of the well together, Mo Fan's eyes widened completely, staring dead at the man.
Originally, Mo Fan thought the man would come running up to him, but instead he merely stayed beside the girl, walking right past Mo Fan like a complete stranger, showing no reaction at all.
Mo Fan was stunned… He froze for a moment, then realized what was happening and rushed forward to grab Zhang Xiaohou before he could walk away.
The twenty-something beautiful girl beside him, Su Xiaoluo, looked at this sudden grab and asked warily, "What are you doing?"
Mo Fan ignored the girl and exclaimed in shock, "You don't recognize me?!"
Then he glanced at Su Xiaoluo and half-joked, half-berated, "I went through all the trouble crossing half the country to rescue you, and you're out here enjoying the company of a beautiful woman how do you think He Yu would feel about this?"
"Do you know that He Yu has been crying her eyes out in the Ancient Capital every day? If it weren't for Wei Fang holding her back, she would've come looking for you already."
As Mo Fan finished speaking, Zhang Xiaohou still looked blank, his expression dull with confusion.
Su Xiaoluo, on the other hand, lit up with hope and quickly asked, "You know him?! A few days ago he was seriously injured, almost died, and ended up in Huacun, where I saved him. But he has some aftereffects."
Mo Fan opened his mouth slightly—amnesia? A classic TV drama scenario.
Still, he gave Zhang Xiaohou a tight hug and patted him on the shoulder, saying, "Forget it, I'm just glad you're alive."
Watching this, Lu Jun said nothing. His sister Lu Mei raised an eyebrow, thinking to herself: As expected, her brother's goal wasn't just to save someone.
Otherwise, he would've been overjoyed to find Zhang Xiaohou safe. But now, his expression was grim.
She was used to this her brother had a knack for seeing through the world, almost like he could foresee the future. She suspected it was a natural talent from the Psychic Element.
What she didn't know was that Lu Jun was thinking of something else. He glanced at Zhang Xiaohou, knowing the guy was pretending to be confused, because people from the Black Vatican were secretly watching him.
The monkey had stumbled into the Dark Abyss and accidentally encountered the Black Vatican's group, learning part of their conspiracy.
Unfortunately, in a life-or-death moment, he had no choice but to lay low. On top of that, he had been implanted with an Undead Worm by Senior Deacon Mu He of Hujin Hall, causing memory loss only then was he able to survive.
Lu Jun's gaze grew deep. He turned his head toward the young man named Hong Jun, and a faint smile appeared on his lips.
The situation was quite interesting now. Among the group of villagers in Huacun, there were three factions secretly watching over everything.
Fang Gu was the first layer, the one controlling the undead and orchestrating the attacks behind the scenes. Hong Jun was the second layer, secretly having joined the Black Vatican, tasked with controlling Zhang Xiaohou. The Judgement Court was the third and final layer.
The Dark Abyss emergence and the Black Vatican's increased activity had drawn the attention of the Judgement Court, which dispatched personnel to investigate.
Coincidentally, a Judgement Officer had spotted Zhang Xiaohou, a missing military figure, and had been trailing him all the way to protect him.
For additional chapters
Versatile mage {40 chapters}
Douluo Dalu:This Soul Master is to Weird {30 Chapters}
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