Chapter 63: Chapter 63, Iron – Eating Worm_l
Translator: 549690339
Fang Hao had seen rotten corpses at Shadowwind Castle, but none was as shocking as this one.
The animals he usually saw had become odd-looking and fully decayed monsters.
A giant buck with a collapsed half brain encrusted with rotting pimples prowled about even with its eyeball dangling on the side. It was still launching attacks against the pig-headed humans.
Even the pig-headed humans that died during the battle, once they fell, turned into decayed animals – behaving like infectious zombies.
They would attack their former companions.
The whole battlefield was filled with strangeness.
[Giant Buck carcass]
[Prairie Wolves carcass]….
Fang Hao looked at several pieces of information of animal zombies in a row, and all of them showed that they were corpses.
Not combat units.
That’s not right.
At Shadowwind Castle, the information about rotten corpses would display their rank and skills. Why are these just showing as corpses?
Clip-clop! Clip-clop!
The sound of horse hooves hit the ground, drawing the attention of the pig-headed humans and the animal zombies.
Seeing a team of undead cavalry approach, the pig-headed humans turned even paler, as if jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.
Today was their death day.
The zombie animals, on the other hand, were more direct. The moment they saw Fang Hao and his group, they immediately launched an attack.
“Charge, kill them all, I don’t believe that you, skeleton, can be infected.” Fang Hao whispered.
Even if you are a zombie, you can be infectious.
But that’s supposed to apply to normal creatures. I don’t believe that you, skeleton, can be infected.
Hearing Fang Hao’s command, the cavalry drew out their iron swords, kicked their horse’s belly and then launched the attack.
The power of the cavalry charge was immense, instantly cutting off the heads of several animals.
The head of one Prairie Wolf rolled to the feet of Fang Hao’s horse.
Just as it stopped, a long thin worm burrowed out of the Prairie Wolf’s head, trying to escape into the distance.
[Iron-Eating Worm]
[Ability: Parasite]
With a light stomp from the skeleton horse’s hoof, the Iron-Eating Worm turned into mush.
It seemed, the Iron-Eating Worm itself had no offensive capabilities, but attacked by parasitizing on hosts.
Shortly after, all parasitized animals were slain by the cavalry.
The Iron-Eating worms, burrowed out from the animals’ heads, were all crushed to death by the surviving pig-headed humans.
Once the Iron-Eating Worms lost their host, they had no power to attack and were easily killed.
The battle was over.
The skeleton cavalry surrounded the remaining dozen pig-headed humans. Whether to slaughter or spare them, they awaited Fang Hao’s command.
Fang Hao rode the undead horse closer, scrutinizing the pitiful regiment of pig-headed humans.
This was his second encounter with pig-headed humans.
“Excuse me, does anyone of you know Mister Fang Hao?“ Just as the skeleton cavalry was about to take action, one of the pig-headed humans mustered the courage to step forward.
Upon hearing this, Fang Hao was taken aback.
“You know me?” Fang Hao asked.
The pig-headed human looked at the direction from which the skeleton cavalry had come from – Fang Hao’s territory, and took a gamble.
Unexpectedly, the skeleton in front of him admitted he was Fang Hao.
The pig-headed human hesitated, then asked carefully: “Are you Mister Fang Hao? I took you to the Manim Market a few days ago, do you remember?”
Aha!
From this, Fang Hao came to understand.
This pig-headed human was Bolton, who took him to Manim.
“Bolton, is your village nearby?” Fang Hao directly called out the other party’s name.
He thought all pig-headed humans looked alike. If the guy didn’t speak, and there was no significant difference, he wouldn’t have been able to recognize him.
“Yes, yes! Lord Fang Hao, you have saved me again.” Bolton was overwhelmed with emotions and fell to his knees, thanking him loudly.
He wasn’t sure why Fang Hao had taken the form of a skeleton but he didn’t really care.
All he knew was that thanks to their acquaintance, Fang Hao wouldn’t immediately kill him and his people.
Seeing Bolton kneel, the rest of the pig-headed humans followed, loudly expressing their gratitude for Fang Hao saving their lives.
“Stand up. What are you doing here?” Fang Hao asked.
Getting up with the rest of the pig-headed humans, Bolton respectfully answered, “Sir, there’s a mine shaft just ahead where we’ve been safely mining some ores.”
“You mean the abandoned mine shaft?”
“Yes, the shaft is quite large but it’s been occupied by these insects. No factions dared to mine it for a long time. Our village is nearby and occasionally we send people to mine some ores safely from the outskirts.” Bolton explained softly.
Thanks to Bolton’s explanation, Fang Hao had a rough idea of the situation.
The mine shaft had been there for a long time and many factions had tried to mine it.
However, any creature that got too close would be attacked by the iron-eating worms and turned into a puppet corpse.
No faction could stand such losses so the mine was completely deserted, becoming an abandoned mine.
The pigmen village wasn’t far from here and occasionally people were sent to mine some ores.
But incidents like today’s would frequently occur, resulting in casualties.
They had no choice, the pigmen village wasn’t affluent and was sometimes threatened and looted by other beast clans.
Even though they knew there would be casualties, people would still be sent at the risk of mining ores.
“Alright, take me to the mine shaft.” Fang Hao said softly.
Hearing this, all the pig-headed humans turned pale.
Bolton reacted quickly and said, “Sir, some of them are injured. Let them go back to the village and I’ll take you there.”
“Alright, let’s not waste any more time.” Fang Hao nodded in agreement.
A few pig-headed humans glanced at Bolton and turned around to leave.
Bolton led Fang Hao and the rest of the cavalry towards the direction of the mine.
With Bolton leading, they soon saw the entrance of the mine shaft.
The mine area was enormous, you could even say it was a mine field.
They could see abandoned mine carts and some dilapidated facilities.
It looked like it had been specially built at some point.
“Lord Fang Hao, the worms are especially active today. They would attack as soon as you approach, making it hard to deal with.” Bolton said softly.
“Fine, wait here. I’m going to take a look.” Fang Hao took his cavalry forward with him.
The moment he stepped into the range of the mine,
He saw puppet corpses of various beasts and orcs coming from all directions in the mine.
“Dismount, fight.” Fang Hao commanded.
All the cavalry dismounted, drew their weapons, and began attacking.
Fang Hao wanted to verify whether these iron-eating worms had any effects on the undead creatures.
Sure enough, during the battle, one iron-eating worm left its host and tried to burrow into the brain of a skeleton cavalry amidst the chaos.
But the next second, the skeleton cavalry reached its hand into his eye socket and choked the iron-eating worm to death.
It seemed that these iron-eating worms were useless against the skeletons.
As more and more puppet corpses emerged from the mine, Fang Hao gave the order to retreat.
“Retreat.”
The cavalry remounted their horses and moved far away from the mine area.
After they retreated to a safe distance, the controlled corpses retreated and went back into the mine.
At that time, Bolton came over and asked, “Sir, are you alright?”
Bolton, who lived nearby, naturally knew the dangers of the abandoned mine.
No one who entered it had ever come out alive.
Fang Hao was the first one.
Of course, as things stood, Bolton wasn’t quite sure whether Fang Hao was still considered human.
“Let’s go to your village,” he replied..