Remnants Of Yuan Ming’s Soul (1)

Yuan Ming strolled around the formation and waited for his new slaves to arrive. In the meantime he thought about alternatives to sacrificing the undead. Surely, the formation accepted other types of essence?

Yuan Ming's mind went back to when he absorbed gigantic amounts of black-colored essence from the marsh. His core rejected it, so he didn't have any use for it.

He crouched and sunk his palm inside the formation. The only problem with him wanting to use the black-essence was that he didn't know how to use it — he couldn't take it to any of his body parts, nor could he make it leave his body. It just was stuck.

'I really hope this works…'

Yuan Ming closed his eyes and felt the black-colored essence exploring his body by swimming around. He tried to guide them out from his body by mentally moving them, but failed.

He sighed and stood up, no matter how hard he tried he couldn't get the essence out of his body. Begrudgingly, he took a mental note to find a human cultivation method.

A few hours later, rumbling sounds rang out in the valley as figures of varying sizes and ferocious characteristics could be seen coming towards Yuan Ming. As they closed in he could see most of their features: some of them were bird-like beasts crawling on the floor, while some of them were horse-like, spider-like and snake-like. Most of them were walking or crawling, but some of them were flying towards him.

Yuan Ming sneered and watched them come before him and bow; something that showed their reverence towards him. He whipped his hand upward, telling them to rise in silence.

Their bodies were just like Yuan Ming's when he was Rank 1. They had reddish-grey rotten muscles wrapped on their bones; any feather or skin they had fell off the moment their flesh decayed. However, the wings or scales they had were still on their bodies.

A powerful aura burst forth from them, even though they were just Rank 1. Yuan Ming thought that if any human was here, they'd faint just from seeing them.

In this world, Beast Hordes were massive problems. The empires and sects surrounding the Misty Mountain Range and Shan Lan Heavenly Burial Ground suffered from destroyed cities and massive casualties from even small Beast Hordes. Unfortunately, Yuan Ming was a mortal before he turned into the Plague Lord, thus he wasn't well-introduced to the matters related to Beast Hordes or sects. Furthermore he was a mortal that never traveled outside of Star City.

The beasts' eyes shone with a red color as they howled, barked, and cried out. Their sounds broke Yuan Ming's inner monologue as he quickened his breathing and ordered the beasts into the summoning formation money by one.

This time however, Yuan Ming didn't rush and carefully monitored the formation. One by one, the beasts entered the formation and had their life-essences sucked out by the formation. Their bodies burst and mixed with the symbols on the ground.

After twenty of them sacrificed their life-essence, the formation was complete and a rift opened in its place. The familiar green rift widened to the size of the formation and released lightning.

Yuan Ming furrowed his brows and waved his hands and ordered the beasts to back down. His eyes focused on the rift, and tried to see what was behind it. Disappointed, he withdrew his gaze, because he couldn't see anything but the color green.

There had to be an alternative to using life-essence, right? If things continued like this, he'd have to sacrifice the entire mountain range to build the summoning formation of other undead structures.

Other than the Necropolis, there were other types of structures that he could summon. Some of them were defense-type structures, attack-type structures etcetera. The information in his mind told him he could also upgrade structures using essence, although he didn't know if only life-essence could be used.

Slowly, materials rose from the rift and formed a majestic, but dreadful palace. It's very sight incurred feelings of terror and dread; the scriptures floating in front of its entrance shone with purple light as it contrasted with the black writing on the walls. It was huge, at least ten times larger than a medium-sized mansion.

A light burst out of the top of the Palace and turned into a dome that covered half of the valley. Just in front of the dome was a river, which lead deeper into the forest. Again, behind the dome was flat terrain and small hills filled with fruit trees, towering trees and bushes.

It was quite the strategic planning! Furthermore, the area the dome covered was so big that hundreds of Yuan Mings could fit inside.

The undead beasts revealed expressions of comfort as they began to roam around the Necropolis. The ground had already rotten, and the trees on top of them had died and turned into stumps that looked like they were charred black.

Yuan Ming saw nothing else to do, as he closed his eyes and teleported himself inside the Necropolis.

The familiar purple hall came in front of his eyes as he remarked at how well-lit it was. He didn't have the patience to explore the Necropolis last time, so he thought he'd see it explore it today…

Orbs of white light hung onto the ceiling of the hall and illuminated it. Furniture with unknown usage and design crowded his vision and intrigued him. The hall was extremely wide and had stairs at its end that lead to different parts of the second floor. Furthermore, on left and right sides of the hall itself were various rooms.

Yuan Ming curiously entered one of the rooms and found himself enter a grassy plain. That he recognized as the Summoning Ground. He immediately lost his interest and began climbing the stairs to the second floor through the left stair.

A grand and big bedroom revealed itself after he climbed his room. The thing that surprised him was the transparent ceiling that exposed the night sky filled with mist. However, the truly surprising thing was the orb floating below the middle of the ceiling. He suspected that the orb was responsible for the blue dome surrounding the Necropolis.

The furnishing in the room was surprisingly human. The bed was large and looked comfortable to Yuan Ming, who hadn't slept in a bed for weeks!

Yuan Ming wanted to explore the right side of the second-floor, but the sleepiness invading his body turned him reluctant. By then he came to know that night was ending, and dawn was approaching. Because he felt sleepy every time before morning.

When he climbed the bed and drifted into the covers, only then did he think about how rotten the bed would smell after he slept in it. Oh well, who cares…

…

…

…

…

"Yuan'gege, what do you think is more terrible? Dying when you want to live, or living when you want to die?"

A despairing voice sounded beside his ears as he felt uncomfortable to answer that question.

"I…don't really know. I've never came across difficulties that'd make me want to die, but yeah, I've never thought about that before. "

The straw bed hurt his hips, so Yuan Ming stood up and looked towards Xue'er with a smile.

"Xue'er…don't worry. This Yuan'gege of yours is still alive, and fully capable of taking care of you. "

"I'm an orphan, but that doesn't mean I can't understand your feelings…but Xue'er, we have work. I'm sorry. "

"N-no, Yuan'gege, I understand. I perfectly understand how this world works. If I don't work, I'll die of starvation… that's just my fate. "

Yuan Ming, a boy barely ten-years old, shook his head seeing the delicate girl in front of him suffer from changes.

They had already missed one day of work due to Xue'er's father's death. If they missed another one, they'd be forced to live the entire month without money. If that happened, begging wouldn't suffice for the both of them.

This was the fate of an ordinary, but unlucky mortal. Even one's family's death couldn't free one from suffering

.

Suddenly the air changed as Yuan Ming regained consciousness in his dream.