Overlord (Part 1)

LUO FAN

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 For months, the journey had felt endless, the landscape changing but offering little solace. My body was weakening, the White Vulture gnawing at my insides with unrelenting hunger. Still, I pressed on, driven by the promise of a final confrontation and the faint hope that I might find salvation, or at least the peace of an ending, at the Overlord's Ground.

When I finally arrived, an eerie stillness settled over me. The wind whispered through the skeletal remains of ancient trees, carrying the weight of battles long past. The very earth beneath my feet felt sacred, yet tainted—a place where warriors had clashed, leaving behind echoes of their despair.

Then, a voice rang out, clear and commanding.

'Beware the Corrupted Hero. He guards this ground as though it were his own domain.'

The warning stirred a memory—a stone tablet I had encountered on my way here. It had spoken of a formidable dual-core grandmaster who had succumbed to his own dark core. His soul, twisted beyond salvation, had turned against his disciples. Now, this forsaken battleground had become his endless hunting ground.

A chill coiled in my stomach.

Three months ago, after slaying a three-headed beast within a dungeon, I had broken into the third level. It had granted me the ability to infuse qi into objects and strengthened my command over the wind. The power of my cores had also begun pushing back against the White Vulture's corruption, delaying the inevitable. But it wasn't enough.

Even at this stage, level three was still novice-tier among cultivators. It was nowhere near enough to face a corrupted grandmaster.

But I had come too far to turn back.

As I stepped deeper into the heart of the Overlord's Ground, a shadow flitted past me—silent, swift, and unnatural. My pulse thundered in my ears.

Was it the Overlord?

Or was it the Corrupted Hero the voice had warned me about?

I barely had time to dwell on it. The moment I stepped further in, the ground trembled, and from the depths of the ruins, a horde of skeletal warriors emerged. Their hollow eye sockets burned with eerie light, and the rusted edges of their weapons gleamed faintly beneath the dim, overcast sky.

At first, they seemed like any other reanimated dead—mindless, cursed to wander the battlefield. But then, my gaze caught the remnants of their tattered robes, the faded insignias barely visible beneath the grime of decay.

Recognition hit me like a physical blow.

These were not ordinary skeletons.

They were the disciples who had come before me—those who had perished in their attempt to claim the Overlord's Ground. And now, they had been resurrected into an endless cycle of death, stripped of their will, their bodies nothing more than puppets of the corruption that ruled this place.

A low, unnatural groan rose from the horde as they charged.

I had no choice but to meet them head-on. With my bamboo stick in hand, I struck, channeling every ounce of strength and qi into each swing. I fought with everything I had, the wind howling in response to my movements.

Bones shattered. Weapons clashed.

But no matter how many I cut down, they would rise again, their broken bodies pulling themselves back together as if bound by some cruel, unbreakable curse.

An endless cycle. A battle I was steadily losing.

Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw her—the Overlord.

A lone figure standing at the edge of the battlefield, untouched by the carnage around her. Commanding. Terrifying.

My breath hitched.

A necromancer.

She didn't attack. She didn't rush to strike me down. Instead, she stood still, smirking, her arms crossed with an air of detached amusement.

With slow, deliberate movements, her hands traced intricate patterns through the air. Each delicate motion summoned more of her undead minions, as if she were an artist painting their existence into reality. She had no intention of fighting me herself.

"You're wasting your energy," she mused, her voice dripping with honeyed malice.

She was right.

I was weakening, my breath ragged, my limbs trembling under the relentless assault. The skeletons wouldn't stay down, no matter how many times I shattered them. Their broken bodies reassembled with unnatural ease, rising again and again.

This was no ordinary battle.

This was a war of attrition.

"Why don't you just give up?" the necromancer purred. "Join them. Become one of my precious minions."

I stiffened.

There were fates worse than death.

I staggered back toward the edge of the battlefield, gasping for breath, my mind racing for a solution. If I died here, it wouldn't be an honorable end. It would be eternal damnation, my body twisted into an unholy puppet, forced to serve her for eternity.

No.

I refused.

Then, an idea struck me. The wind.

I reached for it.

Summoning what little energy remained, I called upon the wind—the element that had always answered me, even in my weakest moments.

At first, only a faint whisper responded. A weak, fragile current, struggling to obey.

But I didn't stop.

I had spent months honing this skill, training tirelessly, even as my body withered from the White Vulture's poison.

This was my last chance to test my limits.

I poured everything I had into it.

The air trembled.

Then, with a deafening roar, the winds came to life.

A cyclone erupted around me, spiraling higher, gaining momentum. The skeletons lurched back, their cursed bodies caught in the vortex. One by one, they were lifted from the ground, bones rattling as the storm hurled them into the distance like broken dolls.

For the first time, the battlefield stood silent—emptied of its relentless undead swarm. Even if they resurrected, it would take time for them to return.

I turned my focus to the Overlord, closing the distance in a few swift, desperate strides. My bamboo stick trembled in my grasp, its tip hovering just inches from her throat.

But I hesitated.

Her smirk widened, the mockery in her gaze as sharp as any blade. "If you want to finish your training," she said, her voice dripping with amusement, "you'll have to kill me."

My grip faltered. The principle ingrained in me since childhood surged forward—women were to be protected, respected, never harmed. It was a belief I had upheld my entire life, and now, in this moment of survival, it became a wall I couldn't break through.

She laughed softly, the sound slicing through the tense air. "What's the matter, my righteous priest? Has your righteous path led you to hesitation?"

Her words stung, burrowing deep beneath my skin. Ruan Yanjun's warning echoed in my mind.

"If your enemy discovers your weakness, they will exploit it without mercy."

I clenched my jaw, pushing away the weight of hesitation. Instead of focusing on her face—on the taunting curve of her lips—I closed my eyes and reached out with my senses, searching for the pulsing energy of her dark core. It was unmistakable, a beacon of malice thrumming beneath her skin.

When I opened my eyes, the smirk was gone.

In one decisive motion, I lunged, driving my bamboo stick toward her chest. She reacted instantly, summoning a shield of dark energy that crackled and shimmered like fractured glass. My weapon struck it—hard. The impact sent a sharp jolt up my arms, my fingers numbing from the sheer force.

Her laughter returned, sharper, crueler. "How did you even make it this far?" she sneered, thrusting her hand forward.

A surge of black energy erupted from her palm, thick and suffocating. I barely had time to react. I leaped to the side, narrowly avoiding the attack as it slammed into the ground, leaving behind a smoking crater where I had stood just moments before.

I rolled to my feet, chest heaving, sweat dripping down my forehead.

The next attack came instantly. Tendrils of dark energy lashed out like striking vipers, relentless and precise. I barely managed to deflect them, twisting and parrying with my stick as the air cracked around me.

She was toying with me. Testing my limits.

"Still holding back, are we?" she taunted, her voice ringing through the chaos. "How noble. How pathetic."

I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to block out her words. She was not a woman. She was not a person. She was an evil soul that needed to be destroyed.

The hesitation within me burned away, replaced by a surge of cold determination.

This ends now.