Chapter 85 — The Great Wall

The twisted creatures had indeed left many traces of corruption in their wanderings. Although the chaotic magic aura was dissipating rapidly, quite a few telltale signs remained, thanks to their timely discovery.

Following those intermittent traces of corrupting aura, Gao Cen advanced steadily through the Dark Mountains, gradually drawing near a gap in the mountain mass southwest of the camp—a gap that put Gao Yang on his guard.

This was one of the lower, most easily crossed passes in the Dark Mountains. If those monsters had come in through this gap... then they would soon sense the human presence at the pioneer camp and come charging down the mountain to strike straight at it.

The three of them climbed onto a great boulder and gazed at the mountain gap ahead. The rock there was sparsely covered with vegetation; the exposed gray-white stone looked as lifeless as shattered bone. The whole terrain seemed to have been cleft apart by a giant axe, and below the gap an ominous gray-black mist could already be seen rising visibly.

Gao Shao ordered Hedi to use magic to shroud all their auras, including their magic. A third-rank mage's abilities in this regard were, of course, limited—such concealment could not fool any mid-rank or higher professional—but Gao Yang well understood the weakness of the twisted: once removed from the environment of the magic tide, their senses grew dull and their thinking feeble. So long as they did not clearly sense magic or the aura of intelligent beings, they would not react.

Their concealment in place, the three crept cautiously forward. Before they were halfway there, a stench of rot drifted toward them from ahead.

"Urgh..." Hedi retched quietly, her fingers tightening slightly on her staff. She knew that smell all too well—it had appeared in her nightmares more than once, jolting her awake. Months ago, the entire old Cecil Territory had been destroyed amid that very stench.

Knowing the monsters could sense magical fluctuations and that her concealment spell was of limited effect, Hedi suppressed the urge to cast a breeze shield and carefully followed behind Gao Yang, skirting the rocks and ancient trees that blocked the way ahead.

Gao Yang, walking in front, suddenly made a hand signal: "Hide. Up ahead."

The three concealed themselves among the jagged rocks. Amber boldly poked her head out a little from below Gao Yang's shoulder—and the next second, goosebumps broke out all over her body.

The mountain path below was shrouded in a thin gray-black mist. The plants there had withered and mutated; hideous spikes and tendrils had sprouted from the rock and soil. Countless lumps, like some kind of soft-bodied creature, writhed and rolled among the earth and stones, a sight to make the stomach turn. And in crowds and throngs, flesh giants shambled along this hellish mountain road, their chaotic features streaming with mud-like flesh and blood, blasphemous, low murmurs issuing from their chests and forming a buzzing resonance in the air.

What was more chilling still was that many of these flesh giants had rotting, battered ancient weapons lodged in their bodies. Amber even saw one giant with a hollow human skeleton stuck in its abdomen—revolting evidence that confirmed Gao Song's judgment:

This was an army of devils from hell, wandering out of the Gondor Wasteland.

Amber seized Gao Song's arm at once and, in the lowest, lowest voice of her life, voiced the clearest thought in her mind at that moment: "Boss, you can keep my wages, just let me go..."

"Shh." Gao Yang pressed down on Amber's head, his eyes sweeping among the monsters. He checked again and again and finally let out a slight breath of relief. "Not so bad. It's not the worst case."

"This isn't bad?!" Amber looked at Gao Yang as though he were a madman. "A horde this size could tear the whole camp apart three times over!"

"Don't be fooled by appearances. There aren't actually as many as you think," Gao Yu said, patiently explaining the misperception anyone would have upon first seeing an army of the twisted. "The mist and the growths crawling over the ground give you the illusion of great numbers, but count carefully—there are probably fewer than a thousand..."

Amber blinked and seriously estimated the number of flesh giants swaying in her field of view. "Seems like it really is only a few hundred..."

But the next moment she caught herself. "But our whole camp is only eight hundred people, and seven hundred of those can't fight!"

"Still, it's much better than my worst-case estimate," Gao Yang said in a low voice. "What I feared most at first was that their numbers would exceed that 'line' by too much—then they'd multiply rapidly, as if sprouting out of thin air. We suffered a great deal over that in the old days. A report would say two thousand enemies, and by the time you met them they might have grown to three thousand or even four thousand... But look at these—no new twisted are sprouting out of thin air. That means their numbers have just failed to exceed that line, or exceeded it only slightly, not yet to the point of natural growth..."

"But even at this number, the camp as it stands can't handle them," Hedi whispered anxiously. "Ancestor, they're heading north of the mountain right now. Sooner or later they'll reach the camp. Once the camp falls within their perception..."

Amber's two pointed ears twitched uneasily in the air. "Didn't you say these twisted just wander at random or stop where they are when they don't sense magic or humans? Maybe they'll walk a bit more and then stop, and stay put for a thousand or eight hundred years..."

"Don't pin your hopes on that. Their numbers may not be growing, but they've passed the threshold of natural die-off. Expecting nearly a thousand monsters to stay in the mountains forever and be our neighbors? Dream on," Gao Qi said, frowning. "We have to find a way to deal with them..."

Amber looked at Gao Cen silently. "Then I have a plan..."

Gao Yang was a little surprised. "You have a plan?"

"Like this: first I sneak over and kill one, then you, the legendary knight, leap out with Divine Descent and wipe out the remaining nine hundred and ninety-some with a single War Charge, while your beautiful great-granddaughter here sets off a few arcane fireworks for atmosphere. Then when we get back, we announce that the two of us together defeated nearly a thousand monsters. You go on being your lord and tend your fields in peace, and I'll find a tavern and brag about it... Hey, don't walk away, I wasn't finished..."

Gao You knew, halfway through her spiel, that she had once again entered a state of severe nervousness and frantic over-analysis, so he paid no attention at all to the rest of what she said. Instead he raised his head to study the surrounding terrain, and at last found a route that would let them skirt the monsters. He tugged at Hedi's robe and then cautiously began to make a detour around them.

Amber was taken aback for a moment, then stopped her frantic analysis and obediently melted into the shadows, following in Gao Song's footsteps.

The three of them circled around the path of the slow-moving twisted, found a narrow trail among the rocks, and followed the direction indicated by the corrupted path, drawing ever closer along the way to the mountain gap in the Dark Mountains. At last they found a high point from which their gaze could reach past the rocks and look out over the southern side of the Dark Mountains.

Gao Yang climbed the rock and gazed into the distance.

Beyond the mountain... Good thing I didn't let myself think of Smurfs just then.

Beyond the mountain there was no band of cute Smurfs. Beyond the mountain there were only the ruins of civilization, only the wreckage of the ordered world, only the Gondor Wasteland shrouded in chaos and darkness.