Chapter 146: The Walking Corpse

“We’ve located one of the groups,” Angus reported.

The goods stolen by these robbers needed to be fenced quickly. They couldn’t just sit on them. Wu Qingsong had Ram and Xeila use their abilities to infiltrate the two most suspicious merchant associations. They quickly identified a target for surveillance. Then, selecting the most skilled trackers from among the houndmen, along with Xeila, they followed a courier sent out by the bandits, quickly uncovering their hideout.

Wu Qingsong had Ling bring out the map, and Angus located the site on it in no time. It was nestled in a secluded valley on the north side of the main road leading to Targal City, northwest of Orgrimmar City.

“Proceed with caution and capture them all,” Wu Qingsong instructed.

The mission was executed by Xeila, who slipped a hefty dose of sleeping potion into the soup the bandits were cooking over their fire. Within an hour, the houndmen had captured all eight bandits without incident, securely tying them up and gagging them, and brought them back to the Elmons Mine shaft under the cover of night.

Wu Qingsong felt momentarily conflicted but quickly banished such weak thoughts from his mind.

Evildoers have no rights. Their death was a means to strengthen himself, to protect more innocents, and to afford them a better life.

He reassured himself with these thoughts, then dragged one of the bandits into the magic circle. After drawing the necessary sigils with blood on the man’s chest, he thrust a dagger into his heart.

Ling let out a soft gasp, prompting Wu Qingsong to realize he should have suggested they leave. Yet, when he glanced up, he saw Xeila watching everything with an air of excitement. Although Ram and Ling were visibly pale, they showed neither fear nor a desire to leave.

“This is about to get bloody,” he warned them. “You can wait outside.”

Nevertheless, they both steadfastly shook their heads.

The bandit’s body convulsed briefly as life rapidly ebbed away from him. However, because of the magic circle drawn on his chest, the blood didn’t gush out as it normally would but remained within his body. He likely experienced little pain, which was the greatest kindness Wu Qingsong could afford him.

It was at this moment that Wu Qingsong came to a startling realization. His capacity to endure such scenes was far from normal. His former self couldn’t have undertaken such actions, let alone witness them without difficulty. Yet now, his demeanor was unsettlingly calm, as if he was no longer a normal person.

Had this world changed not just his body but also his heart?

As the dead’s body stilled completely, Wu Qingsong awkwardly cut open his chest, extracted the heart, and replaced it with the pre-carved wooden heart made of ghost cypress. He then stitched the incision closed.

He took a deep breath to detach himself from his complex emotions and infused one of the most potent soul fragments he had on hand into the wooden heart. Using his mental power, he guided it to merge with the corpse.

Seconds later, the dead abruptly opened his eyes. Ram and Ling instinctively screamed. However, the zombie silently rose from the ground and stood still, awaiting Wu Qingsong’s commands.

The experience of controlling it was utterly different from that with skeletons. To make an analogy, commanding skeletons felt like running a demanding video game on an outdated computer, whereas controlling a zombie was akin to using a machine with standard specifications. Though there was some lag, it could at least run the game at its minimum settings.

The zombie began to perform various actions much more fluidly under his command. The residual instincts in its body seemed to provide more support for its movements. When Wu Qingsong commanded it to run forward quickly, it automatically dodged obstacles, unlike the skeletons that would march straight into them.

“Can you speak?” Wu Qingsong whimsically asked through his thoughts.

The zombie produced some cough-like noises from its throat, which were uncomfortable to hear. 

Just when Wu Qingsong was about to ask it to stop trying, it finally managed to say, “Yes, master.”

This new development startled all three beastwomen, while Wu Qingsong pressed on, “Do you remember who you were?”

The zombie’s face was expressionless, but after a long period of apparent contemplation, he finally shook his head, “No, master, my memory is blank.”

“What are you capable of?”

“I do not know, master.”

Such straightforward replies lightly lifted the shadows from Wu Qingsong’s heart. He then commanded, “Pick up that shovel and dig up a basketful of iron ore for me.”

Without hesitation, the zombie picked up the tool and made its way to a mining shaft. Its actions were rapid, completing the task in just a few minutes.

“How do you know how to do this?”

“I don’t know, master. I just know.”

Wu Qingsong had him wait to the side and proceeded to attempt the creation of another zombie, following the same procedure. 

However, this time he faced two consecutive failures. The first occurred when the soul fragment collapsed and vanished into thin air as it was merging with the body, leaving Wu Qingsong with a sharp, knife-like pain in his head that only subsided after several minutes. The second failure happened when the carved wooden heart suddenly cracked into pieces as the soul fragment was about to merge, eliciting another pained groan from Wu Qingsong.

Ram and Ling quickly came over, massaging him to ease his discomfort.

“Now I understand why that necromancer was always so cryptic. If I didn’t have this kind of resilience, I’d probably be driven mad by the pain,” Wu Qingsong said with a wry smile as the pain ebbed away. 

The necromancer had created dozens of zombies, and even if his success rate was higher than Wu Qingsong’s, a single failure would inflict brain damage far beyond the brief moments of pain Wu Qingsong experienced. Enduring such agony, that man was no ordinary individual.

“Maybe, we should postpone it to another day,” Ling suggested quietly.

“I need to finish all the work tonight,” Wu Qingsong insisted. “Otherwise, I’m not sure if I’ll have the courage or the determination to do this kind of thing again.”

Even though he knew he was killing the guilty who deserved their fate, the actions he took still profoundly affected him.

There was a vast difference for him between killing on the battlefield, executing someone, and taking lives in this manner.

Now, he was just forcing himself not to dwell on these matters, but no one understood his character better than he did. If he paused now, by the end of the night, he might lose the ability to execute these bandits with such cold-blooded efficiency.

He might opt for hanging them or delivering them to Esola City for a trial, but it was improbable that he’d continue to kill them in their sleep and transform them into zombies.

“Do you need help?” Xeila offered. “I can take care of killing them and extracting their hearts. You’d only have to do what strictly requires your involvement.”

“No, thank you,” Wu Qingsong replied after a brief moment of hesitation. “These are challenges I need to confront and endure myself. I won’t run away.”