Chapter 423: The Power of the Curse

“How long has it been?” Wu Qingsong asked the moment Charlotte calmed down a little.

“Nearly a month!”

“A month?” Unlike Charlotte, Wu Qingsong exhaled in deep relief.

What he had seen earlier truly frightened him. He had no idea how long he’d remained in that state. For a moment, he even feared that years might have passed. If that were true… what would happen to Nagrand in his absence? Had the elves discovered it?

What had happened in Orgrimmar was already more than enough. He would never allow something like that to happen again.

But thinking about it more calmly, if several years really had passed, there was no way those stone golems would still be functioning, and Charlotte certainly couldn’t have survived this long in such a desolate place without food.

“You’re actually smiling?” Charlotte finally noticed his expression and couldn’t help but scold him with a touch of annoyance.

“Sorry, sorry,” Wu Qingsong said quickly.

He didn’t know exactly what had happened, but it was clear Charlotte had been through a lot this past month. She’d once looked pleasantly plump, but now she was as thin as an empty coat rack, her face completely gaunt.

“I just… I thought years had passed,” he explained.

Only now did he feel the rumbling in his stomach. Though he hadn’t suffered any major harm from not eating or drinking for a month, the hunger hit him all at once, so intense it felt like it could kill him.

Although the creature in the lake had been destroyed, this place was no longer suitable for staying. Wu Qingsong quickly returned to their old campsite, only to find all the remaining rations rotten. He told Charlotte to wait a moment and hurried back to the lake.

After a month of relentless hammering by the golems, the lakebed had become a complete ruin. The stones that once lay scattered were now reduced to powder. He ordered the golems to retrieve anything that remained below—and to his surprise, they brought up a black, football-sized crystalline prism along with several massive bone fragments.

That anything had survived a month of continuous pounding was enough to confirm their significance. Wu Qingsong suspected the remains might be related to a dragon, but the bones were riddled with cracks and emitted no energy. In the end, he ordered the golems to discard the bone fragments and keep only the fractured black crystal.

“Let’s go,” he said, animating the skeletal remains of a horse to serve as a trail marker.

The gnawing hunger made him want to bite into anything he saw. And now, there was nothing left in this forest worth staying for.

The forest still retained its mysterious labyrinth-like quality—likely the lingering magic of the elves who once retreated from here. Fortunately, the trees showed no aggression toward the stone golems. Even when their clumsy movements knocked into branches or broke vines, the forest only responded by slowly growing anew.

Wu Qingsong decided to have two of the stone golems serve as mounts for himself and Charlotte. This way, he didn’t have to constantly direct her path—instead, he could simply issue orders to the golems to adjust their course. While not fast, their progress was still faster than walking.

“What exactly happened?” he asked once Charlotte had adjusted to the jolting ride.

“I’m not sure,” Charlotte replied. “But whatever was in the lake must have released a powerful curse once it couldn’t defeat you.”

Even now, Charlotte felt lucky to have survived.

It was pure chance that Wu Qingsong had ordered the zombie to carry her to the forest’s edge. Just as they arrived and the forest reacted strongly to the zombie’s presence, forcing it to stop, Charlotte heard the two horses behind them scream in agony.

She had the zombie put her down and watched in horror as the horses aged rapidly before her eyes, their bodies shriveling into dry skeletons.

She could feel something begin to gnaw at her soul, and fled deeper into the forest on instinct. Moments later, the forest erupted in a massive reaction, pushing back against whatever had spread from the ruins. The zombie couldn’t withstand the curse either—its body decayed far slower than the horses’, but still visibly withered, until it too collapsed into bones.

That instinctive move had saved her life. After that, the curse continued to erupt sporadically, and she never dared go near the ruins again.

She didn’t even dare approach the forest’s edge. Several times, the curse had reached so far that the trees near the border rotted and fell. For that entire month, she lived under the open sky, taking shelter among the trees, eating insects, mushrooms, and roots that wouldn’t provoke the forest’s wrath.

If Wu Qingsong hadn’t won when he did, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could’ve held out.

“I’m sorry,” Wu Qingsong said sincerely. No matter how many flaws she had, she had endured a great deal for him. 

“I owe you,” he added. “But just you, not Dark Moon.” 

Seeing her expression shift slightly, he quickly added, “I hope you’ll use it for something meaningful.”

Charlotte sighed deeply and gave him a quietly resentful look. 

He could only turn away awkwardly and say, “Try to get some sleep. Just a little more and we’ll be out of here.”

Charlotte nodded. This month had been a relentless spiritual battle for Wu Qingsong, but for her, it had been no less of an ordeal. She was exhausted. And surprisingly, despite the bumpy ride, she quickly fell asleep.

Wu Qingsong glanced at her, feeling a bit conflicted. But he quickly pushed those thoughts aside and began assessing the changes in himself.

He could tell his senses had been dramatically enhanced. Night had already fallen, but he could still see clearly over long distances. Even with the constant pounding of the golems’ footsteps, he could hear faint sounds in the distance.

His raw strength hadn’t changed much, but his reflexes had improved noticeably.

More importantly, he discovered that his control range for undead had expanded significantly. As they traveled through the forest, he had already commanded the zombie to catch fish from a nearby river and start collecting firewood.

This was clear proof that his spiritual power had grown strong enough to support more and more advanced magic.

By the time dawn broke, they had finally emerged from the forest. Charlotte sniffed the air and caught the scent of something she had dreamed about for countless nights.

“Grilled fish?!” she asked in disbelief.

“My first time trying this,” Wu Qingsong said with a smile. “Let’s hope its cooking isn’t too awful.”