Chapter 48- No Role But Victim

The next morning a giant rotting bird slammed to the ground outside Depot Number Four. It lowered its long beak to the ground and vomited out a mass of wretched people. They were covered in boils and tumors, some bigger than their heads. Tian watched them come screaming out.

“Save us, save us!”

“Please, it hurts so much! Medicine! Please, medicine!”

“Immortals, mercy, mercy!”

Over and over they screamed and pleaded as they ran for the gate. The guards shared an ugly look and stepped sharply back. One pressed the alarm, the other placed a spirit crystal on a formation carved into the wall. A ward sprung up, wrapping the depot in a faint blue dome.

“Stay back! Stop where you are!”

The pitiful people didn’t listen and ran directly at the gate. One of the guards swore and knocked an arrow to his bow. Raised it to his eye. Loosed the arrow and buried a yard of fine ashwood in the skull of one of the people rushing over.

Tian had been attracted by the giant bird and the noise. He got over to the wall in time to see the mortal explode into a cloud of purple gas that rapidly shaded into black. It drifted forward as though possessed, falling on the blue barrier. The barrier visibly started to corrode. And the other tumor ridden mortals kept coming.

“CORPSE POISON! NECROMANCER!” The guard yelled.

Tian swore and dove off the wall with a flip, landed feather light on his toes, and leapt for the quartermaster’s quarters. “I’ll get the supplies!” He yelled.

The Depot had a sizable guard force, but during an attack, sect members had standing orders to provide all necessary assistance. Tian was capable for a Level Five, but against a necromancer who could create clouds of corpse poison, he didn’t even qualify as a capable ant.

Plus there was the bird. That had to be at the Heavenly Person realm. Runner was about the best job he could do at the moment.

“Quartermaster Wu! Necromancers!”

“Catch!” She tossed Tian a ring, then rushed back to her shelves to yank out even more stuff. Tian kicked off the counter, reversed his momentum with a flip and a twist, then sprinted back to the wall. He rushed along the line of archers and flying sword wielders, as they quickly butchered the mortal victims. Each grabbed the equipment they needed- peachwood arrows, gold ointment to coat swords, black dog blood to pour over contaminated soil or equipment, or even on the undead.

Tian didn’t know why the blood of male black dogs was particularly rich in yang qi and perfect for countering ghosts and the undead. But it was. So he delivered it to his brothers and sisters, then dumped a big pot of it over himself. Coated himself in blood. Then he started looking at the battlefield.

The mortals were just delivery systems for the corpse poison. Tian had heard rumors about thee horrible stuff- powerfully yin and corrosive, it dug through flesh and rooted in the bone marrow as it destroyed the body. Ordinary antidotes were completely ineffective. Generally found in the claws and teeth of zombies. Just a scratch was enough to send you to hell.

It wasn’t so easy to make a strong zombie. It took an immense number of spells, charms and potions to refine even a single Earthly Realm zombie. A Heavenly Person Zombie was beyond Tian’s imagination. As was whatever hellish thing was going on with the mortals. The poison clung to their naked bodies in fleshy sacks the size of heads. They swung with an ugly weight, and the instant the host died, they exploded. The poison always drifted towards the base. Always. And the barrier was dissolving fast.

Tian didn’t know how to shoot a bow or use a flying sword. Or a regular sword for that matter. It had never seemed useful or even possible before.

The barrier finally dissolved in a crackle of poison.

Ranged weapons seemed really useful now.

The giant bird vomited out green furred creatures. Humanoid. Muscular. Tall. Dozens of them.

“Zombies! Green furred zombies!” Someone yelled.

They were all moving like they were in the Heavenly Person realm. Tian’s role in this fight was now, officially, ‘victim.’

“I can’t run. My brothers need me. But I can’t be a burden to them either.” Tian’s mind raced, trying to think of what he could do to help. The zombies roared and hunched forward.

“Cover, cover!”

Tian jumped off the wall and hit the ground. If the Inner Court disciples were ducking-

There was a soft sound, like rain falling on leaves, then screaming. Tian knew what he could do. He rushed over and grabbed a Senior Sister who had crashed into the dirt next to him. She was screaming and thrashing, trying to cut away the piece of green hair lodged in her chest like a needle. Trying to cut away the purple-black poison spreading from it, like ink dropped on clean paper.

He got one of her arms over his shoulder, and grabbed her waist. He stood, pulling them both up. She didn’t fight him, letting him carry her away from the wall and to the hospital building. The doctors were already busy. He didn’t stay and watch. Tian put her on a stretcher on the ground and ran back to the wall. This senior sister hadn’t been the only one to fall.

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Tian grabbed a senior brother, this one in much worse shape and dragged him back. He wasn’t moving any more by the time he got to the hospital, and he saw a doctor flick a paper talisman onto his forehead. The red cinnabar burst into flames, but the yellow paper it was on remained intact. Black gas started rising from the corpse, and was purified by the flames. Tian thought his senior brother looked more comfortable in death when it was done.

“Here- take these. If someone looks dead or near dead, smack them on their forehead and run some vital energy into it.” A martial uncle he didn’t recognize shoved the talismans into his hand and pushed him out the door. Tian ran back towards the wall. There were more people he needed to help.

Along the way, he pasted five of the talismans on foreheads. His brothers and sisters were dying faster than he could get them to the hospital. He wanted to throw up. He used Light Body, Heavy Hands instead. It seemed to help. The noise was impossible. Screams, the roars of the zombies, the crashing, crackling, hissing, thrumming noise of flying weapons and spells.

“Zombies attacking in the morning. What is that about?” He muttered, dragging a brother missing an arm.

“It’s the Wasteland, kid. Zombies that can only fight at night? That’s soft country living. Hahaha.” The laughter was lost in a wave of black vomit. Tian noticed it steaming on the dried dog’s blood.