Chapter 434: The City of Fanatical Believers

The crowd gathered in the square of Northern City had long been waiting with bated breath.

They had heard the news from the cavalry—His Majesty’s envoy was about to descend upon this city at the edge of ice and snow.

So early in the morning, both wildling and human residents alike had set down their work, wrapped themselves in fur cloaks, and converged on this square without any prior arrangement.

The cold wind still howled fiercely, stinging people’s cheeks, and white frost had formed on their beards and eyelashes. Yet no one left, no one complained. They simply stood there, talking.

If one were to judge which city in the Empire had the purest faith, even Darkness City, with its cathedral of eternally burning Holy Light, could not compare to Northern City.

In this frozen wasteland, life itself was a miracle. And the being that had brought warmth, food, and order to this cruel land was, to the wildlings, no less than a deity walking out of myth.

They worshipped the Slime God as if it were an ancestral totem. Its round image was carved into wood and stone, visible everywhere in Northern City.

At the very center of the square stood a massive stone statue of a slime, carved from a single piece of rock. It had a plump, round body and a simplified crown atop its head.

Though there were no finely detailed facial features, its steady silhouette and proud posture still exuded a reassuring sense of majesty.

On the eastern side of the square stood a tall Northern City church.

Unlike the intricate, finely carved churches of the Empire’s south, the Northern City church was built in a rough and rugged style. Its walls were stacked with massive granite blocks. The front door was wide open, and a huge white bear skin lay at the entrance for worshippers to wipe the frost and snow off their boots before stepping inside.

Though the decoration was simple, the interior was spacious enough to hold hundreds of people for prayer at once. Every day, wildling believers gathered together, lighting oil lamps in front of the Slime Saint statue and murmuring blessings in silent prayer.

At that moment, the people in the square were murmuring among themselves, their gazes occasionally lifting toward the sky.

Standing at the very front of the crowd were none other than the Sekashi sisters.

A wildling cavalryman sprinted over and stopped in front of Semiaya, saluting with a fist to his chest: “Two Heavenly Beings, the Border Third Patrol just sent word. They spotted undead tracks in the Blackstone Hills to the northeast.”

“Not many—about seven or eight. They were killed on the spot, and the remains were brought back.”

Semiaya’s gaze sharpened slightly. “Where are the remains?”

“They’ve been sent to the church for purification and are being stored in isolation. No one else has been allowed near them.”

Semiaya nodded, said nothing more, and strode toward the church’s backyard.

Sekashi followed close behind. The two of them passed through the corridor the crowd had cleared and arrived at a temporary shed built from wooden planks and animal skins behind the church.

The guards at the entrance saw them and immediately pulled back the heavy curtain. A wave of warm air mixed with a rancid, rotting smell rushed out.

On the floor of the shed lay several spread-out animal hides, scattered with gray-white bone fragments and a few blackened patches of flesh that had not yet fully decomposed.

Semiaya crouched down, took out a short stick, and gently prodded the bone fragments. She examined them closely for a moment, her frown deepening.

Sekashi also leaned in for a look and asked in a low voice, “So they really are undead?”

“Mm.” Semiaya stood up and tossed the short stick into the brazier beside her. “Logically speaking, the Icefield is so vast that even if undead spawned there, it would be difficult for them to wander all the way to the Empire’s border. There must be something behind them...”

Before she could finish her sentence, a sudden commotion erupted from the square, followed by shouts of surprise from the crowd.

Sekashi and Semiaya exchanged a glance, quickly walked out of the shed, and looked up.

A brilliant green light streaked across the sky. It pierced through the clouds, dragging a long tail behind it, like the gaze of a deity cast downward, plummeting straight toward the square of Northern City.

The light flared brightly the moment it landed, then rapidly condensed into a round, emerald green slime figure.

The wildlings in the square stared in stunned silence at the figure, then erupted into even more fervent cheers.

Some fell to their knees, others clasped their hands together, and still others murmured prayers under their breath.

Sekashi’s eyes lit up, and she lifted her staff as she jogged over. “Lord Envoy!”

Chen Yu deftly leaped, landing lightly on Sekashi’s shoulder. “What’s the situation now?”

“Big sis, you explain.” Sekashi brought him over to Semiaya.

Semiaya bowed her head in greeting, then reported concisely after straightening up: “The border patrol just discovered some undead remains. They were few in number and have already been dealt with.”

“But the Icefield is too vast. It’s unlikely they could appear at the Empire’s border without guidance.”

“Unless the situation up north is truly dire, or even...”

Chen Yu finished her sentence for her. “Or maybe an undead calamity has broken out, right?”

He leaned out from Sekashi’s shoulder, and under his invisible mental pull, the black bone fragments floated up and slowly came to a halt before him.

Chen Yu examined the remains closely. They were indeed imbued with undead power.

After a moment of thought, he spoke: “It looks like we’ll have to head north to investigate.”

Sekashi immediately said, “Lord Envoy, I can come along. I’m very familiar with the Icefield’s terrain, and Penny flies fast.”

Semiaya also nodded, indicating that she wanted to go as well.

Chen Yu wobbled on Sekashi’s shoulder, which counted as a nod. “Alright, you two come with me. It’s been a while since I’ve been deep into the Icefield anyway.”

“Great, Lord Envoy!”

They turned and left the square. As they passed, the crowd automatically parted to both sides. No one made a sound. They simply watched the emerald green figure perched on the lizardfolk girl’s shoulder with gazes that burned hot and devout, as if they were looking at a deity walking the mortal world.

Chen Yu sat on Sekashi’s shoulder, his eyes sweeping over those weather-beaten faces, lost in thought for a moment.

The last time he had been to the Icefield, there was no city here. Back then, only a few dozen wildlings had gathered in this place, their eyes filled with anxiety about the future.

And now, as far as his vision could reach, there were rows upon rows of stone houses, crisscrossing streets, bustling crowds, and children wrapped in thick new winter clothes chasing each other through the snow.

But what really caught his attention were the white lights of faith.

They were rays of light formed by prayers and trust, like countless tiny specks merging into a river. They rose from the chests of every believer, flowing toward him in an unending stream.

The white light was so dense that it almost obscured the sky above the entire city, even tingeing the gray clouds with a faint, warm hue.

Standing in this square felt like standing in an ocean of light woven from faith. Every speck of light silently expressed gratitude and entrusted hope.

A city of fanatical believers.

That thought popped into his head.

Somehow, he now had a city of fanatical believers with such pure faith.

He knew that the birth of this faith was not entirely because he himself was so great, but because the harsher and more barren the land, the more sincere and fervent the faith that sprang from it.

The wildling tribes had struggled to survive on this Icefield for generations. For them, winter was synonymous with death. Their elders would quietly leave the tribe before the first blizzard, heading into the vast snowfields, leaving the last scraps of food for the young.

Now, they had sturdy stone houses, ever-burning hearth fires, a stable food supply, and children could drink a steaming bowl of meat porridge on winter mornings.

These changes might not seem like much to people living in the warm south, but to wildlings who had endured endless harsh winters, they were nothing less than a flame lit by a god’s own hand.

They believed from the bottom of their hearts that it was the slime that had descended from the sky that had changed everything.

By contrast, the sailors of the Merchant Alliance had a much more perfunctory attitude toward faith.

They lived in the richest commercial city on the entire continent. A single voyage at sea earned enough gold coins to last half a month. Once they docked, their favorite pastime was flooding into taverns to get dead drunk, then arm-in-arm singing vulgar sea shanties.

Most of them worshipped Ethera, the Sea Goddess, praying for calm seas and full nets of fish. But that faith was more like a habitual act of buttering up—“Pray before you go out, and you’ll be safe and strike it rich”—rather than a heartfelt devotion.

Those who truly held awe for the Slime God were only a handful of survivors who had experienced brushes with death at sea and been lucky enough to be rescued by slimes.

As for what use this faith had... Chen Yu already had a vague guess.

It might not directly transform into his power, but he could vaguely sense that as more and more faith power converged on him, his consciousness was forming intangible connections with certain things on this land.

Perhaps this was the path every deity had to walk.

Penny, the snow eagle, was already waiting on the open ground.

This proud, large bird flapped its wings, then lowered its neck, allowing Sekashi and Semiaya to climb onto its broad back.

Once the two were seated, the snow eagle let out a clear cry, spread its wings, and took off, flying into the icy wind toward the depths of the Icefield.

The wind howled. Northern City below rapidly shrank in their field of vision, then was swallowed by rolling clouds.

Before long, the snow eagle passed through the low-hanging clouds, and the view suddenly opened up.

Before them lay an endless Icefield, with rolling, snow-covered mountains shimmering with pale gold light under the sun. Ice-shrouded hills and canyons slowly revealed themselves below.

Chen Yu focused his mind. His Divine Sense spread out across the snowfields in all directions. After a moment, he said, “There are many tribal ruins ahead, all already occupied by undead.”

Sekashi froze for a moment. Following the direction Chen Yu had indicated, she looked, but all she could see was a vast expanse of white snow. There was no trace of any tribal ruins.

She blinked, looking somewhat confused. “Lord Envoy... where are the ruins? I don’t see them?”

“They’re still further ahead. You can’t see them from here,” Chen Yu said.

“Oh.” Sekashi obediently pulled her neck back in.

As the snow eagle continued deeper, the scenery began to change subtly.

Sekashi gasped sharply.

At the edge of her vision, countless figures surged across the vast Icefield.

They came in all shapes and forms—humanoid soldiers, rotting beastly corpses crawling on all fours, and twisted remains that had lost all recognizable form.

They moved slowly like a tide across the snow, their steps faltering and unsteady, staining the vast white snowfield with a suffocating gray-black hue.

Semiaya frowned. “Where did all these undead... come from? Even if some ancient ruins in the deep Icefield had awakened, it would be impossible for them to amass such a huge number in such a short time.”

They even spotted giant undead in the tide of the undead—at least three or four stories tall. The surrounding undead swarmed around its feet like ants, as if crowding around their war beast.

Semiaya suddenly said in a grave tone, “Sekashi, be careful.”

Her words had barely left her mouth when a stir rose from the undead crowd below. A massive creature buried in the snow was slowly raising its head.

It was an icy skeletal dragon.

It was about to flap its bone wings and take off into the air.

Chen Yu glanced down at it.

The pressure of the Golden Core stage descended like an invisible, colossal hammer.

In that instant, with Chen Yu as the center, every undead body within several kilometers froze simultaneously.

The Soulfire in their eye sockets flickered and died out. Countless skeletons lost their support and clattered to the ground, leaving only a field of shattered bones and drifting ashes that slowly scattered in the wind.

The skeletal dragon’s massive frame trembled violently. The Soulfire in its hollow eye sockets was also extinguished by the pressure, and its raised head slammed heavily into the snow, sending up a plume of snow and mist.

Within several kilometers, a dead silence reigned.

Sekashi covered her mouth, her eyes shining bright. “So... so powerful...”

Who would have thought that such a tiny slime could unleash such terrifying power?

Semiaya said nothing, but the same light flickered in her eyes.

The snow eagle continued flying forward. The scene grew even more tragic.

Tribal ruins appeared in sight—wooden fences and tents burned to the ground, shards of discarded clay pots and broken weapons scattered across the ground, and black ash covering the snow.

They also spotted small forts that had been breached, clearly border outposts set up by the orcs, but now nothing remained but crumbling walls.

Chen Yu’s gaze swept over the ruined fortresses below. His Divine Sense quickly scanned, capturing signs of life on the ground.

“There’s a bunker over there. There’s life inside.”

Sekashi immediately patted the snow eagle’s neck. Penny let out a short cry, folded its wings, and swooped downward.

The fort was located in a burned-out coniferous forest. The walls had mostly collapsed, and part of the roof had been torn open by some immense force, revealing a pitch-black hollow inside.

It looked almost no different from the other desolate ruins around it.

The snow eagle circled at a height of a dozen meters or so. Sekashi looked down with confusion.

Lord Envoy said there were living orcs here?

She hadn’t heard a single sound!

Just as she was thinking this, Chen Yu leaped from her shoulder and hovered in midair. Slowly raising a small gel hand, he pressed downward.

The ground trembled. The entire ruin seemed to be pulled apart by an invisible hand, slowly shifting to both sides, revealing a stone staircase entrance hidden beneath the rubble.

Chen Yu landed at the entrance.

A few seconds later, several figures stumbled out of the dark passage below.

They were orc soldiers.

Their leather armor was ragged, covered in dust and dried blood. They had clearly been hiding there for a long time.

When they saw the slime standing at the entrance, they froze for a moment.

Then the leading orc soldier’s legs gave out. He collapsed to his knees, his hands trembling as they pressed into the cold snow, his voice hoarse and choked with tears.

“Thank... thank the gods... it’s not the undead... thank...”

Sekashi leaped down from the snow eagle’s back, landing beside Chen Yu. Speaking in slightly rough Orcish, she said, “Don’t be afraid. We’re the patrol from the Empire’s northern border. How long have you been hiding here?”

As she calmed them down, she patiently sifted through their incoherent, stammering account, extracting useful information.

The answer made her heart sink.

The source of the undead calamity was the Orc Palaver.

A few months ago, several “mysterious visitors” of unknown origin had entered the Orc royal capital.

At first, the Orc Palaver seemed to treat them as honored guests. But later, some kind of conflict broke out, and a fierce battle erupted inside the royal capital. Then the undead spread across the entire Icefield like a plague.

These orcs hiding here had not been in this bunker from the start. They had once tried to regroup with other tribes, but the number of undead was too great, and fewer and fewer of their companions could still fight.

They retreated again and again until they finally ended up at this abandoned border fort. There, they discovered an underground storage room buried under rubble. Relying on the dried rations and melted snow water left inside, they had managed to survive until now.

As he recounted this, the leading orc looked up, his eyes red-rimmed.

“Are there... still living tribes out there?”

“Are our families... still alive?”

Sekashi was silent. She reached out and helped the leading orc to his feet, but only said, “Everything will be alright.”