The Geared Immortal

Snowpeach Town: Chapter 2

/*unedited*/

As the sun slowly slid down the horizon leaving its golden ray slowly fading through the darkness of the night, a silhouette of a man standing atop a rocky terrain looking at the huge walls of the town, can be seen.

The glowing amber in the man's eyes is glued towards the direction of the huge town. The fluttering of the man's robe through the wind made him look like a statue, but his rugged breathing shows that he is not. The appearance of the man would make one think that he is a living corpse as the white of his bones would occasionally show under the coat as it flutters.

Graahh!!!

Grunt!! Grunt!!

The man grunted as if trying to communicate something to someone. In a place not too far from the decrepit man, within the cover of the dark thick woods, a lone figure sat on top of a tree branch. From the looks of it, he is just a young man, yet his skin and features look haggard and unkempt. On his skin are black and gray patches of an unknown substance which made his body look ancient.

"Snowpeach town… kekeke… this time I will have all your souls…" the man said while his long black disgusting tongue licks his dark dried lips.

The maniacal laughter and the crazy look on the man's face can make one cringe in disgust. Underneath him are concourses of undead beasts and cultivators. The number of undead creatures is astronomical like the sand of the sea.

The man slowly stretches his hand and he slowly closes them like grasping the town from his view. The zombie who is standing on a high ground outside the town is making the same action the man is doing. This is the man's power since he can control cultivators better than beasts he decided to gather the bodies of those who have died in battle.

…

As the night slowly creeps in and covers the whole land, the darkness immediately spells an eerie feeling throughout the whole town. The houses and buildings are already locked tight and no establishment can be seen open anywhere. Almost all people are already inside their homes barricading their doors. While the soldiers and volunteer cultivators are already wearing their armor and wielding their weapons.

Due to the constant assault of the undead beasts, the town is always alert, especially at night. Although cultivators can use their spiritual sense, however, they can't put it up all the time as not all can control their Qi perfectly.

So nighttime is the perfect time for the undead to attack, where visibility is weak and fog is abundant and almost undetectable.

In this tense situation, a single house that lies in an inconspicuous corner still has a calm atmosphere. In this house, Shin Jiao and two kids are currently looking at a woman as she demonstrates her magic power.

Since the house is covered in formation, the noise and the light could not go out.

"Wow! Mama! Mama is a great cultivator now!" the little Haoyin shouted as she excitedly claps her hands.

The little boy also showed a smile as he watches his mother conjure a floating flame on her hand. The boy now has a metallic leg, which Shin Jiao has finally crafted. After some minor adjustment, he was able to make an artificial growing limb for the boy.

The artificial limb is connected to his bone and tissue, which would receive the signal from his brain and function like his normal leg, except for the texture and the small sound it makes.

"Master, this is what I can do for now." Jie Ye said with a beaming smile.

Her heartfelt elated after discovering her own powers. When she barge into the room at that time, she noticed that she can control her flame at will. She can even control the temperature it produces, though it would consume more energy within her. But with this ability, she can now be of use to her savior and master, and she can also protect her children.

"Good! This is amazing; you are a very fast learner. But still, you need to brush up on your literacy. You need to learn how to read and write properly. Okay?… That's it for now, off to bed you guys…" Shin Jiao said as he stands up.

"Ahhhh… big brother Shin, I don't want to sleep yet. I want to see my mama do more tricks." Little Haoyin said as she cutely tugs on Shin Jiao's sleeves.

"Okay, okay… you can ask your mama with that. I'll be upstairs then… Good night!" Shin Jiao said as he slowly walks up the stairs to his room.

The three then excitedly enter their room while the little girl's giggling voice can be heard.

Shin Jiao immediately went back to his research on the undead core. He also began to think of ideas on how to effectively defeat those zombie cultivators. Because if could not find any weapon or gear to use against them, then he would exhaust his energy in using the Primal Slicer.

Though the skill is effective in fighting against the zombie cultivators, however, it consumes too much of his mental stress and Qi.

Plus he also needs to find a way to finally open up the portion of his gained cultivation within his mind dantian. He had noticed that there is a portion of his mind dantian which is sealed. From the looks of it, he can feel two growing energy from within. Though he has his conjectures yet he is not sure yet if his theory is right or wrong. So the only way to find out is to be able to open that portion of his sealed mind dantian.

What scares Shin Jiao of that prospect is the notion of, what if he cannot control those two growing powers. Since the mind dantian is located within his brain, he didn't want to risk his brain being affected by the pulsating energy and lost his consciousness.

"I think this is the difference between a cultivator's dantian and a mage's mana core." Shin Jiao thought.

As time pass by, Shin Jiao didn't notice that it's already midnight.

The atmosphere around the town has now become too tensed. The soldiers stopped patrolling the area and just find a place to hide while the cultivators are using their spirit sense to check their surroundings every now and then.

Then all of a sudden, the choking silence was broken by a loud sound coming from the sky.

Caawww!!!

This sound echoed throughout every corner of the town making all the town's people shiver in fear. Everyone knows that this is the start of the undead beast's invasion once again. The frequency of their attacks varied from at least every 3 or 5 days.

"Shit! Activate the barrier!" suddenly someone shouted.

From within the middle of the town, a small figure slowly extended her fair arms and muttered some incantations. Then the people around her saw the pattern on the ground slowly lit up and travel outward. Upon every corner of the walls, an array flag would light up as the light and pattern travel towards them. Not long later all the four corners of the town began to emit a golden light pillar. Then a huge golden dome made of a thin layer of light suddenly appears slowly covering the huge town.

This golden light dome is like the hallowed ground which Ling Ya and Shin Jiao made. The difference is that this is a huge array formation made to protect the town.

But from the looks of it and the way they activate the array formation; it consumes a lot of energy.

"Get ready to defend the gate, before the light dome completely covers us we need to buy time." A man which seems to be the leader of the soldiers shouted.

"How can we stop this mess? If this goes on, we'll be in trouble. The mines are now occupied by those undead creatures. Our stock of low-grade spirit stones would be depleted at this rate." A man in his forties murmured while sitting behind a black ironwood table.

This man is the mayor of the town and his family has been an overlord over this area for centuries. Ever since the mine was discovered by his ancestors, their family began to flourish. With the help of a large formation and an almost inexhaustible source of energy, the town survives the brutal test of time. Many have tried to take the town from their grasped but failed due to an ingenious technique invented by his ancestor, the mark.

The mark is a way for the town's leader or the mayor to be able to control who can stay in or be kicked out of the town. This is installed secretly during the inspection on the gate. Once a person forcefully removes this mark while in town, that person would automatically be kicked out of the town.

Since this has been the rule of the town for centuries nobody cares about it. Plus the rulers of the town are not that unscrupulous as they didn't need to rob or receive bribes due to enough source of wealth in the town.

But this time's attack from the undead beasts causes them a real headache. Unlike cultivators the undead beasts are multiple and they cannot feel pain. The first wave killed more than two hundred cultivators and five hundred mortal soldiers. Luckily the town has started to employ mortal soldiers two years ago because their number is abundant. A cultivator would always lead 30 trained mortal soldiers in a section.

Due to this, the undead beasts' wave was hampered. But the first attack a few months ago was a heavy blow to the town's pride. So they prepare, and three days later another wave of undead beasts attacked. With much preparation, only a small number of people became a casualty. But what they didn't expect is that the target of the beasts was not the town but the mines.

In just minutes, the mines outside the town were immediately overrun. Nobody expected that the undead beast would do such a thing and with that, the flow of low-grade spirit stone was hampered.

That was 3 months ago, and now the abundant amount of spirit stones in their reserve is almost running dry. So the town began to give out orders to the mercenary groups or any individual to clear out the mines. But this ended up in failure, those who took up this mission has never returned. Then they discover that the undead beasts staying in the mines are all level 4 and level 5 beasts. In desperation, the town's mayor sent out an emergency help to the king of Wu in Wu city.

"When will the king send his reinforcements? It has been weeks now…" The town's mayor lamented.

"I was willing to concede with their demands as long as the town can be saved." He muttered under his voice.

Then suddenly his gaze turns towards the gate and the sound of fighting made his heartache. He knows that the town's soldiers would suffer some loses again.

Shin Jiao, on the other hand, is currently making a bullet that would be effective for the undead. Since bursting their bodies is the only way to stop those zombie cultivators, he decided to make some HE bullets with Qi field penetrating capability. But what's troubling Shin Jiao is the number of materials he needed just to make one.

After making two hundred shells, he has already expended most of the materials he brought from the cave.

"If I really need to, I have to go back to the cave and bring some more fire crystal and dragon metal ore." Shin Jiao thought but he shook his head.

Going back and forth would consume some of the scrolls he made. Since he has already found a way to counter the zombie cultivators, he would just fight and observe them some more.

Not long later, the fighting stopped and Shin Jiao can hear the frantic footsteps coming from outside. Though the noise from inside the house could not be heard outside, however, he can hear the noise clearly outside. After he expanded his spiritual sense, he saw many wounded soldiers being carried towards a building.

"I never would have expected that the situation is this dire." Shin Jiao muttered.

He then quickly pack his things and ran outside, he gave Jie Ye an instruction to not go out as it is dangerous.

Shin Jiao jumped on the rooftop and quickly flew towards the gate. Upon seeing the situation outside with his spiritual sense, he shook his head. The number of undead beasts is far denser than what he saw in the Xiling village. His gaze turns upwards and saw that the golden dome is already halfway before covering the town.

"That slow shield would surely make this town safer, but I think it would still need around 5 minutes before it would cover the whole town. Sigh… I guess with the size of this town and the Qi consumption, it would take almost a thousand of low-grade spiritual stones to support this thing." Shin Jiao muttered.

Then he carefully opens his robe and took off his upper clothes. Then he touches his stomach and the artificial skin opens up revealing the mechanism holding a core. Shin Jiao then removed the half spent core and inserted a new one. He needed to be ready in this battle hence a new level 4 core is needed. Shin Jiao this time uses a purified undead core so that he can test whether the effect of the core beaming with dark energy is stronger than a regular one.

If the result is favorable then he can find ways to enhance the core he has by infusing them with different kinds of elements, like extreme fire, wind, water, light, ground, and darkness.

In purifying the core, he just removed the unknown effect that the necromancer did to the core but didn't change the elements embedded in it.

After changing the core, Shin Jiao put on his clothes back. Then he suddenly feels the strong darkness element being absorbed by his mind dantian. Shin Jiao now understood how those people in the village feel after absorbing the cores. The dark energy actually enhances their blood lust making them want to fight more.

"This is like a berserker core for others, luckily I removed that soul controlling thingy from the core." Shin Jiao muttered.

From the rooftop, Shin Jiao noticed some people he knew. The warrior Bok Du and his two brothers are there, Jin Fu is also there, he didn't see the two girls or Elder Jugs in the area. But with the number of soldiers near the gate, Shin Jiao could not possibly identify everyone, so he just gives up on identifying people and watches with his spiritual sense of what is happening outside.

"Hmmm… there's something amiss…" Shin Jiao suddenly muttered to himself as he found something from within the midst of the horde.

Shin Jiao decided to use his absolute sense and use a burst scan. Upon doing so, in a circular radius of a kilometer, Shin Jiao immediately noticed that below the ground many undead creatures are currently tunneling. Because of their slow movement, it's actually taking them too long to reach the surface.

"So that's their plan of attack." Shin Jiao muttered but he just cracked a smile as this move is just foolish.

Before those undead creatures could reach the surface, the dome would have been erected and they would just be dead without the "un".

Shin Jiao immediately jump down from the roof to the wall in one leap. His goal is to gather more undead cores as it would be useful as his backup now that he knows the effect in actual use. He then stealthily jump down from the wall and began slaughtering the undead beasts he can see while activating his stealth cloak.

The combination of his gun and blade made Shin Jiao almost drown himself in combat as he made a huge gaping space in the undead horde.

Every soldier at the top of the wall was dumbfounded upon seeing this sight. They didn't know what's going on as even with their spiritual sense they could not see who or what is killing the undead beasts. But upon seeing this everyone's desire to fight was lifted up. They wanted to be like that "thing" which is currently killing the horde like a god of death.

…

Meanwhile, atop a tree outside of the town, a person is clenching his fist and anger is clearly plastered in his face. Seeing the death of his minions by something that even he could not detect, his already ugly face was contorted into something more hideous.

"Who are you… you shit! If I find you… I will rip your body and slowly kill you… and your family… and everyone around you… kekeke" the man said as he suddenly laughed maniacally.

"Everyone… retreat!" the man thought within his mind which sends a signal to all the undead beasts.

Then the horde immediately began to fall back to the fog-covered forest.

…

Shin Jiao has not activated his core and just absorbs its energy, hence he is undetectable. He is currently a human with the strength of a gold core cultivator. But something is strange as he himself didn't know that he is currently full of blood lust.

Around him lays many undead beasts and when the rest withdrew, he suddenly regained his consciousness.

"Damn it! That was overkill. I think I overdid it this time..." Shin Jiao thought.

But then he immediately went to work as he chooses those level 4 and level 5 beasts and took out their cores. He did this while the rest of the people are currently celebrating their victory.

Before the golden dome closes Shin Jiao has already gathered enough cores and entered the town.

"This is a good harvest." Shin Jiao muttered.

But his face suddenly changed as he noticed from the boundary of his spiritual sense a figure is currently rushing towards his location.