Book 1: Chapter 1: The Ghost Town’s Mysterious Visitor
Book 1: Chapter 1: The Ghost Town’s Mysterious Visitor
The Anola Clark Strip, one of the six most prosperous regions of the human alliance just a thousand years ago, but it had all changed nine hundred years ago when the great armies of the demons and their allies carved their way through the continent to this area. The once prosperous region was destroyed by the fires of war sparked by the final battle between the demon coalition and the human alliance.
After the massive battle, there was not enough time to properly bury all those who had fallen, leading to an outbreak of the undead. Overwhelmed by the sheer numbers, the Church of Light could only give the order to quarantine the region. Several people who had arrived a month ago changed all of this.
The small town of Anola, a ghost town that had been abandoned for millennia. The streets of the town that were once bustling with undead were now empty and clean, a mounted knight patrolled the streets. This knight wore a suit of silver armor unadorned with any country’s emblem, she did not carry the lance and shield that were the trademark weapons of a knight, but she did have a thin sword sheathed at her waist, along with the modified gauntlets on her hands, which were the only weapons she carried.
Bella looked at the streets in satisfaction; when she had arrived here a month ago, the streets had been rampant with rotting undead as if the town was straight out of a zombie flick. Through Bella’s ‘crusade’, she had managed to put all of them to rest.
A month ago Bella had landed with her two ‘little sisters’, Angel and Mia, as well as the demon princess Dolores, on Coristel continent. The continent was currently under the control of the human alliance, made up of the five great empires and the church, as well as many smaller kingdoms and dukedoms. The continent’s political atmosphere was rather complicated.
But these weren’t on Bella’s mind, she had just wanted to find a safe place to settle down. She would not be able to return to the Octavian Empire (Knights), even if she had wanted to. She had heard rumours that they were holding a national mourning for the 9th princess, Octavio Felia, as even though she was an illegitimate child, they had to at least put on a facade to the public as she was still a part of the royal family.
It would be an insult to the royal family if she were to return to the empire now; it would be better if she did not return. After confirming with Dolores, the file that the old archbishop had given Bella was a certificate from the Church of Light, one that would be given to missionaries to open churches in various places. Those that held the certificate were permitted to open a church to the God of Light in any location. It basically gave her the right to claim any area she wanted ‘for the Church of Light’ as long as she built a place to worship the god of light.
Bella chose the Anola Clark strip as her target destination; she still remembered the look of terror on Count Harold’s face when she told him that she had decided to become the ‘missionary’ to spread the faith to this area. He looked as if she was heading straight into the depths of hell. Well, he wasn’t that far off from the truth. Count Harold was the one who had been in charge of such matters and had desperately tried to convince Bella to reconsider, but had been silenced by Bella’s determination. He had told her that if she ran into any trouble she could go to his territory, the Trevikon County, to seek his assistance.
The old man had been a devout believer of the church his whole life and was a good-hearted person, but was stopped from advancing his title because of his inflexibility to accommodate to different circumstances.
Bella was about to continue on her patrol when she was interrupted by a few kids that stopped in front of her horse; these children were not living humans but instead resembled ghosts from her previous world. Their entire body, apart from their rather clear facial features, was shimmery and immaterial and was floating instead of walking.
“Miss Bella! There are intruders in the forest surrounding the town!”
“How many times have I told you not call me with honorifics, Little Tony?”
“Miss Bella, they’re heading to the Adris resting place, it’s very dangerous there!”
Bella couldn’t change the fact that they refused to change the way they addressed her and walked past them. These children were undoubtedly ghosts. From her time in the church of the Trevikon county sifting through ancient files as well as what Angel had learned from the spirits in the area, Bella discovered a secret that the church had hidden for thousands of years.
It seemed that all of the gods had already disappeared in the war ten thousand years ago and had not been heard from since, presumably dead. Without the god of death, the cycle of life and death was in disorder; the souls of the dead wandered the world of the living, many of them would become evil spirits and attack pregnant women, trying to steal the body of the infant before another soul entered.
The Church of Light had hidden this from the people by sending priests around the continent to bless people, those who had been blessed would be temporarily safe from the evil spirits. The church used this to increase their power and had hoarded large amounts of wealth in the thousands of years that they’ve existed. Many of the upper echelons of the church had already known or guessed that the gods no longer walked the world, but had chosen to stay silent to preserve their influence and wealth.
After Bella arrived in the town of Anola, Angel used her ability to communicate with undead and spirits to bring all of the spirits that roamed the continent to this place, making it a shelter for them. Bella was in charge of eliminating the evil spirits who held hostility towards them and she had her own purposes for doing this.
The Adris resting place was a massive graveyard, where the former feudal lord of this land was buried. The feudal lord, Duke Adris, had become an undead monster after he was buried; Bella had fought with him many times after she had arrived and he had never left without missing some part of his body.
This undead was rather smart, however, he refused to leave his resting site after he had suffered repeated losses to Bella; he would send his minions to attack the town occasionally. Bella had to clear out the area of other meddling monsters and had ignored him. Now that Bella had either destroyed or enslaved the other monsters in the area, it was time to deal with Duke Adris.
Bella arrived at the graveyard near the town; there were quite a few skeleton monsters wandering around. They did not attack after they saw Bella. Instead, they formed ranks and presented their arms as if they were an army that was about to go off to war.
“Troops, come with me. We’re gonna deal with someone that’s been causing us some problems recently…” Bella gestured with her hand and the skeletons marched up behind her warhorse. The column of skeletons led by Bella headed out of town. Bella wasn’t dumb; if she could solve a problem by ganging up on them, she definitely wouldn’t do it by herself. Using this shameless tactic she had swept all opposing forces in the Anola Clark strip within half a month.
Currently at the Adris resting place, the various undead buried in the place had encircled the intruders. There were several hundred zombies surrounding two girls, not giving them any time to rest. The ones in the encirclement were a female knight and a female archer. The archer had her back to the wall and did not stop her barrage of arrows, the knight’s warhorse had long been torn apart by the zombies and she was currently struggling to defend her ally behind her with the shield that she was holding.
On the outside of the encirclement stood a zombie that towered at 3 meters; it was Duke Adris who had been dead for a thousand years. He managed to retain his intelligence from before his death and was currently looking greedily at the two female intruders, unable to hide the lust that he had not shown for a thousand years.
In his life, he had been an extremely perverted man who had played with the bodies of many women, which, along with his strange fetishes, had lead to the deaths of many of his targets. He had held back his lust for a millennia and two prey show up at his doors? He was planning to bring them into the basement of his dungeon and enjoy himself to his heart’s content.
Originally he had his sights on the group of girls that had landed, not knowing how scary they were. The two lolis had a massive following of monsters that trailed behind them in the thousands and masochism wasn’t one of his fetishes. The girl with the explosive body and purple hair carried too strong a scent of demons, along with something that seemed almost divine; the conflict between the two made it hard for Adris to approach her.
The knight with golden blonde hair was the one that frightened him the most. He had fought her many times and had never returned home in one piece. The knight had an excited face every time Adris appeared and would keep her smile on every time she broke his limbs; Adris knew he had found someone with similar interests, but the knight was definitely more of a sadist than he ever was.
Luckily his spirit was hiding in his coffin and he could repair his body each time. The knight would abuse him until only his head was left and force him to roll himself back home. After a while, he got too scared to go anywhere near the town in person. He fumed with anger whenever he remembered the satisfaction in the knight’s eyes every time she saw him off.
This time they had encircled another female knight and he was going to capture her and bring her back to bring back some of the dignity that he had lost. As he saw that the two of them couldn’t hold on any longer, he was scared that his brainless minions would rip them apart and spat out a heavy and dark mist.
This was the skill that he had spent a thousand years perfecting, its effect on women was no joke. He didn’t use it on Bella not because he didn’t want to, but because he couldn’t; every time they fought, Bella would bring at least three times the number of minions that he did, even employing flying monsters. It was a shameless tactic as he was unable to even beat Bella in a one on one, not to mention a gang fight; the more he thought about it, the more depressed he got.
The smoke was green and as soon as it drifted to where the two women were, the archer dropped to the ground, devoid of strength; her clothes started to dissolve rapidly. The knight was anxious and was about to go and help, but collapsed before she even turned her head around. The zombies near her were changed to those that Adris had spent the past thousand years training, they had intellect to some extent and were well-trained in the secret technique that their duke had trained them in, it was finally their chance to shine.
The held down the two girls and tore off every piece of clothing with their hands then took out a specially made red rope and tied them up in weird positions. The two girls had faces of fear and shyness, wanting to resist but did not have the strength to.
They could only watch as the zombies finished tying them up in strange positions, the two snow-white bodies shivered, not only because of the cold but also because they were afraid. The knight was about to shout but the zombie beside her shoved a special ball into her face and blocked her mouth, they clipped it on behind her head and she was only able to make faint whimpering sounds.
The archer was about to call to her ally, but met the same treatment as the knight, her voice silenced. After this, the zombies put black collars on the two of them and were done their job. Duke Adris’ smog could dissolve their clothing, and also take the strength from their bodies, but it did not let them pass out; it would be much more interesting if they were awake for what was to come.
After he saw the fear in their eyes and their tempting bodies, Duke Adris took out a whip that he had treasured for many years and walked towards them excitedly. When the two girls saw this, their struggles became more frantic, but because they were weak and tied up, their struggles were to no avail. When they realized this, the two of them started to cry when Duke Adris got closer, perhaps from fear, perhaps from embarrassment, or maybe both.
Duke Adris got even more excited after he saw this. Of course, he wasn’t going to humiliate them here; he would at least let his minions take them to a water source and wash their bodies, he gestured for his zombies and they took out two strips of black fabric and were about to cover their eyes. When they saw what the zombies were doing, the two girls closed their eyes in despair. The tears had not stopped and the foreign object in their mouths made it impossible for them to commit suicide by biting their tongues.
Just as Duke Adris was approaching the two girls, a volley of arrows struck the zombies near the edge of the encirclement. A horrifying tramp of footsteps was heard, Adris turned towards the sound and saw someone who he had never wanted to see again. Damn it! What brought this bastard here?
“All humans, no, everyone standing, stop where you are! Law enforcement carrying..no, police raid… just stop moving!” Bella’s cheeks were flushed and her hand that carried the thin sword was shaking from excitement, unable to hide the throbbing of her heart.
“Ah, it’s the magic knight, Miss Bella. I’m sorry that I am unable to properly host you at the moment. I have just captured two livestock and was about to clean and kill them. If Miss Bella could come back later after I’ve slaughtered them, I can treat Miss to a great feast?”
“This…technique, you’re quite an experienced driver! …no, these two are livestock? Adris, a butcher needs a permit, I’m afraid that I have to confiscate these girls…livestock. How about you go to the church tomorrow to renew your license?”