Red turned around and started to dash away from the roar.
In the undead world, not all creatures were zombies, and there were actually many different types of undead. A zombie was just the most basic of the living dead, and these mindless creatures could evolve in their own way and become something else - something stronger.
A ghoul was one such being. This creature was the resulting evolution of a zombie after consuming enough living flesh - a superior undead in every way. They were equivalent in power to your average Lesser Ring Realm cultivator, and on most occasions, even stronger than one.
Suffice it to say, Red didn’t plan on sticking around to confront it.
“It’s chasing you!” Aurelia’s warning came from behind him.
Red frowned. He couldn’t even sense the creature with his crimson sense yet, but the woman seemed confident in her assertions.
‘How did it sense me?’
The youth did nothing to give himself away. No noise, no commotion, not even when killing the deer. How could the ghoul detect and track him from kilometers away?
Still, he didn’t doubt Aurelia’s words, as she didn’t have a reason to lie. Red then decided to speed up before the ghoul could catch up with him.
The special acupoints in his leg activated all at once, and his speed shot up. He weaved through the trees in a flash, making his way down south, where he hoped he could lose his pursuer. The boost in speed didn’t last for more than a dozen seconds, but the youth made all the progress he could in that short period.
A few minutes passed by as he continued to run. He didn’t hear any further roars, and neither did he detect any fluctuation with his crimson sense. The youth didn’t stop running until Aurelia suddenly appeared ahead of him.
“You should be fine for now.” she said.
Red stopped running and started to catch his breath. He looked down at his clothes, feeling the serpent trembling in fear beneath his cloak. At some point, the snake had sought refuge within the youth’s garb, and it was now wrapped around his torso without even poking its head out.
Red chose to ignore the creature for now. He looked over at Aurelia. “How could it sense me?”
Aurelia frowned. “The ghoul didn’t sense you. It sensed the deer transforming. It was probably already hunting the deer for a while and it might have picked up on your trail while you were passing by.”
Red frowned. “Can’t you do anything about the core?”
This wasn’t the first time the insectoid core caused problems for him. As it turned out, carrying around an unprotected source of energy from a Lesser Ring Realm beast was bound to catch the attention of the more perceptive monsters in the wild.
Aurelia snorted at his words. “You think I’m stupid?! I have already been hiding the energy emissions of this core every time you have come to the wild for the past seven years!”
Red was at a loss. “Then how…”
The youth had a sudden realization.
“That’s right.” The woman nodded. “It’s that thing on your forehead.”
The youth reached out to touch his glabella. “… I can’t feel anything.”
“It’s not enough for you to detect, but it’s more than enough for an undead to notice.” she said. “By all means, the emissions shouldn’t be this strong with how little energy is inside that tumor of yours, but clearly, neither of us truly understands how that thing works yet.”
Red frowned. “When were you going to tell me this?”
“You think I knew we would find a ghoul here, in the middle of the forest?” Aurelia glared at him. “A zombie might have had a hard time following you, but a ghoul has especially good senses. It can definitely track you from a very long distance.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The youth felt a headache arriving. “Can you disguise it like you did before?”
“It’s not about disguising emissions. Your tumor is constantly expelling some trace amounts of Moon Energy, not enough to catch a normal person’s attention, but definitely enough for any undead to notice.” Aurelia shook her head. “I would need to open your forehead up to try and stop it from happening, and even if you let me do it, I would need a corporeal body in the first place.”
Red sighed. “So you can’t do anything about it?”
Aurelia hesitated. “… Not right now. It’s just been a day, so I need more time to study your tumor and research a solution.”
“Will the ghoul track me?”
She nodded. “Probably. Still, it’s only slightly smarter than a zombie, so it’s not too hard to fool it. Hold the insectoid core up for a second.”
Red did as he was told. The insectoid core began to glow in his hand, before a thin small arrow shot in an arc towards the night sky, leaving a trace of green mist behind that quickly dissipated.
Aurelia, who was watching from the side, nodded in satisfaction. “The ghoul will be distracted by this stronger trace of Moon energy and follow it. That should buy you enough time to run away. When the ghoul notices it was tricked, your old trail will have gone cold.” She looked back at him. “You need to go now, though.”
Red nodded and started to run again without hesitation.
Sure enough, he found no more accidents over the next few hours. The youth only deigned to stop and rest once the Sun started to rise on the horizon.
He sat down against a tree, completely exhausted. The snake finally deigned to poke its head out from beneath his cloak, looking around with a weary gaze before moving up and around his shoulders once more.
Red took a deep breath. “Why was there a ghoul there?”
“I don’t know.” Aurelia appeared in front of him out of thin air with a thoughtful expression. “I can tell you that ghouls don’t just appear out of nowhere, though. A zombie needs to eat a lot of flesh before evolving into a ghoul, so I can’t imagine something like this would have gone unnoticed. That being said, this only leaves a few options…”
“The ghoul was raised by someone.” Red completed her line of thought.
Aurelia frowned. “It can only be a necromancer’s work.”
The youth hesitated. “… Why would they do that?”
“I can’t claim to understand that individual’s thoughts.” She shook her head. “That being said, the fact they have been able to act with such impunity in the region by the Curse Breakers is even more puzzling to me… There is something going on here, Red, and you should either run away or do your best to find out what it is, or else…”
Red was quiet for a few seconds. “… I will return to town first and consult with my sect members.”
Aurelia snorted. “You think they can help you? This is beyond me, even!”
“Hector has a lot of contacts with people from other sects. Even if he can’t do anything about the situation, he should be able to get more information about it.”
The woman didn’t seem happy with his words, but she didn’t say anything else before disappearing into thin air.
Red knew what she wanted of him, but he wasn’t willing to give up hope on the situation quite yet. No matter how capable Aurelia was while she was alive, right now she was still just a ghost who had been dead for hundreds of years. She didn’t even know about the Empire’s existence, so how could she accurately judge the situation?
The youth was also worried, but he would rather take into account Hector’s assessment first before making a final decision.
…
Another day passed by without any further accidents.
To Red’s surprise, he started to sense the return of animal life around him. This was an indication there were no more undead creatures around to scare the fauna away. Obviously, there was still the potential that the ghoul could spread the disease throughout the region, but right now Red was still ahead of it.
If he could arrive in town in time, then the Baron and his sect could take the appropriate measures. Of course, for that he needed to hurry, and this meant that he couldn’t afford to pause on the way and train his pet snake as he desired.
The creature was still sitting on his shoulders like usual, without moving much. This indicated to Red that it wasn’t hungry yet, so he didn’t stop to feed it, either. Snakes ate only once every one or two weeks, so the youth knew he didn’t need to worry about the matter just yet.
“Do you sense any undead nearby?” Red asked out loud.
He got no response.
‘It seems I won’t really be able to rely on her.’
For some reason, Aurelia just stopped appearing in front of him since their discussion, no matter how often the youth tried calling out to her. Red wanted to use her widely superior range of detection to search around for any undead threats, but he didn’t expect the woman to sulk over that matter.
Still, he didn’t dwell on it. He made it this far without her help, so he wouldn’t completely rely on her now.
The youth continued to walk forward before he sensed a fluctuation enter his detection range. Red immediately froze.
‘Undead.’
The youth’s body tensed. He was just about to turn and run before he pause once more.
This was indeed an undead fluctuation, however, it didn’t belong to a strong monster. This was not to mention the fact it was just walking straight in his direction with a slow and steady pace.
Realization crossed Red’s mind.
His body remained tensed and prepared, but he didn’t try to run any longer. He looked in the direction the fluctuation was coming from, and a few seconds later a creature appeared from amidst the trees.
It was a silver-furred fox, no bigger than a common dog. Well, at least that was what it was before it became a half-decomposed zombie with barely any patch of fur remaining on its skin.
The creature continued to walk towards Red even after they spotted each other. When it was five meters away from the youth, it paused and sat down.
“Long time.” A familiar raspy voice came from the creature’s mouth. “Need talk.”
Sure enough, it seemed Red’s old friend had finally come searching for him again.