When Arthur and Lucy stepped on that spatial portal, their surroundings blurred for a couple of seconds before they found themselves in some kind of a blurred tunnel.
It remained like that for a couple of minutes until they suddenly found themselves in a barren land.
The sky was gloomy and red, there were no clouds and the ground was black-ish with some strange rocks which Arthur couldn't recognize.
All around them was just desolate lands, no trace of living beings, monsters or even vegetation, some would even describe it as hell.
Although Arthur came here with Lucy, he didn't think things through and didn't know what to do from here, he doesn't know anything about the Underworld except a few things he read from Zodiak's books.
For example, the one and only ruler of the underworld is some immortal individual who is known since ancient times to be extremely powerful and overbearing, his name was Hades.
It has been a long time since he was seen but no one believed that he died or was injured as he strength was unquestionable in the Underworld.
"This...."
Arthur didn't notice it at first but when he tried to move, he found it a bit difficult, of course not to the point of being unable to move but it's just that it was harder, he felt an invisible pressure which limited his movements.
Lucy also couldn't move freely as the pressure affected her. They were both puzzled about this but it's not like they can get rid of it. Arthur even tried using the Demonic Lightning inside his body and at the surroundings but to no avail, it didn't seem to be a curse or anything similar.
As they were pondering about the cause of this pressure, Lucy said.
"It must be because it's a higher-Realm compared to Astria."
It was the only plausible conclusion they could come up with at the time being. Astria, which was the world Arthur was reincarnated to, is known to be a lower-Realm and compared to the Underworld, which is a High-Realm.
After getting adjusted to this 'pressure', they didn't stay still but instead, they began flying north. It was just a hunch but Arthur felt it was the right direction, moreover, since they were blindly traveling, it was better going with a hunch than roaming the place randomly.
...
Albeit Arthur and Lucy's current strength and their strong attacks, Arthur still felt anxious and worried as unlike Astria, this was a world full of strong people and people in the Immortal Realm may be everywhere whereas they can barely defeat one when they pair up.
He has Makaze and his various powerful magic, but even so, the difference between a Deity Realm and an Immortal Realm is just immense, just remembering the fight from back then made Arthur worry even more.
Arthur already took Makaze out of the storage ring and tightly held it in his hand as he prepared himself for any sudden attack from unknown enemies.
...
After about 15 minutes of flying through the barren lands, they finally encountered what seemed to be people.
It was actually a huge group of people, unlike Arthur and Lucy, they were slowly walking on the desolate ground and some of them looked horrifying.
They were actually zombie people, some didn't have limbs and others didn't have eyes, they wore tattered and dirty clothes and seemed to be following specific paths and not roaming aimlessly like the movies Arthur saw in his past life.
It was fortunate Arthur discovered them with his [Sixth Sense], which can stretch to a couple of kilometers. Arthur didn't fly toward them immediately, first, he landed on the ground with Lucy and began walking toward the huge crowd of zombies.
Their appearances were covered, he wore black clothes and a somewhat huge hat that covered his facial features, it slightly resembled a bamboo hat, as for Lucy, she wore deep blue clothes and covered her head with a grey hood which was even more effective than the hat.
So, with Makaze sheathed at his waist and Lucy at his right, Arthur strolled toward the zombie army but the latter didn't seem to notice them even when the two of them were a hundred or so meters from them.
Noticing that the zombies were ignoring them, the couple closed the distance slowly to not attract much attention.
When they were just 30 meters away, some shouting could be heard from the front of the crowd.
Unexpectedly, neither Arthur not Lucy could comprehend what was spoken, but that's to be expected as they were in an entirely different world.
Arthur's knowledge about languages would be endless, he could speak so much languages that he stopped counting after 100, although most of them were weird sounding languages belonging to beasts, it still counted as a proper language.
Beasts and animals do not talk and only speak in a rather simple manner such as screeching or roaring, due to possessing countless corpses, Arthur learned many languages.
Maybe they were talking a special language of the Underworld and to learn it, he just needs to possess one corpse but unfortunately, there were none.
"____________________?"
"________!"
"_____________"
Two people seemed to be talking at the front, Arthur didn't dare spread his Sixth Sense from this close range, you never know what could be hiding amongst those zombies.
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He didn't appraise all of them but most of them were at the Spirit Realm with some of them being at the Heavenly Realm!
It has to be known that at Astria, a single Spirit Realm individual can be considered a king if not a god, yet here, a bunch of dirty zombies was all without exception in the Spirit Realm.
Seeing this made him dread attracting attention even more. The crowd of zombies was consisted of at least a few thousand zombies, Arthur's Sixth Sense only spread to the edges as he didn't dare sense what was leading them but one could easily tell that it's a powerful person.
...
Finally, Arthur and Lucy joined the zombie crowd, all of the zombies seemed to be walking silently with no reaction, but some were quite lively as they chatted among themselves with an unknown language.
Arthur and Lucy stuck together as they walked slowly with the crowd, they didn't talk nor make any unnecessary movements and just silently followed.
The talking from a while ago subdued and the zombies didn't seem to mind the shouting as if it was a casual thing.
Very soon, Arthur started seeing some zombie corpses on the ground, there wasn't a lot, just a dozen or so but each one of them was headless with no trace of the head.
Normally, possessing a headless corpse would be useless but it may not be so if it were a zombie, or so thought Arthur.
He couldn't go near a corpse and casually possess it, so he waited for a chance to stumble upon a corpse without deviating from the crowd and he finally did but he still couldn't possess the corpse.
Even after that failure, Arthur still didn't give up, he decided to try something risky, which was possessing a zombie.
Since his last evolution, he became able to possess living being without controlling their bodies, it should be enough to gain his stats and skills so Arthur decided to try that.
The problem was; would the zombie notice something amiss? Even if it was just a Spirit Realm zombie, it could still alert the crowd which would be a disaster.
Dealing with the crowd is an easy thing for Lucy alone, let alone adding Arthur, but if there are some dozen or so Deity Realm zombies or even an Immortal Zombie then it would only be suicide, even escaping may be a problem.
...
Arthur didn't say anything to Lucy, he just grabbed her sleeves and lead her near a zombie which was close to them, he was more or less like the other zombies, with some injuries all over his body but no blood whatsoever, the clothes were stained and dirty and in a horrible state.
A stinking smell was coming out of each and every zombie but Lucy and Arthur still held it in and ignored it.
The zombie was just 2 meters from them so Arthur closed in and swiftly possessed him. The process of possessing was quite weird as his figure would suddenly become a small black whirlpool, the size of a finger and enters the target's skin.
By the next second, notifications began popping up as Arthur invaded the zombie's body.
You have successfully possessed Zombie #487157
Your stats have been increased, for more details please check your status window
You gained a new skill(passive) [Odor] : You emit a stinking smell but gain 10% additional defense against magical and physical attacks.
This can be toggled betwen ON/OFF
You gained a new skill(passive) [Underworld Language] : You can now speak/read/write Underworld Language
...
Arthur gained a couple other skills but they were weak compared to what he already had so he disregarded them, zombies seemed to rely on their strong physics to attack and defend coupled with that passive.
TITLE : MEAT GRINDER / SEEKER OF KNOWLEDGE / ONE WITH THE SWORD / ARK??? Level: ???? Class: Dark ARK Parasite - Realm : Deity - Strength 29.99m Intelligence 29.99m Agility 29.99m Wisdom 29.99m Vitality 29.99m Dexterity 29.99m - Health 29.99m Health Regen 19999/s Mana 29.99m Mana Regen 29999/s Stamina infinite Stamina Regen ???? - Creation : 10 Attack: 29.99/m Defense: 29.99m Magic defense : 3.2m Enigma abilities : Telekinesis / Ancient Threads / Sixth sense / ARK?? Mental Power : 943 Elemental Resistances: Fire: 100% Water: 75% Wind: 35% Earth: 75% Light/holy: 5% Shadow 30% Lightning 100% Ice 30%
He checked his but unfortunately, his stats didn't change except the Magic Defense.
When Anastassia was unconscious, Arthur already used those 3 days to possess the corpses he stored from the beastmen army, he possessed more than 10,000 corpses but after his stats reached the 29.99 million, they stopped there.
The only stats that still increased is the Magic Defense, but it was pretty hard to increase it due to it only present in special existences.
His prowess did indeed increase by a lot but he still didn't have a lot of confidence against people in the Immortal Realm.
Arthur didn't continue possessing the corpses as it would be a waste, even the Mental Power ceased increasing which made him feel more hopeless, it was the only factor for him breaking through to the Immortal Realm and it was most likely the 1000th mark, it was close yet so far.
He still had a lot of corpses in his storage which can grant him skills but he already had so many skills that he didn't need anymore, it would be useless as he wouldn't use them.
From simple cooking or tailoring to blacksmithing or fishing, he had them all, some are even in Advanced but that's only because he possessed too many people who had that specific skills.
As to why he never uses the simple sword skills like [Slash] or a speed skill [Rush] is because it's useless at this stage.
His speed was faster than activating a skill like [Rush], in fact, it would only make him in a disadvantageous position, and [Slash] is a skill which creates a minimal slash made from sword energy but Arthur was a person who mastered swords and sword energy can be created at will, even with his fingers or legs.
His only way now was to find a solution and try to break through to the Immortal Realm as it was probably the only way to increase his stats too.